Gingercake

Heart Monster Craft

Everytime I go in for a class party, I am so grateful and amazed at the job that elementary school teachers accomplish everyday.  When you do the craft at these parties, you wonder how these women and men get anything done!  The kids are fun and awesome but the range in their ability to listen and understand is pretty broad- even on a super simple craft like the one I am about to share with you.  Teachers, I salute you yet again!

I like this because you can share it with kids who are a little older ( 7 & 8 year olds) but with help, little ones can do it too.  It is also great for boys and girls alike.  And I like that the materials are super simple and all found at my local dollar store.  Cool.  Also, your kids can spend some time playing with them after school while you chill and have a glass of wine after dealing with making crafts with 20 kids all amped up on valentine sugar.  Very Cool.

This is pretty simple so I am just going to give you an easy photo tutorial.

First, the materials~

To make this with just a few kids, they can cut out the heart, glue the googly eyes on, etc.  To make this with 20 kids in a short amount of time (like 7 very hurried minutes of a 20 minute class party), I prepped  quite a bit before I went in.  

I cut out all the hearts (in a variety of colors so they could choose), I glued the googly eyes to the styrofoam balls so they wouldn't have to wait for glue to dry, and I prepared all the TP rolls by cutting them in half and cutting out the finger circles.

The kids chose their pipe cleaner (and cut it in half) chose their googly eyes, chose their hearts, and drew the mouth and stuck on the teeth. And, of course, they assembled the monsters themselves!

I love the rainbow of teeth on this one...

Many of them decided to use the 2nd half of the pipe cleaner to make arms.  Very cute!  

The only thing about this craft with a class party is that you have to have 20+ TP rolls!  I was collecting them since I knew I wanted to do some kind of craft with them.  To reach 20, I had to cut paper towels rolls down to size and they were not as nice to use as the actual Toilet Paper rolls.  The kids did not notice at all though!

Hopefully you may find some use of this tutorial for doing some easy crafting with your kids!  

Hello Hoops

For my Handmade Arcade back in December, I made these fun Hello Hoops.  I have been buying hoops from the thrift store for years.  They are irresistable, no?  I am on a thrift store diet currently, but I still have my stock pile of hoops just waiting for something cute.  

I printed out "hello" in a nice font (i think it was little days) and then taped it to the window and put my fabric on top of it to trace it.   For some reason I always just thought of embroidery on white fabric so I liked the freedom on using bright solids instead.  I used my favroite chain stitch to outline the word except on this one below I tried out a rope stitch which was fun too.

 

I wrapped the outside hoop in 1'' strips of colorful fabric.  I ripped the strips and then just applied paste to the hoop before I wrapped them.  This way of finishing the hoops came from here.  I think the fabirc wrapping really finishes the look and brings the colors together.

The "hi" signs were obviously done the same way!  These were a fun addition to my regular bags and pillows in my booth AND I could make them while watching movies and a marathon of The Good Wife with the hubs in the weeks before the show.  After working out the kinks on the first couple, I was able to make them really fast.  I sold them for $15 to $20.  What have you found to do with your stash of hoops?  I know you have some tucked away in your craft room!

Organizing Patterns in Your Sewing Room

Everyone spends the month of January organizing in hopes that this will finally be the year that we spend our time sewing and not searching for supplies and pattern pieces, right?  I am just like everyone else!  I am in the process of finishing up my sewing room.  What was once a dark and dingy unfinished basement is now shaping up to be a really great room.  Here is a little something I did to organize my most used patterns~

This is simply a curtain rod and curtain rings with clips.  I labeled my patterns and inserted them into gallon storage bags.  The whole thing was very simple and it has been up a whole month already and it is working great.  I really like having all my favorite patterns so visible!  Have you been doing any new organizing?