Posts Tagged ‘crafts’

How to Decorate a Hat

Monday, May 14th, 2018

how-to-decorate-a-hat

My daughter Rachel decorated some hats with her friends. An assortment of craft supplies were at the center of the table, including various silk flowers and greenery to choose from.

To host a hat-decorating party, you will first want to find some plain straw hats at yard sales and resale shops. The ones I found were one or two dollars each. Next you will need to collect silk flowers of various colors. These don’t have to be expensive either, as people often have a free box at their yard sales, and I’ve seen silk flowers thrown in there because the owner saw no craft value in them.

decorate-straw-hat-with-flowers

You will want to use some wire cutters or kitchen shears (scissors) to cut off all the flowers and little greenery from each bunch of silk flowers. Color-coordinate the flowers in bowls: red roses in one bowl, light pink in another, white in another, etc. This will make it easier to construct your hat masterpiece, and it will help you see how much of one color flower is left. It also looks visually appealing as the center of the table has bowls with different colors in each bowl.

decorate-hat-with-feather

Different shades or sizes of flowers can also be separated out, as well as greenery. You can also have feathers, buttons, glass beads, or any other fun crafting materials that you think would look good on a straw hat.

decorate-a-straw-hat

Now you are ready to decorate a hat with these items. Arrange the flowers on the hat, and then hot glue them into place. If the child is young, an adult will need to do the hot gluing.

Now your unique decorated straw hat is ready to wear for the beach, a picnic, or a tea party!

Ocean Shadow Box

Monday, September 18th, 2017

ocean-shadow-box

If your kids are learning about underwater sea creatures, why not make an ocean shadow box? It is super easy and will re-enforce the children’s learning about ocean creatures.

The first thing you will want to do is paint the box blue. It helps if a shoe box is a plain white color on the inside. We taped black construction paper around the outside of the box, but you could paint that black if you want.

In other shadow boxes we’ve made, we have spray painted the entire shoe box black, both inside and out. This is a great backdrop for any scene. If you are creating sea creatures from the deep, it is appropriate for your water to be black, especially if you make a flashlight fish out of clay, and place an LED light inside!

painting-shadow-box

Let the paint dry overnight, and then you will want to attach a plastic aquarium plant to the bottom of the box. Use clay to attach the plant to the box. (Make sure your shoe box is on its side when you decide where the ocean floor will be!)

Pour white school glue on the bottom of the scene, gluing around the plastic plant as well as the rest of the ocean floor. Pour sand on top of the glue and shake it off.

play-doh-manta-ray

If you have some small plastic ocean creatures, you can hang them with white thread to the top of the box. I used strong packing tape, but you could also use duct tape.

We added a rock and some walruses to the top of the box, along with some dolphins splashing out of the water. (See the picture at the top of this post.)

play-doh-hammerhead-shark

You can also create ocean creatures out of clay. We make a manta ray, a hammerhead shark, a starfish, a whale, and an anemone. If you study and shape one sea creature per day, you can add to your collection. You can display your creatures on built-in cardboard shelves that you have painted blue or black to match your shadow box, hot gluing the shelf into place.

simple-ocean-shadow-box

You can also make a simple ocean shadow box by spray painting a box black, adding a goldfish in a small fishbowl, and throwing seashells or any other ocean toys into the display.

Decoupage a Breakfast Tray (with video tutorial!)

Monday, February 13th, 2017

decoupage-a-breakfast-tray

You can decoupage a breakfast tray to match the decor in your room! These trays are perfect gifts for friends and family because you can personalize them. For example, you can decoupage a camouflage tray for a man who likes the outdoors, and you can create a flowery tray for a woman who loves to throw tea parties! People who like blues can make a blue tray, and those who love greens can make a green tray. Librarians could receive a tray that has a scrapbooking paper with bookshelves full of books, and fishermen can get a tray with scrapbooking paper with fish on it!

Decoupage isn’t as hard as it sounds. All you do is tear pieces of paper, and then glue them on both sides and stick them down on the tray. You will definitely get your fingers sticky, but you can easily wash your hands when you are done.

decoupage-supplies

It’s better to use Mod Podge (which you can get at any craft supply store), but you can also use white school glue if that’s all you have. You will want a plastic bowl that you can throw away, into which you will pour the Mod Podge or school glue.

You will also need a wooden tray that you have spray painted gold. Get a cheap sponge brush or any other paintbrush that you don’t mind throwing in the trash when you are done. It’s too hard to wash the glue off the brush, and honestly I don’t think the brush would ever be the same afterwards anyway!

how-to-decoupage-tutorial

Start tearing paper in order to create this marbleized look. We used three different pieces of scrapbooking paper that contained similar colors but contrasting patterns. While tearing the pieces, place the edges and corners in a separate pile, because this will make it easier to decoupage the corners and edges of the tray, which we did first. After gluing pieces around the edges (like a puzzle!), fill in the middle. Bush one last coat over the whole tray when you are finished. Let it dry overnight, and your beautiful breakfast tray is ready to use!

Video Tutorial: Decoupage a Breakfast Tray

Watch my daughter and I was we decoupage this beautiful breakfast tray:

This tray would be perfect for serving breakfast in bed!

Decorate a Purse with Iron-on Patches

Monday, January 30th, 2017

decorate-a-purse-with-iron-on-patches

Today I’m going to show you how to decorate a purse with iron-on patches. This craft only takes a few seconds to make! Not only is it super easy, but it’s perfect for customizing gifts for friends and family to make them feel special.

If you have a friend who loves butterflies, get some iron-on patches of butterflies to put on the purse. If your friend likes cats, you can find cat patches. You can see a wide variety of patches in a craft supply or fabric store.

How to Decorate a Purse with Iron-on Patches

You will need the following items to create your unique purse:

  • An inexpensive felt purse
  • Iron-on patches
  • Iron
  • Ironing board

decorate-a-felt-purse

You can find an inexpensive felt purse in the same aisle of the craft supply store where you found the iron-on patches.

Go ahead and set up your ironing table and plug in your iron. You can turn the iron to a medium high setting. If you want to use a tea towel to place on top of the patch before you iron it, you can. I didn’t, and it turned out fine. I suppose if your iron was too hot or if you pressed it for too long, you would burn the patch and it would turn brown. I think this is why the instructions say to place a tea towel over the area.

iron-on-patches-tutorial

While you are waiting for the iron to get hot, open the package of patches and place them where you want them on the purse. (We also decorated a medieval hat, since we had plenty of flower patches in the one package.)

Press the iron on top of the patch for about 10 seconds. You’re done!

Yes, this craft takes 10 second to do (for each patch), so you will finish with the whole project (including heating up the iron) in less than five minutes.

Go ahead and give away your masterpieces as gifts to friends!

Video tutorial for decorating a purse with iron-on patches: