Arts and Crafts Projects – Page 9

Repurposed Photo Wreath Frame

Remember our holiday wreath that we made using an embroidery hoop and clothespins?

We decided to repurpose it for the rest of the year, until next December when we’ll fill it with holiday cards again down in our living room.

For the time being we’ve decided to place it in our daughter’s new big girl room, in the last bit of free wall space, next to a nerdy baby poster, her embroidered portrait and toddler artwork, and above our photo banner with glittery clothespins.

We intend to place photos from our recent travels (to New Mexico and New York) in the frame, but in the meantime we’ve clipped some older favorite family photos to the wreath for now.

A perfect fit for the space!

Now I need to work on updating her linens. Perhaps some embroidered pillowcases are in order or a tie dye project for the sheets. What do you think?

Art Envelopes For the Play Post Office

We decided that we needed some handmade, toddler art envelopes to pair with our play postage stamp stickers.

So our toddler drew beautiful art made specifically for this project, i.e. she drew with marker on construction paper. It’s brilliant, I tell you.

To make our envelopes, we first deconstructed an existing envelope (by fully unfolding it), then traced its outline on the toddler artwork.

We cut out the envelope,

then folded and adhered the new envelope together. (You could easily use double-sided tape or glue for a more seamless envelope; I had an impatient toddler working on this project with me, so we relied on plain tape. SHOCKER!)

We then wrote letters to several of our daughter’s friends to place in the envelopes.

After assembling and stuffing the envelopes, we placed one of our play postage stamp stickers on the front of the envelope.

Love these toddler letters, ready and waiting for Postmaster Leyba, age three, to pick up and deliver to her friends!

Pretend Sticker Postage Stamps

Our daughter desperately wants to place real postage stamps on her letters.

I understand that she wants her stamps to look exactly like mine, but at 44 cents a stamp, letting her play with them just isn’t financially feasible. Besides, Mama has important letters to mail too!

Instead we photo copied stamp booklets onto plain white paper.

My daughter then cut them out and we fed them through her sticker making machine.

Now she has postage stamps of her very own that look like mine!

The postmaster wouldn’t be fooled, but my three year old is tickled pick by her realistic play stamps.

Make Your Own Literary Magnets

Our three year old loves her Very Hungry Caterpillar magnets, a wonderful hand-me-down from friends. Unfortunately, these Eric Carle magnets appear to no longer be available for sale.

This got us searching for other magnets featuring beloved storybook characters. You know what we found? Nothing! There were plenty of magnets featuring television or movie characters, but none featuring our favorite storybook characters.

So, in true Spritzer Leyba fashion, we quickly set out to make our own.

We printed pictures from our favorite Kevin Henkes picture books onto plain white paper. Next time we may print the characters directly on magnetic photo paper (who knew such a thing existed?! Brilliant!).

We then laminated the paper (alternatively, instead of laminating sheets you could use packing tape).

After adhering the paper to magnetic sheets, we then cut out the characters.

A simple and quick project! Now we can use and love these literary magnets on our fridge or on the magnetic board that’s waiting to be hung in our daughter’s new room.

Curious about the characters?

From left to right: Jessica (from Jessica), Lilly (from Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse), and Chester, Victor, Wilson, and Lilly (from Chester’s Way). All family favorites! We almost always read each and every one of these books before bed each night. Check them out!

Decoupage Paper Mache Eggs

A simple, fun decoupage project for a spring celebration or Easter craft. You could also use this technique to cover balls with blue and green tissue paper for a fun Earth Day project.

We covered these paper mache eggs with watered down glue and colorful tissue paper.

After we glued the tissue paper on the egg, we painted over the tissue paper layer with more watered down glue to smooth out the layer of paper and ensure that is was properly adhered.

The toddler wants me to add that “we got our hands all covered with stuff… with red tissue paper!” Translation: the color from the tissue paper may bleed all over your fingertips. This only happened with the red and pink tissue paper; the blue and green tissue paper didn’t bleed on us, so different brands and different colors may make a difference.

Our eggs, shown below while they were drying, have a matte finish. I may apply a coat of glossy mod podge to create a sheen, but for now we are enjoying them.

To no one’s surprise, both of these decoupage paper mache eggs have made their way into the play kitchen.

For more information about decoupage, see our Picture Frame Decoupage Project post.