Arts and Crafts Projects – Page 7

Red Glitter Clothespins Tutorial

Over the years we’ve discovered that you can never have too many clothespins in the house: for drying laundry on the line, for pinning up photos, for hanging artwork, for closing chip bags in the pantry.

And glittery clothespins?! Well, the girls in this house love how fun they are. The three year old especially is all about the sparkle.

So we decided to make a red version of the silver glitter clothespins we made last winter.

We spread plain Elmer’s glue on one side of the clothespins, and then sprinkled red glitter over the top.

After letting them dry for a few hours, we covered the glitter with glossy Mod Podge to seal the glitter on.

The Mod Podge took away a little of the shine, but at least we don’t have glitter all over the house.

Here they are: our red, glittery clothespins, perfect for the holidays or simply to add some more sparkle to a little girl’s room.

Decorating Day of the Dead Sugar Skulls

Here’s one of those posts featuring a super fun, awesome project with a disastrous end…

After our sugar skulls dried fully, two good friends decorated their bride and groom skeletons with feathers, sequins, tissue paper confetti, and glitter glue.

Look at those skeletons buried under layers of decorations! Oh, how their skeletons made me smile.

(Above, the skeleton that I decorated. Definitely more ~~boring~~ subdued than the girls’ projects.)

After we finished decorating, we left the sugar skulls to dry on the windowsill of an open window. When we returned home a few hours later we found ants swarming (reminiscent of our Gingerbread House Ant Invasion!). Upon closer inspection we realized the ants were eating our skeletons! Oh, the horror!

(And, no, I don’t have a picture of the carnage; I was too busy rushing the project out of the house and into the trash bin!)

I’m not sure what we’ll do differently next year besides the obvious suggestion, keep the window closed. ;) Is there something non-toxic we could spray on the skulls to seal them immediately? Maybe after they’ve dried but before we decorate them? Would Mod Podge keep ants away?

What do you think we should do differently next time?

Paper Making Inspiration

We have been gathering materials to make recycled paper: deckle, dried flower embellishments, paper to recycle, and how-to books full of crafty paper-making inspiration.

This weeks stash of papermaking books from the library:
– Trash-to-Treasure Papermaking: Make Your Own Recycled Paper from Newspapers & Magazines, Can & Bottle Labels, Disgarded Gift Wrap, Old Phone Books, Junk Mail, Comic Books, and More by Arnold E. Grummer (shown in the above photos)
– The Papermaker’s Companion: The Ultimate Guide to Making and Using Handmade Paper by Helen Hiebert (featured in the photos below)
– Beginner’s Guide to Papermaking by Heidi Reimer-Epp and Mary Reimer

We even have a second-hand, dedicated blender just for craft projects.

Let the recycled papermaking projects begin!

Handmade Watercolor Postcards

At our local art supplies store I spotted a packet of blank watercolor postcards for sale. Instead of purchasing them, I bought a large pad of (deeply discounted) watercolor paper. We traced a 4×6 inch postcard on one sheet and found that we could fit four postcards on each page. Instead of paying $5 for 15 postcards, we can make 120 for approximately they same price.

Does this count as a thrift store score?!

Tracing our postcard template

Erasing the pencil outline of the traced postcard

Using water color pencils and glitter glue to decorate the postcards

Dried and ready to mail

Our daughter has been busily working on making postcards to send to her friends. Whether they make it out of the house and into the mail remains to be seen. I have a feeling they may end up in our pretend post office instead.

Postmaster Leyba has some beautiful, handmade watercolor postcards to deliver!

Colorful Scrabble Letter Magnets

Any time I see Scrabble at the thrift store, I scoop it up! We’re hoarding wooden scrabble letters over at our house! We play spelling games with them, use them as mini-blocks, and created these colorful alphabet magnets (inspired by this pin on Pinterest).

First we painted the Scrabble pieces using washable paint. After the letters dried for about ten minutes we added another layer of paint and then another, again. (Alternatively you could lightly sand the Scrabble pieces first and just do one layer of acrylic paint on them!)

Then we traced each letter several times with a silver Gel marker. I found that by applying very little pressure — barely touching the pen to the wood! — lets the pen ink flow and fill the indentation on each letter.

We added glitter (using Elmer’s Glitter Glue Pens) to some of the Scrabble pieces, before we Mod Podged them all to add a glossy sheen and to protect the paint from chipping.

We adhered some magnets to the back of the letters and voila!

Simple, colorful alphabet magnets made from re-purposed Scrabble letters!

Wondering about the other magnets? Read more about them here.

Can’t find Scrabble at your thrift store? You can buy it new here.