Tutorials

Soap Bottle Dolls

May 4, 2020 by krisha

It’s been a while since I’ve posted in this space. When I first started this blog years ago, it was primarily a space for me to connect with others. I still think it is that, but over the course of time and more babies it became my primary means of documenting our story. I know watching a video or a quick blurb on instagram seems to be more in line with the times and honestly, it’s just easier than reading a blog post. But, my kids love to get on here and read through our past doings, so here I am at it again for them. And because they love pictures as much as I do, my posts are pretty picture heavy.

I have been wanting to put this post up since last year when we first did this project with the Peter Rabbit bottle doll. But, life and things. Here I am now a year later, so let’s get on with it.

For this project you’ll need:

Soap bottle or shampoo bottle with the top/pump
Masking tape
Packaging material
Sand or small rocks for weighting the bottle
Newspaper or magazine
Paper mâché paste (I use equal parts flour and water)
Mod Podge
Scissors
Glue (We used a glue stick and a low temp glue gun)
Old clothing or fabric
Acrylic paints
Paintbrushes

The first thing you’ll need to do is choose a character. Here we have Coyote Peterson (Savannah), Toad from Wind in the Willows (Annie), A bunny named Gekka (Wyatt). Next, thoroughly clean out the bottle and leave it to dry. Once dry, fill with just enough sand or rocks to weight it down. The paper mâché head get’s a little top heavy and this will prevent it from falling over.

With your packaging material form a head around the pump or bottle top. I suggest looking at a picture while forming the head to get the basic shape. This is something I tell my kids on repeat when it comes to art. Look for the shapes and what it reminds you of. For example, Savannah was struggling with her Coyote Peterson head. I had her look at a picture and I asked her what the shape of his head reminded her of. She decided on a balloon shape. It’s wider at the top of the head and smaller towards the chin. With that image in her mind’s eye, she easily formed his head. Now, secure the packaging material with masking tape and then secure head to bottle. At this point, you can build out some features with more packaging material secured with tape. Use cereal box type cardboard to make things like ears and tongues.

After you have the head complete and attached to the bottle, you can begin paper mâché. Make sure to cover all parts of the tape, but you do not need to cover the whole bottle. We only did one layer, but you can do more. You don’t need a lot of paste, just enough to adhere the paper to the form. The more you use, the longer it will take to dry. If you use more than one layer let it dry completely between layers.

Once dry you can paint the head and then put on a coat of mod lodge to give it a nice seal. At this point you can dress your bottle doll. We used old clothing cut up and glued to the bottle. Mostly we used a glue stick, but on some heavier pieces we used the low temp glue gun.

And that’s it. A pretty simple process and everything was something I had on hand. After doing one with my guidance, Savannah and Annie have done a few more on their own. This was the first Mom inspired project I’ve done with Wyatt and it went really well. He wasn’t super okay with having his hands consistently messy with the paste, but overall he was totally into making his bunny and quite proud with his end result.

I hope this is the start of me making more of a regular appearance on my blog. See you next time!

Tea Box Veggie Garden…

March 8, 2016 by krisha

Warning: This might be my longest post yet. This is absolutely one of my favorite art projects I’ve done with my kids. It’s a little involved, but once they get going, they find their rhythm and are well on their way to making this tea box veggie garden. My youngest, who is 5, needed more help with the actual construction of the veggies. My oldest 8 and 7, just needed a little guidance and reassurance that their veggies didn’t have to look like Mom’s. Whenever I set up art projects, I always have an example for them, that I’ve created. I remind them, that it’s only there so they can see what the end product will be. I always insist that their project be their own and it shouldn’t look like mine. However, they are kids and sometimes we have art drama. Luckily, we were able to move past it pretty quickly and they were all very pleased with their own little gardens.

First, gather your supplies:

Muslin fabric
Brown fabric
Paper towels
Acrylic paints
Glue
Scissors
Paintbrushes
Toothpick or wooden skewer
Batting
Tea boxes

To start, you can review the paper towel shapes and fabric shapes chart in the pictures above. I made these to only serve as a guide for my kids. It isn’t set in stone. Please, by all means, encourage creativity. At one point, Jacks ventured off on his own and made a little garlic guy for his garden, without any instruction from me. It might also help to have the actual vegetables there, as visual guides. Especially with younger artists. Anyway, please use the charts I made at your discretion.

After reviewing the charts, start making your paper towel shapes. We made potatoes, leeks, onions, cabbage, beets or radishes, carrots, and Jacks made a garlic. Once you have all your shapes, set them aside and begin cutting the fabric shapes. After cutting all the shapes, you can start assembling the veggies. I’m going to try and be as descriptive as possible, so you can see how we covered the paper towels in our fabric. Let’s break it down by veggie, shall we?

Carrot: Cut 2 – 3 long, thin strips for the base of the carrot. For the carrot top, first, start by cutting a rectangle. Fold the rectangle in half, lengthwise and cut fringe, careful to not cut all the way to the fold. To assemble, add glue to the carrot top, wrap the fringed fabric around, and secure with more glue. Then, begin wrapping your long strips from the bottom of the carrot, all the way to just over the base of the carrot top. Secure with glue.

Potato: Just like the carrot, cut thin long strips. I think I showed three in my chart, but it will all depend on the size of your tater! This guy is pretty easy. You just wrap him up, mummy style, until there is no paper towel showing. Secure the ends with glue.

Leek: Cut a rectangle shape. Down one long side of the rectangle, cut fringe, but not all the way down. This one is a little tricky to assemble. Place your paper towel leek at the edge on one of the short sides and start rolling. When you start rolling, grab the long side (the one without the fringe) and pull up, so the bottom of the leek is covered. As you roll, keep that long side folded in. When you reach the end, take one of the leek fringes and wrap around the neck and secure with glue.

Onion: The onion is pretty much identical to the leek. The only difference is you start with a larger rectangle.

Cabbage: Cut a circle, big enough to cover the head of your cabbage. Then cut two shapes, that loosely resemble a flower. Maybe they look more like an amoeba? Glue those together, then onto the head of cabbage.

Beet/Radish: Cut a pinwheel shape of sorts. While holding fabric, place radish in the center, standing up. Grab the leaves and gather up, to cover radish. Take one of the leaves and wrap around the neck and secure with glue.

I know some of the descriptions might be a little hard to follow. But, really you can do it however you want. I just made these up and it worked. You might discover a better way!

Now comes the fun part…painting! My only instruction for the painting is to try and cover all parts of the fabric. Also, blending colors is always fun! You’ll find that some of your fabric might start to get stringy during the painting phase. Don’t worry, it just looks like roots. If it gets too crazy, just give them a little trim. After painting, you can add eyes using the toothpick or wooden skewer. This was all my son’s idea. My original version did not have eyes. I loved it! So we added eyes and the garden came alive, so to speak.

After all your vegetables are done, you are ready to make the garden bed. Depending on your tea box, you should be able to get 2 garden beds from one box. Start by measuring an inch from the bottom and marking a guide all the way around the tea box. Next, cut off the bottom. Repeat the same steps for the top of the tea box.

Using your tea box as a guide for width, cut 3 strips of batting approximately 7 inches long. Roll each strip and secure the end with glue. Next, cut 3 rectangles from your brown fabric. Don’t cut them too small, we cut ours at 7 in L x 4 in H. Place your batting roll at the center of one of the long edges. Roll, until it’s covered and secure the end with glue. Grab one end of the brown fabric and fold in and glue. Repeat with the remaining brown fabric end. Add glue to the tea box and place brown fabric roll, seam side down, and secure to box. Repeat for remaining 2 fabric rolls.

Whew…I hope you got all that. Remember, if you didn’t, just improvise! After all the paint and glue has dried, it’s time to plant your veggies!! They can be planted over and over again. Annie, invited her T-rex’s and other meat eating dinosaurs to her garden. Turns out, they like their veggies, too!!

Snail Pin Valentines…

January 20, 2016 by krisha

There’s just something about a snail that makes them so endearing to my kids. Perhaps it’s because they carry their home on their backs. Or maybe it’s their never in a rush disposition, that appeals to them. Whatever it is, they sure do love them, especially Savannah and Annie. Those two bring them home, stuffed ever so carefully into their pockets. They keep them as pets for a few days. They make them snail homes, complete with a damp straw bed, rock pillow, and leaf coverlet. We have actually lost a few within our home, never to be found again. Yes they are slow, but give them 8 hours while you sleep and buddy, they can go the distance! When the snails are gone and the only thing left is their home, they collect those, too. We have a jarful and we really don’t need more, but they are fascinated with each new one, as if it were the first. “This one is so shiny!”, “This one is swirly brown”, “Oh, this is the tiniest snail shell ever!” are just a few of the reasons I hear to keep bringing them home. Since they are so loved, I thought what a great Valentine they would make.

For this project you’ll need:

Snail shells
Fabric
Batting
Floral wire
Pipe cleaners
Glue
Hot glue
Scissors
Pins (The kind you wear)
Cardstock
Masking tape (optional)

First, take your pipe cleaner and fold it in half, then in half again. Twist it together and form a smile shape. Cut thin (1/2 inch). 12 inch length strips of batting and begin wrapping around pipe cleaner. Determine which end will be the head and stop wrapping just before the tail. Secure the end piece of the batting with glue.

Cut a small square of fabric and wrap it over the head of the snail and secure it in place with a 5 inch cut of floral wire. Wrap it around a few times, so it won’t fall off. Curl the wire down, by gripping the ends with your scissors and turning. Next, begin wrapping a strip of fabric (same length and width as the batting) around the wire, moving back towards the tail. Before wrapping the tail, take another small square of fabric and cover the tail. Add a small piece of tape to hold in place, if needed, otherwise just pinch it in place, while wrapping. As you wrap, pull tightly as you go and finally, secure the end piece of fabric with glue. If you find you have some bare spots, just cut small pieces of your fabric and glue accordingly. Attach the shell and the pin with hot glue.

Cut out heart shapes from cardstock and decorate as you please. Cut two small, vertical slits in the middle of the card and attach snail pin. And there you have a snail pin valentine! As a precaution, I wouldn’t recommend giving this to young children, because of the small parts and the sharp pin. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Yarn Wrapped Lollipop Valentines…

February 12, 2015 by krisha

If this baby to be has made me anything, it’s lazy!! Oh.My.Word. I can plan for weeks for what I’m going to do and when it comes to actually getting it done, I simply don’t get it done. No excuses, except for, I don’t wanna! For someone that typically has about 20 projects going on at once, this is foreign territory for me.

So, this is a tad last minute, but I was determined to get it up on the blog. We made these yarn wrapped lollipops in about 20 minutes. Yes, they are that easy!

Fortunately for lazy me, I had all my supplies on hand. But if you don’t, you’ll need to gather up yarn, cardboard, scissors, a pen, and some lollipops.

First, cut some heart shapes from the cardboard. Then, have your kids write, “from: (insert name)” on each heart. Next, place the lollipop on back (the side with no name) of heart and start wrapping in yarn until lollipop is secured. When finished, thread loose end through yarn.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Mini Pencil Piñatas…

August 8, 2013 by krisha

It’s back to school time and you know what that means? Mini pencil piñatas of course! I am just obsessed with piñata making. I especially love making mini piñatas. There is something so fun about giving someone a piñata! Maybe it’s the unexpectedness? Like…Hi!…Oh and here’s a piñata for you! Or the surprise of what’s inside? I don’t know…but you should definitely try it at least once. Now that I feel like I’ve mastered my technique, I have plans for many more! The mini-er the better!

You will need:

Cardboard tubes (I used paper towel tubes, cut in half)
Tissue or crepe paper in pencil colors
Glue stick
Scissors
Black Sharpie
White cardstock
Masking tape
Treats for stuffing

Instructions:

Cut tissue paper in strips and make fringe (see here or here for folding and cutting tutorial).
Draw and cut a circle out larger than the cardboard tube.
Fold circle in half, then in half again.
Unfold. Then using fold marks as a guide, cut out 1 piece of the circle.
Fold into a cone shape and secure with masking tape.
Cut tabs around the bottom of the cone, about 1/8 in apart (this helps to manipulate the cone to fit on cardboard tube).
Attach cone to cardboard tube with masking tape.
Add glue to the bottom of the cone and begin wrapping the tissue paper. Make sure the fringe is pointing down.
Continue adding glue and tissue paper, changing colors when needed until finished.
Stuff with small school supplies or candy. I added Hershey’s Hugs & Kisses with a little note.
Glue 2 squares of the eraser color tissue paper on the end to seal the piñata.
Trim into a circle, leaving 1/8 inch overlap.
Glue and fold down overlap.
Add a final piece of eraser color fringe to cover the overlap.

To “bust” the piñata, just punch through the top of the eraser with your finger!

These are going to make sweet, little back to school treats!

Yarn Tassel Garland…

July 16, 2013 by krisha

Here’s a recent textversation I had with my Mom:

Mom: I want to crochet the girls each a poncho. Skate’s {her nickname for Savannah Kate} colors are pink & what for Annie’s?
Me: Cute…whatever you like.
Mom: I’ll see if I can find a poncho pattern, like Clint Eastwood wore in The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly for Jacks.
Me: Um…ok??

Well that settles it…I have to learn crochet! I’m obsessing over the many cool things I could make. Oddly, Clint Eastwood’s poncho never came to mind. I really want to make an afghan, but not sure if that would be too ambitious for a beginner. I absolutely fell in love with this rad yarn when I spotted it at Michaels. I can’t crochet {yet}, but I knew I had to do something with this yarn! So, I made this yarn tassel garland instead.

Supplies I used:

Variegated yarn
Index card or piece of cardboard
Scissors
Twine

To make a tassel:

Begin wrapping your yarn around the short side of an index card.
Continue wrapping until you have desired amount.
End with yarn at the bottom, then cut.
Thread a small piece of yarn through the top and loosely tie it.
Slide scissors through the bottom and cut through the yarn.

Fold out yarn and center the loose tie.
Once centered, tie tighter and in a knot.
Fold yarn in half and tie tightly with twine or same yarn.
Trim up bottom of tassel to even out.

Once all the tassels are tied, thread them through a long piece of twine to make a garland.

Scattered Hexagon Pillow…

July 12, 2013 by krisha

For years I avoided learning how to sew in a zipper. I wanted to make wristlets for my Etsy shop, but was completely intimidated at the thought of sewing a zipper. Until one day, with a tutorial in hand, I just buckled down at my sewing machine and schooled myself on zippers. To my surprise…there was nothing remotely difficult about it at all. Fast forward to last week when I started working on this pillow. Initially, I was just going to make two flaps on the back that overlap and hold the pillow in place. I didn’t want to do a zipper, because I thought it would be too bulky of a look for my pillow. Then, I stumbled onto the invisible zipper. I had seen them before, but always assumed they were difficult. I mean they’re invisible? There has to be some degree of difficulty to invisible-ness. I was wrong. So wrong.

Anyway, I’m in the middle of a room re-do. A while back, I had posted about redoing Annabelle’s old room for Jacks. I was going to give him a room to himself and put the two girls in a room together. They were to have bunk beds and Jacks was gonna have this really cool spindle bed I’ve been storing in my garage. Well, as soon as Jacks heard the girls were gonna have bunk beds, he wanted one too. Of course. So, my plans were altered and Mr. Jacks & Kate built the bunk bed for Jacks and Savannah. I’m now in the process of outfitting their beds with pillows.

I found this invisible zipper tutorial here. I read it through a few times, then I did my thing. Way easy! In fact, I like it better than a regular zipper install. Though, you can sew these with a regular zipper foot, I opted to buy the invisible zipper foot for my machine.

After reading up on the invisible zipper, I pulled out my poor man’s linen {Osnaburg} and whipped up this little cutie. You may have noticed one of the latest design trends is the hexagon. I asked myself, Why the hexagon? I don’t know. It just works…six sides and all that. I wanted to implement it into an appliqué design on a pillow. However, I didn’t want to just slap on one giant hex…because that would be weird. Instead, I thought maybe a bunch of small ones, sporadically placed. And so, this scattered hexagon pillow was born.

Materials I used:

Invisible zipper
Osnaburg fabric
Scrap pieces of fabric
Scissors
Appliqué supplies {found here}
18 x 18 pillow insert

Refer to my appliqué tutorials found here and here.
Cut pillow fabric to required size.
Make a hexagon template.
Using the template, trace desired amounts of hexagons onto Heat n’ Bond.
Iron together interfacing, fabric, and Heat n’ Bond.
Cut out hexagons.
Arrange hexagons in a scattered design, leaving a small space between them.
Iron down and appliqué using a zig zag stitch on the front piece of the pillow fabric.
Sew pillow cover with invisible zipper.

I love the end result! It’s exactly how I had envisioned!

Personalized Candy Packs…

July 2, 2013 by krisha

Dear children: Here’s the deal. Sometimes, when I’m really tired, because it’s 11 pm…and I’m so over hearing your sweet, little voices I may agree to buy you something in exchange for you going to sleep. This includes, but is not limited to a dog, a nemo, a crocodile, and 2 turtles. Please don’t expect to actually go to the pet store upon you waking up the following morning at 6 am. You will be disappointed to learn that your mother tricked you. Sorry. I’m crafty that way…but, hey… here’s some personalized candy packs! Are we good?

…

Fourth of July Confetti Toss…

June 27, 2013 by krisha

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not a fan of confetti. It gets everywhere! Isn’t that the point? However, I’m obsessed with making this confetti! It’s so easy! Plus, I think it’s just a fun way to mark a celebration.

…

Appliqué Cake Toppers…

June 25, 2013 by krisha

Are y’all sick of appliqué projects yet? Serious…I have a million and one uses for appliqué, so I hope I’m inspiring you to get sewing! This week, I’m showing you how to make an appliqué cake topper. Really…how cute is this? There are sooooo many ways to personalize this project from birthdays to weddings. Also, it makes for a nice keepsake after the party’s over.

…

Tutorials

Footer