Giverslog tutorials

Doodleable Shadow Puppets

02.15.11

We made a new discovery over here that I am excited to share. We discovered how to doodle our own shadow puppets. How fun is that?

I always like to keep a few wet erase overhead markers on hand at our house. They are perfect for writing love notes on mirrors or drawing targets on windows for nerf gun shooting practice (yes, I have little boys). We discovered that with our markers and a few overhead projector sheets, we could create a new cast for any shadow performance we could dream up. You can also print right on the transparency paper if you’d like to use an image you already have, or create silhouettes of your own kiddos.

If you’ve been around for a while, you’ve probably seen my shadow puppet theater tutorials (I made a big elaborate version here, and a simple pretty version here). Several of you have written in with beautiful versions you’ve made yourselves.

All you need is a few simple supplies.
transparency sheets (I bought three individual sheets from the photocopy desk at an office supply store)
wooden craft sticks
super glue
wet erase markers

I cut the sheets in half, then folded them in half and creased them well. I inserted the craft stick between the layers, squeezed some superglue on both sides, then set a book on top to keep it in place until it dried, and that was it. A few moments of prep followed by hours of three-act plays in our family room about princesses, Mario, and a host of other characters, real and made up. It was great.

p.s. I have a friend who teaches and talked about making a life sized theatre for her classroom. How cool would that be?

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DIY Shadow Puppet Theatre

12.13.10

I’m not sure if you’ve been around long enough to remember the last shadow puppet theater I made for my kids? We love that thing. Just last week we turned down the lights, lit up our Christmas tree, and used our theatre to dramatize our version of the Grinch (the Grinch was played by a green T-Rex toy. Very apropos).

The only problem is, the last time I made a theater, it was an involved project. But I wanted to make another. So I came up with a slightly simpler version. I’m so pleased with how it turned out. Do you like it? I’m including the DIY here because you could totally still whip out one of these in time for Christmas.

supplies & equipment:
-panel of fabric, solid-color and thin enough so light can shine through
-contact paper
-acrylic or fabric paint
-small sponge roller (available for a dollar or two at any craft store)
-extra fabric scraps and fabric glue for embellishments
-paper or plastic to protect your work surface

method:
1. Lay your fabric flat and cut to the size you’d like your theater to be. No need to hem the edges, they won’t fray once we’re done with them (see! so easy.)

2. Lay the contact paper down and sketch the shape of your theatre. The places where you stick the contact paper will be the places where the light is able to shine through the fabric. Cut out the shape, remove the backing, and stick the contact paper onto your fabric.

3. Get out your roller and start painting. Roll paint everywhere fabric is showing. Don’t be stingy. Roll right to the edges.

4. Allow the paint to dry. Peel off and discard the contact paper. Now notice the fabric edges do not fray because they are painted? Nice.

5. Cut out fabric scraps for any special touches you’d like to add, and glue them on with fabric glue.

Stand back and admire your new theater! When you’re ready to use it, you have a few options, but the simplest is just to tie a piece of string between two chairs and clothespin your theatre to the string. All you need is a flashlight and a puppeteer or two and you’re ready for a performance.

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Vintage-Inspired DIY Cupcake Stand

12.08.10

A few extra details, a promised, on my cupcake-stand project featured here.

The fun part of this project is the shopping beforehand. Here, the list of where I picked up the supplies.

Supplies & equipment:
1. Candlestick with a hole down the middle. Go to your favorite thrift store, pick up a candlestick, and start unscrewing to see if it comes apart. I go to Good Will and clear out their candlestick shelf twice a year. Everyone looks at me with all my candlesticks and wonders what the big emergency is. (You can also make a treat stand with two or three tiers like this by using several segments of candlestick.)
2. Drawer pull. My SIL found this drawer pull for me, but I usually shop for pretty hardware at Anthropologie. Make sure the screw part comes out.
3. Melamine or ceramic plate. I bought a tart dish at the wonderful and cheap Tai-Pan in Utah (they’re also in so-Cal now). It is ceramic, but I have to admit, melamine is much easier to drill though for beginners. But melamine or ceramic, you may want to pick up an extra plate to practice on.
4. One all-screw. This just looks like a really long screw with no head or point. I got mine at Home Depot. Be sure to choose the size that will screw into your drawer pull.
5. Primer and paint, if you choose. I love Krylon and love how the cherry red color turned out. Don’t you?
6. A drill and drill bit. You’ll need a wood bit for drilling into melamine and a ceramic bit for drilling into ceramic.

Method:
1. Paint. If you’re planning to paint the candlestick, disassemble it and paint.
2. Drill. Tape the plate in the center and drill through your taped spot. If you can manage, pick up an extra plate. That way if one plate cracks a bit, you have a second chance. You can drill a few extra holes in your broken plate and get a little practice.
3. Assemble. Now you get to thread your whole creation together. Likely the allthread will be too long, so you’ll need to cut it off to be just the right length. Put the washer and screw at the bottom, then thread the allthread through your candlestick piece, then the plate, and finally, screw on the drawer pull at the top.
Your cupcake stand is finished! Make some cranberry scones and invite your friends over for a proper tea.

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DIY: Growth Chart

11.04.10

Hello Readers! Crystal here with a super easy DIY growth chart.

I have been on the look-out for a really great growth chart for months. I came across Miss Natalie’s Heirloom Growth Chart and loved it immediately, but knew the paper tags would not last long in my house with two rambunctious boys, and I really wanted foot markings on the chart so it would be easy to track my children’s height. I kept searching but didn’t find anything that really fit the bill. A few weeks later, it dawned on me that I could make my own version of Miss Natalie’s! Here is my method:

Gather your supplies:

6-feet of jute webbing (can be purchased online or at craft stores. I bought mine at Hobby Lobby.)
Dowel
Fusible interfacing
Fabric (not shown)
A small amount of Tyvek (or other suitable material. I think these would be cute, as would canvas. I choose Tyvek because it is lightweight and super durable)
Safety pins

Iron the fusible interfacing onto the fabric and cut out numbers.

I started my 1-foot mark 6-inches from the bottom of the webbing, and then measured every 6-inches for the subsequent marks.

After all six feet are labeled, start adding tags. I used a green marker for Lincoln (his favorite color!) and a blue marker for Henry (who is still too young to voice a favorite color.)

I hung the growth chart with a dowel and a strip of the same fabric I used for the numbers. But how great would it look hanging from a grommet?? I wish I would have thought about that before I finished the dowel/fabric set up! I also added a dowel at the bottom to keep the chart hanging straight.

And viola! A growth chart!

Have you ever DIY’d something when you haven’t been able to find certain features on a product? What did you create? What alterations did you make?

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Crystal stops by GiversLog a couple times a month to share her fresh ideas. When she’s not writing for GiversLog, Crystal can be found mothering, knitting, and cooking, and is currently navigating the unknown waters of woodturning.

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On-the-Go Napkin Bib Clip

09.27.10

Now that I’m on baby number three, I don’t have the arsenal of supplies I had with babies one and two. I finally switched from a diaper bag to a purse a year or two before this baby came (when my other son was THA-REE), and I guess I was afraid that if I went back to the diaper bag, I may never carry a purse again. I’d be a seventy-year-old woman still meaning to buy myself a nice bag. But there are a few things I keep in my purse for baby just incase, and this is one of them. I’ll have my baby model.

Just two barrettes on a ribbon. It’s perfect for turning a napkin into an impromptu bib. For a friend’s baby I used this tutorial at mairuru (found via noodleheads) to make a pretty version. It’s a super easy project, and nice for people like me who like to give something handmade without exposing our poor friends to our amazing INability to sew. Visit mairuru to get all the details. All I did was add a ribbon.

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Homemade Stripey Sidewalk Chalk

09.21.10

As you may remember from once or twice before, we are all about hopscotch on this blog. And now that school is in session and tomorrow fall will be official (in the N. hemisphere anyway), there are plenty of reasons to play. A game of hopscotch, of course, requires chalk. White chalk will do, but pretty stripey chalk will do even better. So we thought we’d better make some.

By the way, all pictures are courtesy of my husband’s iPhone. My poor Canon is in the shop again. I miss it.
We developed this chalk recipe last year with the leftovers from an art project I did for my daughter’s class. The best part about this homemade chalk is that it is c-h-e-a-p. And it turns out great chalk. Go to your hardware store and pick up a five-pound tub of joint compound or drywall mud. You’ll pay five bucks at most. We had a giant leftover tub, so we went with that. For a mold, we used IKEA’s water bottle ice molds.

Other materials we used were powdered tempera (liquid tempera works too), a few baggies, and we decided to add in a few strips of our favorite colors of tissue paper, which worked great with the chalk, and adhered well too without any fuss.

Dump or squirt your tempera into your joint compound and mix well. The powdered tempera will keep the whole thing a little drier, and make it a little more like dough, while the liquid tempera often turns out a little brighter.
We added a few stripes of tissue paper, just for decoration. We found that overlapping tissue paper colors does NOT work as well as spacing out the stripes. The spaced stripes held out better when the chalk dried. Glitter is also fun to dump into the molds before adding the chalk dough.

Depending on how thick your joint compound is, clip off a corner and pipe it from your bag, or pull out a handful and press it into the mold. It’s fun letting the kiddos experiment with different pieces of tissue paper and different colors of chalk dough.

This is the hardest part. Leave it alone and let it dry. Depending on how wet it is, it will take two to three days. When the top of ours was mostly dry, I tore off the scraps of tissue paper and popped the chalk out of the mold to let the bottom dry.

Give them a couple days and you’re ready to go. Aren’t they pretty?

While my daughter was hard at work producing chalk with me, I thought you might like to see what the boys were up to. The 5-year-old found an umbrella (what is it with kids and umbrellas?)

and the baby tried his first experiments in color mixing. Very fun.

But back to the chalk. We’re planning on giving these out for my daughter’s star student week in class. We did another DIY art supply for my son’s school bday favor last year and they went over well, so we thought we’d give these a try.

Good luck! And if you try, I’d love to hear how it goes.

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Bubble Wrap Banner

09.13.10

You probably remember from this post that I am a fan of bubble wrap.

Well, a little while back, a friend of mine and her adorable family had a big occasion to celebrate. We wanted to plaster a banner on her garage door. And since the occasion was cause for jumping up and down, we decided to make it a bubble-wrap banner. So it could be enjoyed even after it was taken down. Here is my son modeling it before we snuck over to her house to put it up. (Isn’t it fun being sneaky?)

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T-Shirt Bags

09.09.10

Hello! I am here today to spread the word about t-shirt bags. Are you familiar with them? I learned about them from (who else?) Martha Stewart a few years ago. Is it too much to say that they’ve changed my life? Probably. But I really really really love them.

I love that I can still keep those old, sentimental t-shirts around without them taking up valuable real estate in my itty-bitty closet. I love that those shirts are now more useful than they ever were as a garment that I would only wear while cleaning my house. I love that when I take them to the store I can be loud & proud of the fact that I love Tia Babe’s Mexican food in Santa Paula, California. Or that I was indeed, on senior cabinet in high school. And I really love that I get large, sturdy, reusable shopping bags that are made from 100% cotton and don’t cost me anything, instead of bags that I have to pay for and are often made from questionable plastics. They are such a fantastic way to reuse something that would otherwise be tossed.

Oh! I just thought of another good thing about these bags: making them is a super forgiving project. Straight cuts and sewing lines are not required. This is one of those projects that takes 10 minutes or less and non-perfectionists are invited and encouraged to participate. Those are my kind of projects!

Have I sold you on the idea of t-shirt bags yet? If not, I’ll try one more. How about making a custom trick-or-treat bag for a child you love from one of their old t-shirts? (Ah! Is it too early to start thinking about Halloween?) Or, if trick-or-treating isn’t in your future, perhaps you could make a great library bag. Martha has a nice tutorial on her website, but here’s a photographic version from me:

Items needed: a shirt, scissors, sewing machine.

Additional items needed if you want to applique: fusible web (I used Wonder-Under), iron, ironing board. (Remember to read the directions thoroughly on your webbing, in case they differ from those shown below.)

Your t-shirt bag is now finished. Easy as pie, right? You can stop here or go on to add a bit of custom magic to your bag. I chose designs that read a bit Halloween-y, but wouldn’t look completely out of place when we use them as library bags for the rest of the year.

Viola! You now have a super cute and custom bag for your child. Now go dig through your closets, pull out all your old t-shirts and get cutting. Your shirts will be so happy to be back in your life.

What is your favorite way to reduce/reuse/recycle?

What simple items make your life easier?

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Crystal stops by GiversLog a couple times a month to share her fresh ideas. When she’s not writing for GiversLog, Crystal can be found mothering, knitting, and cooking. Stop by and see what’s new at her etsy shop: monograms, Greek keys, and chevron stripes. Oh my!

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Message Macarons

08.30.10

We have been making macarons more often around here lately. I’ve gotten so I can make pretty quick work of it. Though in order to speed things up, I finally had to admit to myself that it was not worth making my own almond flour every time. It took me a while to concede, but now I just stop by Whole Foods and pick up a bag that is ready to go. I also like to keep things simple by sandwiching something inside that is premade, already in my fridge. Two of my favorites are a simple, good berry jam and, because I love all things lemon, a scoop of lemon curd. Yum.

I’ve also taken to spelling out messages with them.

Have you ever had an inkling to try a batch? You can see the recipe I use with a few of my favorite tricks right here. I’ve been pleased to get notes from several of you who found the tricks helpful and were pleased with your first batch. You know I love hearing about your adventures in the kitchen. So if you’re up for it, get my notes here. And stop by and let me know how it goes.

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p.s. I like to send macarons by mail every now and then, and have found this container to be the best, most protective, shipping solution. Careful when you stack them, if you squish them at all their fragile shells can crack. So just leave a little cushion room and you’ll be set.

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Shoot Along Gift Idea: Personalized Game Pieces

08.03.10

So it has taken a little longer than expected, but I finally have for you the final game gift promised from this post. Here’s a little project I did with my kids as a follow-up to our Tahoe vacation.

I am always looking for ways to use pictures from favorite trips or memorable periods of our life. I like the pictures not only of the people but of the details that were important to us at that moment that we could easily forget.

Did anyone play with shrinkie dinks as a kid? I remember having a Rainbow Bright set. Did you know you can get blank sheets of them for your printer? It’s almost more fun than I can handle.

We printed off a few pictures from our trip. For photos to work on shrinkie dinks, they need to be a bit washed out to make the final color true. We had fun picking out the pics. For this project we picked out several subjects that were in transit.

We added a little hand-drawn detail with a water-based marker.

Then cut along the lines.

And then came the fun part, we popped them in the oven. It is so much fun watching them curl up and become itty-bitty versions of themselves. Note, if you have an emergency and some curl over themselves, don’t panic! Just put them back in a little longer and they should flatten. Use a butter knife to carefully and gently flatten them a bit if you need to.

We added stands and have a pretty fun final product. Candy Land, anyone?

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Glow Cones, part II

07.29.10

Photos from our second night of glow cones, as promised.

The kids and I picked up a few colors of Kool-Aid and made a rainbow of syrups.

We tried adding a secret ingredient to one of the syrups, but I think we’ll need to add a few more to really pack a punch.
(p.s. did you know you can buy sour spray to add to any flavor of snow cone?)

We used a different brand of glow sticks tonight, and they worked okay, but didn’t seem quite as bright. Next time, I might try something LED, like these.

Everyone picked out their glow stick color,
loaded up on ice,

and artfully drizzled on their pick of syrup colors. Brent brought out the guitar and it made for a pretty good summer night.

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Glow Cones

07.28.10

I can’t believe my baby is about to turn one. We’ve been planning a big bash to celebrate, and have been trying to think of something fun to do. Preferably something that involves being outside on a summer night—do you agree with me that there’s nothing better than summer twilight?—and probably involving a movie under the stars with lots of cousins running around. Yesterday, while we were taking in the free indoor summer movie at the local theater, my son pulled out a glow ring, and we had an idea.

We pulled out the snow cone machine.

We gathered cups, one clear plastic cup to fit inside each paper cup.

We waited until dusk.

And then it was time! (Brent did not make it home from work until late, so all photos you see are taken with a baby in one arm and a camera in the other. I’ll see if I can snap some better pictures for you tonight.)

We put a glow stick inside each paper cup and nested a plastic cup inside,

scooped in shaved ice, and had our first ever glow cones.
(I finally told the kids to watch out for coyotes and ran inside get the tripod, baby in toe, since he’s the only one small enough to be a coyote snack.)

The perfect excuse for being outside on a summer night. Testing the different colored syrups with the different colored glow sticks was spectacular. If you get the chance, you must try. I think we’ll make more again tonight when I have a baby holder around and see if we can get some better shots.
I also think these would be the perfect snack to go with a night-time shadow puppet show.

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p.s. I know I promised you one more photo game idea for our photography shoot along, but we didn’t quite finish the project due to staying up late gorging on glowing snow cones. I have the project in the works though and promise to share soon. I also have many other fun photo ideas I plan to crank out, and Carrie has a new photography tutorial underway. Stay tuned. And if you have any burning photography questions, it’s not too late to add them.

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Silhouette Drink Tray

06.29.10

I hope you’ve enjoyed the Silhouette fun here over the last week. I am so excited to get to share one of these machines with one of you tomorrow. If you haven’t had a chance to enter the giveaway on facebook, you can like me there and leave a comment there to enter, or if you missed the original giveaway, you can find it and leave a comment right here.

I want to share one final project with you. A favorite project and an appropriate one for the Silhoutte SD; a drink tray I made for my mom with the silhouettes of her grandchildren.

I started with photos of the kiddos.

My favorite way to take silhouette shots is indoors in front of a light window. The backlight makes a great contrast. You can find an excellent set of tips for creating silhouettes from Inchmark, I find it especially true that it is important to make the kids smile and look up a bit, and for long hair to go in ponytails.

I created my silhouettes with Adobe Illustrator, but if you don’t have a drawing program, you can print your photo and snip the silhouettes out of dark paper, then take a picture of the new silhouette on light paper. This should create a crisp shot that the Silhouette SD will turn into an image it can cut with no problem. You just use the “get outline” button, and you can create an outline from any graphic.

I was tickled to pull away the extra vinyl to see perfect miniatures of my children’s profiles.

The vinyl transfer paper made it easy for me to position and reposition the silhouettes until I had them just where I wanted them.

And there you have it. The final product. Ready for serving and for hanging proudly on a wall between service.

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If you’re looking for more pretty things to hang on a kitchen wall, don’t miss the mini-goals chalk boards by Mary Kate McDevitt. She also has a new Lincoln wall quote that I just love.

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Etched Hand Mirror Tutorial

06.28.10

Have you ever played with glass etching before? Once you invest in a bottle of etching cream the possibilities are endless. We decided to make a mirror for a little friend of ours, so I thought I’d share.

Materials:
Glass etching cream
Sponge brush
Vinyl or contact paper and something to cut it with (I used my Silhouette, but you can use scissors or a craft knife)
Something pretty to etch

I picked up this mirror at Target and wish I would have picked up more than just one. Isn’t it the perfect thing for a little girl to admire herself in?

I used my Silhouette to cut out a sweet tiara. Did you notice I used regular contact paper? I wanted to save my premium Silhouette vinyl for other purposes (I have about a million things I want to try), and since I had a whole roll of contact paper, and the Silhouette can cut anything thin, I went with the contact paper.

I ran it through my Silhouette with the backing still on, then peeled off just the negative space of the design and stuck it on the mirror. Run your finger over the design a few extra times and make sure all the corners are stuck down.

I loaded up my sponge brush with etching cream and brushed it on. A good friend taught me to paint it on heavy in multiple directions, and give it a few minutes longer to sit than the bottle directs, so I usually do.

Once the time is up, you just rinse, dry and peel away the contact paper.

And that’s it. The perfect mirror for a little princess.

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I hope you’re enjoying my Silhouette fest! Don’t forget to enter my GIVEAWAY for a Silhouette SD of your very own. You have until Wednesday. And don’t miss the great discounts offered by Silhouette for GiversLog readers. Once you have this machine, your head will spin with the possibilities.

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