duct tape flip flops

 In a couple of weeks I get to help 50 tween girls decorate flip flops with duct tape. 

The duct tape flip flop idea is from Skip To My Lou and it is so clever and easy!  

In order to prepare, I made a few.  Yes, I got carried away with the duct tape! The colors in the stores are just so cute and I couldn't resist the duct tape with patterns. My son later joined in on the fun, covering up an old pair of shoes with bright blue duct tape.

Along with the fringe flowers by Skip To My Lou, I thought double bows out of zig zag duct tape would be great on the flip flops.  I found the zig zag roll of duct tape at Wal-Mart. 

To make the double bows, you will need 1 (10 inch) strip, 1 (8 inch) strip, and a tiny piece to hold the bow in place.

Fold over each side to create a seam in the center.  Just make sure there's no sticky showing.  You will end up with one (5 inch) piece, and one (4 inch) piece.  Double them together (seam side down) and pinch in the middle.  Roll the small sticky piece over the pleat to hold in place. Wire and tape them to the flip flops. Be sure to cover any sharp wire edges with tape.

The stores have the prettiest metallic colors of duct tape.  I had to make me a pair! 

I followed Skip To My Lou's tutorial for her flowers, but scalloped the edges of the strip instead of cutting a fringe. I thought about using a decorative punch, but duct tape is so sticky.  Using sharp scissors was easy enough.

The metallic scalloped flowers add a fancy touch to my regular flip flops.

Thanks To Skip To My Lou for the creative duct tape idea! I know the girls will have so much fun decorating their flip flops! Wish me luck as I prep for the day.  I hope I don't end wound up in hundreds of sticky duct tape strips!  Let me know if you have any clever prepping ideas!



WYLTC? Wall Shelf Organization

We are over at Wood You Like To Craft? today!

The theme for July is organization.

I finally got up the courage to finish some Ana White wall shelves I built two years ago!

Come on over and see how the shelves are the perfect space for craft organization!

Valentine Candy Bouquet

 This is what happens when I am stuck in the house recovering from being sick with limited access to crafting supplies...I get creative with candy! I didn't have the energy to hit the craft stores, so my major shopping trips were to the grocery store. It's amazing what you can find if you look hard enough!

I have a hard time passing by the Valentine bulk candy without stopping to fill a bag.  Red and pink gumdrops, jellybeans, red hots....I can't help it!  They are just so darn cute.  I also found Valentine candy corn. Gross to eat, but they make perfect petals for flowers.  

  

For the base of the candy flowers, I used Styrofoam discs that I painted red with craft paint.  I poked the small dowel into the Styrofoam disc and added a bit of hot glue to stabilize the foam. 

Each piece of candy was added with a hot glue gun. I made sure to use a low temp gun to avoid some serious burns to the fingers!

I also grabbed a bag of gummy ring candy (Peach O's) at the store that fit perfectly around the large gum drops. 

For the heart shapes flowers, I used heart shaped cookie cutters to cut into the foam. The cookie cutters worked surprisingly well on the foam!  

I gave it a good crunch with the cookie cutter and then cleaned the rest up with a knife.  I think the red hot hearts are my favorite.

Painting the Styrofoam the same color as the candy helps to hide the gaps.

 Nicole and I have made candy topiaries a couple of times, like the Jelly Bean and Halloween topiaries.
(I missed Nicole this time...she didn't want to catch what I had!) In those cases, we used Styrofoam balls, which are easier to place candy around.  You have to get creative with candy placement on the discs. 
I filled the edges of these flowers with red hots to avoid getting too bulky.

I hot glued layers of Styrofoam into the glass vase, making sure there was room for the jellybeans to fit along the side. Next I added the flowers, then filled the vase with pounds of jellybeans. I used heart lollipops to fill in the empty spaces. All of the stems were wrapped with green floral tape and the heart leaves were made from scrap paper.

It's nice to know I can still enjoy Valentine's candy without having to eat it.  It's also a lot less tempting to eat when there's gobs of hot glue on each piece! :)

 

WYLTC @ Under My Umbrella

Are you guys ready for this month's project for

Wood You Like To Craft?

We had so much fun coming up with something

inspired by Melinda over at Under My Umbrella.

This month's theme was "birds",

with Melinda doing an amazing job with her adorable bird house!

Of course with this one we both had to whip something up

and made something definitely for the birds!:)

Make sure to come stop by Under My Umbrella for the full tutorial

and make sure to enter your own "version"

for a chance to win a gift card!

P.S. We finally got Candace's curtain rod hung in her master bedroom

and it looks AWESOME!!!!

Stay tuned for a sneak peek!:)

Glittery Goodness!

I think you all can tell that we kinda like glitter. 

We did a happy dance when we received a package of {gorgeous} glass glitter

from Meyer Imports in the mail.  Love this stuff. 

 You know how after crafting with synthetic glitter you have it in every nook and cranny of your house, all over your face...and sometimes on your husband and children? 

 Really embarrassing when you go out in public, especially for the husband. :)  

The glass glitter is different. It's heavy and pretty much stays where you are working.  This glitter is so beautiful to work with. We were especially taken with the bold and vibrant colors of the pinks and reds.

Perfect for a little Valentine crafting.

For this "be mine" craft, we used cupcake liners.  There are so many fun choices in the stores.  I fell in love with the cupcake wrapper crafting after watching Jen from Tatertots and Jello use them last year.

We found chipboard pieces, especially made for banners in all sorts of shapes at Craft Warehouse. For these, we ended up drilling a couple of holes and adding wire so we could move them where ever we please.  

The glitter gives it all a little pop and shimmer, which we love!

After arranging these for pictures, I ended up turning mine into magnets.

 A great way to decorate those magnetic boards so many of us have.

Thanks Meyer Imports for feeding our little crafting addiction!

 ( If any of you need glass glitter, be sure to check them out!)

A Baby Jesus Ornament

You asked for it....

and we listened!

We got a lot of requests for a tutorial for our Baby Jesus Ornaments

we did up for our Holiday Boutiques

so here it is!

This ornament is super super easy to make

and pretty inexpensive to do especially if you are wanting to do a bunch of them.

We saw a version of this several years ago and always wanted to make something like it!

So here's what we came up with!

First gather your supplies:

Acrylic Craft Paint (flesh tone & brown/black for eyes)

Tiny Grapevine Wreaths 3" size

Cream Felt

Craft Wire (we love it rusty!)

Wood Split Balls 1" size

Excelsior (you could use moss too)

Wood Stars 1" size (could use mini ornaments)

Hot Glue Gun

Spray Glitter (optional)

  Begin by painting all those baby heads a nice flesh color.

Here's a quick tip:

Tape a piece of masking tape sticky side up onto your counter

and stick your baby heads onto it.

Now you can paint those heads easy

without them moving around or dropping them!

Pre-drill little holes in your stars so you can thread them through the wire.

I spray painted mine a pretty gold color and "antiqued" them

by misting some Brown spray paint over them.

We like to mist stuff to kinda mix up the colors.

It's a really easy technique and gives a fantastic result!

Plus if you "mist" it too much you can always go back with your original color to make it right!

Cut your wire in 18" pieces.

I know, it seems like a lot, but once you curl it you'll understand!

 A sharpie marker is a perfect diameter for this!

 Next take the felt and cut out a 4 1/2  x 4 1/2" square for the blanket.

Fold in half and and trim off the bottom corner at the 3" mark.

It will look like a diamond jewel shape.

Cut another piece 2x 3".  This will be the body.

We've used fiberfill in the past but it's a pain to work with

and rolling up the felt was so easy!

Just make sure you get some glue around the edge of the face

to hold the felt in place!

I always paint my eyes on last.

You are a miracle worker if you get that head glued on

and the eyes are actually in the right place.

We usually use the end of a tiny paint brush or a brad nail to make the eyes.

Then thread the wire through the sides of the wreath and twist securely in place.

You know us and our glitter.....

We just had to add a touch of it to really finish this little guy off!

There you go, one beautiful little Baby Jesus!

These are great gifts for your neighbors and friends!

This batch is for my little group of girls I teach in my Sunday school class!

A New Ginger Man

Here are some wood projects from a few weeks ago. I need to get my Christmas crafting wind back to decorate my house...I think I lost it after eating all that pie! :) I am currently "borrowing"  my dad's belt sander. It scares me, but it is great for wood crafts.  It quickly gets the job done and can quickly take the skin off your fingers!  Perfect for rounding out the Gingerbread parts.  My friend Angela gave our family this gingerbread man, that has been well-loved by my boys for 7 years.  One of them even practiced their writing on him. Nice. The boys look forward to pulling this guy out every year.  I think Angela bought kits, and then decorated them herself.  Cute idea.

He was looking scraggly..so we traced and cut out a new Gingerbread Man.  At first he didn't have a mouth and for some reason that really upsets my young kids...not sure why? I later added a mouth topped off with two small peppermint candy beads.

I think he's a door hanger, at least that's where we stick him.

We found all the candy decor, rick rack, cinnamon sticks, and ribbons at Hobby Lobby.  Everything is going fast, I can't believe it! To give him a sugared look, we sprinkled clear glass glitter over Mod Podge.

While I had the belt sander out I had to make Under My Polka Dot Umbrella's cute 2x4 snowmen. Nicole found her site and adores her wood crafts.  Have you seen the super cute stuff she makes with simple 2x4's? Really....really easy to make. I love the tree too!  Go check it out!

We'll be back soon with more Christmas ideas!

Thanksgiving Corn~Kid's Craft

While you're slaving away in the kitchen, here's a little craft to keep the kids busy.  We made these a few years ago in my son's class and it was so easy.

You will need beads, raffia, pipe cleaners cut in two, and corn husks.

I think that's a pretty good mix of authentic corn colors in the beads, don't you think?:) 

Have your little one bead them on.  He's been practicing in preschool and is quite good! 

We thought 5 rows was a good number for our corn. 

Twist the ends together. 

We dampened the corn husks before tying so they wouldn't crack. 

Tie the ends with raffia and trim it up. 

Super easy! 

This is sure to keep their little hands busy for a bit so you can bake away. 

 We'll be back later to share our mom's winner pie crust!