Product Review- My Image Button Maker

As you all know, I'm a big fan of stuff from My Friendship Factory. They started with a friendship bracelet maker that replaced tape on counters or pins on jeans, was truly portable and made it possible to make very complex patterns by keeping the strands separate.

The My Circle of Creativity is kumihimo made easy and is sturdy with lots of storage for flosses, and you can use it to weave lanyards.

My Image Button Maker is the quality and attention to detail that you'd expect from this company. A sturdy plastic box with 2 drawers holds the things you'll need to make either buttons or magnets.

It also comes with photo cards that have 6 designs each that are funny, cute, or messages. But if you want to make you're own design you can go to MyPhotoSizer.com or download the free app on iTunes. Then print your images yourself or take them to a photo center to get them printed.

The top part of the My Image Button Maker is a die cutter to perfectly cut out the image to use on the button. You could use all sorts of images. Pages from magazines, comics or your own images. This example is my daughter's Turnip Girl logo.

 Center the image, push the lever on the right hand side, and the image pops right out. Then you place it face down into one of the covers and decide if you're going to make a pin or a magnet, following the instruction leaflets instructions. Pop it all together with your fingers, and you have a button!

So this is absolutely a hit in my home. My daughter can make instant buttons to celebrate her fandoms or to share with friends. It's easy to use and the sky is the limit for design possibilities. Refill kits are available.

Learn more at My Friendship Factory. Like Choose Friendship on Facebook for ideas, quotes and projects.

The products reviewed in this article were provided to me at no cost for the purposes of review. I received no other compensation, and my review is my honest opinion of the product.

Product review- My Lanyard Maker

It's summer, which means it's time for summer fun things like camping, fishing, hiking, day camps, crafts and lanyard making!

My Lanyard Maker is a loom for lanyard making. It makes it very easy to knot flat plastic or round plastic lacing without that "I don't have enough hands" frustration. In my photo above, I have a basic box weave lanyard key ring, and the enclosed instructions cover two very basic weaves including the box weave.

The loom has 4 sides with 8 slots per side to arrange your lacing or cord in. Each of the slots is labeled with an embossed letter/number designation for following patterns. Just past one side is a clip so you can use it in a different layout for some designs. For weaves like the box weave, instead of the clip you would use the center piece which holds the key ring or small carabiner. The weave works up in the middle of the loom and you can drop out the center piece to continue weaving as it gets longer.

This also has a drawer to hold supplies, and it comes with some split ring key rings, plastic key rings, pony beads to decorate, and both round and flat lacing to get started. Like all of the line of products from this company, it's great crafting fun that is well thought out.

The products from the My Friendship line of products are well made, and well thought out, but hands down my favorite thing about the company is their interaction online. The webpage has several downloadable PDFs that are free which give instructions for many more projects to make with their makers, they post on their Facebook page- Choose Friendship, daily with quotes, happy thoughts and inspiration. 

You can find My Lanyard Maker at The Friendship Factory . 

The products reviewed in this post were provided to me at no cost for the purposes of review. I received no other compensation, and my review is my honest opinion of the product.You can read more about my review policy here.

Deer coloring page

Click on the image for the larger version. You can use this for embroidery, coloring, pyrography or leather tooling. 

I have lots of coloring pages that can be used for all sorts of crafty purposes, but I was a little shy about uploading this deer. Animals are out of my comfort zone and I never ever feel like they are quite good enough to post. My daughter encouraged me to post this one and got a good chuckle out of my example version. If you get the joke, get off the computer! Go outside and play! If you don't, tl;dr is used on a lot of forums, and also as comments on fanfic when someone posts something very long, either a viewpoint, explanation or story.  It stands for too long; didn't read. But if you try to say tl;dr it sounds like teal deer. Since I'm on a teal/purple/apple green kick, I couldn't resist coloring my deer teal instead of tan/brown.

Book Review - Snip, Burn, Solder, Shred

Snip, Burn, Solder, Shred : Seriously Geeky Stuff to Make With Your Kids lives up to it's title.
First, this isn't a book just for kids. If you've had an interest in learning basic electronics and how to build simple circuits, or how to make various kinds of instruments, or just in general love to make things, this book has something in it for you. The projects are a little too complicated for little kids to do alone, but they could certainly help parents and learn from them. They are perfect for older kids and teens to do. If you would trust them with a wood burning tool, they can probably do all the projects in this book. As always, read all instructions all the way through before starting.
The projects extensively use re-purposed materials. Bicycle innertubes, x-ray films, old cell phones, socks, aluminum cans and Tyvek envelopes are some of the materials used. None of the projects cost more than 10 dollars to make. For things you might need to buy parts for like some of the electronic parts, part numbers are given to make them easy to get.
The projects are fantastic. Sure to inspire any budding tinkerer. Everything is very well explained, and the science behind the projects is also explained. In some ways, this book reminds me strongly of some of my very favorite vintage books. Recycling and handy skills being taught in a way that is challenging and interesting.
The first chapter is named Kid Stuff. There is a basic switch box project in it that teaches the beginning of electronic circuits to make a box that has lights and sound. The Sock Squid is a sewn project with a very cute Cthulhu variation. This chapter also has classic games you can make and a box that gives you a safe electric jolt when you touch it.
The next chapter, Electro-Skiffle Band has instruments. Again, lots of innovation using re-purposed material, as well as some of the history of the instruments themselves. Enough instruments in here that you could start a band. Percussion, horn, guitar and amps and stomp boxes. It's a fun starting place to learning about music from building an instrument to seeing what kinds of sounds you make from it.
Chapter 3, The Locomotivated is probably the chapter that people who really like to play will be more interested in. It starts with a boomerang with 2 versions, one for indoors, one for out. Made simply from re-purposed cardboard packaging. Things that move is the theme of this chapter, from a very simple little robot to a nicely involved geometry project to build a box kite of Tyvek envelopes, rockets and a marshmallow gun.

No Starch Press has a lot of great books including this one. You can buy this book directly from them by going to their website.  NoStarch.com or by using the Amazon.com affiliate link below. I do recommend going to their website, especially if you love Legos or science. (Or if you love me enough to buy me their Manga Guide Complete Set for my birthday. Because gosh, I'm full of want for the awesomesauce of science geeky manga.)
If you'd like to know more about my review policy, you can read that here.

Pipe cleaner Shamrocks

Pipe cleaners were one of my daughter's favorite mediums when she was little. She still likes getting a pack every so often to make sculptures. Add that to the fact I'm a craft stasher, and I found a box of 100 green pipe cleaners while I was organizing the other day. Green, and it's nearly Saint Patrick's Day, so I thought "Shamrocks!" These can be hot glued to pin backs or hair clips. 

So I told Dea if she wanted to make some shamrocks, I'd post instructions. I made one as well. Mine wound up being a lot more complicated than her's. She made 3 and instructions for the other 2 are coming after she shows me how she made them.

First the basics- How to make a spiral.

Start by curving the end of the pipe cleaner around a pencil or pen.

Then you'll hold that circle flat between you'r thumb and index finger.

Hold the end of the wire with your other hand and turn the circle to spiral the wire around that center. Adjust your hold as necessary until you have a spiral the size that you want it. You can spiral as tight or as loosely as you'd like.

So now you know the basics of making a spiral. Let's start with Dea's shamrock.

Take 2 pipe cleaners, and twist them together in the middle. Spread the ends so they form an X shape at right angles from each other.

Now spiral 3 of the ends in the same direction. It looks a lot like a triskele.

Trim the bottom wire or use it to twist around something to create an accessory or gift. 

Mine takes 4 pipe cleaners. Bend 3 of them in half and open them out to about a 90 degree angle. Spiral the ends towards each other to create open heart shapes.

With the 4th pipe cleaner, starting about halfway down the sides of the hearts, wrap it around the sides of 2 of the hearts to join them together. Then form a loop for the stem.

Now wrap it around the sides of the heart on the opposite side and the middle heart.

You can trim the wire at this point, but what I did instead was bring the wire back down the stem, and wrap the stem.

Use hot glue or E-6000 to attach the shamrock to something. No pinches!

Comic book rings- tutorial

These are so much fun and so fast. A great project to do with kids or tweens.

You'll need:

Adjustable ring blanks- the ones I used are the white adjustable ring blanks from Rings and Things

Small wood shapes- I have a bag of "woodsies" from the craft store

3/4 inch circle punch 

paint or markers

glitter

Mod Podge

E-6000 glue

a comic book or fan magazine- something with pictures!

I buy extra copies of cheap promo comics and comics from the 25¢ bin at my local comic book shop specifically for crafting. Before you cut it up, make sure it's not valuable! 

I chose circles for my rings, and the bag of wooden shapes has a bunch of these smaller circle shapes.

Base paint the wood shape or color it with markers. 

Mix up some Mod Podge and glitter then paint the shape with that. I used a cheap foam brush.

Then you should let it dry completely. I didn't which is why there are specks of glitter on my images.

Find an image that will fit well in the 3/4 punch. The best way to do this is to take a piece of scrap paper and punch out a circle on it. Then use the punched paper with the circle cut out to frame images until you find one you like. Because of the diminutive size of the circle, you could do something that looks out-sized very easily. Like one eye of a cover model. Ads for dvds, cds and such often have very small pictures that work well in the punch. The images above were from an ad for Buffy coffee cups!

Punch out your image, then put Mod Podge on the wood shape and put the picture down on it. Cover the whole thing in Mod Podge, let dry.

After it's dry, glue the wood shape to the ring blank with a dollop of E-6000.

If you're working with younger children, you may want to use a chunkier glitter and you'll want to be the one who uses the E-6000. But they can do the rest and will enjoy picking just the right image for their rings. If you've managed to get on Disney's mailing list, you probably get regular snail mail ads for DVDs that have perfect sized images for Disney themed rings.

The rings are very adjustable, and the glue on pad is slightly textured to grab the glue better. 

Fezzes are cool - bead patterns and Halloween pics

I've mentioned before that my daughter is all about Doctor Who right? I mean, the rest of the family likes it of course. But her favorite color is TARDIS blue, she can name everyone who played the Doctor in order, including the people who were on Comic Relief. So her costume was decided ages ago.

She made the fez, and the bow tie, for the bow tie, she took apart a clip on we got at a thrift store and used the pieces for the pattern. The fez is made with broadcloth over buckram. The jacket and shirt are both from thrift stores, and she added the patches to the elbows. The sonic screwdriver is purchased from ThinkGeek.

I graphed out these two bracelet patterns. I'm going to make both for her for Christmas this year. I hope you enjoy them too. Odd count peyote. First picture is a preview, second picture is both bracelets vertically oriented for printing out the patterns. Click on the second image to download the full size pattern.

Chalkboard painted cigar boxes

A friend of mine recently gave my daughter and I a half dozen wooden cigar boxes. My daughter was thrilled, immediately thinking of crafty ideas.

A few days later, she found a box of chalk that I bought and said "What's this for?" and I explained that I was making some chalkboard painted wood magnets. She said "So you have chalkboard paint?" 

So we decided right then that two of the boxes would be painted with chalkboard tops and filled with paper, pens, chalk and other art supplies.

First we deodorized the boxes which still smelled strongly of cigars with a quarter cup of  baking soda in a coffee filter. We just left it in the box with the lid closed for 24 hours. It worked very well.

Then we took different methods to paint it to see which turned out better. Her's turned out best. 

I sanded the top of mine, and put a thin coat of chalkboard paint on the box, let it dry an hour, then another thin coat, then another hour and one more thin coat.

She used a dark shade of card stock and cut out a square to fit on top of the box. Glued it in place with a thin layer of PVA glue, let that dry, then put on 3 thin coats of the chalkboard paint letting them dry an hour between coats. We both used foam brushes to apply the paint.

You can see the difference here. How very smooth hers turned out compared to mine. Even with sanding time, the wood quality is very grainy. It still works, but it's not as smooth. 

After they were done, had 24 hours to cure and we conditioned the chalkboards by covering them with chalk and wiping it off, we folded dividers out of card stock and glued them in.

(She loves everything blue this year)

We are letting them set plain for a bit while we decide how to decorate them, but they are usable right now and she likes the look of the cigar box with the shiny black top. She will put her markers, pencils and chalk in the dividers on the bottom and put in a couple sketch pads. 

I'll put origami paper and chalk in mine, plus a sketch book and a pencil for ideas.

We used FolkArt 2517 8-Ounce Chalkboard Paint, Black for ours, and I like it a lot better than the spray on chalkboard paint that I've used in the past.It's thick and spreads nicely with a foam brush and comes in just a bunch of colors.

Composition Notebook Style Pencil Boxes

Print at 100 ppi! These were a lot of fun to make, but I'm afraid that I still haven't gotten more ink to print up a model. I hope you like them.

Click on the images for the full sized versions.

If you have a moment, and a Threadless account, I have a few slogans up to check out.

Some people have issues, I have a subscription

Gerunding the Ungerundable

Books make good mental floss

Wood Necklace Project- super easy and quick

I'm so happy with how this turned out, and they are very easy to make and modify.

You'll need wood shapes, sand paper, paint, a drill, a strand of plastic beads and a couple big jump rings, and Mod Podge

You can also use decoupage, stickers, rhinestones and glitter to decorate.

The shape I picked up was a bat shape. I love Halloween. Really truly. 

First I decided how I wanted it to hang from my strand of beads. Since it's a bat shape and the head is below the wing tips, I drilled holes on the wing tips.

Removed the label, and sanded it smooth on both sides. Then painted one side, then the other with acrylic paint. I used DecoArt Metallic Blue with a bit of a purple mixed in. On the front, I sprinkled glitter on it. 

After that dried, I coated it with a thin coat of Mod Podge and let that dry. Repeat on the other side. I got some Mod Podge in the holes, and just used a scrap of wire to clean the holes back out while it was still wet. 

Then another slightly thicker coat of Mod Podge on the front, and I put the rhinestones on that. The rhinestones have a sticky back, but it didn't seem secure enough. Putting them in the Mod Podge made them a lot more secure. 

After that dried, put the jump rings in the holes and hang it from the strand of beads.

Super easy, super quick. Now I want to get a lot more shapes and make a bunch more of these.

I used my Fiskars craft drill. The craft drill is a nice non-powered option for wood and plastic and I use mine on resin, polymer clay, wood, plastic toys I want to make into beads and other light craft drilling. 

The beads I used were part of my collection of throw beads from Mardi Gras. I have hundreds of strands sent by friends hanging on my bedroom wall. For people who don't have hundreds of strands of Mardi Gras beads, you can get the same sort of beads at party supply places and sometimes at Claire's and other similar accessory stores. If you have lots of Mardi Gras beads you want to get rid of, you can send them to me!

This is another fun project to do with kids. With very young kids, I used to use thick tempera paints with mine. I'd pick 2-3 colors that worked harmoniously together so they wouldn't  turn to mud and I did the sealing. With slightly older kids, decoupage on simple shapes make very fun necklaces that can reflect interests. For tweens, teens and adults, almost any scrapbooking technique for embellishment will work on these sorts of necklaces.

Button bobby pins and rings

The only decorative buttons I could find quickly in my huge box of beads and buttons were a package of small Halloween themed buttons so that's what I used.

You only need a few things to make very cute inexpensive button bobby pins and I'm sure you know how to make them. I'm posting the project mostly because of how I trimmed the shanks off the buttons.

If you look at all my supplies, you see inexpensive craft type buttons, decorative buttons, bobby pins and adjustable rings with glue on pads which I got very inexpensively from Rings and Things, the rings are 72 for 9.00, the bobby pins are 72 for 11.28. I used Household Goop which is a similar adhesive to E-6000. I use them interchangeably for most projects. The other thing you'll see is a pair of toe nail clippers.

I have a craft dedicated pair of toe nail clippers because they work really well for trimming small pieces of plastic like shanks on buttons and have a built in file for smoothing and texturing  surfaces. It's a trick I hit on while my son and I were discussing the best way to trim sprues from his plastic models and miniatures.

 

That's one untrimmed button and one that's trimmed so you can see them a little better. 

So after you get the decorative buttons trimmed, you just glue them to a plain button then glue that to the pad on the bobby pin or adjustable ring. Superglue will also work very well to connect plastics but my Superglue was super gunky. For younger kids, you'll want to do all the gluing because both glues have fumes.

My daughter and I are planning to do a table at least one of the local fairs this year so I've been looking for inexpensive things we can make to sell. We will package the bobby pins in sets of two on business cards.

If you're making bobby pins and they have a direction like my bats, make sure you make them opposites or you'll have two pretty button bobbies for the same side!

I also gave some of the ring blanks to my son, who will probably wind up making little toy gun rings using some of the weapons from his old toys and things like that. I told the kids if they like the adjustable rings well enough and they sell well, I'll also make them some sterling adjustable rings to decorate. 

Name badges - rainbow beads printable

I recently got some Post-It Super Sticky Name Badges and decided to play around with a couple designs for making printable badges. If you don't want to buy a pack of labels, you can print it out on regular paper and use repositionable glue on the back. The PDF is HERE.

When my kids were babies I labeled *everything* I could in the house. The theory being that people refer the items regularly like the refrigerator and the television and seeing the word on the thing would help them associate letters to words quicker. People teased me about it of course, wondering if I'd forget what a door was, but I think it did help. I used masking tape and permanent markers. Repositionable easily removed labels would have been so much better. I'm not sure if anyone else can use this idea, but I did make a set of 8 labels with a few common household things on them.

You can download that pdf HERE.

The printables work with Avery 5395 or compatible.

Sparkly Recycled Cardboard Ornaments

 We keep cardboard food packaging to use for crafting. It becomes the frame work for duct tape purses, new boxes, covers and backs for mini-notebooks and all sorts of other things. I like these a lot too. Glittered ornaments for our tree.

What you'll need is templates or craft punches a small hole punch, all but the heart I used a 1/8 inch punch on, glitter, we used Martha Stewart's because I have lots of it I bought on sale after the holidays last year,glue and some sort of spray sealer.

If you use my templates, print them out on paper, then cut them out. Trace the shapes on to your cardboard and cut out the cardboard. A craft knife is helpful for the peace symbol, but if you work carefully you can use scissors.

Punch a small hole near the top, and cover the shapes with glue and sprinkle glitter on them. Let dry. Seal. If you want them to come out very nice and neat looking, you could spray paint the shapes before spreading the glue and glitter on them, but I like the way these look without it. We put the glitter on the plain brown side.

You can actually decorate these all sorts of ways. I offered my daughter buttons and sequins as well. She did the green ones.She also wanted me to point out the shapes make nice negative stencils to decorate clothing with. Click on the templates for the full sized version.

 

Fast Food- Pizza Quesadillas

If you're like me, sometimes you need a lunch plan that's nearly as quick and convenient as fast food for your kids, preferably something they can make themselves. This is one that E and I made last night. My husband found the mini pepperoni and was laughing about it, but I spotted it and thought "Mini pizzas all in scale!" which is a great idea, but what we wound up doing was pizza quesadillas which  wound up being a hit with the teens and with my husband. The nice thing about the mini pepperoni was that at no point did anyone pull out one with a bite and splatter pizza sauce all over themselves. (Or am I the only one who does that?) Chopping regular slices into quarters would work just as well.

This barely even qualifies as a recipe, it's too easy, too fast. It's convenience food made with convenience ingredients, but it's tastier than frozen pizza and just as fast.

You'll need whatever ingredients your kids like for pizza. This one was mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, and pizza sauce. I get squeeze bottles of pizza sauce, and when they are empty, refill them with a spaghetti sauce everyone in my family likes. You'll also need a package of small flour tortillas.

Put the tortillas in a skillet over a low flame, and spread them with pizza sauce. Add cheese on one half, and the pepperoni and other toppings on that half. Fold in half, and repeat until the pan is full. Turn the heat up to medium and cook them for a couple minutes per side.

You can also microwave them, but my family likes the toasty and slightly crispy flavor you get from doing it on the stove top, and it really takes no time at all.

 

If I was going to do it for bento lunches, I'd do them flat and top them with a second tortilla then use cute cookie cutters to cut them into fun shapes.
Serve with a bit of pizza sauce on the side for dipping.

I don't much like pizza, but I did like these. The sauce I used wasn't sweet, and I used a decent quality cheese. E said it was fantastic. But take that with a grain of salt, she thinks those awful cardboard/ketchup 60¢ frozen pizzas are good when I let her get them.
It also makes a good meal for kids who are just learning how to cook. They can make it and serve it with salads.

Vegetables, kids and UFO Phil

Yesterday, when I asked E what she wanted for dinner, she wasn't sure. So I gave her a list of options and she decided on homemade mac and cheese.
Now, here's the thing, like most kids, it used to be that anything other then the stuff that comes in boxes with either a packet of cheese powder or a foil packet of cheese paste was disgusting to her. I wanted to give her mac and cheese that actually.. you know, had cheese in it. So I found clone recipe for the boxed stuff with the cheese paste, and made that. Every time I make mac and cheese, I change one more thing until I can make mac and cheese like mom used to make, well.. sort of. In as much as I follow any recipe.
Last night was the first time I tried baking it so it go all nice and crusty on top. IIRC, mom used to use Ritz cracker crumbs and french fried onions on top. I used a mix of sharp cheddar and seasoned cereal crumbs. I use seasoned cereal crumbs instead of panko for most panko uses. They bake up nice and crispy, usually are fortified with vitamins that don't completely cook out, and they keep as long as need them once I crush up the cereal and season it.
I also let her try a piece of the turkey I was cutting up to mix into Mike's and my mac and cheese and asked if she wanted some. She said yes, so I mixed in some turkey. It was a hit. I'm getting closer step by step.
She still thinks cooked veggies are nasty, so I made two separate casserole dishes with mac and cheese in them. The bigger one for Mike and I had frozen peas in it, and she just ate raw carrots with hers.
I was talking to a friend about how to get kids to eat veggies recently. Her son dislikes them intensely. So I started thinking.. see.. getting my kids to eat veggies has never been a problem because it's never been optional. They have to at least try everything, but if they don't like it, I have raw alternatives on hand. This is because when I was a kid, my parents tried to force me to eat brussel sprouts. I *hate* brussel sprouts. I'd coat them with cheese, make loud gagging noises and complain bitterly up until the time I decided I just wasn't going to eat them. My parents told me I couldn't leave the table until I finished them. When mom woke me up at the table the next morning for school, she gave up and never tried to force me to eat something I hated again.
There it is.. my kids have always HAD to eat veggies, but I don't force feed them veggies they don't like. I give them alternatives. That helps somewhat. Another thing that helps since E has been old enough is making soups with her active participation from shopping for them on up. She will eat a lot of things she wouldn't usually if she chooses to put them in soups and she likes brightly colored soups. So it's one way to get her to eat things like tomatoes.
William loves food. He doesn't like some fermented foods, but other then that, I haven't found much he won't eat. So the veggie battle with him was convincing him "Yes, if you eat 2 lbs of carrots every day for as long as you like, you WILL turn orange so please don't."
I've camouflaged veggies for children I've babysat. Shredding spinach into meatloaf and that sort of thing, but I really prefer not to. It does work though. Spinach goes well into meatloaf and hamburgers and I still cook my pot roasts in vegetable juice. Veggie juice is one of the easiest ways I've ever found to get kids to eat their veggies. With the right seasoning, it makes a quick marinara like sauce for ramen noodles, a virgin mary made with vegetable juice and zapped for a minute makes a quick tomato soup to dunk cheese sandwiches in.
Another great way is gardening. Let kids grow their own veggies or take them to a U pick it farm and kids will generally eat stuff they harvest with pride and happiness.
A bag of frozen peas and carrots that's seasoned and then dehydrated enough to be crispy but not super hard makes a snack food that both my kids will eat happily. Get some sesame crackers and nuts and make your own trail mix with veggies mixed in.
Spaghetti squash is a LOT of fun for kids to shred, with E, she will happily eat spaghetti sauce on spaghetti squash if she got to shred it after I cooked it. I will never bake one again though. Mike wouldn't eat it baked. It got a bit slimy in parts. Piercing it and simmering it works best for us.
Mashed cauliflower instead of potatoes is pretty much the standard in my family now. I have a recipe for mashed cauliflower in free mini cookbook
I'm not really sure what do with a kid who's had the option not to eat veggies from the start. We aren't vegetarians because it's just easier to use to manage a balanced diet in our budget with meat, but we do eat a lot of veggies. So all my suggestions sort of count on a kid who grew up with vegetables in their meals.
Do you have any suggestions for getting kids to eat vegetables?
Well.. today I'm going to crochet myself a headband using some of Paton's silk/bamboo blend.
And try really hard to get rid of my current earworm. Mike's had What's New Pussycat? stuck in his head. I've had UFO Phil's Listening Coast to Coast and his Aliens Really Stink stuck in my head.