show toppers wonderment jar

It's a snow day here so Alfredo and I decided to do a little crafting. Well, mostly I crafted and Alfredo staged an epic dinosaur battle all around me. I made this adorable snow jar using a regular jar and Cosmo Cricket's super Show Toppers jar lid and mini mobile. Let me show you how I did it.

First, I used Claudine Hellmuth's paper doll set to make a fun version of our little family. It was super easy to do it in photoshop but if you don't have mad photoshop skills, you could just make the paper dolls the old-fashioned cut and paste way and then scan them in. Then, make them into Shinky Dinks by printing them onto Shrinky Dink Ink Jet plastic sheets! Shrinky Dinks will shrink to about 1/3 of the original print out size. One great thing about making Shrinky Dink paper dolls is that it's easier to cut out a paper doll that's 6" tall compared to one that's 2" tall.

To prepare the file, lighten the colors quite a bit. As the image shrinks, it becomes darker. If you skip this step, your Shrinky Dinks will be too dark.

There's nothing so fun as making Shrinky Dinks! It was most fun to make them using a toaster oven so Alfredo could easily watch them shrink. They roll and fold onto themselves as they shrink, doing somersaults. You really must make little Shrinky Dinks of yourself!

To make the snowy mound that we're standing on, I used a styrofoam ball, cut in half using a serrated kitchen knife.

I covered the styrofoam surface with a generous, gooey coat of Alene's Tacky Glue...

And then dumped clear glitter on top.

I inserted two toothpicks (trimmed to about 2")  to the snow mound so that I'd have something to attach my little people to. And I left this to dry a bit.

Meanwhile, I used the mini mobile from Cosmo Cricket to make a sweet little chandelier. I used some crinkly wire but you can use any kind of thin wire you have on hand.

I began by twisting the end of the wire to one of the hooks. I cut a length about 18" long and began threading little beads on. 

I used the tiny beads from this assortment, adding them randomly.

When I had enough beaded to make a little swag, I wrapped the wire around the next hook and continued around the entire mobile. 

Then I added another layer, with less beads, above those swags. 

I glued a large silver bead over each of the hooks to help keep the wires on...and I added some dangly bits attached in the center, like the heart bead. These dangling wires ended up being a bit too long so I wound them around a round toothpick to make them like springs, which made them shorter.

To assemble the jar, I glued the snowy mound into the bottom of the jar. I added extra glitter, which settled nicely all along the bottom of the snowy mound. Then I attached the chandelier to the hook inside the show stopper lid and screwed the lid onto the jar.

 

Can you even stand how adorable this is?  You have got to make a little version of your family for your own little snow jar! 

Claudine's Paper Doll Sets (I bought the family version)

Shrinky Dink Plastic for Ink Jet

Cosmo Cricket Show Toppers 

(Or here)

Cosmo Cricket Mini Mobile

 

Enjoy! And hey! Show me what you make!

glitter spy jar

This idea started out as a "mind jar"...perhaps you've seen them on Pinterest here, here, and here...and while I like the idea of a meditation jar (it's meant to help a child calm her/himself as the glitter falls) I thought it might be fun to make it into more of a game. Our challenge this summer is more about competing with video games and television for entertainment.

So I combined the idea of the glitter jar with the game "ispy"!

Alfredo was involved in every part of making this project...and enjoyed it almost as much as the finished thing!

First, we went on a hunt for tiny things. Goodness knows we have a lot of them. Toys, charms, buttons, and even alpha-beads that spell out his name. We collected about 30 things. The more you collect and the smaller the things, the more challenging the game. Or wouldn't it be fun to fill it with a bunch of similar things, like dinosaurs, and then search for each one.

Next, we photographed each individual thing, or group of things (for instance, 3 purple beads together). I set those up to be printed 2 each on a 4" x 6" photo paper. Then I trimmed the cards to 4' x 3" oversized cards.

Our favorite part was putting together the jar. The mind jars all used clear glue but I thought I would use cooking oil  (I don't really cook with a lot of vegetable oil but I had a couple of bottles which had turned a bit rancid. You can tell by taking a whiff...rancid oil smells funny.) First we filled the jar 3/4 full with oil. I had this fun tall jar that had contained Looza fruit juice. The tall, skinny jar worked great for us but it will work with any size jar. If you're concerned about using a glass jar, plastic will work fine too. Perhaps you could even use the plastic jar the oil came in?

Next we dumped in some glitter...a combination of colors and sizes. We are glitter rich in this house so we had plenty to choose from.

Then, Alfredo's favorite part of all...he dropped each little toy in, one at a time, watching it drift slowly to the bottom. Some toys floated for a while on top and then took the dive. Fun, fun!

Fill to about a 1/4" from the top with more oil.

Finally, because the idea of an oil slick in my living room makes me crazy, I secured the top with a bit of strong glue. Simply run a bit of the glue around the inner rim of the lid and attach. Clear bathroom caulk would work great too.

For the game, we can play together or Alfredo can play by himself. I think this might be just the thing for him while I'm preparing meals. Choose a card and then see how quickly you can find what's pictured. Some things, bigger toys like the snake, will be easy to spot, while smaller items like the buttons, will be more challenging. Choosing the card with the alpha beads spelling ALFREDO is most challenging of all since we'll have to find the letters in order!

Good cheap fun...

 Have fun making your own...I'd love to see how it turns out!

making it....

I spared no time at all. Soaked in inspiration from days of organizing all my stuff, I set to work making these baskets for gifts. I used Amy Hanna's instructions (eh hem--found in the magazine) I aged them a bit using antiquing medium that I painted on and then wiped off. Then I coated them in glitter. It was so much fun...I have 4 more to make. I'm dreaming up something really sweet to set in them...

now that's better!

So here's the problem, in a nutshell. I clean my craft room. I enjoy it for a while. Then one day I slip and don't clean it up after a project. Then another. Then I abandon the craft room for the kitchen table. Then the kitchen table craft and all its supplies are relegated to the dining room table. Another day, another kitchen table project and all its supplies are moved unceremoniously to the dining room table. Repeat as necessary until one day in a mad dash to clean the dining room, I dump all of the dining room table craft projects and supplies and anything else that might've landed on the dining room table (which, by the way, is never used for actual dining) into the already messy craft room. Maybe that happens two or three times, to the point where even passing through the craft room is an impossible task. Oh, and then to make that mess even worse, when I go into the room to retrieve craft supplies, I do that in the messiest possible way, all the while shooing Alfredo out of the room because it is so dangerous in there.

I am really hoping this time things will be different.

Here's how I'm hoping to change things:

1. All supplies and tools have proper homes. 
2. I craft only in my craft room. However, if for whatever reason I craft outside of my craft room, I will return the project and all its supplies immediately to the craft room.
3. When a project is complete, I will replace all supplies in their proper homes.
4. Every Friday will be my cleaning day. 

Okay, so do you want to see the fruit of my labors? Here's the tour:

Smack in the middle of the room is my main work area. I bought this workbench from Costco probably at least ten years ago. It's a great height and size. But you know, I would love to get giant casters for it...wouldn't that be fun? It came with a vise on the side but I'm not sure where it is now. For a few years this workbench was in our family room and was the extent of my crafting area. (There's still a paint spill on the carpet to proof it!) Someday I hope to cover all those drawer fronts with vintage wallpaper...

I covered the top with scraps of inspiring papers and had a glass cut to fit on top.

Whenever I'm painting, gluing, and glittering, I pull a piece of paper from this butcher roll to make clean up even easier.

And that blue cabinet? Do you remember when I got it? It was about 5 years ago. I got it from a local ebay auction and I think it was only $300. It's huge! I mean huge! It used to be in a pharmacy in Loudoun county...it even has trays that pull out that still smell of sulfur & chemicals! And you can't really see it in this photo but the whole bottom part is drawers! Drawers, drawers and more drawers!

I love this poster by Katie Daisy...it makes me so happy. 

This is a little cabinet of flat drawers...

I'm using it as a holding place for projects-in-progress and special bits that I want to use.

I found these lockers and file cabinet at the cottage in Leesburg. The locker store glue, paint, glitter, etc. and the file cabinet stores paper.

I have a LOT of vintage suitcases, as you can see. They take up a lot of room and make a tower too tall to be safe. So I decided to "stack" them using industrial shelving. This makes it ever so easy to get to, say, the bottom suitcase. I need to make labels for these so I can remember which holds vintage lace and which wool felt without opening all 9 of them! Mostly these cases store fabric and trim but one holds Christmas crafting stuff. That one and two other rarely used ones are at the tippy top.

One thing that made a HUGE difference in the craft room was putting in these blinds. Previously the windows just had sheers on them and I felt funny crafting at night in my pjs. I was sure the neighbors across the street were looking in and saying "What is she doing NOW?" while eating popcorn. Now I can craft all night long with crazy hair and in my pjs without worrying about peepers.

glitter houses

These beautiful glitter houses are the creations of the 7th grade girls I shared the project with. We've worked hard for more than two weeks building them from cereal boxes and aren't they fabulous? The girls had such a great time and are so proud...almost as great a time and as proud as I am. What a blessing it was to spend time with them.

I also want to give you an update on my father. He didn't have surgery (they didn't want to risk it at his age) and he's been moved to a nursing home just today. I just got word that he's running a fever and they fear he has pneumonia. I'm thinking I need to make the trip home tomorrow. It's so hard being just far enough away to make the trip a consideration. Will you continue to pray for his speedy recovery?