Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Craftiness (aka temporary insanity)

I believe in self-awareness, so let me just put it out there that I am not the craftiest schmuck on the block.  I am probably not the least, but am certainly not the most.

For some reason though, I caught the crafty bug last month and went hog wild (for me).  Honestly, it must have been a full moon because the day that I went crafty was the same day that Myra flashed her boobies during story time.

All of that being said though, I am SUPER excited about how my projects turned out!

1. Sesame Street Gift Bags


Yes!  This is totally how they turned out; it not a picture stolen from Google images.  Promise.  

I am not going to lie, I am pretty proud of these.  They were a ton of work, but were relatively easy and cheap.  I bought 2 packs of 13 gift bags from Michael's and used construction paper to cut out the pieces for the faces.  I used double sided tape to adhere everything and VOILA!  Many hours and many f-bombs later, we had these amazing gift bags.  

I thought they looked pretty good, but I was the most excited when Moosey could immediately tell who they were.



2. Mistle"toes"

I saw this idea on Pinterest and decided to go for it.  Like I said, full moon.  Honestly this one took us many takes because toddler feet are fat and wiggly, but we finally got two awesome ones (one for each set of grandparents) and one decent one (for us).


How cute is that?!  Look at those adorable little toes.  :)

For this, I bought canvases (Michael's sells a 2 pack, which came out to be around $3.50 total after my coupon).  I also bought sponge brushes and acrylic paint.  I put the dots on, let it dry, and then we did the challenging part of putting on the footprints.

We did 6 canvases to get the 3 that we kept, so it truly wasn't easy.  The problem is that you can't instruct a 2 year old to keep their feet totally still and expect her to listen / understand.  Even with me holding her and Josh holding the canvas, she would slide her feet and curl her toes a bit.  Alas, though, we got three good ones!


After the feet dried, I used a Sharpie Paint Pen to draw the bows and we used a staple gun to adhere the ribbon.  All in all, relatively easy, very cheap, and super cute!

3. Ornaments 

This one is super simple and not really creative at all, BUT I did let my almost 2 year old (at the time) use acrylic paints on my dining room table, so that, in and of itself, deserves a shout out (or a slap in the face - what was I thinking?!).

The frames drying.

This is what my dining room table looked like after the frame
painting.  There is still some residual paint.  Oops.

We bought the plaster frame ornaments from Michael's and used the above-mentioned acrylic paints to paint them.  I used a Sharpie paint pen to write the year on each one (not pictured) and I ordered a bunch of wallet sized photos from her Christmas photo shoot and am going to put one in each frame.  Boom!  Easiest and cutest gift / keepsake ever.

A tip that I recently learned online.  You can use packaging tape to "laminate" photos for projects like this.  Genius, right?!?  I love the internet.

And that, my friends, is what we have been up to this month!  Why?  I have no idea.  I am just wondering if motherhood is like Girl Scouts.  Do I get a badge or something that will designate me as having been crafty (so that it doesn't have to happen again)??

My little artist.  :)





22 comments:

  1. Motherhood should have a crafty badge!! And the packaging tape for laminating- genius!

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  2. Isn't it though?! I am totally going to use that for everything now. I have no idea why I didn't think of it!


    And maybe we should start selling badges for Moms. I know we all deserve them! :)

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  3. I am the horrible friend that did not even commend you on your gift bags. They.are.awesome! B is obsessed with his Elmo bag and is currently collecting a few of his favorite balls. Well done! You can be proud. I may even call you Martha!

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  4. Yay for being crafty. I enjoy it for the most part but drop f bombs too. We painted ornaments with V and she had a blast. I actually need a couple more because I miscounted. Oops.

    The Sesame Street bags are perfect!!!

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  5. I really like these crafts! Thanks for adding these to Time For Mom! Hope you link up next week!

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  6. I love the idea of having your kid make something as gifts! I was thinking of letting mine color on paper to wrap presents with but he only made a few lines so I gave up until next year! lol! Thanks for sharing with us (Time for Mom)!!!

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  7. For not being the 'craftiest schmuck' (giggle) on the block you sure did wonders here! I love cookie monsters crazy googly eyes. Visiting from "FridayFlashBlog' from over at www.ritewhileucan.com where I get a little crazy over all things paper and letter writing.

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  8. These are great craft ideas for the kiddo. It looks like she is loving it too. Thanks for stopping by. Following you now. I look forward to seeing more of your mommy & me crafts.

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  9. Those bags are so cute! I am just visiting from the Super Sunday Sync. Cute blog. www.craftycouponista.blogspot.com

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  10. Oh yeah, I'm pinning it!! You did a great job! Thank you for linking to Super Sunday Sync!

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  11. OMG .. the mistletoes are so cute. And hey, get some damn clothes on that kid! Reagan does the same thing. Yesterday she ran around in her freaking underwear all damn day. What is that??

    ¤´¨)
    ¸.•*´
    (¸¤ Lanaya | xoxo
    http://raising-reagan.com

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  12. LOL!! I have a long way to go before Martha starts quoting me in her magazine. :) And you are not a horrible friend at all! I am glad that B likes his bag. I made sure that he got Elmo. Myra kept an Elmo and a Bert one. Once I knew that she recognized the characters, I figured that I did a decent job. ;)

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  13. Thank you!! I really did love how the bags turned out and they were so much cheaper to make than they were to buy.


    Good luck with ornaments part #2. We also miscounted ours and had to paint again. The second time was much worse because Myra decided that she only wanted to use yellow paint. :)

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  14. Lol! I don't blame you. After painting a few ornaments, I was totally ready to let it wait until next year. Coloring paper for wrapping presents is a great idea though! I may have to try that one next year (if I go temporarily insane again). :)


    Thanks for reading and commenting!:)

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  15. Thank you!! I love the eyes too. Cookie Monster is the best.


    Thanks for reading and commenting. Heading over to check out your blog now!

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  16. Thank you! She really did love the painting part. She wanted to do it everyday for the rest of the week. Lol!


    Thanks for reading! :)

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  17. Thank you so much!! I was pretty happy with how they turned out and it was much cheaper than buying them!

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  18. Aww..thanks! :) I think I might have to quit while I'm ahead now. ;)

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  19. Violet is obsessed with yellow too! So weird.

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  20. These are great! I love the Sesame Street gift bags!

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  21. Thank you so much! I am really happy with how they turned out and my daughter loved them! :)

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Thanks so much for stopping by! I would love to hear from you, so please take a minute to leave me any comments, suggestions, funny stories, or advice about this journey called Mommyhood.

Becky :)