Painting the Clay

Two days ago I gave my kids a bunch of Crayola Clay and said, "Have fun!" Two days later their creations were ready to paint. The tub said water colors would work for painting the dry clay. I was a little doubtful but this morning I let the kids have at it. The water color worked perfectly and there was minimal mess. We have a total of 10 paper plates of clay creations and now they are all painted. My son made an airplane and sword. My daughter made a "jewelry pot." I would say worth the $10 in supplies and the 2 hours of activity keeping my kids busy.

Felt Banner

This is a fun and fabulous kid craft, with a little help (or a lot) from mom. You will need two larger pieces of felt, ribbon, felt glue and various smaller pieces of colored felt. Decorate one larger piece of felt using your felt glue. When complete glue to other piece of felt with ribbon in between. The kids and I made wall hangings for their rooms using simple shapes.

Spring Break Kid's Crafts

It is Spring Break this week for my 6 and 8 year old who are in kindergarten and second grade. So what fun to do a couple crafts. To keep them busy this morning while I worked out for almost an hour I purchased a tub of air-drying modeling clay. The tub was $5.99 and they were able to mold soldiers, tanks, fires and oh yea a bunch of pumpkins. For some reason they are thinking of Halloween already and want to hide their pumpkins for each other to find on Halloween. Later in the week they will be painting their creations. I will blog about this later.

Fun and Fabulous Hair Ties

This Saturday my motivation is gone but I am still anxious to do something. Do you ever feel this way? It is like you want to do something but not quite sure what so you do nothing. Well I was searching for craft ideas, this is what I do when I get this way. I can sit on my butt but keep my mind working. Anyways I came across this idea. I have a girly girly and had some left over tulle from a tutu I made for a friend's little girl. So I grabbed a thick rubber band and looped and tied the tulle around the band. I thought it was so cute that I decided to make another one out of ribbon to match my daughter's Easter dress. It is cute and easy. So glad I got off my butt and did something.

Super Easy Fabric Gift Bag

We all hear it: reuse, reduce and recycle. Well why not take leftover fabric from a project to make cute gift bags. These bags can be used over and over again and won't rip and they are original and inexpensive. I will be giving you step by step directions to make these easy bags. All you need is a sewing machine, an iron, a strip of fabric (size of your choice) and some ribbon. Be creative and have some fun! If you choose to do this project I would love to hear from you and to see how your gift bags turned out! 1. Start with one strip of fabric. 2. Iron a straight hem on both skinny ends. 3. Match up hemmed ends (right sides together) and press. 4. Sew about 1/4" in on each side. Remember to reinforce the top and the bottom by doing a back stitch. 5. Press side seams flat. 6. Flip bag to right side and measure from each seam desired handle placement. Pin ribbon handles in place. (handles can be any length you choose) 7. Sew hem and handles down, reinforcing ribbon. 8. Iron flat. 9. Add tissue paper and you have a beautiful gift bag.

Fun and Fabulous Crafts

If you don't know me too well, then let me explain one thing, I am super crafty. I in particular like to sew. Now if you know me and have for years this may surprise you because I did not truly learn to sew until about 7-8 years ago when my mom bought me a sewing machine for Christmas. Since then I have worn out that machine and bought a machine on my own. I created my own design business. I have made hundreds maybe even thousands of purses and totes. If you so choose check out my website: www.emjdesign.etsy.com This month I wanted to share with my blog readers a few easy crafts, mostly these crafts will be sewn. Every month I dedicate my blog to one friend. This month I am going to dedicate this blog to my friend Kristin Ramsey. She is super super crafty! I admire her and all her ideas and I am telling you if we lived closer than we would have a blast crafting together. So Kristin if you are reading this thank you for your inspiration!