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One of Pickles' favorite thing about Thanksgiving is Christmas. Yep, Christmas. Every year at Thanksgiving we give the kids a Christmas list handout. It's a fun little worksheet that the kids fill out instead of just making a list. They can have questions, fill-in-the-blanks, silly trivia and more. The kids really have fun with them. Try handing these out for a little change of pace. Feel free to print and use these!

 

 

Pretty Pins - Girl Scout gifts

Something all Girl Scouts celebrate is the birthday of Juliette Gordon-Low, founder of the Girl Socuts. It falls on October 31 and is usually celebrated with a birthday party, ice cream social or a fun event of some sort.

Our troop celebrated the day before at our troop meeting. I wanted to make a special little gift for the girls and looking at painting of J-Low, realized it would make a pretty piece of jewelry.

So I looked through the craft stash and took out some goodies:
Bottle caps
beads & small sequins
white tulle
felt
safety pins
Juliette Gordon-Low

First things first, rub the back of the bottle caps with some sandpaper to scuff it up. Trust me on this, it's help with gluing later! So, I printed the pic above, sizing it to fit inside the bottle caps and glued them in with some glitter glue and let it dry.

 

 

 

Because we're talking about little girls (and one pre-teen) here, I knew that "sparkle" would have to be a part of this gift. Yes, shiny is best isn't it? So I  filled the cap with some glitter, iridescent sequins and a shiny bead or two.

 

I put some glitter glue around the edge of the bottle cap and laid a square of tulle on top of it (just trimmed it when the glue was dry). You can also use glitter nail polish, it's shiny, it dries quickly and hardens when it does.

 

Finally, I made circles from the felt, cutting slits so that the clasp and the spring were exposed and the staff was glued behind the felt, against the back of the bottle cap (which you pre-scraped to help the glue adhere).

 

 

Each girl got a fun, sparkly pin featuring Juliette! My advice, use the larger, choppy glitter so it doesn't fall out through the tulle!

 

 

 

 

 

A Place for Pickles

A while ago...a long while ago, I salvaged a cute and fab vanity chair from the roadside. It was a mid-century treat to find it and I took it home to love.I sat at my vanity for a while, but after Pickles' vanity make-over I decided she should have it. Sometimes I really hate making permanent changes to vintage finds. I love the old look of them so I try to find ways of updating without altering.

In this case, it wa as simple as sewing up some quick covers. Naturally I wanted it to coordinate with her room and that was easy because I used the bedskirt for her bed!

 

 

For the back of the seat, I simply cut a a rectangle and sewed up the top and the side leaving the

 bottom (already hemmed, thanks to the manufacturer!) open to slip over the back.

 

In my fabric stash I found a great piece of purple stretch velvetine. I folded that in half, just like the bedskirt material and sewed up two sides again, making a sleeve to slip over the seat.

 

 

Finally, for the skirt....literally, I made an elastice waistband skirt. I cut more of the bed skirt fabric and folded the top over to make a "waistband" for the elastic. I ran elastic through it and sewed the two ends together. There's a great tutorial here at DanaMadeIt.

 

 

It was an easy project that was quick to make. I dare venture to say, you could get the same results with iron-on fusable tape instead of sewing. It turned a chair into a little throne!

 

 

 

 

A Tail of Christmas

Animal lovers know that our furry friends are part of the fun at family get-togethers. They hang out, they photobomb, they beg for scraps. They can even get in on the gift giving. Now that Christmas is over, I can tell you that Mother Darling got a special present from her "granddogs".

The pooches decided that Mother Darling should have a sweet trinket to keep them near to her. A photo bracelet is just what Santa ordered! Pepper and the gang asked for my help due to the fact that well, they don't have thumbs. The materials included:

 

Photo charm bracelet (on clearance at the craft store)

Clear bubble stickers

Small printed pic of the granddogs

 

First thing was to cut the pics to fit inside the bubble stickers. The easier thing to do though, was to just place the stickers on the pictures. Then I just cut them both out!

 

 

Once all the pics are cut, I just glue them into the bracelet. Easy peasy, right?

 

Now Mother Darling has something fab from her favorite paw pals!

 

not business as usual

Pickles and I have a morning ritual. She comes down from her bed and sits in my lap for a couple of minutes while I rock her and talk about what's in store for the day. It was not lost on me that this morning, there are parents who do not have the luxury, the priveledge, of holding their little ones. They can't hug their babies, they can't kiss them. I cannot begin to imagine the intense depth of their grief. Crying, I sat and prayed. All I can do is pray and ask anyone out there to do the same. Pray for comfort, for peace, for healing.

hard candy Christmas...but not really

There's something about a jar full of found objects. I love jars of buttons, they're the best. I also love jars of bottle caps. When I was a kid (insert dinosaur joke), bottle caps were the currency of choice for our imaginary trips to the imaginary grocery store.

The collection above has been sitting on my shelf for about a year and the collection itself is about 2 years in the making. I wanted to make something Christmasy with them for my Junque Tree. Pickles was vehemently against this since she feels it means "ruining" the caps somehow.

Take heart, my dear Pickles! A a fun, non-altering solution is here. I've decided to make a candy wrapped garland with them. The idea is simple. I'm using cellophane to wrap the bottle caps like hard candy. All I need is:

*bottle caps
*scissors
*roll of clear cellophane - cut into 4 inch wide strips along the length of the roll.
*pipe cleaners (mine are gold!) - cut into 1 to 1.5 inch pieces

 

It's kinda tricky to capture, but here's the strip of cellophane. I placed two bottle caps together with the open sides facing each other and wrap them just like you would a hard candy disc. You know...

 

Dang cellophane!! The camera won't focus on it!  Ok, so twist the cellophane and tie it closed with your pipecleaner piece.  Same for the other side and there you have you first "candy".

 

Now, just add another and another tieing after each one. When you're coming to the end of a cellophane strip (about 4 or 5 inches left at the end) just start a new one and add it to your existing strand. Simply place the end of the new strand inside the end of the old strand. Then just continue on your merry way.

What you wind up with is a garland of bottle caps and they do look like candy!

 

They are too perfect for the Junque Tree!

 

 

 

 

hooked on colors

Holy Pinata, Batman! I love the colors on my tree, it's like Fiestas Patrias! But I couldn't hang my cute little decorations with those plain old aluminum hooks. How booooring. I needed something festive, bright, cheery. Oh if only I could find that special something...
But wait! What's that I spy? Over in the stationary supplies in the kitchen. Could it be? Yes! Paper clips.

Okay, that's not how it happened. I was cleaning the stationary cabinet and I ran across the paper clips. I remembered using them as hooks in the past but now...they'recolored!

Just open them up and voila! A cute, color coordinated hook for my scrap medallions.