Making a Paper Triangle Banner (Bunting)

I'm preparing for Talia's birthday party and I wanted to try making a paper triangle banner (is there a technical word for that? I'm answering this myself- I looked it up. Bunting.) instead of using streamers this time. 

 I pulled out the ol' scrapbooking paper and here's what I came up with:

Paper Triangle Banner

Paper Triangle Banner Tutorial

If you've got 12x12 scrapbook paper, you can use the same method I did

(I've posted a Tutorial Here).

If you don't have 12x12 paper, and if it doesn't matter whether the paper looks nice on both sides, you can use this idea from The Magic Onions blog.

I used 6 different pieces of paper & got enough triangles to make 4 (double sided) triangles per pattern. This makes a pretty long banner.

Cover a Hairband with Fabric

After making the "shirt dress" for Talia, I wanted to use some of the leftover fabric from the shirt, to make a matching hairthing for her.

I bought a hairband at the dollarstore, got out the gluegun, scissors, and sme ribbon and went to work for less than 5 minutes to get this:



~This post has been shared with others at a link party~.

Mini Banner for Mail

We made a mini banner to send to my brother who is serving a mission for our church, in California.


This idea came from giverslog (a cool blog that has all kinds of homemade gift ideas and has a side focus on finding lightweight things to mail- she once mailed a frisbee (with no packaging).. cool eh? :)

Oh, and Valerie over at Frugal Family Fun Blog is doing a great giveaway on her blog right now! I love her blog, so even if you aren't thinking about the giveaway, you ought to check her blog out!

Melted Crayon Wax Suncatcher

We went over to a friend's house for a playdate on Friday, and did a fun valentine's day project! My friend found the idea on Martha Stewart's Craft of the Day here. Follow the link for instructions on how to do this craft.

Salt Dough Ornaments

Yesterday, we made salt dough ornaments & it was a lot of fun!
This morning, we started decorating them.
Here are a couple, on display:


I followed the recipe that Filth Wizardry posted for Salt Dough Ornaments, and we had a great time making a few of our own!
Talia loved the stirring & the kneading :)


We rolled the dough and cut it with cookie cutters. We made holes in them with a straw (for hanging, and for weaving- as seen in the first photo). Then we waited (too long- these things take a couple of hours! :) for them to bake.



p.s. This post was featured on ABC & 123's Kid Made Holiday Decorations post!

Pink Christmas Tree Bows

In honour of Katrina's 1st Birthday, I decided to make pink Christmas tree bows. We're going to make this a tradition since her birthday is in early December. This way, I can get Christmas decorations up early without feeling like it's "taking over" her birthday. We'll have a pink tree for a week or so, until her birthday, and then we'll start decorating it for Christmas :)


I looked up how to tie a simple bow, on the Martha Stewart website, here. (It's funny- I can tie a nice bow in a sash, but when the ribbon wasn't already attached to something, I had to google the right method, to get it right!). Then I threaded a twist tie through the back of each bow, to secure it onto the tree.

I was really happy with the result! I think I may have to buy some nice Christmas ribbon for the tree during Christmas time, because I really like the way bows look on the tree!

Unfortunately, I didn't pay attention to how much ribbon I bought- just that I got two spools... not sure how much was on each one! (And I didn't get the back corner of the tree completed, but you can't tell anyway ;)

I would definitely recommend using ribbon with some good wire on the edges, to keep the shape of the bow!

Tissue Ghosts

This morning, Talia & I made ghosts out of tissues.

To make one of these you need:
2 tissues
1 marker
1 ribbon or pipe cleaner or string

You just crumple up one tissue, wrap the other around it (creating the head), and tie the ribbon (or string or pipe cleaner) around the neck, to hold it in place. Then add the face with a marker.

We made about 70 of them this morning (a whole box of tissues worth). We are using them for invitations to a Hallowe'en event, so we needed a lot of them :)

Observations:

Talia was able to do everything except tie the knot in the ribbon (pipe cleaner probably would've worked better for her).
She would do one 'job' for a while & then suggest that we switch jobs.
She went from crumpling the head, to cutting the ribbon, to putting the finished ghosts in the bag, to wrapping the ribbon (I got the knot ready, then she pulled the ends to make it tight).