Cardinals Flip Flops!

This month Allison made St. Louis Cardinal Flip Flops.  She totally has the market on Crafts devoted to her favorite team:)  She took navy ribbon and wrapped it around the sides.  Then sewed a baseball button to the center of large hair bows and then attached them to her flip flops.

Paint Chip Art

Kelly is working on finishing her basement and has finished some projects this month to get closer to her goal!  She gathered a bunch of pain chips in the coral color family and cut them into triangles.  Then she arranged them in an ombre layout and glued them to a canvas.

3D Art Piece

Kelly made this piece after being inspired by this artist at the Des Moines Art Festival.  She attached some dinosaurs to a picture frame with glue.  The glass had previously been removed from the frame.  Then she gave the whole thing a coat of spray paint.

Car Garage

My son likes to try to take his toy cars to bed with him. Bad part is they keep him up - he tries to play with them, runs them up and down the wall, then ends up rolling on top of them when he falls asleep.  I  noticed that he likes to put his stuffed animals "to sleep." So, I thought, if he had somewhere to put his cars to sleep, maybe they wouldn't end up in bed with him every night.  

 My daughter "donated" her shoe box for this craft.  I put the lid on the bottom of the box. I cut off the front panel of the box and used it to make dividers.  I cut a slit in the back and front of the box to slide in the dividers.

 Then I used some fun duct tape that I picked up at Home Depot (great selection of designs!) to wrap the shoe box and divider to make it more steady and durable.  Since my son likes to tuck in his animals with a blanket I figured the cars should probably have a blanket too.  I took some extra felt I had and cut it with pinking sheers so that it would have a fun edge to it.

Overall, my son is enjoying this greatly.  He has it placed on his bookcase and part of our bedtime routine is to now tuck his cars into bed before he gets into bed.  First thing in the morning he "wakes" them up.  Very cute.

Upcycled Christmas Cards

This month Kelly went through old Christmas cards and recycled them to make a new batch of Christmas cards.  She cut out a portion of the card to fit onto folded card stock and used a glue stick to paste it on.   She then used the card scraps to make gift tags.

Towel Hangers

This month Kelly made some towel hangers out of antique door knobs and back-plates.  She was inspired by her friend that did the wall by her front entry door all of door knobs.  Here is that inspiration picture:

 For hers, Kelly removed the door knobs from the spindle, found a short bolt to screw into the spindle and then it was secured to the back plate.  The whole things was then mounted on the wall using screws (EZ Anchors) through the back plates.

 Close Up

View of both towel hangers.

Sheet Music Envelopes

 Another project Kelly did this month was to take old sheet music and fold it into usable envelopes.  The top picture shows the steps to folding and the bottom is the finished product.

Floating Frame Wall

This month Kelly finished her Floating Frame wall, which she started here.  She has painted several more frames and now hung them all on her wall.

Upcycled T-Shirt

This month Allison made a reusable shopping bag from an old t-shirt.  She cut off the sleeves, bottom hem and collar.  Then she cut 4 inch strips along the bottom through both sides of fabric and slid a bead onto a strip from each side all along the bottom.  The the strips were tied together to secure it.

Repainted Frames

 Kelly started a project this month that she hopes to continue.  She is on the lookout for fun frames and as she finds them she is spray painting them white to create a floating frame wall.  Off to a good start!

Outdoor Bowling Set

I have a ton of puff containers that we had been through.  

 I thought I certainly could come up with something to do with all of these.  We decided to make an outdoor bowling set!  I gathered the containers, colored duct tape we had on hand, my glue gun, a funnel and bought a 5 lbs bag of rice and a kickball.

  I used the duct tape to seal the lids on.

I used the funnel to pour rice in about 2-3 inches full on the bottom.  Then I used the glue gun to seal the lid and placed an extra piece of duct tape over the opening.

TaDa!  We marked X's on the ground with sidewalk chalk where to place the pins and lined them up.  Then we took turns kicking the ball into the pins.  The kids had a great time stacking them back up and kicking them over again and again.  It was a really quick craft to do and my oldest even helped.

Solar Lights

This month Kelly did some updating of Solar Lights. She had seen this idea on Etsy.  After using supplies she had around the house and some picked up from the Dollar Tree she removed the stake from the light and super glued the light into the shaker that was filled with glass gems.  Easy and cheap.

 Supplies Used: Solar Yard Lights, Glass Parmesan Cheese Shakers, Super Glue (All purchased at Dollar Tree for $5 total).  Kelly already had the glass gems on hand. 

Finished Product!  One of the lights has the solar panel on top and the other has it overturned so that the gems are surrounding the light.

Recycled Frames

These frames were originally brass colored bamboo and a dark green.  Kelly gave them new life by spray painting them white.

Then Kelly spray painted over an old print with celery green and painted a silhouette of a bird on a branch to go in the frame.  She put the mirrors back into the two smaller frames.