Bitty Gals Tutorial

Here it is my very first tutorial!

Bitty Gals is what my girls decided to name them. Basically they are peg people! I thought this would be a fun thing to create for stocking stuffers or as one of the little gifts for our advent calendar. I had a load of fun painting them with fun colors and designs and it was super easy!

1. Gather your supplies : Acrylic paints in assorted colors, glossy finish or varnish, paint brushes, fine line paint markers, small artists paint tray or paper plate for pouring and mixing paint, cup of water, paper towels, protective surface such as grocery brown paper bag, and wooden peg people ( mine are actually called "girl game pieces")

2. Paint your dolls head in any flesh color all around and slightly down her front for a v-neck or round neck dress and let dry.

3. Paint your dolls dress making sure to give her a neck by painting a v-neck or round neck top and let dry.

4. Embellish the dress with complimenting colors and designs and let dry.

5. Paint on hair style and let dry.

6. Using fine tip paint markers draw on a face and let dry.

Before you know it you will have a whole entourage of pretty Bitty Gals lined up!

7. Coat using a paint brush all of your Bitty Gals with a high gloss finish or varnish to give them a finished look, let dry and you're done!

I can't wait to see my girls dancing their little Bitty Gals around!

Enjoy and Happy Crafting!

Party Favor Box Cake

The second I laid eyes on this idea, I just had to have some! Get your free template at Better Homes and Gardens! This was super easy! I just enlarged the template by 200% and used it to create these beautiful treat boxes! I went with the Christmas theme... tis' the season! I plan on using it as an advent calendar, as there are 24 slices. Now I just need ideas for what to fill them with!

Black Apple Doll

My first attempt at the Black Apple Doll! Isn't she cute?! My daughter just loves her too! I made her in under an hour last night with some left over fabric scraps and surprised my little girl in the morning with her! What a great way to use up some bits of scrap material! Want to try one? Go to Martha Stewart's website for an easy free tutorial and free pattern of Emily Martin's Black Apple Doll. Emily also has a fun blog to check out here!
Happy crafting all!

Scrappin' My Childhood

Ok, it's been a long time since I have posted and I am sorry! I haven't had much crafting time being the busy mama of three crazy girls, but I am going to keep trying to squeeze it in there when I can!

I have been officially scrapbooking for 7 years now! I wish I had 7 years worth of scrapbooking done, but I am no where near that! I love BUYING all the fabulous papers and embellishments my local scrapbook store provides at decent prices, but once home with my latest and greatest stash I have a hard time finding the energy and inspiration to create.

Up until this week my scrappin' has been all about my three gals. I was feeling quite nostalgic though and decided to make it work for me. I headed over to the scrap store with some old pictures of me when I was a kid and came home with the perfect vintagey papers to get my creativity flowing! Here are the results:

Summer '82

Shipbottom, NJ 1981

Sorry about the poor picture quality. I took photo's of the layouts and then cropped them on Photoshop. I wish I had a large 12x12 scanner! It's on the wish list as well as a Wishblade!!! If anyone has any better ideas of how to post 12x12 scrapbook pages on a blog let me know in the comments section!

Craft Talk

This is just too funny! I had to share!

It's Finally Finished!!!

My King size quilt that is! It's finally complete! I started this huge project years ago with my grandmother when my oldest daughter (now almost 8 years old) was at the age where she thought it was perfectly fine to draw on this quilt with markers *gasp* while I wasn't looking! At first this quilt was hand quilted stitch by stitch..... I had made it half way through when I had a not so bright idea and decided to sew it with my machine. Well, it was too thick to fit through the machine but I tried anyways and the quilt ended up all bunched up in a mish mosh of stitches! It was a wreck! Marker all over the backing and crumpled, wrinkled and stitched up top!

We pulled it all apart again together, my grandmother and I and we, ummmm.... I mean SHE fixed it ALL for me! She bought a gigantic quilting table and machine, had it set up in her sun room (I helped a little setting it up), bought new backing for the quilt and then she sewed, sewed and sewed some more until it was all quilted and brought back to life again! Her craftsmanship is AMAZING! I just finished putting on the binding around the border and I plan on stitching on a "quilted by" label with our names. It is finally finished, all the love sweat and struggle you could ever want poured into my very first quilt, and only quilt so far... That was crazy hard stuff! I don't know if I have the strength or time to attempt that ever again! Thank you Mommom!

That would be my 20 month old daughter enjoying the comforts of handmade!


I thought it would be great to have a few pictures of it on my bed, but hubby is sleeping in it right now! He's a third shift worker. So I decided to hang it off the edge of my daughter's crib and guess what? I think it blends pretty well with her unique decor! Hmmm... a certain somebody is going to be getting her big girl Montessori bed soon! I would definitely have to fold it in at least half, maybe into quarters for it to be Sonya sized!

Origami Flower Pots

For a fun way to recycle old newspapers (trimmed to size) try this out! You can use them to plant bulbs or seeds in and give them as gifts or use them yourself! This is another fun idea from my 8 year old daughter's "green theme" birthday party. We are having all the kids plant crocus bulbs inside them and then they will be able to take their plants home with them to place in their own gardens! The paper will biodegrade so you can actually just plant the whole pot into the ground! They are so much better for the environment than those plastic pots that just get tossed into the trash! For mine I used scrapbook paper that was outdated, I knew I wouldn't be using them on a layout so this was a great way to use up those papers cluttering my space. Try it with old newspapers, junk mail, old notes to self, used coffee filters or pages from a paperback book that is ready to retire. How about drawings from your kids, you know, the ones that you toss, be honest we can't keep them all! Plus I bet your toddler or younger child would love to see that their pretty drawing turned into some pretty flowers! Have fun with it! Enjoy!

Signature!

Want a spiffy signature for the bottom of your posts? Create one and learn how to apply it here! It's super easy! Hint: I saved my signature data in a saved post, that way I will always have it at my fingertips for copying and pasting! Cool huh?!

Grab Button!

Want to make a grab button? I finally figured it out! Here's the instructions:

1. Make the button

Make a button, badge, banner or whatever. Make it eye-catching and inviting. The goal is to get people to click the button. I used Photobucket to create mine. Make sure that the image created is appropriately sized. You may have to play around with it to get it to the size you want. Mine is 160x120, but it could probably be a little bit larger.

2. Display the button and code in your sidebar

Login to your Blogger account.
Go to Layout>Page Elements.
Click Add A Gadget.
In Add A Gadget window, select HTML/Javascript .
Enter the title of your widget e.g. Link back to us or Grab this button.
Copy the code below and paste it inside the window.

Be sure to make the adjustments of "LinkToYourButton", "LinkToYourBlog" and "YourBlogName"
Click Save.

For Blogger, copy and paste this code into HTML/Javascript gadget

<center><a title="YourBlogName" href="LinkToYourBlog" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="LinkToYourButton" /></a></center>

Where:

"LinkToYourButton" is the direct link to the button.
"LinkToYourBlog" is of course the url of your blog.
"YourBlogName" is of course the name of your blog.
You can change the size of the text box by changing the width and height values.

Enjoy and start gaining followers in a more exciting and creative way!

T-Shirt Bag

After running across this cool tutorial at Instructables, I just had to try it out! Since I didn't have any t-shirts that were ready to be re-purposed I headed out to our local Salvation Army/ thrift store and found some perfect T's to transform! For just $6 I ended up with 8 awesome bags to use as goody bags at my 8 year old daughter's "green theme" birthday party! Her favorite one is the pinkish red one with the kitten dressed in ruby slippers and diamonds. This was seriously super easy to do! Check it out and have fun!

Snack Bags!

Yay for my first craft post! I first made these for my soon to be 8 year olds "green theme" birthday party as part of the favors. These super cool eco-friendly snack bags are made from empty potato chip bags! You use them just as you would a Ziploc bag, except you can't put anything super gooey or wet in them. Some suggestions would be cookies, chips, pretzels, carrot and celery sticks, crackers and maybe even apple slices. They are hand washable with soap and water and can be stood open and upside down to air dry. In the pictures the bags that I had made have tags on them with care instructions... sorry they block some of the view! They were really easy to do too! Want to make some for yourself? Go to French Sleep Deprivation Study for the tutorial!