Little Easter Egg Tree Decoration

As we prepare for Easter this year, I have really been trying to make some decorations because I really don't have any. I love how this came out! This little Easter Tree was simple to make, it didn't take too long to make, and it only cost about $5.00 to make.

 

 

I picked these little foam egg ornaments up from the dollar store, they are the same ones that I hung on my Easter Tree. I used almost 4 packs of them to make the tree. I cut the ribbon off of each egg with scissors and they worked perfectly.

 

I picked up the foam cone from the dollar store as well. If you don't have any leftover paper grass, you can also pick up a bag in the dollar store.

I heated my glue gun and started to glue these eggs in place.

 

I started at the bottom and worked my way up...

Until the whole cone was covered in eggs. 

Then I took the paper grass and using a pencil, I "stuck" it in all of the cracks, spaces, and crevices.

I didn't need to use any additional glue to hold the paper in place.

 

Easy Peasy Easter Decoration, I love it :)

 

Easy and Cute Easter Egg Bouquet

 

With Easter quickly approaching, I am trying to create some cute and simple decorations to decorate my house with. This Easter Egg Bouquet was something that I was able to throw together in a matter of minutes. I had most of the things I needed on hand, but you can pick them up at the dollar store if you don't. This bouquet is so simple to make, a person that has never crafted a day in there life will whip it out in minutes.

All you need are some plastic Easter eggs that have little holes in the bottom (some eggs have the holes and some don't so be sure to check), some skewers (I had these left over from the summer), a vase, and some jelly beans if desired.

 

 

Place the pointy tip of a skewer into one of the holes on the bottom of the egg.

It will be a snug fit, so it is not necessary to glue them in place.

 

 

Cut or break off the bottoms of the skewers (I started using scissors, but I found it much easier to just break them) to make them the desired length.

 

 

Place them in a vase of your choice and fill with jelly beans, if desired.

 

I decided to glue a bow that I had leftover from another project to the front of the vase. I love these plastic bows, they are so pretty and they were 3 for $1 at the Dollar Tree.

There you have it, a cute and easy Easter Egg Bouquet to decorate your house with.

Happy Easter!

 

 

Little Dragon Glove Puppet

I made this adorable little dragon glove  puppet to add to our Dragon Sensory Tub that we are working on putting together. I made it using an odd glove that I couldn't find a match for (We ALWAYS have mateless gloves, my children lose gloves like the lose socks!!), felt, 2 buttons, and 2 googley eyes. If you don't have any loney mateless gloves, you can always pick up a set in the dollar store. You should be able to find all of the other items needed in  the dollar store if you don't have them lying around in your house.  I got the pattern for his wings and crest off of Spoonful.com. Once I cut my felt pieces out and sewed them on along with buttons. I used my hot glue gun to glue the googey eyes on.

Now he is all ready for play!

This little glove puppet is an awesome little gift for any little dragon lover! This would also be a great, inexpensive party favor for the kids to take home from a dragon party! 

 

 

Fire Breathing Dragon Mask Craft

My son and I are working on putting together a Dragon Sensory Tub. I really like to add handmade items to our sensory tubs when possible, especially items that he made.  This craft was relatively easy and fun to make. It will be a fun addition to our sensory tub, but it is also a great stand alone craft for your toddler or preschooler or party favor for a knights and dragon party!

 

 

These are little dragon faces that "breathe fire" when a child blows into them.

I picked the green plastic cups up from the dollar store along with red, orange, and yellow crepe paper. I cut the bottoms of the cups off with scissors and then glued strips of the crepe paper to the inside of the opening. If you are making this for a child, low temp hot glue works great because it dries so quick. If a child is making this, glue dots are great to use because they hold in place and do not require any drying time. I cut 2 small rectangles out of cardstock and folded them in half to make the eyes pop out. We then glued the folded rectangles into place and added the eyes.

Now, my son can run around breathing fire like a dragon!

 

 

Pretty DIY Heart Garland for Valentine's Day

This year, I am having my son's birthday party a few days  before Valentine's Day and I have been busy, busy, busy with preparations for it, so I am a little pressed for time when it comes to making Valentine's Day decorations. I have been trying to come up with a few ways to make some simple decorations that are both fast and easy to make and can be thrown up and taken down easily. 

This Valentine's Day garland that I made out of heart doilies, fits the bill.

Not only does this garland look pretty with the sunlight shinning through it, but it was so simple and inexpensive to make. 

As soon as I saw these doilies in the Dollar Tree, I knew I wanted to make garland out of it.

With 30 hearts for a dollar, you can make a lot of garland!

I cut a piece of white yarn a little bit longer than the length  that I wanted the garland to be and then fed it through the holes in the heart doilies. I then used the extra yarn on the ends to hang it up.

Simple and easy, I even got to catch up on one of my shows while I made it! 

Make a Statement at Your Child's Next Birthday Party with a Simple Birthday Wreath!

 

Lately, I am on a wreath kick... I made one for Thanksgiving, 3 for Christmas (plus 11 for gifts), a dinosaur wreath for my son's birthday party (with a second one planned), and I am working on putting together one for Valentine's Day. I decided that I wanted to make at least one wreath each month of this year to keep things interesting. I figured I would make a birthday wreath for January since my little guy's birthday is this month. This wreath will also be used in April for a week or so for my big guy's birthday.  I saw similar wreaths like this one on Etsy that were selling for over $60 and I made it for under $10! This wreath was very simple to make and it didn't take too long make either.

 

I used a hay wreath that I picked up at the craft store using a 50% off coupon, so it only cost me like $2.00. I grabbed the floral pins at the craft store, they were $1.99 for a pack of 150, I used about half of them (check the dollar store for these, sometimes they have them in stock). I purchased big packs of balloons from the dollar store, I used 4 bags for my 14 inch wreath.

 

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Take 2 balloons and roughly fold them in half, take a floral pin and place it over the midway point of the balloons and push it completely into the wreath.

 

 

Repeat, placing the balloons next to each other in different directions until the wreath is completely covered. Please don't mind my severely peeling nail polish, my nails clearly need some attention! LOL

 

 

Once the wreath is covered, fill in as needed.

You have a beautiful, colorful, and very happy birthday wreath!

 

 

 

 

I found this little wooden pre-painted "party" sign at the craft store for $1.29 that I attached, using hot glue.

What do you think?

So cute and simple... And under $10.00!

What more could I ask for?

I love it and so does my son-- He woke up with the biggest smile the next morning because he knew it was made especially for his birthday!

 

Tissue Paper Leaf Sun Catcher

We had a blast making our Tissue Paper Leaf Sun Catchers at our playdate last week, they were so much fun that we had to make another one! This is a great craft for a playdate or for a Fall party because it is easy to do and is very inexpensive. 

 

 

You can pick up everything you need in the dollar store-- clear contact paper, colored tissue paper, and construction paper. You will also need a pencil, a piece of string, scissors, and a hole punch.

 

 

Fold 1 piece of construction paper in half. Draw or trace (Google leaf template images) a leaf onto the paper and cut it out. Then cut small squares out of the tissue paper. A little goes a log way, I cut 1 strip off of each piece of tissue paper and then cut it into small squares.

 

 

Cut a rectangular piece of contact paper that when folded in half, will fill the leaf window that you made in the paper. Remove the paper from half of the contact paper and cover it with small pieces of tissue paper. Be sure to overlap the piece of tissue paper like you are making a collage.

 

 

Remove the paper backing from the other half of the contact paper and fold it over the side that has the tissue paper.

 

Open your construction paper and place your contact paper/tissue paper sandwich inside, covering the leaf window.

 

 

Glue and/or tapethe contact paper to hold it in place between both sides of the construction paper.

 

You can leave your sun catcher as is or trim it with your scissors.

Punch a hole in it and put your sting threw to hang it.

 

The sun shines nicely through it-- today was not a very sunny day, it actually snowed and rained all day, but you get the idea!

 

I am planning on making more of these with my little one in different designs, I will keep you posted!

 

Simple No Sew Fabric Advent Countdown Chain-- Each Link has an Activity for Our Family to Do!

With Thanksgiving just days away, I have to start preparing for Christmas. I love Christmas, it is my absolute favorite holiday.  Christmas will be here in a month and I still have so much to do!

I figured I better get to work on our "Christmas Countdown Chain." Last year, I made a paper one with my kids and they loved it! Tearing a paper link off first thing in the morning was the highlight of my little one's day. Every morning, as soon as he woke hope, he would rip one link off and then count the remaining links so he knew exactly how many days were left till Santa came. I will probably still make a paper one with him, but I wanted to make a fabric version that I could reuse  year after year. Another idea that I had thought of, was to write a family activity inside we could do each day. This was the easiest and quickest way that I came up with to combine both ideas.

 

I picked up red, green, and white satin ribbon, and self adhesive Velcro circles from the dollar store. I pulled out white address labels from my stash (they also carry these in the dollar store).

 

I used my pinking shears to cut the ribbon into small strips.

 

I cut the address labels in half long ways to make small strips that would easily fit on the ribbon.

 

On each label, I wrote a different activity that we will do each day. Some of the different activities are: Cook Dinner with Mommy, Wrap a Present, Bake Cookies, Read a Christmas Story, Make an Ornament, Make a Christmas Craft, Watch a Christmas Movie, Popcorn and a Movie Night, Spend the Night in the Living Room, Make Reindeer Noses, Ice Cream Sundae Night.....

 

 

I put the labels and the Velcro circles on the ribbon strips and arranged them in the order that I wanted them in.

 

 

We will remove the first link the day after Thanksgiving, our activity will be to start decorating the house. Saturday's activity is to go cut our Christmas Tree down and on Sunday we will decorate it.

Leaf Placemats for Thanksgiving

Last week, we had some friends over for a playdate. We  had a blast making these fun Fall themed placemats. We decided to add some cute handprint turkeys to them to make them perfect for Thanksgiving. These were fun and easy to make. The kids loved going outside and searching for leaves to add to their placemat. 

 

 

To make these, you need 2 pieces of clear contact paper cut to the size of a placemat. I picked up rolls of contact paper from the Dollar Tree, I got 2 placemats (4 pieces) from each roll.  Take the paper backing off of 1 piece of contact paper and lay it sticky side up on your work space.

Place your leaves and handprint turkey wherever you like onto the sticky side of contact paper.
*I chose to cut out our handprint turkey, some didn't.

 

 

Once everything is in place, put the second sheet of contact paper on top of the first one. I found the easiest way to do this is to take the paper off as you go-- Remove the paper about an inch or two and stick that to the bottom sheet. Then, repeat with a few more inches. Continue to repeat until you are done.

 

 

Smooth the contact paper out to make sure it sticks and then trim the ends with scissors so that they are even. 

 

 

There you have it, a wonderful kid-made placemat for your child to use and show-off  on Thanksgiving!

My son is loving his, he cannot wait to show it to his Grandma & Poppie on Thanksgiving!

 

I plan on making these with the kids again next year, I think I may do them a little earlier so that we can highlight all of the beautiful colors of Fall. Here in PA, the leaves are mostly brown by the time November rolls around.

My Eyeball Monster Pumpkin

 

I love crafting, especially around the holidays. Halloween and Christmas are my 2 favorite holidays so this time of year I am always crafting! I found these black foam pumpkins at Target in their dollar section and decided to pick 3 up. This is the first one I made, simple but cute. My kids love monsters and googley eyes so I figured I'd make a monster pumpkin filled with a ton of eyes. They really got a kick out of it. It didn't take me under a half an hour to hot glue (with a low temp gun) all of the eyes on. I picked the googely eyes up from the dollar store, so this pumpkin cost me under $2 to make and brought me lots of smiles. Now to figure out what to do with the other pumpkins!!

Popsicle Stick Catapult

 

I made these simple popsicle stick catapults last week for a playdate. I gave the kids each their own catapult and a bowl of mini marshmallows and they had a BLAST!

 

 

These catapults are quick, easy, and inexpensive to make! All you need is 5 rubber bands, 7 popsicle sticks, and a water bottle or soda bottle lid.

Group together the popsicle sticks and a wrap a rubber band around each end to hold them together.

 

Put one popsicle on top, one on the bottom, and use a rubber band to hold them together.

 

 

Using another rubber band, wrap it around the center of all of the popsicle sticks to hold them in place.

 

 

Use the fifth rubber band to do the other side.

Glue the water bottle lid on (I used my glue gun) and you are ready or action!