For Your Inspiration File....

Check out these adorable owl pillows!!

We have all seen mini-plushie type animals, but what about these over-sized owl body pillows? Totally cute right?

If you are looking for a fun kid-craft to do together, or to make for a gift, consider making something like this using remnants or fabric scraps for all the details. I am absolutely in love with these!!

They would be great in a dorm room too!!

I didn't make these, but they are certainly in my inspiration file. A family member created these as a birthday gift and I am so jealous! ;-)

Coloring inside the lines

Right now at Kohl's you can buy these great graphic owl tees to color. They come with a set of 4 markers and are super fun for anyone!!

Normally I don't advertise a specific brand or product, but these are pretty cool. I spent a couple of hours this week coloring most of mine so that I could wear it to a birthday party for an-almost-teen-girl in my family. She is super easy to shop for since she loves owls. I actually bought myself the shirt first and then went back for another one for her.

I used the 4 colors that came with it and I also used the crayola fabric markers to give me some more color choices. If you end up trying this out, be sure to put a piece of cardboard between the two layers of the t-shirt when you are coloring it so the colors don't bleed through to the back. This would be super fun to get for a whole group of girls...a youth group or girl scout troop, they could all have matching shirts that would reflect their personality. They had additional styles besides the owl, it was just my favorite!

Happy birthday, kiddo!! Glad you like your shirt! I can't wait to see what you do with it!

Back to School

I'm back to school this week and I made a fun little pencil cup for my classroom.

This would make a great teacher's gift.

I'm not going to make an official 'DIY' because I know I saw this idea somewhere....I've been looking all week for the official link to the site where I saw this idea but I can't remember where I saw it originally. (If you know the original source, please post a link in the comments, thanks in advance!)

The original idea I saw used ribbon cut to the a length to fit around a cleaned up tin can. I just used making tape...layed the colored pencils in a row on the table, on the tape, in rainbow order and then wrapped the whole chain of pencils on the tape around the cup and hot glued the pencils to the can, creating a fun little colorful storage holder for my desk supplies.

Another idea from PB Teen is a really cute accessory cup, its all white....it would be cool to use office/school supplies to make all sorts of accessories....and paint them white.  You could make a similar one or order one of theirs if you don't feel like making one yourself.

Hope you have a great week if you are back at school like I am!! I would love to see your classroom if you are a teacher, leave a link in the comments.

Nerd Alert: Video Game Themed Party

Hey everyone!! I would love to share some photos with you from a recent surprise birthday party.

The theme was: Video games....so we HAD to decorate the entire house with Super Mario images that we made, arts and crafts style.

I showed up the night before the party with a few images printed off the internet, some construction paper, sharpies and some tape and glue and everyone pitched in to make the night a success.

A work in progress!

Making some coins.....clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink!

A few boo diddlies. ;-)

Goombas.

Vines for the green walls in the bedroom.

Mario!

The night of the party, Brannon was truly surprised and everyone had fun with simple costumes. It was SUPER hot so simple was good. Here are a few of my friends that came dressed as 'Pong,' an old Atari game. Black t-shirts and white duct tape!

My favorite costume, Shaina with a packman suit!

I'm a SIM, with Shaina!!

Solid snake.....???? I think.....

And the birthday boy as Billy Bullet!

To make my SIMS 'costume', I glued two craft cones together (styrofoam would probably work better, it would be lighter) and painted it bright green. Then I stuck a coat hanger up in the cones and wrapped it around a plastic headband. I wrapped the wire in black electrical tape and then covered it in black ribbon so that it would look a little better. Also, I attached the ribbon with some fabric glue. Super easy and I could take it on and off pretty easily.

I also made some yummy Atari Joystick Controller brownies instead of a cake. You can see pictures and read more about them on my blog, click here!

DIY for kids -make your own dreamcatcher-

For today my first DIY for kids on the birdsblog. I don't know if our readers have kids, but even if you don't it's a fun project to do with kids from friends, with cousins, nephews or in your art class :) I would recommend to do this together, just make sure that when your child is making one you can keep an eye on what they are doing!

Supplies:

-chenille wire

-siccors (for cutting the chenille wires)

-beads

-feathers

Pick one chenille wire and make a round shape, knot

it together. I used a thicker one for the outside &

smaller ones on the inside.

Pick a chenille wire in the color that you like

and wrap it around one side and then on the

other. The rest of the wire that you won't

be needing can be cut.

After the purple one i used a green orange and

blue chenille wire from one side to the other.

After that i used yellow to make a smaller

round in the middle.

add some small wires from the outside

round to the middle round and pick

any color that you like.

Now it's time to make a round so that you

can hang your dreamcatcher ;)

Get some chenille wire and make a little round shape.

Then wrap it around the top of your dreamcatcher,

make sure it's tight!

I added one bead and pulled the chenille wire through.

I wrapped the wire around in the middle a few times.

You can only use bigger beads, because they have

bigger holes ;) If you like to add more beads, you

can do that every time that you are adding wire.

Okay final step!

Get your feathers xD

Confirm your chenille wire on the bottem

and add as many feathers that you like.

I used 3 chenille wires (i made

one with two colors) and tree feathers.

ta da!! you are ready!!

If your child likes to craft and he or she's a little older (9 years) they can try the advanced one! This one is also for grown ups ;) I made a post on my own blog a few days ago, here's the link

Enjoy your dreamcatcher(s)!!

Leave me a link if you have made one

or add it to our flickr group

Loves,

Vera

Junk Mail Garland--Perfect Decor for a Jammie Party!

While browsing The Crafty Crow for ideas, I found the best tutorial for Junk Mail Garland!

I usually have a giant pile of junk mail on my side table...I have to force myself to go through it to sort out the 'recycle', 'shred', and 'important stuff' into piles.

Recently my niece stopped by and wanted to paint.....hmmmm....I am an art teacher, but rarely do I have the supplies on hand for kids to get artsy crafty at my house, but luckily I had just read this amazing idea from Scrumdilly!

Quickly, I squirted some paint onto paper plates, snipped my junk mail into not-so-even sheets and let my niece and neighbor's daughter go to town painting the junk mail with pretty paint colors.

The paint dried quickly so I was able to bring out my paper punches and let them start punching fun shapes out of the garland.

While we did everything in less than an hour, we kept it fairly simple, but with a bit more preparation, you could use crazy scissors on the bottom edges or you could just cut it in waves like the tutorial shows....this garland would even be beautiful with some glitter! I didn't bother with that.

Later that night, once all the paint was dry, I used a long bit of ribbon to stitch the paper together to make garland.

Why would I need to create all this garland? Well I was planning a 'jammie party' with all the kids in my family for Saturday night and we needed decorations of course!

After creating one long piece to go across my fireplace, I took the pieces that were left over and punched holes along the top edge. When kids started arriving at the jammie party, I let them 'stitch' ribbon through the holes (over-under technique...even my 4-year old niece could do it!) and we hung the mini-garland pieces around the doorways at my house.

Supplies Needed:
Junk mail
paint
brushes
punches
ribbon

This was a really easy and fun craft project to do with kids...the garland was perfect for 'Our Rockin' Jammie Party'!!

It was super fun! We made chocolate covered strawberries, played games like Pictionary and charades, made popcorn and pizza and watched UP, tie-dyed shirts, this morning we ate waffles, played more games and went on a fun walk around the neighborhood.