Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Valentine's Day Crush

I saw the original idea for these on Pinterest, and it was just a six pack of Crush that has tags and ribbon on each bottle. So naturally, I put my own spin on this craft.


Materials:
-6 pack of Crush in glass bottles (you can get them at Wal-Mart for under $3.00)
-Popsicle sticks (and/or clothespins)
-Ribbon in different colors
-Elmer's glue
-Construction paper
-Pencil or pen
-Foam or paper animals (pre-made from a kit, or make your own from scratch. I got most of mine from Target for $1.00!)


1. First, assemble your foam animals. They will need some sort of a base, such as a popsicle stick or a clothespin.


2. Next, think of a clever phrase to go with your animal, and print it out on a tag. I made my tags on Microsoft Word, because I am not too good at free-handing letters! Punch a hole in the top of the tag.


3. Curl a piece of ribbon with a scissors, and tie it around the Crush bottle neck. If you have a clothespin base on your animal, simply clip them on the ribbon, and attach the tag with the clothespin.






 4. If attaching an animal with a popsicle stick, simply tie the ribbon around the stick.












Here is your finished product!




























I also did some of my own. I did Mayor Bee from scratch:


And Rainbow Dash, I printed her and cut her out:


So no matter what your artistic ability, you can do this too!

I Love You Because Board

When I saw this particular project on Pinterest, I definitely wanted to make one myself. It's so easy, and makes a really great gift for friends and family, and for any time of year.


Materials:
-A frame (any size will do, I did 10" by 13")
-Dry erase markers
-Ribbon (optional, for hanging)
-Letter stencils
-Spray paint (optional, if you don't like the color of the frame, and for the background of your project)
-Thick paper or posterboard (plain or patterned will do)  the same size or larger than the frame you are using



1. The paper will serve as the background of your project, so you may want to paint it. In this case, I found some thicker posterboard at Wal-Mart, and spray painted it. If you are spray painting, may sure to lay newspaper down on your work area to keep the spray contained, and also to spray from about a foot distance in short bursts across the surface, so that you don't get a huge pile of paint.



2. Let the paint dry for a good 20 minutes. You will probably need to do several coats to get the paint even (I did about 5 total). Next, you will want to do your lettering. You need enough letters to spell out "I Love You Because."(I used a heart shape for the Love part. I bought sparkly red paper, traced a heart shaped cookie cutter, and Josh cut it out). I actually found these stick-on letters at Michael's, but you can free hand, stencil, use letter stickers, or whatever you want to do. I needed to actually put a little Elmer's glue on the stick on letters to make them stay on better. They are cardboard and kept popping up off the paper.


As a note, if you get scratches of any kind on the background, simply lightly spray over them. Works like a charm!

3. Finally, insert the background into the frame. You are now able to write with dry erase markers right onto the outside of the glass, and erase! You are able to change the reason why you love someone this way.


 Voila!

Thursday, February 9, 2012

52 Reasons I Love You

This is a really cute Valentine's Day gift idea I saw on Pinterest. Here is the original idea. It's easy, but took a little bit of time because I am a perfectionist, and I put my own spin on it. That's the beauty of it!



Materials:
-One deck of 52 playing cards
-Glue stick
-Double sided tape
-Pair of scissors
-Clip art, stickers, pictures
-Card template (optional)
Before we begin, you must know that some of this project turned out to be "sheer dumb luck" (as said by Professor McGonagall!) For example, I know that I would buy a pack of red playing cards, so I designed a card template in Microsoft Word with the colors red and black. I didn't actually have a deck of cards at the time to measure how big the outside of the card was. I seriously just eyeballed it, and it came out nearly spot on perfect in size (I know, I am amazing).

A template for the back of the cards is not required. In fact, if you want one, I will send you mine free of charge--just email me! If you make a template, your project will turn out much neater, and I highly recommend it.

1. Create a template for the backs of the cards. On each template, you will write a different reason why you love that person. Print out 6 pages of these, if you do 9 templates per page. So for example, here are some of mine:



2. Cut out each template.


3. Next (optional), decorate your templates with clip art, stickers, pictures, glitter, whatever you want! I did a picture on each one, just to make them cute and funny.

4. Take 2 pieces of double sided tape and affix each piece to the top and bottom of the back of a playing card (not the number side).


5. Next, use your glue stick on all the other parts of the card around the tape.




6. Attach your template to the back of your card. You may need to smooth out the wrinkles/bubbles, but this is easy to do with your finger. (That's what she said! LOL)


7. Repeat until all cards have templates on them!


Ta-da!

Glitter Key

If you are looking for a way to add more sparkle to your life (let's be honest, I am always looking to do that), here is a super easy way to jazz up the common house key! This is an easy craft, but with the drying time for the Mod Podge should take you about an hour. Here is the original idea.


                  

Materials:
-Mod Podge
-a brush or sponge
-old newspapers or magazines
-Loose glitter
-a key


Here is the "Before" key (yawn!):



1. Lay newspaper down as your workspace. Trust me, you won't want to glitterize your entire house. Well, unless you are Ke$ha...

2. Lay the key flat, take a paint brush, dip it in the Mod Podge, and paint the section of the key you want to add glitter to. I recommend staying towards the upper portion of the key, because you might not want to jam up your lock with glitter. Just sayin'..



3. Sprinkle glitter all over the Mod Podged area.


4. Shake off the excess glitter.



5. Allow Mod Podge to dry for at least 15 minutes.

6. Paint a layer of Mod Podge over the glitter. This will seal it and keep it from flaking off later. Allow Mod Podge to dry for another 15 minutes.


7. Flip the key over. Repeat steps 1-6.

Done! And here is the "After" key!