Today’s craft goal is create something fabulous but only use things you already have. Nuts, bolts, a foil cake pan… all of these things can be turned into a super cool craft and wall art for a kids room. We made a robot, a cat and a dog for our examples. But you feel free to let your imagination run wild.
You will need:
- an 8×10 canvas or piece of cardboard
- nuts and bolts and odds and ends
- a foil cake dish
- metallic craft paint and paint brush
- googly eyes (optional)
- scissors
- hot glue gun (or regular glue)
- a sharpie
Warning: This project is intended for older children not toddlers who might put these things in their mouths. Keep an eye on the little parts used for this. It could be sharp or a choking hazard for babies and pets.
Be safe lovely crafters!
I’m just assuming that everyone out there has a few little miscellaneous drawers of screws from old projects and furniture that won’t be missed if we use them for a random craft project.
The canvas iwas a dollar store purchase. You can get the foil cake pan there too. Or you could just buy a cake or food in one of these pans and do the craft after you’ve licked it clean! :o)
To prepare for this craft, cut out the bottom of the cake pan.
Paint your base canvas. I used metallic paint colours. If you don’t have a canvas just cut a piece of thick carboard to size and paint it.
Cat
Draw the shape onto the foil with a sharpie. It doesn’t stay permanent on the cake pan foil right away so you can wipe it off if you make a mistake.
Lay out the pieces before you hot glue them to the canvas. To make the spiral for the cat’s whiskers I wrapped a wire around a pen. Then I stretched the wire out a bit so it looked a bit crazy. Wire is a bit hard to glue on. Find some points that will be touching the canvas and add a drop of hot glue to just those spots.
I used a bolt for the cat’s nose and then put a gem on top. For the tail I took a part of the edge of the pan and scrunched it a bit to give it extra wave. Secure it with a few dots of glue to the canvas.
The one gem on her nose looked so nice-I added one for the mouth, 2 for the ears and some big ones randomly around the cat.
I almost forgot to mention the two pop can tabs were added for feet!
Robot
Again for the Robot, lay out your materials and arrange them together for the collage.
Secure each item with glue to the pre-painted canvas.
The robot is made of 2 squares with rounded corners. A few miscellaneous items from the junk drawer and cut up scraps from the foil cake pan. The wire on the middle of the robot is the same wire from the cat project but it looks smaller because I wound around a smaller object. If you have a spring from an old pen it would be similar.
This robot turned out great! You’ll love how the metal of the foil reflects the light.
Dog
The dog is simply 4 pieces cut out of the cake pan.
I made one on a white canvas so I colored it in with black sharpie.
I also make another one on a piece of dark blue cardstock. The foil cake pan looks white in this photo but its still metallic silver. I think it looks like a sheep! Bahhhhh.
This was a super easy and fun craft to make!
Here are some previous blog posts with simple fun projects for the kids!
Rose Gold Spray Painted Stone Heart Gift Idea
Rose Gold Spray Painted Stone Heart Gift Idea!
Love is in the air this week! We had a family wedding yesterday and it’s inspired another heart gift.
You may recall from previous posts that I have stack of cut wood scraps that I keep making into little plaques. Well, here is another one. This is so easy we could almost turn it into a kids gift if we used craft metallic paints instead of spray paint and white glue instead of the glue gun.
You will need:
- Krylon Foil Metalic Copper Spray Paint
- Pebbles
- Scrap of wood approx. 6 x 8 inches
- Dark wood stain and Rag
- Hot glue gun
- Picture hanger or eye screws and rope (optional)
I picked up this pink gold Krylon paint from Hobby Lobby for $5.99. Rose Gold is such a pretty color. I love shoes and purses and cell phone covers in this color.
Spray paint the stones with pink metallic paint, allow to dry for 30 minutes and then check to make sure the sides are covered. Reapply to areas if needed.
While the pebble are drying, grab a rag and your dark wood stain. I used Minwax Jacobean. If you have walnut on hand it will have a similar impact.
Before you go further you should consider if you want to hang this on a wall or just lean it on a shelf. If you decide to hang it you should put the hangers on now.
This option requires hammering tiny little nails into the back of the wood. Then it can hang on a nail.
For a rustic looking alternative you could screw eye hooks into the top and hang it up by a rope.
Lay out your pebbles in a heart shape and get your glue gun.
Using your hot glue gun, secure each pebble in place in a heart shape. That is all there is to it!
Scroll down to see some of my other wood and pebble art projects….
Burlap and Ribbons Heart Decorations
Love is in the air this week! There is a family wedding soon so its time for a beautiful, rustic, heart shaped craft with ribbons and lace!
This pretty little decoration uses up scraps of fabric and trims you already have.
You will need:
- scraps of fabric (I used a piece of drop cloth-it looks like linen)
- paper and pencil
- burlap
- ribbon
- lace
- pretty little buttons
- stuffing
- sewing machine
- scissors and pins
- wire and pliers to hang it up (use string or ribbon if you don’t have wire)
Use a piece of paper to decide what size of heart you would like. Cut the paper into a square. Fold it in half and draw a half heart. Open the page and pin it to your fabric.
Lay out the ribbons and trims on your heart shaped fabric. My beige fabric looks like linen but its a scrap of a drop cloth from tote bags I have made in the past.
Using a sewing machine, sew each piece of trim, lace or ribbon into place.
The trims look really nice crisscrossing each other. Try different random pieces. Burlap adds rustic texture to the project.
Add buttons and bows to the project. Remember not to place them too close to the edge because you need to sew around the edges.
Add 2 tiny loops of ribbon to the top edge and sew a few stiches to keep them in place.
Pin the two heart shaped pieces of fabric together with right sides facing inwards. Sew around the edge leaving a 1 1/2 inch gap opening so you can later turn it inside out.
At the top of the heart snip a tiny cut and a few snips around the rounded parts of the top of the heart. Do not cut through the stitched areas.
Open the gap and pull the fabric through the hole to turn it inside out.
Add stuffing.
Fold over the edges at the opening, pin in place and hand sew the opening closed.
I love wire crafts so I had lots of left overs! For this project I used 14 gauge wire from the hardware store. Use big pliers to cut the wire approx. 8 inches long. Fold the wire in half. (if you don’t want to use wire just use ribbon or twine to hang it)
Using round plyers twist the ends into a bit of a spiral.
Hook the ribbon loop around the curled ends of the wire.
These turned out so pretty!
In the past year I’ve done a few heart shaped gifts and projects. Have a look below!
Make a Jewelry Display Stand- Easy Diy
How to Make an Wooden Jewelry Display
Here is an inexpensive solution for storing or displaying your jewelry. Make this wooden bracelet stand for either home or your craft sale display table or booth. As I have mentioned many times before…at the office where I work we have a craft table. Loads of my blog crafts or my daughter’s crafts end up on this table. When my eldest daughter and I were into making memory wire bracelets we needed a way to display them. They turned out great! Here is a link to that post!
If you have a few minutes and a few dollars you can make this fast and easy. Not surprisingly, I had all the supplies on hand from left over scraps from older projects. So this didn’t cost me a penny! (Fun fact…Canada doesn’t use pennies anymore..does that mean we can’t use the old cliches? Penny for your thoughts etc.)
You will need:
- a board 5 1/2 inches by 10 inches (approx. size you can use a scrap that is close to this)
- 3/4 inch dowel (cut to 10 inches long)
- 1 inch dowel (cut a piece 10 inches and another 13 inches long)
- sandpaper
- 1 1/2 deck screw
- drill (to pre-drill the holes)
- 3/4 inch drill bit
- wood stain and rag (optional)
- sheet of cork for the base (optional)
Choose which side of the board is going to be facing upwards. Smooth the splintered ends with sand paper.
On the bottom side, measure the centre of the wood length-wise and width-wise.
Mark an X in the centre.
I predrilled the screw in a bit and set it aside for a moment.
Now we need to get the big drill bit out and drill the holes in the dowel that will be vertical.
This piece of dowel was an old curtain rod. I just used a handsaw to cut this down to 10 inches long
Drill the first hole about an inch from the top. I started by using a small drill bit to start the hole and then switched to the large drill bit to do the rest. Test it out to see if your dowel will slide in. If its snug twist it a bit. If it doesn’t go in drill the hole again moving the drill bit in and out to shave a bit more off the edges. Remember to sand off the slivery bits the drilling causes.
Drill the second hole about 4 or 5 inches from the top one. Before you drill you could use a bracelet to see if that looks like the right distance to have the next dowel added.
Now you can put it all together or you could stain it first while its all apart.
For some reason I put it together first and stained it after.
Oh! I should mention that I predrilled a hole in the bottom of the dowel so it would drill easily to the base.
Using a drill or a screwdriver attach the base to the upright dowel. Easy as pie!
You could leave it plain or stain the wood. I used Minwax stain “Jacobean” to finish mine.
Once the project is all together and the stain is dry you may want to put cork on the bottom side so it slides nicely on your furniture.
Have fun creating something new with your scraps of wood and dowel. Below are a few of my other projects using scrap wood.
Thanks for stopping by!
Mod Podge Clipboards! Great teacher gift idea!
Upcycle a boring clipboard with Modpodge and Scrapbook Paper! Okay this is not my bright idea. Lot’s of people have done this so I got on “board” with the clip boards too. Tee hee hee!
There are more than one style of clip on clipboards and you can do this with either style. I prefer the above style to hang on a nail with shopping and To Do: lists. If I’m going to add and take away pages frequently I would use the big solid clip style. Today we are jazzing up boring old clipboards!
You will need:
- a brown clipboard
- scrapbook paper
- pencil and scissors
- mod podge or craft glue
- 1 foam brush
- gift card or credit card (that you don’t want to use again)
- letter stickers (alphabet)
Size is important-use 12 x 12 sized scrapbook pages.
I found this book of scrapbook paper on at Walmart. The pages appealed to me because it looked like a spring country quilt. It has 50 sheets in the book and I think it cost $8.00. That is great value lots of left overs to make other items around my workbench to match!
Trace the clipboard with pencil onto the back of the scrapbook paper. Carefully cut out the shape on your pencil line.
Before you add any Mod Podge test out the paper on the front. You can cut around the metal clips and/or add pieces to make it solid at the top. I was working with my daughters for their teacher’s gifts so I kept it simple and just pushed the page up to the clip. Trim any excess very close to the edges.
Spread Mod Podge on the front of the clipboard. It requires a lot because the clipboard will absorb a lot of the Mod Podge. You could probably prime the clipboard with paint to help this but it would add on an extra day for the paint to dry. We left this project to the last week of school and had to work quickly.
The next step is most important, so take it slowly. Have a helper hold the clip open for you. Sort of hover the page over the clipboard. When it looks perfectly lined up push it into the Mod Podge. It’s pretty impossible to move after this step so its a little nerve racking.
Use the gift card to smooth ripples and bubbles guiding them away from the centre and out towards the edges.
Apply a generous coat of Mod Podge, spreading it out and make it smooth and even. Avoid tiny bubbles. Allow it to dry thoroughly. This can take several hours. Apply another thin coat.
To personalize each clipboard we found some bold letter stickers in the craft department of the Dollar Tree. We bought several packs so we didn’t run out of letters. The girls had several teachers and school staff they wanted to make these gifts for. One teacher was leaving the school and getting married so instead of putting her married name on it…because we didn’t know it…we just put a message on it.
For the music teacher we put a page of music notes and the words to the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” on his clip board. She had noticed that was a favourite song of his. Nice touch right?!
The best teacher gifts are ones that are thoughtful, useful, original and a personal touch. My daughter was so delighted to see the music teacher carrying her gift on the first day of school in September.
This collection of 4 clipboards are on my wall are next to my work bench. This is where I can post sticky notes, to do lists, clip my receipts.
I love my lazy Susan’s for spinning around paint supplies. I won’t take a photo of the workbench today as it looks like a mad scientist’s lab (crafts more than science) has exploded. When you hop from Mod Podge to Rock Art to Sewing to Kids Crafts…the work tops gets a little nutso!
I hope you are inspired to make yourself a some clipboards for gifts or to use for yourself. The results are really cool!
Crafts Using Burlap and Buttons – Easy Project that Looks Great!
Make Adorable Pet Rocks – Easy Kids Craft!
Okay so we have a few more days until the kids are back to school. Is anyone getting stir crazy yet? Not to worry I have a craft idea for their entertainment. Grab a few stones and basic craft supplies and turn them into PET ROCKS! It turns out quite cute actually, the grown ups might want to join in for this project.
You will need:
- rocks
- paint preferably glossy (or better yet metallic!)
- gems
- glue (hot glue or white craft glue)
- feathers
- a scrap of red paper or felt
- googly eyes
I’m in love with these metallic paints. They look great on rocks!
For today’s project you can use any craft paint but I prefer glossy!
I found this huge flat stone in our rock collection and painted it gold. Then I painted each stone a different colour.
Googly eyes! I have probably over a thousand googly eyes in my craft cupboard. I have no idea why there is so many….today I will use another 10. LOL!
I’m impatient for white glue to dry so I use hot glue to attach the googly eyes on.
The feathers that I used are just small scraps that had fallen out of feather boas. You just need a tiny bit of something for the hair. Yarn or twine could work if you don’t have feathers. Look around your craft cupboards and see what you already have to embellish your pet rocks.
Add a gem for the nose. Or try a pompom nose…they make cute noses too.
For the mouths you could draw on a smile with a sharpie or if you can’t find where you put your permanent marker….like me. You could just cut out a tiny smile on red paper or felt and glue it on.
Felt is tricky to cut something so small. You may need to help your little ones with the mouth using small sharp scissors. Or just use paper.
I get a kick out of gluing googly eyes on things. Suddenly they become a little person.
I hope you enjoy making Pet Rocks. Have a look below at a few links to previous posts I have done for crafts with personality!
Upcycle CD’s into a Gem Covered Suncatcher
Have you got a collection of CD’s and DVD’s that you no longer need? Make a craft with them! There are loads of CD Upcycle ideas out there. Today we are going to turn a few old disks into beautiful suncatchers!
It’s midway through the Winter break for the kids, so we are looking for easy kids crafts. You will likely already have all the supplies for this craft in your cupboards.
You will need:
- Gem Stones
- Old CD’s or DVD’s
- Craft Glue
- Fishing Line
Have you seen Fifi and the Flowertots? It’s a super cute British kids cartoon. This DVD was sent to us from family in England. We watched it for years. We decided we are finished with this disk and it’s the first one to get glamourous.
This disk has pink showing through which makes it original. Simply glue your gems to the CD.
It looks really pretty if you can make a pattern with the gems.
This one started out organized but then things got very random.
The sparkle of the CD’s plain silver side will look fantastic spinning in the sun. Adding the gems makes a beautiful combination.
Okay it looks like a mess here but when it’s done its dazzling!
This is full of variety in sizes and random colours and it looks beautiful!
There is no need to drill a hole to tie it up. It already has one! Cut an arms length of fishing line, insert it through the Cd’s hole and tie a knot.
Hang it from the kitchen window and wait til you see the sun hit it!
This shows that your CD upcycle doesn’t need to be full of gems to look good. This one required no glue since the gems came on a page of gem stickers. No mess! Also, its quick-no need to wait for glue to dry.
Flip it over and decorate the other side.
This could be a great craft for a camping trip! Gem stickers, old CD’s, and ribbon or fishing line.
This was done with stickers also. Do you have a pre-teen who babysits? This would be a great craft for the babysitter to take to their babysitting job. I loved it when we had a young babysitter arrive with projects and crafts for the kids. Very good business plan kids!
This CD and DVD upcycle craft is a project you will really enjoy doing with your kids! I could see this given as a gift from the kids to their grandparents….or a sick friend or a teacher gift.
Have a look at some other suncatchers I’ve already done.
Beaded Pipe Cleaner Snowflakes – Easy Winter Craft!
Make an Easy Winter Kids Craft – Snowflakes made with Pipe Cleaners and Beads!
I attempted a post on this exact craft last year but I had a look at it and they turned out a bit ugly in the end. LOL. So I’m trying it again for a do-over.
You will need:
- sparkly pipe cleaners
- beads and pony beads
That’s it!
Each snowflake takes 1 and 1/2 pipe cleaners. Cut 2 standard length pipe cleaners in half (so you have 3 pieces 6 inches long).
This time I’m using sparkly pipe cleaners. They really stand out. But I’ll warn you the beads didn’t slide on it quite so easily.
Take 2 pieces of pipe cleaner and overlap them in the middle. Bend them around each other to make an X.
Add a third one to the middle of the X and bend it to make a star.
This is a great craft to teach young ones about making patterns. They also will develop fine motor skills sliding the beads onto the pipe cleaners.
Start with 6 pony beads and slide them onto the pipe cleaners. The dollar tree has a lot of color choices for pony beads. You can also purchase them at Walmart or the craft store.
Push them right up to the centre of the snowflake star.
I found sticking with a pattern looks better than going freestyle with your beads. See if you agree.
Last year my daughter and I made the examples above with random silver, white, blue and clear beads.
Since the sparkly pipe cleaners are stiff I found if I put the order so that the last bead has a slightly smaller hole as the end-everything stayed in place. If your beads are threatening to shift and might fall off then simply bend the end into a loop.
The loop is also perfect for hanging a ribbon. Hang it from a door knob or a curtain rod for a wintery snowflake sun catcher.
Have fun making these beaded snowflakes. Below are a few more easy winter kids crafts and projects we have done in the past.
PomPom Fridge Magnets – Easy Winter Crafts!
There is something wonderful about pompom crafts. They are bright and there is so much you can do with them. This post is how to make a snowman out of pompoms for fridge magnets. This is such an easy winter craft-perfect for a snow day or winter break!
Let me tell you about my inspiration….introducing Henry and Henrietta!
I was brainstorming winter craft ideas when I suddenly had a childhood flashback to my Grandmother’s fridge magnets. I texted my sister to ask if she could remember them. Ten minutes later she texted this photo of them. These scruffy fridge magnets are a sight of beauty to a few of us with childhood memories of when they were in our grandparents camper fridge and later on their home fridge. I love my Grandma and Grampa memories…..sigh…
My eldest sister tells me the story that Grandma had Henry a lonely fridge magnet on her camper fridge over the years possibly going back to the late 1970’s. At some point in the 80’s the family went on a camping trip waaaaaay up north near Kirkland Lake, Ontario. While at this Provincial Park my sister remembers spotting Henrietta lying on the ground! Can you imagine finding a pompom fridge magnet in the dirt, the exact female version of Grandma’s pompom Henry. Well they were soon introduced back at the campsite and they have been a happy couple ever since…..ahhh amour….
Well that was a nostalgic walk down memory lane. Now back to the craft!
This is really fun to make! Go grab your supplies.
You will need:
- googly eyes
- pompoms
- felt
- hot glue gun
- magnets
- scissors
- tiny buttons (optional)
Cut a piece of white felt for the backing for the 3 white pompoms. Try to co-ordinate the back with what ever color pompoms you are using for the project.
Hot glue the 3 pompoms onto the backing piece of felt.
Add very small buttons to the top of the lower 2 pompoms.
Add your googly eyes and then a little orange pompom nose. If you don’t have an orange one you could use a piece of orange felt instead.
This is optional but I added ear muffs. Just a thin strip of felt with a dab of glue on each side and stick a pompom on each side to cover the end of the felt cut into a triangle carrot shape. I personally like the pompom nose on Henry and Henrietta so I’m sticking with a pompom nose on my snowman.
Gently bend back the felt behind the top pompoms and add a few dabs of glue to attach branch arms. Put a big dollop of glue between the pompoms so that they won’t flip backwards anymore.
Add 2 dabs of hot glue to the backing and add magnets to the top and bottom.
While you have your pompoms handy why not make some other winter friends to go on the fridge. I would like to figure out how to make a little toboggan out of felt.
Check out these other projects that we used pompoms and hot glue!
Make a Twig Photo Display
This is such an easy way to set up a quick photo display. It uses things you will already have at home.
I know this is my 4th twig project in the last 3 months but its such a fast, free and rustic product to work with. I have a particular tree that sheds sticks every time the wind blows. My last next door neighbour hated this tree. It made a sweet neighbour very bitter as it would litter those branches and bark all over their lawn too. She would say…that is a messy, messy tree!
What could I do but agree…..and make a craft with it! You know what they say….when life gives you lemons make lemonade.
You will need:
- a vase
- sticks
- small photos
- clothes pegs
These clothes pins are from the craft store. They are a shorter version of a classic clothes pin with a coat of an orange stain. If you use regular clothes pins you could spray paint them or decorate the clothes pins to make them a little fancier.
Usually my posts are tutorials showing you how to do a project step by step. But I imagine most people can figure out that you put the sticks into the vase, clip the photos onto the sticks. Done.
If you have an open space on a table top-that looks bare, this could be a perfect solution.
Thank you for taking a moment to pause by my twig-projects-filled blog! I hope you will check out the other posts I have done with twigs…or sewing…or…photo frames…
See you again soon!
