Pepper Paints

Salad Spinner Art

A few weeks ago when visiting my in-laws, we practiced our customary scavenging of their “to-go” pile. Among the great old wooden crates and mason jars we took, there was a salad spinner. I snatched it up telling my mother and father in law my plans to squirt paint inside for some home made spin art–they were tickled!

I watered down some tempra paint and cut some paper circles to fit the bottom of the spinner.

Oooh Ahhhhh! I bet if you didn’t have a second salad spinner the paint would probably wash out…but please don’t blame me if you try it and it ruins your salad spinner!!  Maybe look for one second hand for spin art purposes only!

Cast Iron Handles Too Hot? Felted Handle Covers Are Easy to Make!!

I can’t believe it took me years of handling hot, hot handles before discovering I could easily make a little cover for the handles of my cast iron pans!

I have tons of felted, thrift store sweaters..(I started a blanket years ago that plagues me in my sleep!! I really want to finish it!!) I cut a small piece off the sweater.   I cut from the waistband but I am sure any area would work. I wrapped it around my handle to see if I needed to trim it down.

Next I felted a little picture/design on to the center of my felt.

Again I wrapped it around the handle using  straight pins to make a  tight sleeve. I sewed it up with some colorful embroidery thread–but I won’t show you that part-it is embarrassing how poorly I sew!  And slipped it on to my handle. I tried to make them really tight so they didn’t slip around..and I hear you need to be super careful if you have a gas stove!!

I absolutely love these–they make me happy every time I look at them!!

Colorful Ice Blocks To Play With Outside

When we finally had enough empty milk and juice cartons to make blocks I cut the tops off the cartons, the kids dripped various combinations of food coloring into the cartons and we filled them with water and put them outside to freeze.

A couple of days later we peeled the cartons away from the ice blocks…some were frozen a little more solid than others.

The colored water that dripped out made for pretty snow to play in

Colorful snow balls!

Now I am back to hording the empty cartons and yogurt containers to make more colorful ice blocks!

DIY Lunch Bags And Gift Bags

I bought white lunch bags from one of my favorite local gems, Cake Craft. Cake Craft is a bakers oasis. Every type of candy mold, cake decor, boxes etc you can imagine.And all the sprinkles oooh!!

We used liquid water colors to paint our gift bags. I barely diluted the water colors keeping them as bright as possible. Open the bags up to keep the paint from bleeding through.

We let the colors run together on some and painted designs on others.

Take care not to tear them when they are wet. Once they dry they are ready to be filled with a gift or a lunch!

Look at the pretty bags at Artsyville! Actually look at all the pretty things there!!

Our Annual Holiday Crafting Day–Novena Candles, Beaded star Ornaments and Folded Magazine Trees

For the past several years we have gotten together with friends to have a day full of holiday crafting and snacking. I posted a past years event here.

This year we made xmas trees out of magazines. I found it very relaxing to sit and fold these!

I found this great idea at Just Like Martha

We also made beaded star ornaments.

The beaded star idea came from Mrs Picasso’s Art Room

We also made these beautiful novena candles inspired by Artsyville

I personally made 4 of these!  Who said crafting day was just for the kids?!

Poinsettia Sponge Prints

First I set out a little inspiration!

I cut up some sponges into long petal shapes and shorter ones into leaf shapes. Squirted a little tempra paint onto a tray. Squirted a little more tempra onto a dish with some q-tips  and voila…..

The kids got down to business!

And made many , many beautiful poinsettia sponge prints!

Thanks to Deep Space Sparkle for the idea! I especially love her blue ones!

Painting Photos

I saw the most awesome idea over at Eclectic Chica last week! I couldn’t wait to paint some of our own photos.

I went through some of our photos and printed out a few in black and white and put out some tempra paint and different size brushes.

This was a really fun. The girls spent a long time painting their photos.

I put the extra black and white print outs on the art table with crayons and markers for later. Such a simple idea–I love it!!