KIDS DIY: Fire Breathing Dragon

Another great inspiration, this time from KangarooBoo Blog with ideas for the Chinese New Year. I saw this and knew we just had to make it right away!

Cast of Characters:

• Scissors
• Glue
• Paper cups
• Crepe paper
• Construction paper
• Pompoms
• Googly eyes

I actually had all these items already in my stash. I tend not to throw anything out, and I still had a ton of red streamers leftover from MonkeyBoy's first birthday, and green paper cups from his second birthday. Of course, these little guys would be so much fun in any color.

STEP 1

Cut out the bottoms of the paper cups.

MonkeyBoy promptly used the circles to make "crafts", as he calls them, for eye pizzas.

STEP 2

I found a rag-tag piece of green construction paper and cut out scale shapes and had MonkeyBoy glue them sporadically all over the cup. 

STEP 3

Cut the crepe paper into strips and glue on the inside, top lip of the cup. I used crepe paper because it is very light and will easily blow around. Tissue paper would work well, too.

STEP 4

Glue on pompoms for eyes.

STEP 5

Glue on googly eyes on top of pompoms.

STEP 6

After I finished him, he looked naked without some nostrils, so I fished out a couple of green pompoms to put on his nose.

STEP 7

When the monsoon finally blows by our house this morning, we'll go outside and get some sticks. The original blog post for this craft used large popsicle sticks or tongue depressers as a handle.

STEP 8

Blow and roar into the cup!!!

Yankee Doodle Dandy,

– TYG

KIDS DIY: Paper Tube Snake

We were up so early this morning, I felt like lunch would never arrive. To kill some time this chilly AM, I pulled out another awesome Pinterest find. 

This little guy was fun to make and even more fun to play with.

MonkeyBoy had a blast painting the tubes and sticking the eyes and tongue into place.

Mama had to cut the tubes and pipe cleaners, puncture the holes with a mini awl, and connect all the components.

What's great is that my son immediately started seeing "letters" with the snake and started making them.

For the complete directions and materials list, visit Cheap Crafty Mama.

Until the next!

Yankee Doodle Dandy,

– TYG

DIY: Stair Basket

Our accumulation of hats, scarves, and gloves has really gotten out of control. I'm a full-fledged freak for those cheap $1 stretch gloves. I need to have a pair that matches every coat I have. And, of course, I've projected that onto my son.  Anyway, the hats and scarves were taken up too much space on the coat hooks and racks. I was starting to leave them on the stairs and on the half moon table in the foyer.

Well, I started searching for storage options on the world wide web, and the images for a stair basket popped up. Well, at $25.99 and up, I was turned off....until....

I was staring at the pile of recycling that I was procrastinatingly leaving in the hallway, and it occured to me:  The diaper wipes box was the perfect width for a stair basket. 

I grabbed a knife and started cutting up the diaper and wipes boxes. 

Duct tape, the handy man's secret weapon, brought the boxes together.

A hotglue gun and a pile of upholstery fabric I had left in my stash covered my duct taped masterpiece.

If I were a more thorough person, I would have ironed the fabric.

The front part of the basket is two stairs deep; the back is one.

I adorned the front, where there were obvious seams from my fabric, with twine, extra fabric as a ribbon, twigs, and fabric remnants rolled to look like flowers or pinecones, or something like the such.

I must have had corsets on the brain.

It's working beautifully, and it cleaned up my staircase. And it cleared off my half moon table so I can start piling other type of junk on there.

It never ends...

Yankee Doodle Dandy,

– TYG

DIY: Photo Glass Bulb Ornament

OKAY, homemade Christmas Gift #2 was a glass ornament filled with beads, mistletoe, and a picture of my little MonkeyBoy.

I created a lined pattern in PhotoShop, along with a 1" x 1.5" image of my son, and a tiny "2012" placard. These three images are layered to show dimension using small pieces of foam sheets.

I rolled the image and stuffed it in the bulb. With a tweezer, I then arranged it, put in a piece of green mistletoe, and stuffed some pearlescent bead-ribbon to fill the space.

This was a time-consuming project using the tweezers to try to get all the components to cooperate, but I'm fairly happy with the results.  I used wire ribbon for bows to adorn the top, and I found gold ornament hooks at a local discount store for 25¢.

I ended up making six ornaments. I only spent $8 for the mistletoe and a quarter for the hooks (50ct). All other supplies were on hand. I had purchased empty glass ornaments YEARS ago (like 15+  years ago), and I finally had a reason to use them. Not bad for $1.38 each!







Until the next!

Yankee Doodle Dandy,
– TYG

DIY: Single-Color Watercolor Portaits

I can't believe we're almost a month out from Christmas, and my family is still trying to get together for the holidays.  MonkeyBoy, the hubby, and I went out to Ohio for the big event this year, and ever since we've been back, we've been near-missing my local family with flus, colds, noroviruses, pink-eyes, and who knows what else. This past Sunday, we finally got together with my mom and dad, so MonkeyBoy had Christmas #2. And that means my family has started to open their gifts from me, which, of course, were all home made. I've been waiting to post my DIY's so I wouldn't spoil the surprises.

The first item I'd like to post is this fabulous tutorial I found on Grow Creative for easy watercolor portraits. And, wow, it was easy AND it came out fantastic. Here's how I did it with my resources.

ITEMS USED:

• Digital photograph
• PhotoShop CS4
• Printer (Black and White)
• Watercolor paper
• Soft and hard pencils
• Kneaded eraser
• Dollar store watercolors
• Paint brush
• Water

This project only cost me $1 for the watercolors, since I had all the other items on-hand from my ancient art school days, and $3 for a frame.

Step 1:  Make image of your choice two-color and blocked. I accomplished this in Photoshop decreasing the threshold. You'll need an image with contrasting color in order to get great shapes on the face.

Original

Crop to the size you want.  I cropped at 8"x10" in order to frame.

Step 2:  Print out your image black and white, cropped at the size you want,  then use a soft pencil and color in the entire back side of the image. I used a 6B, one of my softest pencils, but really, any No. 2 pencil will do.

Step 3:  Use a hard pencil and trace the blocked images onto the watercolor paper. Again, any No. 2 pencil will do. I had the stuff, so I wanted to use it.

I had a large watercolor pad on hand that my son and I had been using for coloring until I bought him some much cheaper newsprint. Using watercolor paper to sketch on is not particularly cost-effective, as young starving artists know. Not that I'm young. Or starving for that matter. I mean, I did buy the pad....ahem....20 years ago.

Step 4: Pencil will show through watercolors. I forgot this on my first try. So, the next try I used a kneaded eraser to lighten the pencil marks after tracing the whole image. Pink erasers may leave marks, so you're better off using kneaded or white erasers.

Step 5:  Using much needed and obvious water and a paint brush on hand since the brush in the kit was too stiff, I filled in the shapes I had just traced. The variation of colors happened naturally as the brush began to dry on the page or if I used more water or more paint in some areas. I just experimented and let whatever happen, happen.

I went a step further and framed my artwork. I made sure to crop my image at 8"x10" so I could easily find frames. With sales and coupons, I ended up finding lovely wooden frames for just $3 each.

Very Andy Warhol.

I am so super thrilled with the results for this project, I have already printed out another image to make one for myself. I can see this project being used frequently for presents, so be forewarned my friends and family.

Until the next...

Yankee Doodle Dandy,

–TYG

***Disclamer****
Please note that I am in no way affiliated with the products used for this project by Strathmore, Staedtler, Faber-Castelle, and Adobe. The items used were the items I had on hand from my old art school days back in the early 90's, and by what was available to me at my college bookstore.