Tag: teach me tuesday

World’s Greatest Farter Father’s Day Gag Gift Tutorial

by kaella, posted in Uncategorized

In our family, we love to pick on each other and have a good laugh.We love to give gag gifts and funny cards. Every family should laugh together and have some fun because life is to short to always be serious.

In typical Dad fashion, my husband spends lots of time in the bathroom which is usually when I need to pee. Doug loves to gross Danyella out by farting next to her and then blame it on her. So she decided she wanted to create a gag gift for him for Father’s Day.

After doing some searching on gag gifts, Danyella decided she wanted to give him a roll of toilet paper and write her jokes to him on the paper. Well you can’t just write on toilet paper. So we came up with the idea of taking one joke and painting it on the toilet paper.

I am sure you will get different results with different toilet paper with different thickness and ply. We used what we had on hand which is soft, thick, double ply toilet paper and acrylic paint. She had to go over the words twice to get the letters to stand out. The black seemed to be thinner which was hard when it soaked into the toilet paper faster than the blue.

If you are looking for a quick and easy gag gift for father’s day or a birthday all you need is: Toilet Paper and Acrylic Paint!

Paint your message on the toilet paper, let it dry, wrap it up and give your gift!

joy

3 Ways to Recycle an Old Shirt into No Sew Headbands

by kaella, posted in Creativity, DIY

25 Poppasome Tokens of Appreciation (1)

If you have read some of my other Teach Me Tuesday posts, then you will know that I LOVE to upcycle other things into a new thing… especially clothing! Clothes can be given new life as something else if you put a little creativity into it.

Today, I am showing you how to take one shirt that is stretchy like a t-shirt or something similar and make it into 3 headbands. You don’t need to sew or glue anything just tie some knots and you are good to go. This is also a great way for a child who is learning how to tie knots to practice and make their own headbands for the summer.

Headband #1: The Turban Style Headband

Headband #2: The Tie a Bow Headband

Headband #3: The Double Braid Headband

Happy Crafting!

3 Milk Carton Kids Crafts for the Spring

by kaella, posted in Uncategorized

www.greenerybride.co

Spring is in full bloom in our area which means flowers, birds and planning for the Summer. It also means rain and lots of it! How do you keep kids occupied when they can’t go outside and play? Find a fun craft to keep them occupied… here are 3 different ideas that relate to the Spring season and upcoming Summer season.

Now, if you are like me, you are the type that hates to just throw things away or just recycle them but everything can be repurposed to work as something different if you think outside the box. One thing I hold onto is milk cartons because I can use them for so many different things. Something I love to use them for are rainy day crafts to keep Danyella occupied when it is raining out.

*Please note that these crafts need parental/adult supervision and help because it requires a knife or scissors to complete.

Idea Number 1: Milk Carton Planter

Paint the carton with acrylic paint. You may need to have the kids let a coat of paint dry and paint again. Once the paint is dry, the parent/adult can cut the top out of one side of the carton. Add soil and seeds/seedlings. The kids can watch the plants grow in their new planter!

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Idea Number 2: Milk Carton Bird Feeder

Paint the carton with acrylic paint. You may need to have the kids let a coat of paint dry and paint again. Once the paint is dry, the parent/adult can cut the top out of two or all four sides of the carton. Put a hole on the opposite side of top opening. Put a string through both holes and tie the ends together. Fill the bottom with bird seed. Hand the bird feeder on a favorite tree or porch to watch the birds eat.

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Idea Number 3: Milk Carton Bank

Paint the carton with acyrilic paint. You may need to have the kids let a coat of paint dry and paint again. Once the paint is dry, the parent/adult can cut a slot on the top of one of the sides of the carton. The coins can go in the slot and the bills in the top hole! This is a project that the kids can add stickers or other decorations as well!

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DIY Ribbon Bookmark plus May Writing Prompt Calendar

by kaella, posted in Uncategorized

DIY Ribbon Bookmark Tutorial

Hooray its May! After a cold, snowy Winter and wet, rainy April…. we have sunshine on the first day of May! Add to that the fact that its Teach Me Tuesday and you have a near perfect day!

This week’s Teach Me Tuesday is for our readers and writers, young and old with a DIY tutorial to make ribbon bookmarks plus a writing prompt for the month of May. If you know someone (including yourself) that loses bookmarks every time they read then this is the perfect bookmark to make!

The bookmark is very cute and customizable with the type of ribbon and buttons you want to use. You can use recycled ribbon from gift boxes or other places you find ribbon. If you are like me, you find buttons everywhere but don’t know where they came from so you can use those buttons for this project. The great thing about these bookmarks is that they created so they do not slip out the books and get lost. For the May Writing Prompt, keep scrolling past the bookmark tutorial!

Supplies:

Ribbon

Buttons

Hair Tie (preferably new but you can recycle your unused ones too)

Hot Glue Gun and glue stick

Directions

  1. Cut ribbon to 12″ long or as long you want/need
  2. Place hair tie over one side of the ribbon, fold the ribbon over the tie and glue down
  3. Glue the button on the other side of the ribbon
  4. Allow the glue to dry
  5. Read and bookmark your place!

May Writing Prompt:

As a homeschooling mom, I love having Danyella write something everyday. The writing prompts are a great way to get the creative juices flowing and sometimes make her think outside of the box. In the past, we have used prompts that I have found on Pinterest. While we loved them, there was something usually missing from them. Danyella prefers to have the prompts in a calendar form which has been a great way to teach her about calendars and planning.

This May writing prompt is formatted for 2018 but can be used at any point, in any year. I hope you enjoy getting your child’s creative juices flowing and encouraging them to use their words to write something beautiful everyday of May!

Here is the PDF to print off: May Writing Prompt and the JPG:

May Writing Prompt

If you like this prompt please share the picture below to Pinterest or your favorite social media!May Writing Prompt (1)

 

Baby Prints DIY Mason Jar Vase

by kaella, posted in DIY

With Mother’s Day less than a month away, I wanted to find a cute way to make a gift for the grandmothers that incorporated the baby. Everyone loves baby hands and feet, so why not use them as a print. With a simple mason jar, some paint I had in the house and the baby’s hands and feet…. a Mother’s Day gift was born!

All you need is a jar (I love the way mason jars look so that is what I picked), paint, a paint brush and a baby!

First, Paint a base coat onto the mason jar. I did 3 coats of white first, letting each coat dry for a few hours between.

Next, I attempted to get Evie’s handprints on to the jar with the yellow. She was less than cooperative because she just wanted to chew on her teething toy not play in paint. I let this sit for a few hours to dry.

Next, I printed Evie’s feet over the hand print to make a layered look. This does look cute on the ones where Evie let me roll her feet with the paint.

Last, I put daffodils in the jar to make a vase, but you can add some dirt and make this a planter or add their favorite candy for a candy jar. The possibilities are endless and they will love having a grandchild or child keepsake to decorate their house.

Silk Screen Printing Obsession

by kaella, posted in DIY, Uncategorized

My newest obsession is finding things to silk screen a cute quote or picture on. I love seeing cute shirts on Pinterest or Amazon and hate paying $25 for a shirt I can make for under $10! I’m crafty so I set out to create my own cool shirts and much more!

Last year, I made dance mom shirts for the Elite moms but it was a long and tedious task. I hand printed every single letter and dancer on 6 different shirts. It was a lot more work then I had anticipated.

This year we wanted new shirts but I didn’t want to go down the same stamping road again. At Hobby Lobby, I found silk screening kits. This was perfect. There was a $50 and $150 kit. Honestly, I have no idea what the difference between the kits were but I wasn’t prepared to spend $150 on something I didn’t know if I was going to screw up.

I purchased the $50 and used my 40% off coupon (I am a savings queen so this was a must do!) which cost me about $33 with tax. The box included the silk screen, a paint brush, a jar of black ink, special paper, exacto knife and the scraper. All I need shirts to print on…

So the instructions were completely confusing and explained different ways to silk screen which required buying more products. I was feeling overwhelmed and confused as hell! Maybe this was to much for me??

I went back to the box and figured out that they printed their design on the special paper then cut it out with the exacto knife. I did my first design, printed it out, cut it out and began my first experiment…

What a disaster of ink every but where I wanted on the shirt!! I didn’t realize that the paper gets taped to the underside of the screen. I had to go look up YouTube videos to understand what I did wrong and what I needed to do.

So, I started the process over again design, print, cut… now tape under the screen, add the ink and scrape it across the screen onto the shirt. (Thanks Doug for the donation of one of your shirts!) Wow it looked freaking awesome!!

Another thing that I learned the hard way, is that you need to clean the ink off your screen ASAP or it will stain the screen. I thought I could leave the design on the screen until I was ready to print the real shirts. Nope!! Clean that ink off ASAP!!

Next I found these super soft, stretchy purple shirts. The purple color is the Elite’s color and these shirts were perfect. I designed a shirt to say “I’m a crazy dance mom 5678 dance”. I did one for my Christina and myself. They were a huge hit with the moms.

I then had orders for moms shirts, an Aunt shirt because Aunt Emilee needs a shirt too and a dad shirt. It became an assembly line of printing and hanging them around my dining room. Plus, Evie needed a “I’m a crazy dance baby” onesie!

Once I got the directions correct, these shirts looked freaking awesome! The moms and Aunt Emilee wore their shirts to the competition plus the baby had her onesie on until she peed through all her clothes. I now have plans to make the dancers and their teacher special end of season gifts with my silk screen printer!

One of the dance moms with her adorable girls

I would suggest the $50 kit from Speedball because it’s pretty simple to do and really fun. For kids, the ink will stain so have them wear disposable gloves. There is so much you can do with a silk screen printer! I can’t wait to make more in the future!!

*please not this post is not sponsored in anyway, shape or form. Just my own personal review of a product I purchased!

Kids Tissue Paper Heart Craft

by kaella, posted in Handmade Gifts

Today’s Teach me Tuesday is for the kids but adults can have making these too. With Valentine’s Day only a couple weeks away, I wanted to do a cute craft that kids could make and give as a gift or use to decorate their room. Plus, after the baby shower I have a TON of tissue paper because I just can’t throw it away so I am recycling it.

Now depending on the age(s) of the child(ren) making this craft will determine how much help they will need from an adult. An adult will need to cut a heart shape from cardboard which I used an exacto knife to do. For younger kids, an adult will need to cut the tissue paper into small squares.

Supplies:

Heart shaped cardboard cutout, tissue paper squares 2″x2″s, Elmer’s liquid glue, paint brush and string or yarn.

Directions:

Cut the heart out of the cardboard and put a hole at the top to put the string through later.

Cut the tissue paper into 2″x 2″ squares.

With the pain brush put a little bit of glue at a time on the heart so it doesn’t dry to fast.

Take the tissue square and squish it to create the texture and put it on the glue.

Keep doing these 2 steps until the entire heart is filled but make sure you don’t cover the hole at the top.

Once dry, thread the string through the hole and tie into a loop.

Now the heart is ready to be a gift or decoration.

This is a great way to let kids get creative with colors and make a handmade item.

Upcycle Old Sweaters into New Slippers

by kaella, posted in Uncategorized

Anyone who wears sweaters, has old sweaters that are out of shape, dull in color or out of style. I love to take old items that most people throw away and make it something new again. For the next 2 Teach Me Tuesday posts, I will be showing you how to upcycle an old sweater into something new just using the sweater, scissors, yarn and a yarn needle!

Today we are upcycling an old sweater into new slippers which are cozy and cute! My best tip is to use a machine knit sweater because they don’t unravel as easily as a handmade sweater.

Step 1: Cut the sleeves off of the sweater.

Step 2: Take a pair of shoes or flip flops to cut the sweater to create the soles for the slippers. You can use a marker to trace and cut the soles as well.

Step 3: Line up the sole to the cut end of the sleeve. I did pin them together just to make it easier for me. You might need to stretch the sleeve end to fit the sole.

Step 4: Cut a large length of yarn and sew the sole and sleeve together. I used a stitch that wrapped the yarn across the edge of the two pieces by threading the yarn through the yarn loop. You can use any stitch that is easy for you. For added strength, you can stitch 2 rounds.

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Step 5: this is optional! I added a weave of yarn at the top of the sleeve so I can tighten the top if I want to wear them different ways.

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Now I have a new pair of slippers for this snowy night we are going to have in New Jersey! Next week, I will be taking more of the same sweater to make mittens so be sure to stay tuned!

Easy DIY Handmade Candle Gifts

by kaella, posted in Uncategorized

DIY Candle Gift

Originally, when I purchased this candle making hit from Hobby Lobby, all I wanted it for was the pot to melt my lotion pops and lip balms. The kit was $23 regular price but of course I brought out the 40% coupon and got the kit for $14. Me being me, I saved the candle making contents for another day to experiment. As the holidays are fast approaching and my budget getting smaller, I pulled the candle making contents out to check out what I had to work with. The contents included palm wax, a color/fragrance wax bar, thermometer, 9 wicks and 3 little tins to make the candles. Well how do you include 9 wicks and 3 tins?

I headed to my favorite cheap crafting solution store… The Dollar Store! I found a set of 3 little plastic dishes that look like cupcake wrappers. I bought 3 sets of 3 to go with the 9 wicks. Now my total was $17 for 9 gifts minus the wrapping or bags they will go in.

Now the kit did originally come with instructions which of course I couldn’t find because I was looking for them. So I just kinda winged this part as a learning process….

First, I warmed the water in my pot and placed the pot from the kit in the water to create a  double boiler. While the water and pots were warming, I placed the wicks inside the containers.

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Second, I placed about half of the bag of wax into the pot and let it melt down. I did stir occasionally using a silicone spatula that I use for the body products. You can use a spoon that you don’t mind not using for food again.

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Third, I added half of the color/fragrance bar and allowed it to melt down. Continue to stir once in a while to get an even coloring. My coloring was a dark green and the fragrance was a sweet floral scent which I really do like. While that was melting I placed chopsticks (pencils would work as well) next to the wicks to help keep them in place when I go to pour.

Fourth, after allowing the wax to cool for a few minutes (Not to long or it will begin to solidify), I poured the wax into the containers. I did this slowly so that the wicks would get shifted and the wax was even. I didn’t realize that one of the containers had a crack in the side so a little wax did come out until the wax started to solidify.

Photo Dec 05, 8 26 17 PM

It took about an hour for the candles to cool down but I think they are very cute and easy to make for a gift. Now to figure out what to wrap them in??

Here is a link the kit on Amazon which is more expensive than the Hobby Lobby price but still a great way to save some money by making multiple gifts to give at one time.

Candle Making Kit

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DIY Dollar Store Advent Calendar

by kaella, posted in Uncategorized

see & explore

I grew up enjoying the chocolate filled advent calendars which my kids and have adopted the advent calendar tradition. These advent calendars are hot commodities in my area and sell out very quickly so we have learned to be on the hunt for them. Last week, Danyella and I went into Hobby Lobby and found the calendars…

They wanted $8 for an advent calendar that was smaller than the ones we have bought in the past. No way was I going to pay $8 for cheap chocolate in a cardboard box! That is just absurd inflation when I could make a better one for the same price or cheaper.

So, I headed to my favorite place for cheap crafts…. The Dollar Store! I purchased snowflake printed zip bags, small bags of Danyella’s favorite candies, a pair of socks (she loves penguins), lipsmackers, holiday bracelets and holiday erasers. Plus I had some holiday kisses to use as well. All of these would be fun treats for her to open once a day and better than the overpriced advent calendar. I already had leftover wrapping paper, tape and a cardboard box to cut up and I printed the numbers through my Google Docs account. So I spent a total of $7 plus tax for our DIY advent calendar!

Materials:

wrapping paper

cardboard box (cut into the size/shape you desire)

tape (I preferred double-sided but you can use regular clear tape)

printed numbers 1-24

fun goodies for 24 days

zip lock baggies

Directions:

  1. Create 1-24 and cut each number out than tape them to the bags
  2. Fill the bags with your goodies
  3. Wrap the piece of cardboard with the wrapping paper
  4. Create row with the tape to stick the bags (I created 3 rows starting with 24 at the top and ending with 1)
  5. Press the baggies onto the tape for the kids to peel off each day
  6. Place your advent calendar on display and start on December 1st