We Did It Wednesday: Dollar Tree Cake Plate

I have seen several people talking about making their own cake plates using items from Dollar Tree and a tube of E6000®(which is currently an add-on item on Amazon for only $2.97).  I have no idea who first came up with this, so I am sharing my experience with you.

I made this plate with a green bowl and fun multicolor plate that I found at Dollar Tree.  Due to the fluidity of their products, I cannot promise you will find the same colors at your local store, but chances are you will be able to find something.  When choosing the bowl, be sure to choose a bowl with taller sides and not the shallower cereal bowl.  After you have your products, you simply run a line of the glue around the bottom of the bowl and then center it on the underside of the plate and let it dry.  Mine was dry within 10 minutes, making the entire project super quick.  In fact, I think I spent more time choosing the dishes than I did putting it together.  The fact it cost less than $2.50 to make and can be done quickly makes this a great gift idea for a wedding, Christmas, or just because.  I plan to make a few, pile them with cookies, muffins, or a cake and deliver them to some friends who could use a pick-me-up.

Canning Jar Sewing Kits

We made these recently to commemorate National Sewing Day on September 10th.  They were super easy to do and fairly inexpensive.

Items needed for Canning Jar Sewing Kits:

• small square of fabric (We used some scrap fabric and for one, used a piece of a sheet that had gotten a whole in it)
• small bit of batting (We used some stuffed animal and pillow stuffing from some that were no longer good. We washed them thoroughly with bleach and hot water before cutting up)
• a canning jar just big enough to hold all your sewing notions (we used jelly jars that my dear friend, Gail, had given us, but you may be able to find some at a yard sale or second hand store)
• a lid and seal for the jar (We used new ones, but I imagine you could use a used seal as well.)
• sewing notions (These are mostly for the kids to learn with, so we just picked up small kit for each one at Dollar Tree.  The quality of the notions is not great, but it will serve us for now.)
• hot glue gun and glue sticks

Instructions to make Canning Jar Sewing Kits

1.  Clean jars with hot water and remove any stickers and labels.
2. Place sewing notions into jar.  This will probably be fairly easy, but may take some maneuvering.
3. Place batting onto top of jar seal and cover with fabric, so that the covered batting is on the top of the seal and the fabric edges are on the bottom of the seal. Trim any extra fabric, or you may not be able to put the lid and seal on afterwards.
4. Turn seal over and carefully use the hot glue gun to glue the fabric down.  ***I highly recommend an adult do this, as I, myself, ended up with a few burns on my finger tips.***
5. Push the covered seal up through the lid so that the covered batting is coming through the top of the lid.
6. Screw the lid onto the jar and you are done.  If you are having trouble getting the lid to screw on, make sure the seal is pushed through right to the top and trim any extra fabric that might be preventing it from screwing on.  This does not need to be a perfect or tight fit, but to look nice it should at least screw on a little bit.

You now have all your sewing notions together in a small jar and a pincushion on top. I am planning on picking up some canning labels and putting each child's name on their kit, but it is not necessary.

Pinspired: Snowman Pencil Holder

I am always looking for ways to re-use things around my house.  Recently, I also found myself in need of something to corral my BIC permanent markers, so when I found a snowman pencil holder on Pinterest, made from a recycled vegetable can, I couldn't wait to make it.
I gathered my supplies (except, I ended up not using the googly eyes):

Supplies Needed 
tin can (I used the can from a 29 oz can of tomato sauce, but you can use a smaller one)
glue (white glue would work as well as hot glue)
scissors
white yarn (mine is actually off white, but pure white would look nicer)
a square of black felt
orange felt scrap
optional: googly eyes or permanent markers for the face

Instructions
1) Wash the can and remove the label.
2) Cut a square from the black felt that extends about 1/2" past the edges of your can.  Fold the square in half and make a slit.
3) Center the square over the top of the can and cut from the slit to the inside edge of the can.  Do this until you have cut the center out and can slip it down snugly over the can.  The felt will stretch, so if you cut it a little small, that is okay.
4) Cut the edges off the square, so that it resembles the brim of a hat.
5) With the remaining black felt, stretch it around the top 1/3 of the can.  You have to pull on it a bit, but it will fit perfectly.  Glue this down.  I found it a little easier to have the felt taller than the can and then to cut it down to size after it was glued on.
6) Starting on the same side of the can where the seam to the hat is, put a bit of glue down and start wrapping the white yarn around the can.  I started at the bottom and worked my way up.  I wrapped it around several times and then pushed the yarn down to keep it tightly wrapped, so no tin showed through.  When you get close to the felt, put a drop of glue down and glue down the yarn.  Cut the remaining yarn off.
7) Adjust the brim of the hat so that it sits between the yarn and felt.  Mine fit snug enough that I did not need to glue it, but if yours does not, you can glue it in place.
8) Now it is time to make the face.  I simply cut a small triangle from the orange felt and then took my scraps of black felt and cut out roundish circles, smaller ones for the mouth and slightly larger ones for the eyes.  Coal is not perfectly shaped, so this is a very easy part of the craft.  I had planned to use googly eyes, but really preferred the look of the "coal" felt eyes more. Feel free to use whatever you like.  Also, the felt sticks well to the yarn, so you can play around with the face until you find what you like, then glue them down.

The total cost of this craft was less than 25 cents, as I have about 1/3 of the black felt square left and almost all of the orange felt left, along with most of the skein of yarn. If you had to go out and buy all the materials, it would still cost under $2, as you can use a low-quality yarn. This is also a fun project to do with kids, but I would not recommend using the hot glue gun with little ones.

This has been shared on Simply Rebekah, Your Green Resource.

Craft Tutorial: Candy Apple for Teacher

My son started pre-kindergarten today and, just as when my daughter went to pre-k, I wanted to send a gift for his teachers.  I was inspired by something I had seen on Pinterest, posted by Cute As a Fox blog.  I highly recommend checking out her tutorial as well for other ideas and pictures of the various steps.  As much as I liked the craft I did for my daughter, there was little she could do to help.  These are much easier to do with a child, so they can feel like the gift is really from them.

What you need
- red ramekin (I picked up a 3-pack at The Dollar Tree)
- red candies (I used gummy raspberries, but you could also use jelly beans, M&Ms, or any other red  candy)
- a lollipop (I used a red Tootsie Pop)
- plastic wrap
- a brown marker
- green ribbon
- spray adhesive (regular glue will work as well)

Directions
1) Color the bottom half of the lollipop stick brown.  This is a great task for the child to help with.  I marked the line and had him color in from the line to the bottom of the stick.
2) After the marker has dried (they dry pretty quick), lay out a square of plastic wrap.  I used about a 10" square (I guestimated, no need for a ruler).  You will then put 1-2 handfuls of candy in the center of the square.
3) Take the lollipop and place it in the center of the candies, stick side down.  Then gently poke the stick through the plastic wrap.
4) Carefully gather up the edges of the plastic wrap, forming a ball.  Twist the plastic wrap so that it is tight over the candy and then place it in the ramekin, twist-side down.
5) Cut a 3"-4" piece of ribbon (longer if it is a thin ribbon or if you did not color far enough up on the stick), trimming the ends at an angle.  Spray the ribbon with the adhesive and wrap it around the stick, like the memory ribbons, so that the ends are not stuck together. (It is ok if the ends stick together, they just look more like a flag, than a leaf.  The one on the right in my picture is done that way.)  If you have white stick to cover, wrap the middle of the ribbon around the white part and then stick the ribbon together, like in my apple with the light green ribbon.
6) We did not include name tags, but you could easily add one by attaching it to the "stem"  or around the ramekin.

Craft Tutorial: Candy Pencils

I saw these candy pencils on the Thrifty and Thriving blog and decided to try something similar for my Janelle's 3 new pre-K teachers.  Yes, I am still homeschooling my other children, and after this year, she will also return to being homeschooled, but we felt it was in her best interest to attend this pre-K program so we enrolled her.  Now, back to the tutorial.

These pencils make cute teacher gifts, but I also think they are just as cute for students.  In the original design, the other blogger used card stock and rolls of Rolos candy.  Unfortunately, the procrastinator that I am, I did not give myself enough time to go shopping for supplies and use what I had on hand or could buy at Wegman's.  This means I used construction paper and rolls of Mentos.  The other option I had was to buy a bag of individually wrapped Rolos and stack them together, but honestly, I did not feel like doing that, so I used the Mentos.  Plus, the fruit Mentos have a shiny pink wrapper that I used in place of the pink cardstock, to serve as the eraser.  So here is how I did it: 

Materials
1 roll of Mentos fruit candy
1 Hershey kiss (I used caramel filled because I wanted the tips to look like wood, but I think almond would have looked better)
1 sheet of yellow construction paper
a small strip of foil
1 glue dot
clear tape
black marker

1) I peeled off a small amount of the out wrapper of the Mentos in order to have more of the pink wrapper showing.  However, when I looked at the finished pencils, the eraser I like the best is the one with just a little pink showing anyway (the one for Miss Frenchesca).  So this step is optional.
2) Use a glue dot to stick the Hershey kiss on the opposite end of the roll of candy.

3) Measure your piece of construction paper to wrap around your pencil, ensuring that it wrap around the part where the Hershey kiss meets the Mentos, as this is the widest part of the pencil.  Also, you want to be sure to measue the paper long enough to cover where the Hershey kiss meets the Mentos, but not too long.  My lest favorite pencil tip is the one where I covered most of the Hershey kiss (the one for Miss Frenchesca)  Use regular scissors to cut the long side and pinking shears, or other zig-zag style scissors to cut the short side.  If you do not have zig-zag style scissors, regular ones are fine.
4) Write the recipient's name or your message in the middle of the paper with the marker.
5) Carefully and evenly, wrap the paper around your pencil and secure with tape running the length of the paper.  I started at the pencil tip and ran most of the way up to the top.  I left a small amount untaped at the top though because when you tape the foil on in a minute, that tape will cover the missed parts.

This is where you can really see the difference in using Rolos versus Mentos.  Rolos are slightly wider and therefore a better size match for the Hershey Kiss.  In order to have tapering pencils, I had to make them the same girth from tip to end, thus making my "eraser" look small.
6) Take a small piece of aluminum foil and fold the ends under or use scissors to trim off the serrated edge.  Wrap around the eraser end of the pencil, covering where the paper and the eraser meet. 

You are now finished and can present your gifts.  These did not come out quite as nice as I had hoped, but maybe I will continue to work on them for future gifts for the kids.  If I can figure out how to make them look better, I will be sure to update this post.