A Mile in My Shoes

One Last Post Before I Go...

Most everyone that goes on the FFHM Missions trip brings something to hand out to the kids while we're there.  Balloons and bubbles are popular.  Someone donated about 150 matchbox cars for us to take.  Stickers and glow sticks are coming along too, while others got stuff from Oriental Trading Co. 

I was trying to think of something original to bring.  Usually I go for quality over quantity.  Something inexpensive and fun...

We have play-silks, and my kids L-O-V-E them!  They are played with on an almost daily basis.  They can be anything!  One day they're a baby sling, the next a placid lake, and after that a dance costume. 

The only problem, is that most silks cost about $11 a piece.  I got mine on sale for $5 each, and I still considered that a splurge!

Then I stumbled across Woodmouse Loves Crafts, and she was dyeing her own!!!  With Kool-Aid!  Amber linked her source for undyed silks, Dharma Trading Co.  There are plenty of sizes!  I went for the 35 x 35" scarves (the same size as our own.)  They are $3.50 each, but if you buy 12 they are just $3.40!  That was do-able. 

I followed Amber's tutorial for Kool-Aid dyeing, and it worked perfectly!  I had several silks on the counter soaking in a vinegar-water solution (1 glug of vinegar and the rest water.)  And my dye pan in the sink.

Until I wanted to try using my Wilton's Blue for a royal blue color.  The silk wouldn't take the color at all!  I called Brigitte, and she gave me some advice.  I switched to a glass baking dish (aluminum pans can react to dyes.)  It still didn't work.  So I went to Google.  There I found Confessions of a Stash Junkie's tutorial, and from there -  a Mothering.com forum post about using Wilton's Icing coloring.  From that I learned that I needed to add a glug of vinegar to the dye bath and to let it sit longer.  Perfect!

It worked great for the red too, which is supposed to be difficult as well.

I love it!  Quick, fun, pretty, and pretty inexpensive!  Three silks would make a great birthday present for a little girl, and it would cost less than $11!

As for taking them to Mexico, I put 6 of them in a gallon ziploc and squeezed all the air out.  Perfectly flat!  They take up no room at all, and I think they'll be popular!

From left to right: Red=Wilton's Red Rouge, Pink=Wilton's Pink Carnation, Orange=Kool-Aid's Orange, Green=Kool-Aid's Lemon-Lime, Light Blue=Kool-Aid's Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade, Blue=Wilton's Royal Blue, and the Purple was first dyed with Kool-Aid's Grape, but it looked like mud so I over-dyed it with Wilton's Lavender.

For the Wilton's, a little bit goes a looooooooong way!  I have 4 more colors I'd like to make, all using Wilton's: light yellow, dark yellow, dark green, and lavender.

Overall, it was a great child-friendly craft that I would definitely recommend!

Flowers here, flowers there, flowers everywhere!

The three day weekend afforded us some time to do something we've been meaning to do for years.

Plant flowers in the front of our home. 

We've done it in the past, and have intended to do it even more often, but it always seems to get pushed to the back burner.  Years of inattention left our flowerbeds looking more like a Prairie Restoration Project, much to the dismay of our neighbors, I'm sure.

Well, this year not only did we plant flowers, we Weed n' Feeded our lawn!  It doesn't look spectacular, but at least it looks like we care!

3 flats of Impatiens and 4 garbage bags of Llama "beans" later...

We have this.  Yippeee!

And then all the flowering going on outside inspired me to get some flowering going on inside.  I came across this craft online a couple times.  I even ran into it at Michael's.  (Have you seen the new line of Martha-inspired craftiness there?  Be still my heart, I can't believe the woman didn't start this sooner.) Now I can run into it every time I walk between my living and dining room.

Aren't they pretty?  I think I need to make a matching table arrangement....

Easter Decoration, or lack thereof

I have no Easter Decorations.  Not really any Spring decorations either.

So I decided to felt some Easter Eggs. 

I bought some Styrofoam eggs and needle-felted some wool roving to them.  Then I shoved them in one of Iris's old tights legs and tied a few knots. I took turns immersing them in cold and hot water while rubbing them.  Then I snipped them out of their little pods and continued rubbing on them individually until they had the finish I was looking for.  I wore rubber gloves so I could make the cold water really cold and the hot water really hot.  I squeezed as much water out of them as I could, and now they are sitting in the sun to dry.  I might tuck them back into some nylons and put them in the dryer with a pair of jeans on the air-fluff cycle, just to speed things up. 

I like them solid like this, but I think I'm going to needle-felt some little patterns on them.

So this is the extent of my Easter/Spring decorations (The chick and duckling found their way into my cart last night, they gave me the ideas for the eggs.)  I want to craft some more.  Anyone have any ideas?

A Place for Everything...

And Everything in Its Place.

A friend and I finally made our long awaited trip to IKEA yesterday.  It was my first time. 

Among a few (cough, ahem) other things I picked up this little organization box.  I've been reading my favorite book by Julie Morgenstern and she has a few good ideas.  I was going to quote her here, but it seems that I've combined a couple of her ideas into this little project.  Her suggestions revolved around organizing bills.  I have to admit, as a "creative" mind, that this is not one of my strengths one of my weaknesses.

In this house, papers grow into piles as tall as the trees they come from.  And good luck finding the cable bill before its due date.

Enter: IKEA box.

The top three drawers are for the things that we can never find: tape, pens/sharpies, and scissors.  The top long drawer is for bills due during the 1st-15th of the month, and the lower long drawer is for bills due during the 16th-the end of the month.  This way, I can just throw them in a drawer (very appealing to my disorganized creative mind) yet they are very simply organized and out of site.  A win-win situation!

I got the decoration inspiration from Blair at Wisecraft.  It's just some scrap-book papers decoupaged to the fronts of the drawers.  I couldn't decide on which papers to use, so I cut a ton of squares out and Iris helped me choose which ones to use.  She's pretty good with colors!  It still needed something, so I stuck one of my recently acquired plants on top (green planter bought for 99¢ at IKEA.)  I love it!  Ta-daaa, a dreary job made cheery!

And... since I'm all about sharing the love, I'll give my extra papers (already cut to size and enough for a 5 or 9 drawer organizer!) to one of you!  You'll have to go to IKEA and get your own box though.   Just leave a note in the comments that you're interested, and we'll pick a name out of a hat on Friday.

Valentine Craft

So, I think I have a thing for Sun Catchers.  Either that, or I just need some color to brighten our February.  I came across this craft on my friend Martha's web-site.  I couldn't resist. 

First, we shaved the crayons.  The crayon sharpener was going a little too slow for me, so I got out an old grater.   That sped things up a little, but we had to go slow enough to be safe.  We didn't want any knuckles or fingertips in our craft.

Then I melted the crayons.   Make sure you heed Martha's advice to spread the shavings evenly and thinly.  It helps if you have the kraft paper she suggests.  We used paper bags and the creases became very annoying.  They made the melted wax pool instead of spreading evenly. 

The hardest part was finding a heart shape we liked.  One was too fat, one was too long.  One had bumpy edges.  I finally found the "perfect" one, and we traced all the hearts.  Then we cut.

I wanted to cluster them like Martha did, but decided that would be too putzy.  I wanted instant gratification.  So we used double-sided tape, like we did for the window stars.  And since we spend 90% of our time in the living room and dining room, that's where the stars went.  I love it!

I think our windows look like a kaleidoscope!