Closet Case

So, it took me almost a week and I do it a couple of times a year but . . . . the craft closet is clean!!

Ahhhhh, I love it when it is all organized and neat. We *really* need to start doing more crafts and use some of these supplies up! Seriously, how many pipe cleaners and glitter and googley eyes does one family need!!

And there are crafting things not in this closet- shhh! I have 3 spin art machines (shuddup! stop laughing!!). One is the Explosion and I have never used it (50c yard sale find). I think I will let that go soon.

 

I am *such* a labeler! And I use whatever I have handy. Most of my supplies are from yardsales. It is handy to have the craft closet but we are just not crafting regularly. I hope to keep up with the goal of one craft a weekend.

Upcoming crafts: shrinky dinks (gotta use the leftover bits from the xmas ornaments), hand casts (think the boys can hold their hands in a Hook Em sign while in a bucket of goo?), and beaded cd case magnetic picture frames. Stay Tuned!

~~

Pocket Magnets

      I’ve made these for over a decade. They are a standard gift for teachers and I make them in batches to have on hand year round. They stick to ‘fridges to hold coupons and pens, lockers to hold pens, metal file cabinets to hold scissors- whatever.

They are super handy and easy cheesy to make. I use outgrown jeans or pick them up for cheap at yardsales. I look for the rattiest jeans and offer 50 cents. Since all I use is the pockets, I like to freecycle the denim – usually to a quilter.

     How to:

Usually I trim all my pockets in small batches and toss the pockets in one bin and the denim in a bag to pass on.

Trim as close to the pocket as you can leaving a bit at the top to fold over and make a nice hem. (is it called a hem if it is at the top? I dunno).

I run a bead of glue along the flap and fold the pocket over (as opposed to folding the flap over the pocket).

 

    

I am not sure if it saves me some burns but that’s how I do it.

Warning: glue guns are hot and you WILL burn yourself. I keep a glass of ice water handy to plunge my fingers in when I do get molten glue on them.

 

I do all the glue gunning in batches, too.  Even if I do not have enough magnets in one sitting I usually finish out the hemming since I know it will just save me time next round.

    

I buy the magnet strip on a roll (using a 40% off coupon when there is nothing else I need so I have a good stockpile of it). Dryfit the pieces and trim to size. I use a lot of magnets because I know how much handling I do with these pockets. But I also recycle those freebie magnets- but keep the ratio low. Most are pretty lightweight.

 

Place the first strip across the top and then fill in the back.

      Running the bead of glue on the magnetic strip and then using your fingers to turn it over and place it down is the hardest part of the project- the glue overflows or squeeze out from under and gets ya!

 

This took about 2 hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See the layered ones? And the embellished ones? I love finding toddler jeans or embroidered jeans and layering different shades of blues. The jewel stones were leftovers from another project.

  ~~

Cool contest!

CONTEST: http://delightfullearning.com/2010/01/lacing-buttons-review-and-giveaway/comment-page-3/#comment-2991 is running a great contest for a wicked cute toy button lacing toy. Since ours is now considered vintage, I had to enter in hopes of winning! Check her site out – it has some really great homeschooling ideas!

~~

Have you ever spray painted a *DOOR*??

You can and it works great!! We have had this sad white bathroom door for years. It was dingy (boys with dirty hands will do that) no matter how much we tried to clean it, it just looked grubby so I made an executive decision to spray paint it and sent Hubby off to Home Depot for supplies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He came back with a trigger sprayer and a few cans of celery green paint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tape the knob and spray away. Flip, repeat. Hang and admire.

ahhhhhh - - You have to trust me that it looks good because my Autistic son likes to peel paint and the doorframes look reeeeeally bad. When i get a chance to repaint them, I’ll take a follow up photo. *sigh* The project list continues!

~~

Vintage Vals - Remixed

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A little photoshopping on a few of my faves from this post and these are ready to print. This weekend we did spin art t-shirts so this project will be next weekend’s. I am thinking thumbprint hearts and names (in cursive, print and by mommy, respectively) on the back of the cards and use the envelopes I got for free.

How do you score free envelopes, you ask- easy! Hit all the targets, CVS’, etc you can on the day after valentine’s day, Halloween etc and ask the folks changing out the greeting cards nicely. They will give you as many as you want- otherwise they get THROWN AWAY!!

(Note: not completely happy with the cowboy card- but it was trickier to work with. might re-do it)

~~

Vintage Valentines

Sooo, I went a googlin’ and found some of these and then found this flicker group and this website.

I saved a bunch – here are some.

My plan is to print them out and use them in place of store bought cards for the kids. I also wanted to put a few on the mantle. They also help my autistic son learn about puns – something he has a hard time “getting”.

                

     

           

      

   

        

       

 

~~