Gerber daisy, peony, and lilac paper flowers

Hyacinths, Gerber daisies, and peonies

I recently saw a post on Aunt Peaches blog on how to make hyacinths from tissue paper and another post where she made dyed coffee filters to make roses. I decided to make some for my daughter's Easter birthday party.

1. I diluted 15-20 drops of food dye McCormick's Neon food color and egg dye in approximately 0.25 - 0.5 cup water in a small bowl. The edges of groups of filters were placed in dye until they were completely wet. I was a little impatient for the filters to dry, so I put them on top of a piece of newspaper on a cookie sheet in the oven at 225 degrees, checking every 20 minutes.

Dying coffee filters-- note that the coffee filters acted like chromatography paper and separated out the pink and the blue of the purple neon dye

Do you see the flowers I saw in these filters?

2. After the filters were dried, fold 3-4 at a time into eighths and cut the tops into a heart shape or smaller petals. Cut a 3" wide (by approximately 18" long) strip of yellow tissue paper, fold it in half and notch the folded side. Cut this strip into 4 pieces (approximately equal in length).

Different flower petal shapes

3. Two techniques for making flower centers:

• Aunt Peaches technique for making hyacinths to make the centers of the flowers:

Flower centers created with hyacinth technique

• Twisted coffee filter: twist yellow filter into a loose ball and stem -- like a large lollipop.

4. Flower assembly: snip off the tip of the folded coffee filters, open them up, and attach them to the flower center with floral tape, floral wire or a pipe cleaner.

5. Fluff out the petals, experiment, and enjoy! I started out to make hyacinths and roses, but ended up with Gerber Daisies and Peonies!

How to make your own stencils for painting

A few years ago I was transitioning my son's room from Beatrix Potter to a jungle theme and decided it would be really cool to have glow in the dark animal shapes painted on the ceiling.I looked high and low for animal stencils and stamps that were more than 3-4 inches wide, but could not find anything, so I decided to make my own out of contact paper.

Step 1. Cut out shape for your stencil. I found some animal graphics on the web that I enlarged.

Step 2. Trace the shape with a Sharpie onto a piece of clear contact paper.

Step 3. Carefully cute out the center of the shape, leaving the outside piece of contact paper in tact.

Step 4. Here is the cool part, peel off the back of the contact paper and place it on the ceiling where you want the stencil to be. I found that the contact paper adheres to the ceiling perfectly and keeps the paint for bleeding under the edges (even better than the painters tape), so your shape stays really sharp....even when you are painting the shapes on the ceiling.

Step 5. Paint the shape....I used glow in the dark paint, but this would work with any paint.

Step 6. After the paint dries, simply peel off the contact paper and throw it away.

The glow-in-the- dark paint doesn't show up so well here, but it looks really cool at night!

7. As an added bonus, you can use the inner cut out of the contact paper for another project.

Paper Mache Easter Eggs

I came across an adorable post on the Not Martha blog detailing how to make paper mache eggs using liquid starch, water balloons and tissue paper. I thought this was a wonderful project to make for my daughter's birthday which falls on Easter this year. Since Not Martha did such a wonderful job detailing how to make these eggs in her original post, I will only highlight the variations I tried.

Close up of the bunny punch out eggs that I made on my improvised drying rack (hangers and clothes pins).

1. The dots on the eggs Not Martha's eggs were absolutely adorable. However, since I was making 50+ eggs for Catie's party and class gifts,  I quickly got tired of trying to put little bunny punch outs on the eggs and moved on to stripes.

Eggs decorated with strips of colored tissue paper.

2. I next replaced the tissue paper with streamers in this process. The streamer eggs seemed more flexible than the tissue paper ones, but then again there was also 1 layer instead of 3-4.

Yellow/red egg made from streamers.

3. Since I wanted to stuff the eggs with larger items (toy cars, etc.), I found that cutting a cross in the tops worked better for filling the eggs that cutting in two places only.

Cross shape cut in top of egg.

4. I used gift wrap curling ribbon instead of string as a brighter way to attached the 'pull me' note.

A bowl full of eggs.

5. I filled a few of the eggs with lollipops and left the sticks sticking out to make them look like balloons. I was not completely happy with the result, but have posted a picture here in case it is something someone else might want to try.

Lollipop egg.

6. Finally, I thought the eggs turned out so well that I made some out of normal-sized balloons to use as decorations. The striped eggs were created by wrapping strips of colored tissue paper around the eggs. The polka dot eggs were made by using a tissue paper that already had that design on it.

Large eggs for party decorations.

Good luck and I hope that you have as much fun making these eggs as I did!

'Duct tape: man's best friend' or 'How to make a Lego Jack Sparrow costume'

In full costume at Legoland....he won 2nd place in the Lego-themed costume contest.

My son really wanted to be Lego Jack Sparrow for Halloween last year, so we compromised with a Lego Head and hands and a pirate costume. I could not find a Lego costume to buy and all of the instructions online for creating a Lego head seemed very complicated -- models that had been carved out of foam or styrofoam.

I was wandering around Michaels one day and saw 12" wooden floral rings with pre-drilled holes and some wooden picks next to them. The light bulb went off! ( After I had created this head, someone asked if I had used a lamp shade as the frame...Nope, but that was another great idea.)  It took me a couple of weeks, but the end result turned out quite well.

Supplies

Basic Lego head matericals:

2 pieces of yellow poster board

2 wooden 12” floral rings

8 wooden floral picks (cut to 10”)

Yellow duct tape

10” Styrofoam circle

Black netting or tulle (scraps)

Wood glue

Black marker

2 skeins black boucle yarn (I used Bernat soft boucle yarn)
Black pipe cleaners

Maroon material for scarf

Misc. beads and string to braid into hair

1. Trace the wooden and styrofoam rings onto one piece of the yellow poster board and cut them out.

2. Cut one 10" strip the length of the second piece of poster board.

3. Use wood glue to adhere the wood picks to the holes in one of the wooden rings. Repeat to add the second ring to the top.

Wooden frame

4. Draw the Lego face in the center of the 10" strip and cut the centers out of these shapes to provide the holes the wearer can see out of. (PDF of the Jack Sparrow template I created, enlarge to the size you need.) Outline cut out shapes with black Sharpie.

Lego face copied to poster board.

5. Tape black netting to the inside of the face with yellow duct tape. This will give the illusion of the Lego face from the outside, but allow the wearer to still see out.

Netting on the back side of the poster board.

6. Glue or duct tape the 12" poster board circle to the top of the wooden frame.
7. Glue or duct tape the 10" poster board circle to the top of the 10" styrofoam circle. Add yellow duct tape around the circumference of the 10" styrofoam, center and glue on the top of the 12" yellow poster board.

Frame with added Lego top

8. Duct tape 10" poster board strip to the wooden frame with yellow duct tape.

A standard Lego head would be done at this point. However, for Jack Sparrow:
9. Created several pom-pom style bundles of yarn of the length needed for the hair. Twist/link them together with the black pipe cleaners. If desired, glue 'wig' to Lego head. (I did not actually glue the hair to the Lego head, but used the headband to hold it in place.)
10. Fold or sew the maroon fabric into a triangle and tie onto head. Braid yarn and use beads other decorations to decorate as desired.

 Almost done.......

I did not put as much effort into creating the Lego hands, but they worked ok with the long-sleeved pirate costume.

Lego hand materials:

2 empty oatmeal containers

Yellow duct tape

Old pair of child’s yellow socks

Styrofoam spacers

1. Cut the two oatmeal containers into 4" rings
2. Cut each ring vertically so that the cardboard can be stretched into a 'C' shape.
3.  Cut a hand hole in the center of 2 of the Cs and attach an old yellow sock or another flexible material through the hole (this will be the cover of the wrist and lower arm.)
3. Glue styrofoam scrap spacers (1-2" high) near one end of the Cs that were uncut and add the cardboard C with the sleeve to the top. Add a second spacer nearer to the hand hole, but remember to leave room for the fingers. Repeat for the other side, trimming the C's as needed to reach the Lego hand shape.
4. Carefully cover the hand frame with yellow duct tape.

Costume:

I bought a pirate costume pattern and material from local fabric store (I took the Lego Jack Sparrow figure to the fabric store to match fabrics).

The final product!