Robot Journal

I had a lot of fun making a gift for a friend's son last week.  It was his third birthday and he really likes robots.  I made him a robot themed notebook because he is very creative and I thought it would be fun for his mommy to have something to save full of his masterpieces. 

I'll share step by step instructions to make this project fun and easy. 

Supplies:

-piece of cardboard (this will be your journal cover so the piece should be large enough to be folded in half for a front and back cover (I used the front of a cereal box but keep in mind my journal is approximately half the size of a letter size notebook)

-fabric (enough to completely cover the front and back of your journal)

-Mod Podge

-hot glue gun (any other glue would probably work just fine but I LOVE my glue gun!)

-felt (enough to completely cover the inside cover of your journal)

-paper (enough to fill your journal)

-scissors

Optional:

-a friend with a cute kid having a birthday because this is the cutest birthday gift ever (obviously that's only my personal opinion)

1) Completely coat your cardboard with Mod Podge.  Don't worry about the size for now, you will be trimming it later.

2) Press your fabric directly onto the coated cardboard (back of fabric is pressed down).  Then give the top of your fabric a good coat of Mod Podge.

3) Let it dry (I left mine alone overnight but I'm sure it doesn't take that long to dry) and stare in awe of Mod Podge's mystical powers.

4) Trim your cover to your desired size.  Remember that you will be folding the piece of cardboard in half to make the front and back cover.  Don't cut two individual pieces to serve as the front and back.

5) Flip your pretty fabric covered cardboard over and cover it in hot glue (or your preferred glue).

6) Press a piece of felt onto the gluey (is that a word?) side of the cardboard.  Trim off any excess felt.

7) Fold your cardboard to make your journal cover.  The binding should be approximately one inch (depending on how much paper you plan to put in the book).  Measure in from the outer edge so you  remember to fold on the binding instead of directly in half.  I found it to be pretty easy to fold using my rotary cutter guide to press the edge of my fold as a guide.

8) Pick out the paper you want to permanently glue into your journal.

9) Cut it to fit your journal.  The dimensions are obviously dependent on the size of your cover.  Just make sure your pages are slightly smaller than your cover so the paper edges don't meet the edges of the cover.

10) Generously apply hot glue to the binding of your pages (I was skeptical too but this actually holds all the paper together). 

11) Apply more hot glue to the edge of the paper and push it onto  a strip of felt.  My felt was two inches wide but yours might end up being different depending on the overall size of your journal.

12) Use hot glue to attach the sides of the felt to the paper.

13) More hot glue!  Generously apply it to the felt that reinforces your page binding.

14) Push your gluey (there's that silly word again) felt back into the book cover. 

15) OPTIONAL - I chose to cut the edges of my paper because I wanted the journal to look interesting.  Remember this was for a three year old's birthday gift.

16) Embellish the cover to make it fun.  I used a wooden robot I had picked up from Joannes specifically for this project.  I also glued on the birthday boy's initial (cut from scrap felt).

You're done!  Now do what I did - wrap it up, sign a card, and run to the nearest post office to mail your belated birthday gift.   That's an optional step too.  You could always just look at your pretty new journal and smile thinking about all the wonderful things that will fill up the pages.

I'm linking this post HERE.

 





Shoe Chart

Birthdays are not just for the birthday girl/boy. In my opinion birthday celebrations should be for the mother too. I mean seriously they are the ones that carried you for 9 long months and went through all the pain in the delivery. With this thought in mind I decided to give myself a gift in honor of my son's 3rd birthday this weekend.

Okay not really. But I did want to make something for me that would remind me of my little one and how much he has grown over the last 3 years.

I present to you the SHOE CHART.




On another note do you use tacky spray for anything? If you don't you should. It is amazing. Just spray it on your materials (wood, fabric, paper, whatever), let it sit for 30 sec or so, and glue whatever you want together. I used it to glue fabric to the back of my photo box board. Then I took 3 pairs of shoes my son wore at each age of his life and tacky sprayed those to the fabric board. Ideally you want some shoes that aren't too beat up or totally dirty but come on HE IS A BOY, so I did the best I could. Next I cut numbers out of felt, sewed them onto pieces of felt I cut into shapes and then tacky sprayed that to the board.

The last part was mod podge letters and hot glued buttons. My son even helped me with the letters. He tore the paper and I glued it on the letter. He really thought that was fun tearing the paper to pieces. Then I hot glued the letters to the front of the photo box. Last I took some ribbon that he picked out and made a bow. Then I stapled the ends of the bow to the back of the box. And now I have an adorable keepsake to put in his room and remind me of how much my son has grown... too fast I might add.

Dr. Seuss book cover purse

I made a Cat in the Hat bunting for my daughter's play room a couple of weeks ago. If you missed the project, go here. Today while cleaning my craft room, I came across the cover to the Cat in the Hat book used for the bunting.

All the pages had been cut out.

I almost threw it away, almost. The more I looked at it, the more I started thinking I could use it to make a purse. Yes, a purse.

This project was absolutely a "make my rules up as I go" project because I had a very vague vision of what I was trying to accomplish. I started by hot gluing triangle felt pieces to the sides of the book cover.

I glued two purse straps to the inside cover (one on each side).

I covered the inside with two pieces of felt.

The torn pages were exposed so I glued a strip of felt in the middle.

The inside was done and looked pretty!

I added some felt flowers to the front and a small pocket to the back. My entire project was finished in less than 30 minutes!!




Too bad I'm a grown up and have too much stuff in my purse to trade it in for this fun little bag!

This post is linked to
Sumo's Sweet Stuff
My Back Yard Eden
Sew Much Ado
Tip Junkie
Obseussed
Fireflies and Jellybeans

 

Teaching pet responsibility with felt fish magnets

I love felt. I love magnets. I love my glue gun. You all knew that, right? I didn't have anything super amazing to show you today so I am going to share something I made for my daughter last summer.

I started with some fish magnets. I didn't have a pattern...these are all just random things I thought would be appealing to a fish loving sassy little one year old. Each magnet has two pieces of felt hand stitched together with a magnet sandwiched in between the felt pieces. This would have been quicker with a sewing machine but you would have to leave a space large enough to shove in your magnet and then still hand stitch the closure. Plus, the hand stitching makes them cuter! We had a black refrigerator...it made the bright fish stand out!

I had only planned on making magnets but then I got creative and added a big magnetic fish bowl carrying case. I first cut the fish bowl shape out of felt. Then I cut a matching vinyl piece for the front. I cut small squares to cover magnets on the four corners of the back piece. I cut another small vinyl piece to stitch inside for a pouch of sand and shells. I stitched it all together starting with the two vinyl pieces. To insert the sand, I stitched the top and sides of the vinyl together, poured in sand and shells, and stitched it while tilting it upward to avoid any spillage. This part was not easy and I recall making a huge mess! To further reinforce the sand area, I used super glue on a q-tip to seal the edges. The top of the fish bowl is not closed so your fish magnets can live in there or you can use it as a carrying case for road trips! Unfortunately an entire year later, our fish bowl is lost somewhere (my daughter's play room, bedroom, back yard, a friend's house, the car, etc., etc.) so I can't take any pictures to show you more specific instructions. This is the only picture I saved of the completed fish bowl from this project. How did that happen???

It was probably midnight when I was making this and instead of going to bed, I just kept crafting. I made a magnetic board to entertain my daughter on road trips and in restaurants. I covered one side with fish fabric.


I covered the other side with chalkboard fabric.

I made a little carrying case for all the fish too!

My daughter LOVED the surprise she found on the refrigerator the next morning. Her only inquiry about the project was why I forgot to make a whale. He was added later.

I wanted this to be educational for my daughter too so I made a fish food magnet to start teaching her about the responsibilities of having a pet. I'm happy to report that our fish were getting fed daily until we moved and purchased stainless steel appliances (non-magnetic).

She played with these magnets and used the board so frequently that I decided to start making similar sets for gifts. As I made more, there were a few changes made. Due to the all the sand I had stuck to my feet from the kitchen in front of the refrigerator, I didn't make anymore fish bowls with sand! I thought I had done a good job sealing up that vinyl pouch but sand is sneaky...before you know it, you'll have it everywhere! So I started using bright colored beads instead. I also
made the fish bowls smaller so they would fit on the magnetic boards.

Do you know someone that would prefer pet fish that never need their tank cleaned?

 

Felt name books

I made a fun little name book for a friend's daughter this week. Her first birthday party is this afternoon and we are very excited to celebrate with her! For the book I used the letters in her name and something that starts with each letter.

Her name is Sloane:
S - Sun
L - Lion
O - Octopus
A - Ant
N - Nail
E - Eggs

Each page has two pieces of the same colored felt sewn together. I used a zig zag stitch to bind the book. I love it and will probably make more of these for one year old gifts!







If you plan on making your own, be sure to lay all your pieces out and put them on the pages before sewing. It makes the layout much easier than trying to figure out where each thing goes as you are sitting at your sewing machine! I used a small drop of hot glue in the center of each piece to hold it in place to sew. I love to use my glue gun so it was a natural choice for me, but you can always use pins instead.

 

Felt Heart Table Runner

Yesterday I was in Target and saw a really cute Valentine's heart table runner. I almost bought it, almost. Instead I went home and made my own. I mentioned before that I have a love for my glue gun. Anything that can be glued instead of sewn gets glued. This was the quickest easiest project ever! I simply cut out felt hearts and glued them together. I started with the big hearts for the base and then added little hearts as I went along. I'm happy I didn't buy Target's version!

Here is the before of my very boring kid friendly dinner table.

Look what some felt and a glue gun will do!

My table is still certainly kid friendly and I won't be upset if the runner gets messy because 1) Valentine's is only one week away and decor will be coming down soon anyway, 2) I used supplies I had and spent $0 to make it, and 3) I was done with this entire project in half an hour!
*I only used six sheets of felt for my runner. A few more sheets of felt would have made this perfect for a mantel (which by the way, I unfortunately don't have).

 

FUN FIND FRIDAY-Yarn Valentine's Day Wreath

Ever since I took down my Christmas wreath my door has been missing something. I guess I just got used to seeing the beautiful Christmas wreath on the door every day so now it just looks plain and boring. Therefore, I decided to do something about it. Now I could go and buy something for my door which would be fine but why not take the opportunity to make something spectacular. So I looked around and got a lot of great ideas, but the one I fell in love with is yarn wreaths. These are adorable and there are some many colors and themes to choose from. But the best part is they are super cheap to make. All you need is...

-a straw or green foam wreath ring (Michaels $6.00 on sale with coupon $4.00)
-yarn (Michael's $3.50)
-felt pieces (4 pieces at .25 cents each)
-paper flowers (Michael's scrapbook area for $3.50)
-ribbon to hang it (used some from my ribbon stash)
-hot glue gun

TOTAL COST: $12.00

I found a great tutorial on how to make them so check out this site for step by step directions:

http://www.danielleburkleo.com/2010/10/diy-yarn-wreath-with-felt-flowers.html

Here is what mine looks like:


I am planning on making another one after Valentine's Day that is more neutral colors. Here is a great etsy shop that I love that has some fun ideas.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/AnnaHailey?ref=pr_shop_more

Anna Hailey has a really unique style and I love the quirkiness of her designs.

I hope all of you go out and make your own yarn wreaths now!