Burned-edge Flower Pins

I learned how to make these beautiful fabric flowers and now I'm obsessed!

These are burned-edge flowers and you can make them into pins or headbands or hair clips or purse clips or shoe clips or cards.  The possibilities are endless!

The first step is cutting coordinating fabric circles of graduating sizes from 100% Polyester fabric. The polyester fabric singes well along the edges.

Light a candle, and carefully singe the edge of a circle, while rotating it until the whole circle is singed. Trust me on this- it sounds scary, but it's not- just try it and you'll see that the edges will curl up pretty quickly. (I tried to get a picture, but burning flammable fabric with one hand and taking a picture with the other proved to be a really dumb thing to do:)

Your circles will look sort of like these.

Layer the circles together graduating from smallest to biggest. Find a pearl, charm, bead or button you like. Then, using a needle and thread, just sew the whole flower together in the center while attaching the bead.

I made most of mine into pins by hot-gluing craft pins (Michael's) to the back, but I have seen these types of flowers on headbands and hair clips too. Good luck and have fun!

Happy Birthday Banner

I cut the squares of fabric 4 1/2" by 6 1/2" so that after a 1/4" seam on all sides, the finished squares were 4" by 6". First, I traced the letters (backwards) on the back side of Heat n Bond. Then, I fused it to black fabric and cut the letters out. Next, I sewed the aforementioned squares together, and ironed the letters to the squares, with the Heat n Bond side down. Finally, I sewed the top of each square between double folded bias tape, and I had an instant, reusable Happy Birthday Banner!

Simple Christmas Kid Crafts

Here are a few simple Christmas crafts for kids. I always love the things they make with their handprints, and both of these use hands/feet. For the reindeer, trace both of your child's hands and one of his/her feet on a paper bag cut them out. The foot becomes the reindeer's head and the hands become the antlers. Glue them together, and add a red pom pom for the nose and googlie eyes. Or, let them color and decorate it. You could also turn this into an ornament by adding ribbon.

We made this for playgroup a few weeks ago and we made them again for the kids' Christmas cards. Use a sponge or stipple brush to put green paint on your child's hand and help them make a handprint. We also painted a small wooden star yellow and glued it on, but you could use a pipe cleaner, or simply yellow paper for the star. We cut a stem out of dark brown paper, and then the kids added sequins for the ornaments. We cut the tree out and glued it on a larger card. This was the girls' favorite one- "so sparkly and bootiful!"

Pinecone Turkeys

We made these adorable turkeys at playgroup last week. Each turkey only requires a pinecone, a pom pom (fuzzy ball), a few pipe cleaners, some googlie eyes, small pieces of red and yellow felt, and some craft glue. (Martha Stewart had some great ideas this month on creating bird and mice ornaments out of pinecones too.)

Cheesecloth Ghosts

My mom made these with us when I was a child. We used to get them out each Halloween and they were a family favorite. I decided to make them with my kids this year and they loved it! Here are the directions:
Collect desired bottles or containers for the body forms. You are going to make the shape of a ghost, and then drape cheesecloth over it to make the ghost.

Scrunch up newspaper for the heads. Cover the newspaper with plastic wrap, so the newspaper print doesn't rub off onto your white ghosts. Or, you could try using foil instead.

Tape plastic spoons or the like to the sides to shape arms.

Cut out desired sheets of cheesecloth to drape over the figures. Two or three layers of cheesecloth makes the ghost look really good. (You can find cheesecloth at hardware and craft stores.)

Put Elmer's glue in a dish and add some water until it is thin. I probably used 1 bottle of Elmer's glue and about 1/3 cup water. (Martha Stewart uses liquid starch, and I read you can also use heavy sugar water. But Elmer's glue works great too and it's what we had on hand.)

After you dip the cheesecloth in the glue, squeeze off all of the excess and drape it over the form, one layer at a time, until you like what you see. (If I could do it over, I would have put foil or waxed paper down on the table instead of newspaper, because- hello, newspaper STICKS to elmer's glue and it was a pain to peel them off.) They need about one and a half days to dry thoroughly. Enjoy!