Rindy Mae: November 2014

Thursday, November 27, 2014

Quiet Time Turtle Box

I've wavered back and forth for weeks, over whether or not to share this on the blog. First of all, I had no idea what to call it. Second, it's totally silly. Please don't make fun of me.

I try to come up with something to make the kids for Christmas every year, and as The Kid gets older, it's getting harder and harder. Since I'm incapable of writing and designing my own video game, I decided to troll Etsy for some ideas. I plugged in 'turtles', since that's his thing, and ended up finding a version of this.

The original was made in an Altoid tin, but I dug through my stash and pulled out a wooden brie container. Ya know, 'cause everyone has old cheese storage in their craft piles, right?

I had everything I needed on hand, which is basically felt, glue, a mini cotton ball, needle, and embroidery thread. The turtle's body is two pieces of green felt sewn together. If you ever decide to do something similar, make sure you sew any embellishments on, like the face, before sewing the two together. I blew it and did not. I was going through the opening at his rear end with a long needle and it sucked. Just FYI.

I attached the legs and tail as I was going around with embroidery thread. The shell is a separate piece of felt, glued on to the top piece of green, then sewn on via the shell pattern. Do this before sewing the top and bottom pieces together, as well. He's super tiny, so it took less than a whole mini cotton ball to stuff him. I pulled it into small pieces and poked it up inside of him with a pencil until he was full. Then, I just finished closing him up at his butt, attaching his tail at the same time. The end.

The rocks, pond, plants, etc., are just cut out shapes of felt. For the upright plants, I cut strips of felt and tied them at the bottom with thread. Then I just trimmed them flush so they could be glued to the bottom. The tops were trimmed short enough for the lid to close. Everything in the box is glued down except for the turtle.

So this is probably more suitable for a younger kid, but because it's turtle themed, I think it'll go over okay. It'll be a fun thing to keep in the car for long trips, if nothing else.

For the lid, I painted the edge black, then glued a piece of scrapbook paper to the top.

The C, for his initial, is cut out of black contact paper.

I couldn't leave well enough alone, I had to add a couple flowers.

I glued down three mini paper flowers, again, from my stash.

And there ya have it.

Something for, what seems to be these days, the ever-elusive imagination.

Monday, November 24, 2014

This Year's Ornaments (2014): Part 1

STOP
'Tis that time of year. If you're related to me and you see a photo that says DIY GIFT at the top of my post, you just move right along.

No Peeking!

If you've been around the last few years, you know I make an ornament for family every Christmas.

Our Christmas tree is covered in ornaments that my mom started making when I was born, and continues to make every year for me and the kids.

And now I do the same.

I was originally going to give the Clothespin Snowflakes, but I'm greedy and wanted to keep them all to myself.

Ha!

So I made some different ones.

If you've ever stepped foot (finger) onto Pinterest during the holidays, you've seen a version of these.

The first time I saw them I was immediately obsessed.

Because The Kid has over 300 hot wheels (from the neighbors), all I had to buy were the little trees, which I found a couple months ago at Michael's.

I wanted them to have "snow" on them, so I watered down some Mod Podge, painted it on to the areas that would naturally get snow, then sprinkled on Kosher salt.

The kids helped make these and by far, this has been their favorite craft to date.

They LOVED making them. They kept getting out more cars to add snow to.

They ended up putting Diamond Dust glitter on top of a few of them, and they turned out really cute like that, as well.

Since my tree isn't up yet, I had to find a place to hang them for pictures.

I walked around the house and ended up at the kitchen sink.

Yes, that's a wee bit humorous.

Some of the cars have open windows near the middle, so when that was the case, I tied the string on through there.

The majority of them, though, had to go underneath.

Tip of the day:

You know that super trendy Baker's Twine that costs an arm and a leg for a small roll?

Yeah, I found red, a turquoise and a green in the yarn section of Joann's last year for less than two bucks each with a coupon. You could see a roll of it in some of the pictures from this post. I've used a ton of it for all sorts of things and I still have enough to last me for years.

Anywho, like I said, the kids made a ton of these, but I only had enough trees for so many, so they'll probably just get poked around the house for decoration.