Projects

Your kids like puppets. The presidential elections are near. You want to make sure your kids thoroughly represent who you..I mean your family feels is the the best candidate for the job during all those school yard debates. Print out and fold up a few of these presidential candidate finger puppets and show those youngsters just how fun politics can be, puppet style.

Maven of all things wonderfully crafty Maya Made is so generously sharing her really great "Portable Art Studio" tutorial. Her precise, well-written tutorial with clear pictures explains how a cardboard box can be transformed into a nifty table top easel and a milk carton made into a swell art caddy. I love that she even thinks to use recycled baby food jars as paint containers.

Nested has put together a swell "Fold-up Crayon Pouch" tutorial for those kids you just gotta have their colors with them at all times. Even Harold would be beggin' for one of these bad-boys to house his purple crayons.

As mentioned in a previous OH Guide it's our goal this year to move our son's packed school lunch towards zero waste, something we started last year and have received a lot of satisfaction from doing. Not to mention the bonus karma. In order to accomplish this goal he'll begin taking reusable cloth napkins as opposed to paper napkins.

For the taking, Spitefuls is offering two excellent, downloadable "Disaster Dioramas" paper crafts, Titanic and Hindenburg, with promises of more down the road like the Alamo...SWEET. "All your favorite disasters.... now in smaller paper form!" What a great way for you kid to fill some of those after school homework free hours during the first week of back to school.

I recently completed a dress-up fairy apron using this awe-inspiring fairy apron tutorial courtesy of super-fabulous Wee Wonderfuls. The tutorial is helpful with precise, clear directions and hand-drawn pictures. Being a beginner sewer I appreciate the simplicity of this tutorial even if it took me three different times to master a gathering stitch.

I'm in love with ThreadBanger's crafty goodness. They represent everything that is right in the world of stitchery how-to. And the only site clever enough to convince a beginner sewer like myself that yes, even I, a person who can't sew a straight stitch on two feet of fabric, am capable of shirring. And not only am I capable of shirring, a task, which took 3 hours and 4 iffy compromises with the kids to learn, but I can make a swell, albeit a bit too large

There are some crafty people in the world crafting wonderful things out of used items and turning them into the most delicious new things. And I want to make them all! Thus is the case of Maya Made's pillow case dress tutorial. According to her site "I really wanted to sew something special for my nieces...something to help them remember their summer with us.

I blame Hal Iggulden and his "Dangerous Book For Boys" for my obsession over things we did way back before the almighty Wii, back when we only had sticks and rocks to play with, back when injuries came from go-kart spills and invisible ink burns and not from accidental releasing of a Wii Nunchuck. Don't get me wrong. I have a serious addiction to Rock Band but still these things we did when we were kids were really cool too.

I've recently been playing around with freezer paper. Yup...not just of butchers and grannies to wrap meat in anymore. Apparently, freezer paper makes the best, cheap iron on stencils for fabrics. In my desperation to salvage my daughter's favorite H&M $7 teapot dress and after having my curiosity peaked and being inspired by all the wonderful things people are doing with freezer paper I thought I quite possibly could pull a freezer paper stencil off.