salt dough valentine heart necklaces

My daughter and I thought it would be fun to make some necklaces for her friends for Valentines this year. In the past we have used salt dough to make heart magnets at Valentines for relatives and teachers. So, using that same salt dough recipe, we cut out hearts for salt dough necklaces. Here's how:

Salt Dough Recipe:

1 cup salt

2 cups flour

1 cup water

Bake for 1-2 hours at 200 degrees until dried out.

We cut them out using heart cookie cutters and added a hole before baking.After baking, Mallory and I painted the hearts using acrylic paint.
We added dots and hearts for detail.
When the paint had dried, we sprayed them with a glossy acrylic sealer - several coats made them shine.
Finally, we added 25" long skinny ribbon and made lots of bright pretty necklaces.And, because we had so much salt dough, we used the extra to make magnets for family and teachers.We added button magnets using E-6000 glue.

my french valentine

I had one more pillow cut out of canvas sitting on my sewing table and over the weekend I finished it up. I used the same dimensions from my tutorial.

I decided to show some love in another language and freezer paper stenciled "je t'aime which is "i love you" in French. I used the treehouse font from da font -one of my new favorites.

love pillow tutorial

Love Pillow Tutorial

I am so excited to share this simple tutorial with you. You can get this pillow done in about an hour. Isn't that awesome? Also, with so many different color and fabric options. I have made three and have plans for a few more that include hot pink and polka dots! So, let me share the tutorial with you:
You will need:
Love Pattern Pieces (One and Two)
1 front piece of fabric (I used duck canvas) 14" high X 19 1/2" long
2 back pieces of fabric 14" high X 12 1/2" long
fabric paint
sponge paint brush
freezer paper
1 travel pillow 14"X20" (I bought mine at Walmart for $3!!)
1. Print out your two pieces of the Love pattern and trace on to a sheet of freezer paper. Over lap the two so that the "L" goes in to the "o".
2. Cut out the Love letters (ha!) with an Xacto knife making sure you keep the insides of the "L", "o" etc. to use with for the stencil.
3. Iron the freezer paper stencil on to the front piece of the pillow, putting another piece of freezer paper underneath. If you want to look at a freezer paper stencil tutorial closely check out Dana's at Made. I centered it making sure it was 3 1/2" inches from the top of the "L" to the top of the fabric and 3 1/2" from the bottom of the letters to the fabric. And, approximately 3 1/2" from end of the "L" to left side of the fabric and 3" from the "e" to end of the right side of the fabric.
4. Apply the fabric paint to the fabric. It takes me 2 to 3 coats to get the coverage I want.5. Let it dry and then peel off the stencil. If there are any spurts of paint that have leaked, feel free to take a paint brush out and fix it as much as possible. (I had to do this a bit myself!)
6. Take the two back pieces of the pillow and serge or zig zag stitch down one 14 1/2" side on each.7. Iron over 3/8" on the two pieces you just serged and sew seam. I hope your ironing board cover is cleaner than mine!!
8. Line the back pieces and front piece right sides together and pin. Sew all the way around with a 1/2" seam.
9. Zig Zag stitch or serge all the way around to make sure the ends don't fray especially if you are using canvas.
10. Turn right side in and it should look like this on the front and back.
11. Stuff the pillow form in to the new cover and take it to the nearest couch to admire.
OPTIONS - You can also use this Love pattern as an applique like I did on this black and white dot pillow. I used the pattern to cut the words out of red felt and using Wonder Under and a zig zag stitch, I appliqued it on to the front of the pillow.

hand print snowman tile tutorial

I needed a craft idea for my son's first grade class party and saw these ornaments on the eighteen25 blog. I found out that we couldn't do ornaments for his class, so we thought maybe little tiles that they can take home and put easels.
Here is how we did it:
Supplies -
White, black and orange acrylic paint
1 foam paint brush
1 4"X4" tile (I found a box of these in our garage - it's a mess, but also has a few goodies)
toothpick1 - Generously paint the inside of hand with white paint just down to the knuckles.
2 - Pressed it hard on to the tile and let it dry for about 10-15 minutes.
3 - My seven year old used a toothpick to create the eyes, buttons, nose and brim of the hat with black and orange paint.
4 - He used a flat 1/4" wide brush in a upward sweeping motion to make the rest of the hat.

It's done! Now, let it dry and put it on an easel or attach a ribbon with glue and hang it on the tree!