A simple little succulent in a glass votive. First put some small rocks on the bottom and then cover the roots and dirt with some moss. For some festive flair use fine glitter on wooden skewers and make tiny pennants from paper. A sweet gesture for a birthday or whatever occasion needs a little H A P P Y.
Clementine's school has a big Winter Faire every December. This year's theme was woodland; one of my favorites! I made all different sized mushrooms out of red velvet, burlap, stuffing, and logs. It was a super fun project. I arranged the mushrooms with fresh evergreens, lights, and pinecones. Magical!
Bonus! After the faire was over we used the mushrooms for our holiday card...
Happy Holidays from our gnome to yours!
What better game for a hula party than hula girl ring toss? Call those rings hula hoops and you have twice the amount of hula fun!
This is how I made it:
1 storage container
3 dolls from the dollar store clothing removed shoes kept on
decorative tape (I had green on hand)
sequins ribbon
hot glue gun/glue
raffia or 'wrapphia' ribbon
embroidery floss of thin elastic roping
flower stickers
3 jar lids
1 50lb bag of play sand
plastic rings (We had them from a ring toss game already)
I used green tape to make a "bikini bottom" on each doll. Next, I hot glued the sequins ribbon to make a "bikini top".
The harder and more time consuming part of this project was making the hula skirts. I used wrapphia ribbon which can be found at craft supply stores. Starting with a 7-8 inch piece I knotted on smaller pieces one after the other the to make the skirt. You really only need about 4-5 inches of skirting. Trim the bottom of the skirt to appropriate length and then tie on doll.
To make the lei, I stuck flower stickers on a piece of elastic roping. Hot glue helped to keep it in exactly the right place on the doll.
To help anchor the dolls in the sand I hot glued their feet to a jar lid.
To assemble: place sand in storage container, arrange dolls, top with more sand and start tossing those rings!
Every hula girl needs a lovely flower lei to wear with her grass skirt. I really wanted fresh flowers but I have two things working against me: one, I'm not in Hawaii and my access to the appropriate flowers is very difficult and two, with temperatures expected to be 89 degrees the life expectancy of those blossoms is very short. A paper lei craft activity seemed to be the perfect answer. It was even easier than I thought thanks to Fiskars.
One Fiskars flower punch, straws cut into 1/2 inch pieces, silk roping, lovely colors of cardstock, a hole punch, and paper plates and I was ready to get these lei making kits together so that the guests would have all they need in one place.
I tied a straw "bead" to one end of the silk roping and on the other end I put a little dab of clear nail polish to keep it from coming undone as well as make it easier to thread the flowers and beads. The idea is to do one flower and then one bead, but I'm sure there will be a little creative lei making interpretation going on. I look forward to seeing them!
Miss Clementine turns five years old today! Time flies. This year we are having a small hula girl party to celebrate. While searching for some tropical party inspiration I came across a wreath covered in cocktail umbrellas. A cute idea that I customized to suit our party.
Instead of buying one large piece of 1" styrofoam I opted for two smaller pieces. I put them together, drew out my big 5, and then cut it out with a sharp knife. (They do sell special foam knives but I just used what I had.) Styrofoam glue and some toothpicks helped my number five stick together. Crepe paper streamer was the perfect size to glue around the outside of the number so it had a more finished look. Now the fun part: Umbrellas! I ordered a box from amazon. One by one I put a dab of glue on the end of the umbrella pick and stuck it into the foam trying to vary the colors a bit and not create too much of a pattern. This would be easy to do for any number/age and looks so great hanging on the wall or even a door.
The mister said neon. I said wood grain. I have two days to figure out a way to combine the two. I like challenges and lucky for me I love neon with neutrals (like wood!).
Yes, I could've just bought wooden eggs. Where's the fun in that? I started with a blown out white egg, used a brown crayon and drew some lines and swirls for wood grain. Then came the dipping and sometimes over night soaking in a brown liquid of choice. I tried many. Making brown with food coloring never really gave me the color I was looking for. Thanks to a little friend's science project on the effects of certain liquids on the enamel of your teeth (where she used an egg to represent a tooth), I learned that caramel coloring in good old soda pop is a great way to turn both your teeth and my wood grain Easter egg a perfect shade of brown! Tea, wood oil, brown water color, and a nice cup of Stumptown were also used. It's good to keep in mind that a hot liquid will melt off your waxy wood grain!
It was a fun experiment.
I also tried some tonal wood grain using bright pink and neon green.
Moss, mushrooms, and neon embroidery thread are also part of the plan. We'll see how it all comes together. I was worried that the little miss would be disappointed with the lack of sparkle, and general disregard for any typical Easter colors, but she told me she loves the 'wood' eggs and it all looks so beautiful. Thank you, woodland fairy phase!
