Pinned It - Made It: Bottle Cap Snake

I spent a good portion of my mother's day crafting with my 5 year old. We decided to tackle this little  project I had pinned a few weeks ago. The original link can be found here.

As you may recall from this project a couple of months ago, my son loves to collect bottle caps - rarely does one make it to the trash at our house. We'd replenished our supply and then some since our last project and had more than enough to make our own snake. We used 100 bottle caps for this project.

We modified our snake a little bit and instead of making the head and tail out of polymer clay, we made ours out of fabric. 

To make our little snake, first we washed all of our caps in soapy water. My little helper loved this job. 

An old toothbrush made a great cap scrubber. 

We placed them on a towel to dry and started punching holes in them. 

 I used a hammer and large nail to punch holes in the caps. This process took no time. 

Next we strung the caps together with elastic. This was another great job for my helper. I put a little bit of masking tape around the top of the elastic so that it wouldn't get frayed while threading the caps.

I tied the elastic to buttons to hold in place while we made the head and tail for our snake. I used scraps of green fabric to make both. The eyes are black pom-poms and the tongue is made of felt. Its hard to see, but I sewed a little loop into the base of the snake head (I used ribbon for the loop). I attached the head by threading the elastic through this loop then thread the elastic back through the button and tied the elastic under the button. I used the same method for the tail.

Our new friend is fitting in nicely with all of the other handmade toys. 

His little sister thought it was pretty cool too. 

I can't think of a better way to spend mother's day than crafting with my kiddo. How about you, how did you spend your mother's day? Were crafts involved? 

Treasure Hunting

I have been visiting my favorite thrift stores every weekend lately in the hope of finding a small bookcase for all of my five year old son's treasures. He has A LOT of rocks, shells, Lego sculptures, art projects etc. that are in need of a home. My last trip was not successful in the furniture department, but I did find a little treasure of my own.

I snatched up this little guy (a bank) the minute I spotted him. He reminded me a little bit of  of the This Is... books by M. Sasek and he was mine for $1.90. When I got home I went straight to the Internets to learn more about him.  I googled the name stamped on the bottom of the bank, Carlton Ware and discovered that he was actually one of 4 banks of little officers made by the English company.

I love them all, but not for the $379 they are currently going for on eBay. My bank was quite the bargain! Henry, that's what I am calling him, has taken up residence in my office next to my little vintage globe. I am still on the look out for a bookcase, but also for my next unexpected treasure. 

Rainbows and Unicorns Party

I can't believe my baby girl is 3! We celebrated the big day with 18 other children and their parents a couple of weekends ago. She told me she wanted to have a purple pony party. As I started to plan, the theme evolved into Rainbows and Unicorns. The birthday girl was very happy with the end result.

  

I made about 10 of the unicorn sign/center pieces pictured above. To make them I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut two large scalloped circles out of card stock, and a unicorn and a large number 3 out of adhesive backed card stock. I stuck one unicorn on one circle and the three on the other. Next, I used double sided tape to attach the circles to a small square of foam board. I painted the wooden sticks (that I found at a craft store) white then stuck one end of the stick into the foam board (the foam area between the paper) and the other into the top of a small candle that I had removed the wick from. I wrapped the candle with some fabric and ribbon. I did something similar for a surprise party for my mom so I'll post a better how-to with pictures later this week. 

  

I used more of the rainbow fabric to wrap the base of a vase. To do this I found a glass that could hold all of the flower stems and fit inside of my vase. I filled the cup with water and set it aside. Next, I placed the fabric right side down on a table and placed the vase in the center. I folded and tucked the fabric up into the vase then placed my glass inside of it to hold every thing in place. I added the flowers last. I found the simple, solid colored party hats at A.C. Moore. I ordered the fabric from here. 

I used extra candles wrapped with fabric as weights to keep paper goods from flying away. 

We played pin the horn on the Unicorn using a poster I created with clip art in Word and had printed at Kinkos. 

For favors I used my silhouette to make each child their own cup. The boys got dragons and the girls got unicorns. I found the cups on Amazon. I had to buy more than I needed (24 for $2.50 per piece) but I figure I'll find a use for them - teacher appreciation week is right around the corner. I scanned a picture my daughter drew and "added thank you for coming to my party" to it. I  placed a reduced sized copy of the picture in each cup.

I would have loved to have made and decorated a cake, but simply ran out of time. The unicorn toppers (also made with the Silhouette Cameo) and rainbow sprinkles were a hit with the kids, which is all that really matters anyway. 

A birthday wouldn't be complete without a number shirt. The adorable unicorn fabric can be found here. If the birthday girl looks a little disheveled its because she spent the entire morning bouncing in this...

In my opinion, the moon bounce was worth EVERY Penny. The kids loved it and it kept everyone outside and out of my house. 

To keep the littlest guests happy we brought out the ball pit. Once they got in, they didn't want to get out. 

All in all it was a great party. I could have gone all out with the theme, but I am glad I didn't. The party was easy to set up and clean up, the kids had a ball, and I actually got to relax a little and enjoy the party too. 

Peeps!

Sorry for the blog silence. I've been busy with work and multiple crafting and house projects. I need to stop working on projects and start taking some pictures! One project I have lots of pictures of is my entry to this year's Washington Post Peeps Diorama contest. If you are not familiar with the contest, readers of the post are invited to create cheeky dioramas using Peeps. I have wanted to enter this contest  for the past couple of years and finally did this year.

My entry was inspired by the Carnival Cruise ship that was stranded in the Gulf of Mexico for nearly a week. In my slightly exaggerated version some peeps are trying to escape the ship, others aren't letting the incident ruin their vacation, while two brave peeps are taking matters into their own hands and have brave shark infested waters to tow the ship to shore themselves.

Mine wasn't selected as a finalist, but it did make it into the best of the newsworthy slideshow. Mine is number 24. Considering there were 650 entries, I am pretty happy to be included in this slide show.

My 5 year old was really excited about this project and was very helpful assistant. Every night for a week he passed up books at bedtime to work on our Peep project instead. As long as the contest is running, my son and I will enter it.

To see the winning entries click here.

Live With Kelly and Micheal!

Today is the day that my little wine bottle tag project will be included in an Oscar Party Planning Segment on Live with Kelly and Micheal!

For full project details click here.

To see all of the fun projects and ideas featured on the segment click here. If you are a first time visitor to the blog, thanks for stopping by! I hope you like what you see and that you'll follow me via Facebook or Pinterest.