Thursday, April 30, 2009

Spiderman Pinata

I needed a pinata for my son's upcoming birthday. We went to my nephew's birthday 2 weeks ago, and they had a Sponge Bob pinata. Malachy loved it, and so did Justin. Since Justin likes to have the best for Malachy, he decided we MUST have one at his party. After pricing some, and not really liking them, the price or the styles, I thought back to a craft project we did when I was in about the 4th grade, paper mache pinatas. I had some Spiderman wrapping paper left over from Christmas, it didn't look very Christmassy at all. Malachy's party is going to be super hero themed, so thought it would work great.

PREP

Mix the soaking solution. I couldn't remember the exact ratio, and when I looked it up on the internet, I found recipes to use flour as well. I thought I would wing it, and it worked out fine. In a bowl combine glue and water, easy huh? I used generic white glue. I bought a botte at Walmart for $.50. Use a pretty good amount. I'm guessing when I say, about 2 cups of water and half a cup glue.
Rip scrap paper into strips. I used an old magazine (magazine paper needs to be soaked longer) and some extra printer paper that I save when extracome out. You can also use newspaper, it soaks up the glue really well.
Blow up a balloon. I used an 11". I bought 12 of them off ebay for $1.

Pinata Step 1
Cover the ballon with the strips of the soaked paper. I used 3 layers of magazine pages and one layer of printer paper. I would not suggest letting it dry until you do 2 or 3 layers first. The paper will be too thin and when the ballon starts to deflate the sides will callapse. You can do all layers at onc if you want, but I let i dry between the bottom laters and the final patterned layer. Do not cover over the knot in the balloon.

Pinata Step 2
The final layer is the wrapping paper riped into strips. It is about the same thickness as the magazine, so they need to soak longer than newspaper printepaper s well. Let it dry over night. I bought the wrapping paper after Christmas. It was originally $3, but it was 75% off when I bought it.

Spiderman Pattern
Close up of the patterns

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Holding the knot in the ballon, cut a small slit in the ballon and let the air out. Pull the balloon out through the hole.

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Using a sharp knife (like an exacto) cut a flap in the side. Like a rectangle that isn't closed on one side. This is where you will put the candy/prizes.

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On each side of the balloon hole knot, cut a slit big enough to fit the ribbon (or in my case fibers) used to hang the pinata through. I thought I had red ribbon, but after going thgough my stash, relized that all my red ribbon was patterned. So I used some red fibers. I got the spool of fibers at the Dollar Tree

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Pull the ends of the fibers up through the knot hole. Tie the ends together.

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Tuck the knot back in the hole.

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You now have a loop to hang it up with. It also makes it a bit like a pull string pinata, ripping the pinata.

And that's it. I did a litle price comparing: An Iron Man Pinata for about $15. A Spiderman one for about $23. Superman for about $16. And Batman for $23. So that averages about $19. And that doesn't include the stuff that goes in it.

I spent less than $6 on supplies. And that's enought to do at least 4 or 5 pinatas. As long as you can find wrapping paper in the pattern you want, you can make a pinata to match. As cheap and easy as it was, I am going to make another one,that way the "little" kids and the "big" kids have there own.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Upcoming "Tasks"

If nothing other than to keep it straight for me, and to kee me motivated, here is a list of the events I need to make something for in the next month and a half.
Birthdays:
Brianna (belated 6th birthday)
Terri
Malachy
Crystal
Starr

Mother's Day:
My Mom
Justin's Mom

Wedding:
Patrick and Rebecca

Party Stuff:
Malachy


Also, I found the most amazing ribbon website. Hip Girl Boutique has tons on tutorials on "ribbon sculptures." I was looking for instructions on how to make a ribbon cupcake, which I found yesterday, but am having touble finding today. They have a ton of free instructions, then another section of designs you have to pay for. I sent $5 through paypal and got instructions for 2 kinds of turtles and an ice cream cone. I can't repost the instructions, but after I make one I will post it, and the link so if you want to buy the instructions you can.
They have a ton of ribbon people, disney princesses, cheerleaders, pirates. I am going to practice a bit to see if I get good enough to make it worth it.
In the mean tie, I found Girly Things, that has differant FREE versions of Tinkerbell, the cupcake I originally wanted, turkies, and a ton of others, most of which spacificly state, you can make them and sll them, just not the instructions.

Also, click on the link below. You earn points by doing stuff. I've had it a week, and all I've done is used their search engine (powered by google) and I've got 9 points. You get points for shopping, searching and trading stuff in.



Search & Win

Monday, April 27, 2009

Layouts and Birrthday Prep

My biggest problem scrapping is color coordinating. You know finding colors of paper and embellishments that go together. Sometimes after I finish a page I look at it and HATE it because the colors don't go too well together. Here's an okay example of it:

The color's are mostly muted, naturey tones, and then I added the felt ribbon, and it just seems too bright. Also I just really don't like the ink colors that well with it. I mean, there are a lot of things wrong with it, bt color wise, that's what stands out to me.
This one too, lots of problems. One of which are the colors I chose.


Well, I am trying to train myself, which is really hard. It's not only in my scrapbooking, but the way I dress (myself and my son), decorating, anything the involves colors, I will screw up.
I bought a color wheel, read about how to use it, and it just still was not working. My problem is, I see red and green go together, but is hard for me to find the RIGHT red and green.

So these are the layouts I did last week:


Head 2 Toe
Head 2 Tow

That one's main problem with me are the red circles on the bottom. They're red, just like the background cardstock. But it just doesn't look right together.

Chirstmas at Dusty and Sabrina's
Christmas at Dusty and Sabrina's

I found colorbok's Friendly Forest supplies on clearance at Michael's and I bought one of almost everything they had left. Since they were meant to go together, they did. Then I added the silver journaling spot, and, I'm just not sure anymore.

Mothers and Daughters
Mothers and Daughters

I am actually pretty happy with this one. I used textured cardstock, all from the same pack, so it wet together pretty well. But when I got it printed at CVS, they cut off part of the picture. WTH

Sisters
Sisters

Packs of papers are my friends. They all go great with one another. I even cut out flowers from the colorbok set of papers to make embellishments instead of trying to find some that match. Now looking at it, th papers match each other, but they don't really look that hot with the picture.

Enjoy Easter
Enjoy Easter

This is probably my favorite one I did this weekend, and it doesn't even have a picture, and it's not for me to keep. I'm working on a pre-made album for my friend Crystal. I used Martha Stewart patterned paper, textured card stock, and alpha stickers. Nothing was sold as a set, but it all goes good together. At least I think so.

This weekend I started pn the pinata for Malachy's birthday. I will post pictures when I am fully done. I'm about half way right now. I'nm so busy with wedding stuff and birthday stuff, I haven't had tome to do the sorts of projects I want to for ME.





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Thursday, April 23, 2009

Handmade Embellishments

Matchbooks for Journaling:
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Tickled Pink Matchbook Open
Car Match Book Open
Instructions Found Here.

Tags
Car Tag Close Up
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pink florish tag

Maze Books
Tickled Pink Maze Book Open
Truck Maze Book
Instructions Found Here.

Put them all together and you get:

Car Set
Children's Car Set

Pink Florish
Pink Florish Set

Tickled Pink Set
Tickled Pink Set

Bright Florish Open
Bright Dots Set

Thinking about the maze book instructions at Glitter Adventure reminded me of her exploding box class. I made one for my mom for her birthday one year. I think I will give it a shot this year as a mother's day present for her and Justin's mom. I am almost finsished with the chalkboard I made for Beth, and will post pictures when I am done.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Altered Bird Houses

I can't tell you how many times I have seen one of these and wanted to give it a try. I don't have a use for one, I don't have a real place to put one, but still this weekend I ended up makng about 5 of them. Before I show you mine, here are a few that I saw and really liked.
These are VERY elaborate
LOVE this blog and everything she does
The colors here are so pretty
I'm in lust with these, the colors, the patterns, the GLITTER!!
I have always loved pink and green together
Anyways, you can gooogle "altered bird house" and TONS will come up. You can make hem really fancy or as plain as you want. All I really did for these was a little paint cover them in some nice paper, and added a little glitter to some.
First I panted the parts that were HARD to cover with paper. Okay, first I did one where I didn't paint any of it, and decided from now on to pain to make sure it all goes together.

Primed Bird House

The I covered the sides and roof with patterned paper

Altered Bird House

Then (I'm not so sure you can see it well here) I added a little glitter to some of them. These I outlined the circles on the roof with Martha Stewarts glitte glue, then used glitter from her black set.


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I didn't want to over do the glitter cause I know if I give them away, some people don't like too much. But CAN there be too much. The only problem came when I hung one on my kitchen wall. I failed to pain or cover the bottom, so it looks kind of ... whack. So it will sit on a shelf and version 3.0 will have the bottoms painted.

My next altered project? Well, I would love to give this a try. You HAVE to click on it, it is AMAZING