Clay Cupcake Christmas

I know it's been awhile, but I will skip over the whys, and go right into the rest of the post.

I need more than a few Christmas orniments this weekend. I am really into cupcakes right now. I searched on youtube under "how to make cupcake craft" because I wanted something cute to make. I found this video:


I had plans to make little cupcake and donut necklaces for me and for all my neices. I made several, but I don't think I used the right gauge wire, cause the loop kept getting bent and warped. They are still wearable, but, eh....

Then the other day, all of a sudden while I was driving, I just thought, those would make such cute Christmas tree orniments. Before I got I home I had come up with a plan to use paper clips instead of the wire. This is the first batch I made, I wasn't really sure how well they would come out, but, I sure am happy with them.



I didn't really use traditional "Christmas colors," which is what I agreed I would do this Christmas, so I'm not sure if these are going to be for me, of a gift for someone else. A few Christmases ago was hot pink and bright blue, and I think that would have made adorable cupcakes. Last year was all golds and silvers. Justin said it looked more traditional, but this year he is firm that it MUST be red and green.







I have lots of Fimo left over from the wedding favors, so I want to give it a try again. I also found a few more videos on ways to make differant ones. YouTube is GREAT for instructional videos. Sometimes they aren't too exact, so you have to do a little trial and error, but here are a few of the ones I want to work on next:

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.


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.


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.


Close up of the patterns



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.


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.


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


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


Tuck the knot back in the hole.


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.

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.



The I covered the sides and roof with patterned paper



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.




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

Valentine's Day Gift for Malachy

For Malachy's Valentine's present, I decided to try a differant version of crayons. Instead of melting the crayons and pouring them in the molds I put the crayons in first. It has to be a mold that can be put in the oven. I used a tinfoil muffin pan.
First, peel the wrappers off the crayons, and break them into smaller peices. Sort them by colors and fill the cups. Using this method, the colors won't all melt and mix into one, so it is okay to mix it up. I made 6 crayons that are differant colors marbled together: red and pink, yellow and green, black and white, orange and brown, blue and purple, and one rainbow.

Put the pan in the oven. Be cure to check the crayons about every minute. You don't want them to melt too much. When you can see most of the crayons melted, turn the oven off.

The more you mix it up, the more the colors will blend together. Which is why I wait a little while for them to harden up before I take it out of the oven.


After they are cooled all the way, just pup them out of the cups. I put mine in the fridge for a little while first. You just want to make sure they are firm all the way through, otherwise you end up with dents and wonky shapes.



Here he is opening his crayons, I put them in a Spiderman toolbox for him.