Curled Heart

These hearts make great decorations, especially for Valentine's Day (all though this is a little late for that). They are simple, but neat looking, easy to make hearts.

Materials:

-String and needle

-Paper (I used both card stock and printer)

-Hot glue

1) Cut a strip of paper from your sheet, long ways.

2) Fold your strip in half

3) Starting at each end, roll up your paper until you get to the center, like this:

4) Put a dab of hot glue on the insides of the curls, to connect the two ends and make the heart shape. Make sure it is heart shaped (which should happen without having to shape it too much) and do your best to make the two sides even.

5) Once you have made as many as you want, pull your thread through the center of the bottom/point of each of your hearts, and again through the center of where you curls meet. Also, put a small dab of glue under each heart, so that they don't slide down to the bottom of your string.  

Decorate Your Shelves

If you have a set of boring, white shelves, you can easily spruce up the area by putting decorative paper in the backs of the shelves, like this:

Materials:

-Some sort of decorative paper (I used wrapping paper because it's cheap and easy to work with)

-Staple gun or tape (for if you don't want to put holes in your shelves)

-Tape measure

-Scissors

-Pencil

1) Measure out the size of each shelf back

2) Cut a piece of paper to fit the area, and it's a good idea to make it a little big, just in case.

3) Starting in one corner, staple/tape your paper. Then move across, making sure to push out any air bubbles

4)Trim the edges to make sure they are straight and clean. And you're done!

Day 8

For our eighth day of inspiration, we have a cool Birthday decoration: Take photos from a person's lifetime and hang them in the shape of the age they are turning. It really adds to the decor, and is really interesting to look at.

Party Streamers

 I made these fun streamers for a Birthday party a while ago; and they looked really cool. They were easy to make but it took me a while to make enough to fill the whole door way.

Materials

-Multi-colored sheets of paper (1 per streamer)

-Scissors

-Ruler

-Pencil

1) Mark along one side of your paper (vertically) at the odd inches, 1,3,5,7,9. You should use pencil so you can erase the marks, but I used marker so it would show up better

 2) On the opposite side of your paper, make a mark on the even inches, 2,4,6,8,10

3) Cut from each mark you made directly across you paper to the other side, ending about an inch from the other side of the paper, to leave the strips connected.

4) Once you do this for all of your marks, if you simply hold the paper by one end, it will fold down into a cool streamer!

DIY dip dye and cut T-shirts

Last weekend we altered boring, solid colored tank tops into interesting, fun, summer shirts! It wasn't very difficult, but was rather time consuming.

Materials:

-Fabric bleach (about a pint)

-Colored shirt, preferably cotton

-Cold water

1) Pour your bleach into a bucket or large container of any sort. Dilute it with a little water. The more water you add the less dramatic and slower your change will be, but it's a good idea to add at least a little water to your bleach. Make sure to wear clothes you don't care about, because I learned the hard way that it is extremely easy to get bleach onto your clothes. 

2) Dip your shirt into the bleach, making sure to submerge it only as deep as you want the color to change.

3)Leave your shirt to sit for a couple of hours, checking periodically. The longer you leave your shirt in the more the bleach will change the color, so it's up to you for how long you soak your shirt.

4) Once your shirt is bleached how you want it, remove your shirt and soak it in a tub of cold water. This is just to wash off the excess bleach.

5) Wash your shirt. Make sure it is absolutely bleach free before continuing onto the next steps.
6) Cut off the very bottom of your shirt, where the stitching is. This makes it easier to work with

7) Cut fringe into the bottom of your shirt. It can be as long as you want, mine was about six inches long and 1/4 of an inch wide.

8) Tie knots into your fringe, going around and trying two strips together at a time, like this:

9) Once you have gone around once, you will go around again. This part is tricky, and will do my best to explain it. Grabbing one strip, skip two strips and tie it with the strip three away from it. If you continue this all the way around your shirt, you will get a sort of interlocking braid. But this is difficult, and took me multiple tries to get right. 

10) I washed my shirt one more time before I wore it, just to make sure the knots are really tight and will stay in while i'm wearing my shirt. 

That's it!

Days 3,4,5,6,7

Hi everyone! I'm sorry that we haven't posted any inspirational ideas for a while, we were on vacation! Anyways, here are a few, to make up for the lack of posts in the past week.

 This is a water color, with some Elmer's glue and sea salt sprinkled on. The glue and salt warp the paint, and give it a unique look.

I made this towel hanger from a piece of wood we had. I added a fresh coat of paint, chalkboard name plates and hooks for the towels. It turned out wonderfully and is used often, hanging on our bathroom wall.

 These magnets are just glass jewels with glitter on the backs of them glued to magnets.

 You can easily make a lovely vase by painting an old bottle a sharp color!

 We had an old, ugly electrical box in plain sight in our hallway. I easily dressed it up by adding some chalkboard paint fun tissue paper flowers. It's even very functional; being a great place to put reminders or notices for the family.

Hope you now have some new ideas! Good luck with your crafting!

Day 2

For today's bit of inspiration, we just have a piece of multi-media wall art that I made a few months ago. I used a wooden board, along with scrapbook paper, stamps, glitter, and a few bottle caps.