Crafts

Star Spangled Shaker Wands

| mel@apeaceofcreativity.com
This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small compensation if you make a purchase using the links below.

Part of the problem of being a crafter is that there is always another tool/toy that you want.  Have you seen those awesome clear plastic shaker pouches where you can add confetti and sequins inside?  Well, I love them. They are made using a fuse tool to melt the plastic together, which I don’t have but want one day. When I saw the Fourth of July Ribbon Wand from Sweet Rose Studio,  I knew that there had to be a way that I could make these with the supplies I had. And that’s when I thought, GLUE GUN!

For these star spangled wands you will need:

  1. To start with the shaker top of your wand, cut out a shape template. This star was 4 inches across. Insert it into the plastic sleeve.
  2. Heat up the glue gun and run the tip of the glue gun around your shape template slowly to melt the two plastic layers together. Make sure to do this on top of a heat proof surface. I used a silicone mat on top of my cutting mat.
  3. Fuse all the edges together leaving an opening big enough to put in the confetti and glitter stars.
  4. Cut out your star around the fused area leaving extra plastic around the open section.

Cut out some stars, a little larger than the confetti, out of the glitter canvas.  I cut enough to glue them back-to-back so that each side was a glitter side!

Remove your paper template from inside the plastic and insert your confetti and glitter stars, the best part! To seal it off, put your paper template on top of your heat mat with your shaker star on top.  You can see the template through the plastic and this will allow you to continue to fuse along the remaining edges with your glue gun. The lines were not as straight and thin as they would be with a fuse tool, but they did the job for this project.

Since this was so last minute, I was not able to find any 4th of July themed ribbon. Using the same confetti, I glued red, white and blue stars to the white ribbon. Figure out how full you want your ribbon wands to be and how long to cut them. I used 5 red and 3 white ribbons about 16 inches long. Take your wood dowel and glue gun the ribbons all around the top.Wrap your thin rope to cover the edges of the ribbon around the top of the dowel and secure with hot glue. Add a generous amount of hot glue to the wrapped rope, wait a few seconds for it to cool a bit, and then attach your shaker star.You are ready for your 4th of July parade!

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Paper Mobile

| mel@apeaceofcreativity.com

Whew…do you have that one month where it seems like every other day is someone’s birthday? And not just anyones birthdays, but our twins, both of my sisters, my mom, my husband, mine, a handful of close friends and family… June is our month and it even trickles a little into May and July.  I was crafting crazy! One of the last of these is my little sister, Emily.

I wanted to make her something for her adorable post college, #bosslady apartment. I took the opportunity to finally use my sewing machine for the first time since I got it at Christmas. But I wasn’t sewing fabric, I used paper for this super easy mobile!

This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small compensation if you make a purchase using the links below.

You will need:

  • Printed cardstock paper
  • Sewing machine
  • White thread
  • Embroidery hoop
  • String for hanging

Emily recently traveled to Morocco and I felt a lot of these prints were very appropriate. I cut out triangles with my handy Cricut machine because I wanted them to be the same size.

My mom set up my machine and gave me a quick refresher course as I have not sewn for at least 20 years! Putting two pieces together, back-to-back as they were not printed on one side, I ran them through the machine with a straight stitch. Make sure to have extra thread out when you begin so that you can tie the row onto your hoop.For an unplanned, organic feel, don’t worry too much about spacing them equally apart.
After completing each row, I tied them onto the inside portion of an embroidery hoop. Tie string to four equally spaced sides of the hoop and bring them together in the center for hanging.

That’s it! A super modern yet delicate mobile for your home.




Pegasus Bow & Clip Holder

| mel@apeaceofcreativity.com
This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small compensation if you make a purchase using the links below.

I don’t know about your house but at our house, we are not truly ready for preschool until we have a “pretty thing” for our hair. This adds another 5-10 minutes to the already long get ready routine so I was motivated to help the situation. Disney’s Hercules is up on the favorite movie list and Baby Pegasus is so cute. As you can tell from the Moana Necklace a few posts back, I love making things with my daughter’s favorite characters.

You will need:

If you decide to try a character, find an image of them online. I discovered this Steve Thompson illustration while I was searching for Pegasus images. He is a Disney illustrator and designer and I love his take on the characters. After printing and cutting your character out, trace them on what you decide will be their base color. You can then cut individual pieces of the character apart to use as guides for other colors of felt.

TIP: Try to keep it simple and only plan to cut out the larger color block portions.  For smaller things, like the eyes and mouth, I would suggest embroidering.

Glue all of your pieces onto your base and you will start to see your character take shape! Decide what details you would like to add and embroider those on. I used the outline stitch with only one (black) or two (other colors) pieces of thread.

TIP: Use tacky glue instead of hot glue for those really small pieces.  You don’t want to burn those fingers.

Once you decide which setting your character should be in, use the stiff felt for that base. I wanted Pegasus to be on a cloud under a rainbow, of course!To make the rainbow, I was not sure how big it would end up being so I started with the inside and worked my way out with rainbow sequins and clear seed beads.  I also added some clear, iridescent sequins to the outline of the cloud.Turn your character around and hang your ribbons from the bottom with a little bit of glue. Make a loop for hanging and glue onto the top. Cut out another piece of felt to cover the entire back portion and glue on.Done! This is definitely more intricate but as long as you have some stiff felt, ribbons and glue, you can make the same thing in whatever shape or style you wish.  Cut out a pink heart, add a loop and some ribbons on bottom and you’re done!  Get those pre-cut felt shapes and designs and glue those on, add a loop and some ribbon and you’re done!This can be a great gift and a way to keep all of the bows and clips in one place with something cute to hang up on the wall or towel rack.  Now they are all out in front of her.  Hopefully we have cut the “pretty thing” searching down a couple minutes. Lol!






Macrame & Yarn Wall Hanging

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For my sister’s 30th birthday, I wanted to make her something because she is always making something for either me or my kids. Since she liked the yarn wall hanging I made for myself, I decided to do a spin on it and try macrame with the actual rope you are supposed to use.This is only the second time I have tried macrame and this post is not a tutorial, but I wanted to show you how you can mix different types of textiles, fibers, and techniques to create a unique piece. After looping the macrame rope onto a wood dowel with a lark’s head knot, I taped it down to my cutting mat to hold it in place.  The macrame was made entirely with diagonal double half hitch knots using a tutorial from Parlor. I wanted my pattern to be somewhat geometric and clean.After I decided the pattern was finished, I tied rope around both edges of the dowel, knotted it and then brought both ends up and to the middle to make a triangle shape and then knotted it again.

To play on the macrame pattern of circles and triangles, I tied the triangle into the gold hoop. I had previously looped the dark grey yarn along the bottom of the hoop with the lark’s head knots, similar to my other yarn wall hanging project.

I always cut the ends last because I want to see the entire project before I do something so final. For this piece, I decided to go super short thinking about my sister and her love of clean lines with a touch of mid century modern. I actually left the dark grey yarn for her to put her own touch on it and decide how long or short to go. Although the macrame did take some time, it was the same knot over and over again and that made it a little less complicated. I love taking something that I have done already and putting spin on it to create something unique and new.

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Shell Necklace and the Heart of Te Fiti 

| mel@apeaceofcreativity.com

Moana is THE movie in our house right now. Our kiddo told us that he is going to ask for the Heart of Te Fiti for Christmas. Of course, he doesn’t know that Christmas is a whole 7 months away, but his innocence is so endearing.  I wanted to surprise him!  Not just with the shell necklace, but one that opened to hold the Heart of Te Fiti wherever he went!

There are 3 parts to this tutorial. Although it is not one of my easiest DIYs, it is definitely doable if you customize how detailed you want it to be.

Here is how you can make your own shell necklace and Heart of Te Fiti gem.

This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small compensation if you make a purchase using the links below.




Tutorials 1 & 2
Moana’s Necklace – Abalone Shell & Pearl Cording

You will need:

  • 1 sheet of stiff light blue felt for shell base
  • 1 sheet of light blue craft felt
  • 1 sheet of grey felt
  • Adhesive velcro for fabric
  • Shell template – download HERE
  • Brown cording
  • Pearl beads
  • Small silver jump ring (not pictured)
  • Embroidery thread (optional)
  • Sequins & seed beads (optional)
  • Hot glue

You can get most of these supplies here.

Tutorial 1
Moana’s Necklace – Abalone Shell

Cut out your pieces of felt according to the instructions on the template. Make sure to cut the notch at the top of the grey felt and base felt pieces. In order to give the shell it’s 3D shape, cross over the two notched pieces on your base felt and glue together depending on how deep you want your shell to be. Repeat with your grey felt pieces.

Depending on how detailed you would like to get, you can decorate your shell in a variety of ways. On the bottom portion, I used sequins to mimic the waves of color in an abalone shell, but you could also embroider, glue on other felt pieces, or even use fabric marker.

For the top portion of the shell, I embroidered the wave and tribal signs from the necklace in the movie. Take your decorated pieces and glue them on top of the light blue base. Repeat with the back portions.  Make sure to mirror the grey felt on the back to the front so that the two pieces will fit together seamlessly.

To attach the shell to the necklace, thread a piece of cording about 4 inches long through the silver ring. knot on top and at the bottom. Cut a thin rectangular piece of the stiff felt. This will be used to secure the cording to the shell.

Place the cording on the back of the decorated shell piece with the silver loop peeking out the top. Glue the strip of felt across the cording, in the middle of the two knots. Glue together the front and back of the shell at the top, only about an inch wide so that the shell will open. Cut some velcro pieces and attach along the bottom and sides so that it will secure the gem inside.





Tutorial 2
Moana’s Necklace – Pearl Cording

String your pearl beads on the cording and knot before and after each bead to hold them in place. Moana’s necklace has a lot of detail and I decided that it would be easier to add them after the pearl base was completed. Take another piece of cording and tie your loops onto your base in the same pattern as Moana’s necklace above. Lastly, knot cording to each of the larger loops and cut close to the knot.

You can now attach your shell. I used cording to tie a loop from the jewelry hoop to the necklace but you could open the hoop up and attach it that way. Your necklace is done! Time to start the gem!

Tutorial 3
The Heart of Te Fiti

You will need:

  • Green food coloring or dye
  • Transparent oven bake clay (This did not work as I had hoped, possibly because I added green dye.)
  • Glow in the dark oven bake clay (How cool is that!)

  • A tool with a pointed tip to engrave the details (I used a chopstick and a meat thermometer!)

Knead your clay until it softens and create a small dish like shape to hold a couple drops of your green dye. Mix in. Wear gloves as the dye seeps out through the sides as you are mixing it together.

Continue to add dye until you get the desired shade of green. Roll it into a ball and then shape the semi pointed ends on top and bottom. Make sure it will fit in your shell necklace. Using your tools, recreate the design on the stone from the movie.  You can smooth over any rough spots by rubbing them gently with your fingertips. I wish ours glowed in the dark a little more, but mixing it with the transparent clay dulled it out a bit. Like I said above, skip the transparent. The package should give you baking instructions but I did mine at 275 degrees for 30 minutes.

Let it cool, pop it into the abalone shell and…

surprise your own little Moana!






GUEST PEACE: Felt Flamingo Purse

| mel@apeaceofcreativity.com
Kelly is a mother to two beautiful girls and a self-proclaimed “maker of beautiful messes.” She has been crafting in one form or another for most of her life and gets the most joy out of watching that same creative spirit growing in her girls. She loves unicorns, cake, peonies and anything that glitters. Her trusty hot glue gun never leaves her side.

In my house, there is a lot of pretend play and dress up happening constantly. My oldest daughter is 6 and quite the “girly-girl.” I swear, I have no idea where she gets this from. No seriously, it wasn’t me. I wear only flip flops, have a handful of dresses shoved in the back of my closet and have been using the same purse for the last 3 years. My daughter however…she’s obsessed with dresses, purses, shoes, and even makeup! She has an entire dress-up wardrobe bursting with princess dresses, purses, shoes, wands, tiara’s, you name it. Nothing makes her happier than to put on a fancy dress with accessories and prance about the house, showing off to anyone who will pay attention.

Her current obsession is with purses. Which she will carefully pack with chapstick, bracelets, toys and anything else that will fit, before we leave the house. She will then last a total of 5 minutes carrying her purse around before getting tired of it and wanting someone else to hold it for her. So now purses have been limited to dress-up play at home only.

This project was inspired by my little girly-girl, who clearly is in need of yet another purse. It’s perfect for playtime and gives me all those summertime feels!

You will need:

If you can trace, cut and weld a hot glue gun, this project will be easy as pie!

Start by printing out and preparing your templates.

On your premium pink felt you’ll be cutting out two of the Body Templates and Feather Templates. The number of Feather Templates will depend on how long you need the purse to be as this acts as the strap. I used 10 for mine.

On your black felt you’ll be cutting out the Black Beak Template.

On your white felt you’ll be cutting out the White Beak Template.

On your pink glitter felt you’ll be cutting out two of the Wing Templates, the Head Template and the Neck Template.

Once you have all of your pieces cut out, you are ready to begin assembly!

Begin by taking your Head piece and hot gluing the Black Beak portion on top, lining up the edges.

Next, hot glue the White Beak portion onto the Head, making sure it butts right up against the Black Beak and lines up on the edges.

Look at that fabulous Flamingo head you just made! That Flamingo needs a neck, so go ahead and grab your Neck piece and hot glue it down onto the back of the Head.

Now we’re going to jump over to the body, which will be just as fabulous! So set the head and neck piece aside for just a minute. We’ll come back to it later.

Take your two Body pieces and line them up together but don’t hot glue them just yet! First, you want to line up your Wings on either side of the body, so that the tail feather portion meets up just beyond the end of the body. Make sure they are even on both sides of the Body before gluing down. I also drew some designs onto my Wings to give them more character, so go crazy and be creative with it.

Keeping those two Body pieces together and lined up, grab your Head and Neck piece and glue down the other end of the Neck in between the two Body pieces. Starting from the Neck, glue just the very bottom of the Body pieces together, all the way to where the tail feathers on the Wings meet up. This is where you could also sew if you preferred, but I’m a fan of how fast and easy the hot glue is and I think it holds just as well.

You’re going to leave the top open, so you can place all the goodies in there, but feel free to add a button, snap or zipper if you’re super talented!

For this next part, you’ll need your little model, to determine how long to make the strap. Start off with at least 6 feathers and glue them together, flipping every other feather over so you have a staggered pattern. Add as many more feathers as you need for the desired length.

You’re going to glue one end of the strap to the head of the Flamingo and the other end to the body. You might need your little model again to make sure everything lays nicely. Or that could just be me obsessively checking and getting eye rolls from my daughter. Just go with it!

And you’re done! Can you believe how fast and easy that was?

To see more fun and colorful crafts, follow Kelly on Instagram @rosyposycrafts!

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Monogram Flower Box

| mel@apeaceofcreativity.com

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Why is it so hard to find gifts for Mother’s Day? Maybe it is because our moms never ask for much and have almost everything they need. I know I am always caught in the last minute scramble and there isn’t much that I hate more than giving a gift without meaning or thought. Thankfully, inspiration struck just in time.

I always eye the artificial flowers in the dollar store but some don’t particularly look great, not a surprise being that they are $1.  On this trip, they had some really good ones and I immediately envisioned them filling a letter shaped box.  I didn’t have much time for shopping and in a quick detour to Target, I found a hexagon shaped box and the letter “G” for grandma. My vision had to be reworked a bit, but  I knew it would still be pretty and personal.

You will need:
  • Artificial flowers
  • Wood box in the shape you choose
  • Floral foam
  • Styrofoam
  • Wood letter to fit inside the box
  • Paint
  • Glue gun/E600 glue

 

Fill your wood box with the floral foam, cutting them into pieces and filling all available areas. To secure the pieces together, use a hot glue gun to fill in the cracks like a caulking gun.

For the wood letter, I let my daughter do the painting. She has a tendency to mix all colors together until they turn to brown, like all four year old kids do. 🙂

TIP: If you are having your young child help with the painting, pick out a palette of colors ahead of time and have them paint in layers so all of the colors will show through.

We started with ivory, added silver, gold and then pink. I asked her to add a little more pink but when I came back to the room it was all pink!  Luckily she was a good sport and was willing to add a few more gold and silver layers on there!

I love my glue gun, but it can dry super fast.

TIP: If I have to cover a large area with glue but still want the hot glue hold, use E6000 glue. It takes a little while longer to dry and I had more time and flexibility to place the letter.

After gluing to the foam, I used the glue gun like a caulking gun again and filled in the edges with hot glue.

Now it was time to add the flowers.  I cut all of the flowers with just a little bit of stem, enough to push into the foam.

TIP: For this type of floral arranging, start with the largest ones first and stick to the rule of three’s.  Similar to actual gardening!

After getting three different types of flowers in, I started to question my project.  Something didn’t look right and the letter looked lost in the flowers.  I ripped it all up and glued in some styrofoam to lift the letter up a bit.

TIP: Do not be afraid to start over if you are not satisfied with your project.

If you are anything like me, it would have driven me crazy to see it that way knowing that I could have made it better.

Ahhhh, much better!!! After making a complete mess, I continued adding flowers and making sure my pops of color were even spread out. It was difficult to push some of them into the foam with the letter raised higher, but some needle nose pliers helped.

We celebrated Mother’s Day a little early, so this post will not ruin the surprise!  It is sitting proudly on top of the buffet in her dining room right now! She loved it but I think it made it even more special to know that her daughter and granddaughter both put time and love into it. That is probably the most important thing to remember when looking for a gift idea for your mom!

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GUEST PEACE: DIY Nursery Letters

| mel@apeaceofcreativity.com

When I found out I was pregnant with our little girl I was so excited to create her nursery. My husband and I have been married for almost 9 years so we had waited a long time to start a family. Needless to say, my Pinterest baby board was chockablock with fun crafty ideas.

I was inspired by some decorative letters I saw on Pinterest and I decided to replicate them adding my own flare. I didn’t want to make anything that would age too quickly so I avoided child-like designs. I really love the beautiful floral clothes from Anthropologie so I thought that if I could find some paper inspired by my wardrobe I could share with Indie a little bit of myself. There was, of course, only one place to look… Paper Source!

I love contrasting different patterns and textures in my clothing and I found these papers that captured exactly that. I spent an obscene amount of money on them but it was well worth it.

I bought the wooden letters from Michael’s craft store and was able to use their online coupons to reduce the price.

I drew around all the letters and cut them out which took forever. I used a regular glue stick to attach them and the good thing was, when I didn’t get the alignment right, the paper would peel right off without ruining.

My husband nailed them to the wall in the nursery. We didn’t go all the way around the room because I wanted to leave space for the canopy that I wanted to hang over the crib.

I am really happy with how they turned out, they go beautifully with the rest of the aesthetic. It was a lot of work but I am glad I took the time to do it. Indie will be saying her ABC’s in no time!

Samantha is from England but has been in the us for 9 years. She is a new mummy to her daughter Indie who was born in December, 2016. She has been an amateur knitter most of her life after her grandmother taught her at an early age. She loves crafting but struggles to complete projects. Samantha loves making gifts for friend’s kids and any time she completes a project she is very happy. She says that the best part about crafting is the relaxation it provides so she never takes any project too seriously.

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Sparkle Wine Charms

| mel@apeaceofcreativity.com
This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small compensation if you make a purchase using the links below.

Wine, glitter and unicorns.  Really, what’s not to like??? I know, I know, you don’t really want to hear about another unicorn anything, or do you? I have to admit, I am actually not much of a unicorn lover but I love all of the rainbow color combos that are coming out of it.  In honor of the unicorn craze, here are my unicorn sparkle wine charms.

You will need:

I love glitter but it can be such a mess. Line a baking sheet with foil and line up your pendant bases. I love the feminine scallops on these.  They remind me of unicorns. To scoop the glitter out of the tube, I used a seafood scoop/pick.  It’s the perfect size to reach into the tube and it picks up just the right amount of glitter. Carefully cover the base with glitter.  I sprinkled a larger size glitter on top but you can experiment and mix with other colors as well! Once you’ve covered the bottom, make sure it is leveled out as best as possible. The seafood scoop worked great for this. Now add a thin layer of your enameling resin.Once you’ve covered them all, pop them into the oven at 325 degrees for only a couple minutes or until you see the resin has cleared.  Once cooled add another layer of resin and repeat in the oven. Continue to do this until it is smooth and completely covered.  After the first cycle, don’t worry if you see craters in the glitter when you take them out. Fill those areas with more glitter as needed to cover the base, but I would only do this after the first cycle.

The resin will harden almost immediately and give you a smooth surface while letting the glitter sparkle through.

With a pair of needle nose pliers, attach the jump rings to the pendants and then attach the charm rings.

And that’s it! Invite all of your unicorn friends over for that glass of bubbly and make sure to follow me on Instagram. I will be giving away a set of Unicorn Sparkle Wine Charms and details will be posted today!

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Balloon Photo Wall

| mel@apeaceofcreativity.com

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I have always wanted to make one of those super full and bubbly balloon arches and the Balloons & Bubbly Sprinkle was the perfect opportunity to try it. Did you know that you can actually purchase balloon decorative strip just for making balloon arches?  I decided to save the $7 and work with my good ol’ butcher’s twine instead.

You will need:

If you have ever tried blowing up a water balloon, it is nearly impossible! I suggest the party balloon pump for the smaller balloons.  It will save your cheeks! After blowing up the white balloons, tie them to the string anywhere from 3-5 inches apart. It really depends on how full you want your garland to be.

After all of your “base color” balloons are tied on, in my case clear, attach it to the wall in the shape you want it. It will be easier to place the other colors and sizes in the exact places you want them. My balloon garland was used to accent this foil “love” balloon.Roll a piece of clear tape and stick it to the side of the other balloons.  Find the spot you want it to go and stick it to one of the base colored balloons. Some may need more than one piece of rolled tape just to make sure it stays in place.




Continue on with all of your different colors and sizes!

Your wall is ready and just waiting for photos to be taken. Here is the guest of honor and her family of 3 soon to be 4!

Did you see the Champagne Glass Charms for the Balloons & Bubbly Sprinkle? See the rest of the party HERE!