CTR Towels

Okay, I know this blog has been so dead lately. I'm slowly getting things back in order to get posting again.

I wanted to post this though. In our church I was just called to be the teacher for the CTR 7 class. That means that all the kiddos in my class are the ones that will be baptized when they turn 8. So, I wanted to find something special to make for them. A long time ago I saw this tutorial on one of my favorite blogs,
Made With Love and Glue and put it in the back of my brain (and also bookmarked it on the computer) as a fun thing to do as a gift for someone. Anyways, I made it for a girl getting baptized tomorrow.

It was such a fast easy project and pretty much the same thing as these but Rachel has a great tutorial here, and there is also a really cute poem that goes along with it, of course not pictured here. Here is the one Rachel did on her blog...

Such a fun gift to give!

Valentine Jars...

If you've read my blog before you know I have a hard time throwing things away. One thing I keep a stash of is jars. Spaghetti, salsa, spices, you name it. There is so much potential. I made these jars pretty much like the Thankful jars here. Just different goodies. You really can't mess these up and can make them for any holiday. Cut a strip of paper wide enough and wrap it around your jar. I decoupage mine but you could use tape or a glue stick or whatever you have to make your paper stick together at the ends. Just make sure you pull it tight so it stays after the glue dries. Then do the same thing to the edge of your jar lid. Then fill jar with sweets. So easy!

Don't forget to give it a little bling bling. I used ribbons and chip board letters on these. I just used a hole punch on the chip board letter big enough to feed thin ribbon through and tied it.

I have a space in my cupboard that I keep my stash of jars. Some are ones I decorated a while ago, waiting to be used. And don't worry about the sticky labels on the jars. A little goo gone and they come right off.

What do I use the cinnamon jars for?

It just so happens that when you buy these on clearance after the holidays. Like cheaper than a quarter clearance.

You can mash them up into fine powder (or really fine chunks) and they make a cute little jar of something sweet to give away with hot chocolate or sugar cookies or whatever you can add peppermint powder on. It takes a good beating to get them powdery so it might help if you think of something really frustrating and let it all go as you're beating your candy canes.

They already come with the little tops for dispensing powder so it's perfect.

Next time you make spaghetti or nachos don't throw the jars away. Store them for a rainy day and [re]beautify them into something cute!

Here's a way to [Re]beautify something, give a fun gift and help keep kids germ free during this flu season. O.k. there is no such thing as a kid ever being germ free but you know what I mean.

These are going to Theron's teacher...

The funny thing is that This popped up on my google reader this morning. No way! Someone was totally on the same wave length or something. We have to be friends. I need to meet her! Our projects look way to much a like for us not to be friends. How cool is this?

Easy home made potpourri

This stuff will make your whole entire house smell soooo good. So good, you might just start licking your walls.

Here's what you need:

• 1 lemon
• 1 orange
• 3-3 inch cinnamon sticks
• 6 bay leaves
• ½ cup whole cloves

Combine all ingredients in a pan with water and simmer on low all day. Keep filling with water as needed.

One of my favorite things about this time of year is all the yummy smells. The cinnamon, vanilla, sugar cookies, fall, pumpkin, spice, fire places, hot chocolate, thanksgiving turkeys, Christmas trees. All of it. I love it! This is the perfect scent to welcome fall. Even though it's still in the upper 90's here, I'm doing everything I can to make it feel like the summer weather is almost over.

Thanks Jackie Lee and Stacey for the recipe!

Last fall I was busy with my enrichment calling and other things. I didn't get anything done that I wanted to. So, this year I'm starting early, to make up for lost time. First off, pumpkins...

Go here for the tutorial. Holly is so cute and creative. In fact go to her blog anyways so you can see how the pumpkins are supposed to look. Good thing I was going for the homemade look and not perfection. Mine turned out so ugly they're cute.

Hooded Towel

Hooded Towel Tutorial. Grab a full sized towel and a hand towel and [re]beautify it.

I'm leaving for the weekend and I should be packing and getting ready to go but I'm not. I'm sitting here on my big rear typing away & stressing about everything that still needs to be done. I'm excited about this tutorial though.

Here's how I did it...thanks to my friend Beth.

Start with a font you like and enlarge it to the size you want. I chose this font but it wasn't thick enough so I printed it and then drew an outer line to make it even thicker. Cut out your letters

Then I got some iron on adhesive. The one I used was Heat N Bond but there are others like Wonder Under. Make sure you get the one that allows you to sew after it's been applied. Next you're going to adhere your fabric to the heat n bond. Place together the bumpy side of the heat n bond and the wrong side of your fabric. Iron over it until it's stuck to the fabric. Here's a picture, bumpy side of adhesive and wrong side of fabric...

Next, you take your cut out letters and trace them backwards on the other side of your heat n bond. This way, you letters come out facing the right way. You'll see what I mean in the next step. So, trace your letters backwards on the paper side of the heat n bond and then cut them out again.

Next, get a hand towel that matches the towel you'll be using. Cut the hand towel in half.

Now, fold up the end of your (half hand towel) towel so that the letters will fit. This is where the letters will be sewn so make sure you give them enough room. Space them out and remove the paper side of the heat n bond. If you look you'll see there will be a shiny residue on your fabric and this is what will make your fabric stick to your towel so you can stitch it on there. Remove the paper and lay the letters back down on the towel...

and then iron those bad boys on there.

then you're going to stitch the letter to the towel. The zig zag stitch is probably the easiest to use, I think. Don't look to closely at my stitching, my poor old ancient machine has been giving me heck. My pedal has started sticking so my stitching gets a little crazy. Before you start stitching, make sure you unfold your towel. You don't want to stitch it folded yet. Stitch all your letters on!

Once all the letters are stitched on, then fold your towel back on the line and pin. Then stitch along the top of the letters like the photo. Don't worry about stitching straight. You won't even see your thread once you're done.

You're almost done with the hood of the towel. Now take your towel and fold it with the letters on the inside like so. You're going to stitch the top of the hood. Pin along the top and sew straight across.

Here's another photo. See the pins on the top? The letters are also on the inside of the fold. Stitch right across the top.

Remove the pins and fold the towel right side out. You made the hood. There is only one more step. You just have to attach it to the towel.

Okay, take your full sized towel and fold it in half. Pay attention to the half way point of the towel because that is where you're going to line up the hood. You want to attach the hood in the center of the towel. Put a pin or something there to mark it. Then take your hood and line up the center of the back bottom of the hood to the pin that marks the center of the towel. You'll line them up with the letters on the hood facing up. Pin it so it will stay in place while you stitch. Your machine will be sewing through a few layers of towel so it will be thick.

Here's another photo...

Of course I forgot to take a photo of the towel all done and unfolded so you could see it. I did however take a photo of how I like to fold them after they're finished. I made 2 towels. I bought 2 full sized towels and one hand towel. I just used the other half of the hand towel after it was cut for the other hood. I also buy all my towels at target when they go on clearance. I stock up.

They also look cute with a bottle of bubble bath tucked in there too!

There might seem to be a lot of steps and I hope I didn't make it too confusing. They're actually really easy. let me know if you have any questions or if I need to explain a little more. Go make one and send me pics. I'd love to see your creations!

Also, I took some good advice from Beth. I made a towel for my 10 year old niece too. Since she was so tall the hooded towel wouldn't really fit right. Her bum probably would have hung out the bottom. So, when I made hers I just put her name at the end of the towel instead of making a hood for it. Still so cute!

p.s. are you as excited as I am to get those picture of my toilet off the top of my blog?

Here's a couple more ideas for the candy buckets

York peppermint patties

scraps of paper torn...

hershey's hugs...

This hugs bucket was kind of a pain. The wrappers took longer to get off and they tore really easily. I had planned on making a design with the lines on the wrappers but since most of them tore, they just got slapped on there every which way. I thought it still worked because the flowers and ribbon with the embellishments don't make the lined stand out too bad. I think the bucket should have been spry painted brown first though. Maybe I'll just try to paint the handle or add brown ribbon. We'll see.

Alright you crafty people, grab a bucket and [re]beautify it... and then send me pics. I'd love to see them!
shamoms[at]cox[dot]net

My super cute sister Tiff made a starburst bucket. So fun!

A gift of memories

This is my most favorite gift I have ever given. This is about the time year last year when I started to put this together. You see, for Christmas last year I asked my 4 siblings if they could send me photos of them and their families. Photos from the entire year of 2008. It was quite the task so I wanted them to have plenty of time to look through their photos and choose ones that they wanted. After they sent me all their photos I put them together (with the help of my husband) with music and made a video for my mom and dad.

It was so fun to see the end result. It took quite a bit of time because it was my first video but Ben is a pro and showed the ropes and gave me a few pointers. I just used some software that Ben had on our computer. I think it's Pinnacle. I know there are a ton of versions out there but I'm pretty sure it's this one we have. Our version is old because he's used it for a long time.

I thought that the perfect gift needed the perfect wrapping so this is what I came up with. I decoupaged a can from the Pepperidge Farm cookies. I can't remember the name of the cookies but it's a tall can. The cookies are shaped like sticks. Someone help me out, this is going to drive me crazy...what are they called? Oh dear!

Then I cut some scrapbook paper to fit inside the sleeve of a dvd case we had. You can find some like it here .
Front of case...

back of case...

You could be really creative with how you decorated the case. My mom is more simple so I didn't do too much to hers. You could decorate it for the season or just something to match the decore of the home. Inside the can I filled it with goodies to eat while watching the movie.

I ended up making copies of the video for my siblings and a few other family members. It's such a fun thing to sit and watch. It's amazing to watch it now and see how much all the kids have changed in just a years time. I would love it if I got a gift like this...hint hint Benji.

I didn't worry too much about the length of the movie so it's pretty long. I knew there was a lot of photos to fit in there & it ended up being about an hour or so long. I just had to find enough songs to match the amount of pictures.

It's so fun to make it personal and include inside jokes and things only my family would know. Here's the video...

2008 Family Moments from Ruprick on Vimeo.

I always struggle with ideas for gifts for Theron's teacher. He's a guy and a lot of the ideas I have seen and wanted to make are way too girly. I came across this idea on another blog and thought it would be perfect. It's not girly and Theron could help me make it.
Of course, before starting a project I have to scrummage through my craft supplies to see if there is something I can [re]use first. I found this 2 pack of frames that I had bought on clearance and got stepped on by one of the kids. Oops!

That's o.k. though, I knew there was a reason I couldn't part with those frames even though one was broken. I paid $1.24 for those bad boys. I was too proud to let my cheap find go to waste.

I did buy a new 24 pack of crayons. I figured I could splurge $2 for the project.

There wasn't a tutorial on the blog I got the idea from so I kind of had to figure it out as I went. Which wasn't hard but there might have been easier tools to use. The girl said she used a tool but it made such a mess with little crayon shavings every where that I just used a steak knife. It worked fine and there was minimal mess. Theron and I just guessed and played around with the sizes to form the letter J. It really wasn't hard. Just a little time consuming. I kept wanting to get anal and make the crayons the perfect size but I kept reminding myself..."this is Theron's gift".

I removed the broken glass and paper from the frame so I could see the inside of the back part of the frame. You know the piece that has the stand attached to the back. So basically it's just the frame and the backing chipboard part that has the stand. Does that make sense? The J is actually on the inside of the back piece.
maybe this photo will help

I attached a white piece of card stock and used that as my background of the letter. I couldn't find my low temp hot glue gun so I used the mod podge to attach the crayons to the paper as well. It's holding up great so I'm not worried.

Then I just wrote his name in it. Vinyl or stickers would have been so much better but Theron was so excited to get it done that I just wrote it quick. Theron loved helping with this and glued most of the crayons himself. I think it turned out pretty cute. The J looks a little like a stocking but Theron is sure proud!

Since we're all about [re]cycling and the cut up crayons are too little to color with, we took the left over crayon pieces and removed the paper. We lined a muffin tin with cupcake liners and threw the little crayon pieces in there. We only had enough to fill 2 papers but that's okay. Baked them at 350 degrees for about 5 minutes or until the crayons are liquid and then take them out of the oven to cool. Remove the paper liner and voila!
The perfect way to [re]use tiny crayon pieces

I'm still learning how to write great, clear, understandable, informative tutorials so please let me know if you have any questions.

[Re]furbished Frames

Another idea I sampled was these frames. Super cheap. I think these might even be from the dollar store. I bought these so long ago, I can't remember where they're from, but any wood frame would work.

I basically sanded them down, painted them red, sanded the edges some more, added ribbon and a rub-on. viola!