Hot Glue Snowflake Window Clings Diy

November 15, 2014November 15, 2014 | Allison

These really look like snowflakes (well, giant, oversized ones) because of the color of hot glue. They are very easy to make and just take a few supplies. Let’s get started!

You will need:

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Hot glue gun (with hot glue)

Parchment paper

Sharpie (optional)

snowflake pattern to trace (optional)

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There are several different ways to do this. You can either

1. Draw a snowflake directly onto the parchment paper (the sharpie lines will show up on the finished snowflake)

2. Print out a simple snowflake drawing from your computer and place it under the parchment paper

3. Just use hot glue to make a snowflake freehand.

What ever way you do it, the basic idea is to make a snowflake by squirting out hot glue onto parchment paper and letting it dry.

Since it is hot glue, it won’t take long to dry (YAY!). If you want, you can sprinkle some glitter over the snowflake before it dries. When you’re sure the hot glue is dry enough, carefully peel it off the parchment paper. You may need to remove those annoying hot glue strings too.

To activate the cling, turn it upside down in the palm of your hand and run it under water. Gently shake the water off, but don’t dry it off. Press the snowflake to a window.

The water helps it stick to begin with, but even when the water dries, the snowflake stays on. You can also make little swirls, dots, and other snowy doodles to go along with your snowflakes.

Make a whole blizzard!

***Allison***

Make Your Own “Tumble” Game

October 9, 2014June 5, 2015 | Allison

There is this game called “Tumble” or “Kerplunk”, and one day I decided to make my own version, with a few tweaks to the original game. It’s fairly easy to make and it’s very customizable. This game could also make a cute gift for a child of any age.

To start with you will need the following: •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

♥ Some sort of cardboard roll (I used the roll from a roll of curling ribbon this time, but I’ve also used a toilet paper roll)

♥ Some sort of wooden stick that is longer than your cardboard roll (such as bamboo skewers or toothpicks)

♥ A hole-punch (a small punch works best)

♥ Marbles (or any small, round ball)

♥ Something to decorate your tube with (I used pretty tape)

♥ Markers (you can also use paint)

♥ Scissors (no parentheses needed, except I just used them…)

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1. Make sure both ends of the cardboard tube are open.

2. Decorate it however your heart desires! 3. This is the hardest part. Punch holes in the top of the tube, making sure to stagger their placement. (See the picture below.) If you make all the holes the same distance away from the top of the tube, the sticks will bump into each other and will block each other from fitting into the holes. Also make sure there are enough holes for the sticks.4. To make the sticks, color or paint the ends of all but one of them. It works best to have a lot of sticks divided into three or four colors. Make one stick stand out by coloring it all one color, making it a different color, whatever you like.5. Optional step: Cut semi-circles from the bottom of the tube to use as doors for the marbles.

6. Another optional step: You can make balls out of polymer clay to use instead of marbles if you like.

6. Play the game!

To set up, put all the sticks randomly into the holes, then sprinkle the marbles on top. If the marbles fall through, it means you need to add more sticks to fill up the gaps where the marbles fell. Punch some more holes for the sticks if necessary.

Here are the rules: Each color of stick is worth a different amount of points. The one that is different from all the rest can be the special stick. Make it give you, say, 10 points plus another turn, or something like that. Here’s a scoring chart that you can change to fit your game:

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Green-tip: 40 points

Blue tip: 30 points

Pink-tip: 20 points

Blue stick: 15 points + another turn

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Each player takes turns pulling out a stick, one at a time (unless it’s the stick that gives you another turn). If, while pulling out a stick, you make a marble fall, you lose 20 points, and you don’t get the points from the stick you just pulled out. Whoever has the most points after all the sticks are pulled out, wins the game!

Have fun!

***Allison***

Doodle Fun: Heartstrings

September 19, 2014November 12, 2018 | Allison

I like this technique of doodling. I’m sure other people have already thought of it, but I found it out myself one day and liked it. I decided to show you how to doodle it so you could have fun with it too. Here we go!

First, make any shape you like (it doesn’t have to be a heart).

Next, start drawing columns within the borders of your shape.

Don’t draw the columns over top of each other, just let the go under each other.

It looks neat to make the columns different sizes too.

Now for the coloring part! (Yaay!) I just chose three main colors, but you can choose more if you like – try it with rainbow colors! You can also use different shades of each color, especially if you don’t have very many colors.

I left the background behind the columns white so the columns would stand out a little more.

Ta-daa! Can you tell why I called it “heartstrings”?

There you go! Have fun with it, customize it, change it how you like. This technique would be good for cards, bookmarks, etc.

Hope you enjoy!

***Allison***

Fun with Dry-Erase Markers

August 24, 2014June 11, 2016 | Allison

There are lots of fun things to do with dry-erase markers besides draw on a whiteboard. These things make good boredom-busters, and are good things to do on a rainy day. Some of these things are good for parties too.

The first two things are “painting” your nails, and drawing your own temporary tattoos.

Drawing on your fingernails with dry-erase markers is fun for those who love to paint their nails, or those who aren’t ready for “the real thing” yet. When your ready to “paint” a new design, just wipe off the marker with your finger or the whiteboard eraser.

To completely clean off your nails, wash them with soap and water, and, if you need to, a damp washcloth.

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Now for the temporary tattoos: Just draw anything you like onto your skin. (My nails are “painted” with dry erase marker in this picture, and I have a dry-erase marker “tattoo”)

Just wash skin like you did for your nails, and voila! a clean slate.

This can be used as a party or group game. Draw or print out several sets of doodles beforehand. Give each player a paper with the same doodle on it. Each player makes it into a drawing, then compares it to the other players’ drawings. Every drawing will turn out differently.

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The last thing to do with dry-erase markers is fun and simple: just draw with the markers on a mirror or window. It wipes off easily with a damp paper towel.

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Note: Test out your markers in a small spot before you try any of these activities, in case the markers don’t erase for some reason.

I hope you try some of these ideas out, and have fun!

***Allison***

The Amazing Mobius Strip

August 22, 2014 | Allison

Over the summer, I’m doing math at Khan Academy, which is sort of an online school. I like to look at the recreational math section too. The “Doodling in Math and More” section is very interesting. Today I watched some videos about Mobius strips. They are basically one-sided twisted loops of paper that can do amazing things. They are very simple to make, and fun to play with. I encourage you to check out the videos here. There are two videos, and one is a very cute story with a Mobius strip.

Have fun!

***Allison***

Doodle Fun

August 9, 2014June 5, 2015 | Allison

If you like to draw or doodle, you’ll like this! These circle doodles are really fun to make, and they turn out really neat. They’re only made out of circles, so they’re easy too.

To start with, draw a circle.

Next, draw a few more circles inside the big one.

All you have to do now is fill in the leftover space with circles, circles and more circles.

(Sorry for the blurry pictures here)

You can stop here, or keep going. You could make a stepping stone,

Or go color crazy!

Experiment with drawing the outline of the circles in different colors…

Then make a bunch of bubbles!

There are so many things to do with this. What did you draw?

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I learned how to draw this from this video. (It’s called “Infinity Elephants”) There are lots of other great doodling videos here.

Have fun!

****Allison***

Fun with Ivory Soap

June 13, 2014June 5, 2015 | Allison

It’s amazing what you can do with an ordinary bar of Ivory soap. You can explode it, smash it, make it into dough, or even make — who would guess?– more soap?

The idea of exploding Ivory soap was from Pinterest, but I made up some more fun stuff to do with the puffed up soap.

The fun begins with exploding the soap. (Sorry, I don’t know why I didn’t take pictures of this, but if you search for it on Pinterest or the web, you can find lots of pictures.) Put a bar of Ivory soap on a plate covered with a paper towel. Stick it in the microwave for a couple of minutes. There’s not a certain time limit, just take it out when it stops growing.

Watch the soap through the microwave window. It is AMAZING! The soap starts exploding and pieces of puffed soap stick out of the original bar. (Argh! I really wish I got a picture of this!) Anyway, when the soap stops growing, take it out of the microwave. Be careful! It can get pretty hot. Admire it for a while it cools down. When it’s cool, go ahead and touch it. The soap looks puffy, but it’s actually pretty firm. After you’ve exploded the soap, you can stop right there and use it as you would a regular bar of soap, or you can keep going for more fun.

The next thing to do is to pound it into pieces. Spread out some sort of floor cover,(tablecloth, newspaper, etc.) take a small hammer, and pound it to smithereens!

When it is pretty much powder, you can make soap dough. To make white soap dough, add a small amount of shaving cream to the soap powder.

Mix it up with your hands. Experiment with adding more or less shaving cream. The dough is about right when you can squeeze once and it holds its shape, but crumbles when you squeeze it again.

You can make towers, balls, handprints, maybe even a sandcastle with this stuff.

If you would like to make your dough colored, add a few drops of food coloring to the shaving cream before mixing.

After you’re done playing with soap dough, you can mold the dough into pretty soaps.

You will probably need to add more shaving cream to your dough so it holds itself together better.

If anyone is messy from all this fun, no problem. Just take your newly made soap and wash up!

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I think Ivory soap explodes best if it is freshly bought from the store.

This is a great activity to do with kids, but it can get a little messy. Make sure to adequately cover your play space, and you should be fine. Have a blast!

***Allison***

Polymer Clay Jewelry

June 12, 2014June 5, 2015 | Allison

You’ve already seen that you can make cute animals from polymer clay. There are lots of other neat things you can make with it too. Such as jewelry.

The doughnuts and the camera shown here were made from polymer clay. I inserted a loop of wire into the clay before I baked it.

These are the doughnut earrings. I inserted little metal rings into those green wire loops I made. I used a needle-nose pliers to open and close the rings.

I made this necklace for my aunt for her birthday. The tiny beads are seed beads, and the bigger clear beads are just… beads. The beads are strung onto thin wire.

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And that’s it! The brand of polymer clay I use is “Craft Smart”, and it comes from Michaels. So did the beads, the earring forms, and the metal rings. All of the supplies are pretty inexpensive too. So get crafting!

***Allison***

Make A Terrarium

June 6, 2014October 28, 2015 | Allison

So, we have this salamander named Petunia as a pet,

and she lives in a 10 gallon glass tank. Since I love to make terrariums and miniature gardens, I decided to make something similar for her to live in. She now lives in a terrarium. Why make a terrarium? Terrariums are fun, inexpensive(or free!), and make lovely decorations.

Now for the do-it-yourself part. Terrariums are very customizable, but you’ll at least need: some sort of soil, a container, and some plants. Some other nice things to add are: some sort of water, (refer to the picture of Petunia in her pond)

moss,

and pretty stones.

You could also add a little house or cabin,

and what about a little clay bird to occupy the “trees”?

There are all kinds of possibilities. A desert terrarium? A rainforest one? Be creative!

A terrarium is pretty easy to take care of. You basically just have to water the plants. Moss can be harder to keep green (at least for me), but it really adds a lush atmosphere to the terrarium if you take care of it.

So there you go! Now you know how to make your own terrarium, so get out there and have some fun!

Until next time…

***Allison***