Christmas in October- Your Dog's Paw Print Ornament

I mention my kids all the time on my blog, but have not talked much about the fact we have a dog. Oscar, our little old man of a dog, is the best pet anyone could ever ask for. He loved us and the kids beyond belief and it truly a member of our family. Here is our little old man.

I have looked for years for a way to make an ornament with his paw print and have not found anything that I thought would work well. Oscar is getting old, he turned 10 this year, so I was determined this was the year I would get his paw print so we could have it forever.

Well, when I made the corn starch and baking soda ornaments ( see post with full instructions here ) I had really hoped I could use the same technique to create a paw ornament. I am absolutely overjoyed to share with you that it worked! It worked far better than I had expected.

For the full instructions on how to make the dough, check out the original post here.

There recipe I used for this was:

• 2 cups baking soda
• 1 cup cornstarch
• 1 1/4 cups cool water

Once the dough cooled, I rolled out a large circle to be approximately 1/4 inch thick. With the help of my husband, we carefully placed Oscars paw on the dough. Be sure to put the paw down from the top (not coming in from an angle) and press down on all 'toes' gently. Then lift the paw straight back up again.

Oscar has longer hair and I found that this left no residue on his paws. My mistake was I did this paw print right after he came in from running around outside and it appears he had some dirt on his paw. It adds to it :) I then used a scalloped cookie cutter to make the ornament shape and a straw to make the hole to hang the ornament. I made 3 just in case.

I carefully transfer the ornament to a flat plat (be sure it is flat otherwise the ornament will have a curve). I let them dry for 24 hours, carefully flipping them every once and a while.

Once dry, I took the ornaments outside to my spray paint area and carefully sealed them with a clear flat spray finish. I am sure you can use Mod Podge to seal the ornament too, perhaps even glitter Mod Podge.

 

Do 3 or 4 really light coats to prevent the ornament from getting too wet. If you are a little heavy with the spray and it appears the ornament is damp, don't worry it will dry again over the next day or so.

You can write the name and date on the back before or after you seal the ornament. I just used a black Sharpie permanent marker.

Once sealed and dry, add some ribbon or raffia and call it a day!

Isn't it great?!

I am so excited about this. I just keep on thinking of all the uses for this recipe. Obviously a baby hand print ornament would work great but I will be making an amazing idea very soon for all you new parents out there that isn't an ornament!

Do any of you out there love their dog as much as we do?  Anyone else as excited as I am by this ornament idea?

P.S. This is a great gift idea too. I managed to get my mom's dog (Oscar's sibling) and make a couple for her too. If you have the dough ready, you can keep it in the fridge in a sealed bag. Once the pet visits, it only takes a few minutes to make the ornament!

Let me know what you think,
Stephanie

DIY Large Burlap Star on my $0 Budget

This project was inspired by two posts I pinned a while ago. The first was Choose to Thrives DIY tin stars. I have wanted to make one for a long time but just never knew how I wanted to finish it. Then I stumbled upon my second inspiration The Douglas Family where she took a metal star and covered it with burlap. I knew I had a DIY project merging the two ideas together.

I made this star using a tin oven liner I purchased at the Dollar store months ago and then covered it with burlap I had left over from my custom burlap covered cardboard storage boxes.

Using a 12 inch star I cut out on my Cricut as the shape, I added 1.5 inches around the outer edges to enlarge it. I traced the star onto the tin, plus the width of my ruler, with a scoring tool that came with my Dollar store craft knife kit.

 

Here is what the scored tin looks like.

I then cut along the lines with my craft scissors; I thought I might have needed tin snips but the scissors did a great job.

I had to unravel a couple of the edges of the liner to get the points.

Here is what it looked like after it was cut out.

Using a good ruler, I scored from the center of each star point to the middle. By scoring it you can see how the star is taking shape.

I then flipped the star over and scored the lines from the center to where the two points meet. I made the shape of the star by using these score marks as the creases.

I decided to give the outer part of the start a quick coat of white spray paint so that I wouldn't see the shiny tin through the burlap.

 I covered the entire outer star with ModgePodge and flipped it over to stick on the burlap.

I cut around the star leaving about 1/2 an inch of excess burlap to fold over the back. Here is where I had to play around for a bit. I had a few failed attempts securing the excess burlap but eventually got it to work.

First I tried ModgePodge to secure the excess burlap on the back. That didn't work at all. Then I thought I would use a little clear tape to hold it until the ModgePodge dried...well the tape could not stick on the ModgePodge. So I puled out my favorite backup tool...duct tape :)  Yes, it worked but it looked horrible. I know that no one will see the back but I just couldn't live with it.

I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier, but hot glue worked the best. I ran a bead of hot glue and folded the burlap over. Stuck instantly and gave nice clean edged.

I had a ribbon and bow saved from a Christmas gift I got; I love to save these because the bows are perfect (something I can never seem to master). I glued the bow to the middle of the star and then the ribbon to the corners.

I had made the star to hang over one of the most difficult spots I have had decorating in my house, my three sided fireplace. This fireplace is huge and such a focal point in our family room and kitchen.

Here is what I have so far. I moved my toilet paper art from the dining room to here. I am still not 100% happy but feel I am getting closer.  Please HELP if you have suggestions.

 

Please don't mind the plastic on the candles, I am not sure if I love them so I refuse to take off the plastic :)

What do you think? Any suggestions?
Stephanie

Christmas Wish Books - Annual Christmas Tradition

This is a 'read me' post...please don't rely in the pictures because that is not really what I am sharing :)

My husband and I have a few Christmas traditions we do with our kids every year; I might share them all with you in a later post. One of these that I truly love and have done since they were little, was to create a Christmas wish list with them. As soon as they were able to hold a pencil, I encouraged them write what they wanted from Santa (sometimes I interpreted below it).

My son's Christmas Wish Book

Three years ago I started a Christmas Wish Book for both of them. I wish I had started this tradition as soon as they were born but unfortunately I didn't. So I will share with all of you, so you can perhaps enjoy this from when your little ones are really little.

This part is not the important part..but I know I need to share it anyway:) I bought a hard cover coil note book at Michaels for $1. The kids selected two of their favorite Christmas scrapbook paper and they Mod Podged them on the front of the notebook. We secured a ribbon over the seam where the two pieces of paper met. I had cardboard letters from the Dollar store that they covered with glue and then glitter. They glued the letter to the front of the book and then the books were done.

 

What happened next was what I love. Over the next few weeks, the kids wrote their wish list for Santa (believe me it changes it a couple of times before Dec. 25), what they are thankful for and they drew a few pictures.  I wrote the day and year on every page after they were done. My one rule was that they were allowed to make changes, but no page could be ripped out of the book.

This page got a little crinkled in the wish list creation process but it is still amazing!

Every year these books come out of storage with our Christmas decorations and the kids repeat the process. And every year we look back as a family and see how thing have changed over the year from their penmanship and spelling to what they thought was important. Their wish lists have gone from asking for bubble gum to a PS3,what they were thankful before were small things and now they are thankful for profound things like a healthy loving family, and how they have grown so much from being our babies to our big kids.

This is my son's self portrait from a few years ago. To me it looks like he is beating up his sister :)

I have only been doing this for three years with my guys and it amazes me to look at how fast they grow.

I plan to continue this tradition until my kids are big enough to pass it on to their kids. At that time, I will give them their Christmas Wish Book so they can share with their little ones what they hoped and wished for when they were little too.

My son drew he wanted a DS. I guess that is what he thought it looked like

I wanted to share this with you so perhaps you can share these memories with your kids as they grow too.

What are the traditions you do that are special to you and your family? Are there any you did when you were a child that you wish you had carried on?

Would anyone be interested in having a 'Christmas Tradition Link Party' where everyone can share their Christmas traditions? I would love to see what everyone else does so we can start some new ones.

Enjoy!
Stephanie

Marathon Runner's Bib Coasters

This gift idea is for all of you who have someone in your life who has taken part in a marathon, half marathon, triathlon, or any other activity where the athlete wears an athletes number bib.

A few months ago, my husband decided he was going to run a marathon and he gave himself one year to do it. He set out a series of milestones that he needed to achieve in order to reach his ultimate goal. His first major milestone was to do a half marathon (21.1 km or 13.1 miles) within 3 months of starting running.

I was and am so proud of how hard he worked to complete his first half marathon in under 2 hours and I knew I wanted to do something special with his runner's bib.

I was at Habitat for Humanity and they had these amazingly beautiful Carrera marble 4x4 inch tiles for $0.40 each. I quickly scooped up every single one that was not chipped and almost ran out the door screaming "start the car". For $1.60, I could make a set of 4 beautiful marble coasters. I had my idea for what to do with his running bib.

Materials needed:

• 4 4x4 inch tiles
• Copy of Runner's bib
• ModgePodge
• Felt protectors
• Spray sealant

Method:
I ran to the local copy shop and made a color laser copy of the bib. In the back of my mind I worried that this could be a "seemed like a good idea at the time" project. If I cut up the bib and it didn't work, I would have felt horrible.

I cut the page into quarters and trimmed the edges so that they fit nicely on the tiles. I then ModgePodged the paper onto the tiles so they fit together when the 4 tiles are placed in a square.

I thought the tiles looked a little empty on the top/bottom so I cut out vinyl, with my Cricut,  to spell "eat, sleep, breathe, run".

I liked this but wasn't 100% happy with how this looked, so I decided to put the date of the marathon along with my husband's race finish time on the tiles instead. I really like how this looked.

I purchased felt protectors at the Dollar Store and placed 4 on the back of each of the tiles. The funniest part is this step cost half as much as the tiles themselves.

Using Valspar's spray sealant/top coat, I put 3 coats of gloss sealer on each of the tiles. This ensures the paper is waterproof and it will keep the vinyl secured. Plus unsealed marble will stain easily from coffee or wine, so this should protect the marble too.

(I blurred out the numbers)

I am really happy with how these turned out. This project fulfilled my wish to make this a keepsake that will remind my husband of the race every time he looks at them.

Grand total was just over $3.00 ($1.60 for the tiles, $1 for the felt protectors, $0.50 for the photocopy, I had the vinyl, sealant and ModgePodge on hand).

I hope this helps you with your Christmas list. If you don't know anyone this applies to, be sure to check out the FGI (Frugal Gift Ideas) page to see all the other gift ideas I have made over the past year.

Can you think of any other ways to use this? Anyone else have a collection of sporting items that they have no idea what to do with?

Have a great week.

Stephanie

Super Hero Birthday Loot bag - on a budget

My son's birthday was a couple of weeks ago and he really wanted to have a Super Hero party. I fully intended to host the party at our home but my husband kindly reminded me that a party in our house would consist of 10 kindergarten boys running around for 3 hours. I have a hard enough time keeping the house clean with 1 boy...what happens when you have 10 in the house? So, I quickly rented a local play gym for a couple of hours and I could not be happier with how it turned out.

Well, since I spent on renting a place for the party, I wanted to save a little on the loot bags. I am not sure if every parent gives these, but around here the kids almost expect a small gift bag when they leave. I see it as a thank you for coming but my son sees it as free candy.

So here is what I created for my son's loot bags.

I decided to save a couple of dollars and created my own loot bag out of paper lunch bags. For those of you who have not printed on lunch bags before, it is extremely easy. I created a Word file that was the same size of the lunch bag (approx. 5 1/4 inches by 10 3/4 inches) saying "Thank you for coming to my party. Have a SUPER Summer."  and inserted a Superman logo I found on the internet.

I taped the bottom flap of the bag completely closed. It is important to tape the entire way across otherwise the bag WILL get jammed in your printer. I speak from experience.

I then taped about 3 inches of the top opening closed. This was just enough to keep the bag closed while it went through the printer.

Load the bag into the printer the same way you would paper, making sure the correct side is up.

TaDa. Very simple.

I then filled the bag with some items from Walmart and the Dollar Store. Here is what we put in: bubble wand $1, sidewalk chalk $0.50 (bought a big tub and broke it up into 4 per bag), Pop Rock candies/super hero jellies $0.25, Finger lasers $1, Airplanes $0.25. Since I had the lunch bags on hand, thus far the grand total per loot bag was $3.

I then thought I wanted to make something for each of the kids. I have a great program for my Cricut that welds letters together so I decided to create a room sign for each of the boy's bedroom doors with a Super Hero theme.

I purchased the 7x9 inch canvas boards at the Dollar Store (2 for $1) and spray painted them black and navy blue.

I cut out each of the boys names on the Cricut in yellow card stock.

I then cut out the Superman (in red) and Batman (in yellow) logos. I got these images from a Dingbat on a free site. The program I have can cut these on my Cricut. For the Superman logo, I also cut out the shadow version of the logo in yellow. Using double sided glue, I secured the 2 pieces together.

With Modge Podge, I secured the names and logos onto the spray painted boards. I hot glued a little ribbon on the back to use as a hanger.

In total, all I bought for this project were the canvas boards for $0.50. I had all the other materials on hand.

So for a grand total of $3.50 per child, I created, what I think are pretty good loot bags. All the kids walked away extremely happy. I like the fact they have something to keep and hang in their rooms.

 

What have you done for loot bags? Do you have any secret ways of saving money on these things?

What do you think?

Stephanie
Linking to some great parties including: Story of A2Z