DIY Lightbox

I was disappointed with the picture I posted of the soaps I recently made and after some investigation (yay for the internet), I decided to make my own lightbox. There's a tutorial here. I had most of the supplies on hand except some daylight bulbs and I also bought a worklamp. My pictures were yellowish until I figured out to change a setting on the camera to "incandescent." Also, no fancy SLR camera needed. These were taken with my point and shoot:





These toys happened to be in reach. Can you tell I have a boy? I'm still playing around and need to practice and experiment but I was happy with how these turned out for a first try. Here is what the set up looks like in case you are interested:

Spooky Soaps

A friend got me thinking about soaps again. Here are some spooky soaps embedded with toy finger puppets. My son loved them! He was excited to use his new soap and very anxious to get to the toy. It will be a lesson in patience. I tried to explain that it will take a while before the toy will "come out." It will be a good motivator for hand washing during this crazy flu season.

By the way, I used a muffin pan for the molds.

Cowboy baby shower invitations

Thought I'd share the baby shower invitations I made for a dear, dear friend who is due to have a little boy in May. We're having a cowboy/western theme, and I got this jean-patch-pocket idea from a friend who used to have her own invitation business. I cannot take credit for that darling lil' cowboy drawing. The baby's daddy is an artist and that was his contribution to these cute invites!

Beary Cute

Photo from Familyfun.com

I love this idea that I saw in Family Fun magazine. I know that teddy grahams and gummy bears still have sugar but I bet it's less sugary than most Valentine's Day candies! This is a cute and easy treat to send with your kids for their buddies on Valentine's Day.

Details and instructions here.

Valentine's Day Candle Holder

Hello! We are back with a very cute and easy Valentine's candle holder.

Here's what you will need:
Glass votive/tea light holders (I used Galej from Ikea, $1.49 for 4)
Thin paper (tissue paper, decorative paper, whatever you like)
Scissors
Glue

Start by cutting out some hearts. My preferred method is to fold the paper over and cut 1/2 a heart on the fold (so that the fold becomes the center of the heart). Since you are using a thinner paper, you can layer a few sheets at a time. I used my curved scissors to help with cutting the curves of the heart.

Next I glued a few hearts to the outside of the glass candle holder.

Then I cut a piece of tissue paper, large enough to wrap around the glass.

I glued the tissue paper to the holder and then trimmed the paper at the top and bottom.

I added a few more hearts on the outside of the tissue paper to add some dimension.

For another version, I used a two-sided handmade mulberry paper. I cut hearts out in various sizes and glued those directly to the holder.

Here's how both versions turned out:

Craft Quickie Thursday: Paper Organizer

Photo from Family Fun

How cute is this paper organizer? This would be cute as a decoration in a kids room or a craft room. You can use different designed papers to achieve the look you want. I like that this project uses supplies you mostly likely already have on hand:

• Card stock or double-sided scrapbook paper
• Scissors
• Tape
• Tacky glue
• Paper clips
• Pushpins

You can find directions over at Family Fun.

Welcome to the year of the Ox!

Happy New Year! Today marks the beginning of the year of the Ox.

The Ox is the sign of prosperity through fortitude and hard work. This powerful sign is a born leader, being quite dependable and possessing an innate ability to achieve great things. As one might guess, such people are dependable, calm, and modest. Like their animal namesake, the Ox is unswervingly patient, tireless in their work, and capable of enduring any amount of hardship without complaint.

You can go here if you would like to find out your sign and read more about it.

I was born in the year of the Rat. Although I don't love the thought of being a "rat" based on our preconceptions, I find that I agree with the positive attributes of being meticulous, hardworking and industrious. (I like to ignore those negative attributes - hopefully they aren't true!) Linh is a Dragon (as is her mom as well as my son) and the description of generous, loyal and self-assured are right on. My husband is an Ox, and he is absolutely dependable, but everyone's heard the term "stubborn as an ox", it's so true!

With all of that being said, here is a cute felt ox to commemorate this new year.

photo from kaboose.com