Just A Night Owl

Category Archives: Grown Up Crafts

Day 83. If At First You Don’t Succeed.

Written on February 17, 2010 by just a night owl in 170 School Days. 2009., Grown Up Crafts, Random

I had an idea…. and sometimes my ideas do not end well. These guys used to be two of my favorites in my home. We’ve all seen them before in their intended natural wood color state. Ikea sells them. I adore them. We put them into different acrobatic positions and laugh at them every so often. Then came the incident of twenty ten, that ultimately will lead to their demise. I wanted to get some more color up on top of my shelving unit. I thought “OOOH how fun. I will spray paint these guys red!” That’ll be different. Well, I was right on that one part. They are different.

With no regard for any common sense, I did it. I sprayed them. I killed them. They are creepy and now I can be classified as a murderer. Can you just imagine them coming to life and taking over the planet with their devilish little jig. WHAT was I thinking? I just may dream about these guys… and it will not be in a good way. They look soooo evil and that is definitely not the look I was going for for my classroom.

As I drop them in the trash, I am reminded that failure is part of life, right? Trial AND error are both o.k. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Do not be afraid to experiment and always laugh at your mistakes. That is definitely what this first year of homeschooling is turning out to be. It’s stretching me, teaching me, inspiring me, and definitely keeping me humble.

Now there are just 87 school days left until summer.

Bulletin Board Got Fancified.

Written on February 17, 2010 by just a night owl in Grown Up Crafts, Homeschool Tips

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As I was going to the grocery store this morning, I had an idea. Don’t you hate it when that happens? Yeah, I stopped and did it right then. It took literally twenty minutes. I had all the supplies at home. It was a combination of several craft projects that I had seen online.

I had this boring black bulletin board, this wonderful circle cutter from Creative Memories, some gorgeous scrapbook paper needing to be displayed and of course, my Modge Podge.

I cut out a bunch of circles, in different patterns with my circle cutter and played with it until I found the layout that I liked.

Once I had the order that I wanted, I used Modge Podge to glue the back side only onto the bulletin board.

Here is the result!

It’s hanging on the wall in our classroom, by my desk.

HOW FUN! Still completely functional…only now it’s a bit fancy too!

I’m linking up with

PLAY Wall Art.

Written on February 9, 2010 by just a night owl in Grown Up Crafts, My home

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This simple reminder and good use of scrapbook paper hangs on the wall in my home. I bought sixteen wooden squares from Joann’s ( I had to special order). I bought some yummy scrapbook paper with lots of different textures and some wooden letters to spell one of my favorite words…

P L A Y. Then I grabbed some left over fabric and embellishments from around the house and went to work.

1. Paint the sides of all squares. Make sure and paint the face of four of the squares that will hold the wooden letters. On the rest of the squares it isn’t needed. I chose ivory paint.

2. Paint the wooden letters to the desired color. I chose black.

3. Cut the paper/fabric to size for the face of the squares. I used both fabric and paper on mine.

4. Use Modge Podge to adhere papers, fabrics, and letters onto the squares.

5. Use any flowers, charms, ribbons, stickers, to accessorize… should you desire!

This quote to live by

“Never underestimate the power of acting young silly and crazy”

was a sticker mounted on light green solid scrapbook paper and mounted again on my original polka dot paper

The blue paper had a cool little BE YOURSELF design already in the design so I just cut it to make sure I had that part showing and then added three self adhesive silver embellishments

Make sure you paint all the sides of the squares! As clearly, thanks to this pic above, I missed a bit on the toile square. OOPS! I have to go back and do that one…

I used command strips to hang these up.

(YES, they really DO work!)

I want to make more! Imagine the possibilities!

I am linking up with

Christmas ABC’s Album.

Written on February 5, 2010 by just a night owl in Grown Up Crafts

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You may remember my post awhile back about my sweet little friend Lillian. I wanted to share with you a great gift idea that can be changed up to fit any theme. I did a Christmas ABC’s album to give to Lillian’s family. I don’t have pictures of the completed product, but here is what I did.

A picture of Lillian with a Christmas object for every letter of the alphabet was the goal. It took a couple photo sessions to accomplish, but we did it. Here are some of my favorite shots.

A is for ANGEL

D is for Darling Santa Hat

E is for Egg Nog

M is for Mary

P is for Please No More Pictures

and S is for Star

I chose to print all the pictures in black and white matte finish. I purchased some coordinating lilac, aqua, and silver papers and letter punch outs. I kept the decor VERY simple in the 8×8 album to keep darling Lillian as the focus of each page.

A wonderful keepsake for her family to treasure.

AND I couldn’t stand that I didn’t have one to keep, so I inserted all the pictures into an iphoto book and printed one for myself!

This could be changed to Valentine ABC’s, birthday ABC’s or anything your mind can imagine!

Have fun!

Emma’s ABC Treasure Box.

Written on February 4, 2010 by just a night owl in Grown Up Crafts, Homeschool Tips

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Seriously, don’t you just love Home Goods? It all started with this box. $5.99 and I was hooked.

I took a bunch of old scrapbook letter stickers and put one capital letter of each letter of the alphabet on white cardstock, cut them up, and put them in the box.

I then took one small, household, non-perishable object to correspond with each letter and put them in the box. Here is a sample.

(Continue scrolling down for a complete item list below.)

pictured are leaf, butterfly, fish, alligator, circle, tape, hat, yarn, q tip, napkin,

and 4 of the letters R, X, P, and H

Everything can tuck neatly inside

And best of all, it looks adorable on any shelf!

Lots of games can be played with this. Match the object to the letter. I can ask Emma to pull out the first letter of cat, car, and can….etc. There are lots of options. A variety of ways to learn our letters and sounds, seems to work the best.

ITEMS FOR EACH LETTER

A lligator

B utterfly

C ircle

D oll

E gg

F ish

G rass

H at

I ce

J ar

K ey

L eaf

M irror

N apkin

O ctopus

P encil

Q tip

R ose

S traw

T ape

U nicorn

V alentine

W isemen

X ray

Y arn

Z ipper

I am linking up:

A Place To Hang.

Written on February 4, 2010 by just a night owl in Grown Up Crafts, Homeschool Tips

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I had some scrap wood left over from the scrabble magnet board project that you can check here. I have fond that I need somewhere to keep out all of the charts, maps, and displays that is big with the A Beka curriculum. We need to be able to get to them quickly and often.

I put these two extra pieces of wood up on the wall and hot glued some of those metal clippy~esque things on to them. You know the ones. I put two on each board. I didn’t even have to saw them down. I love it when things that happen. So I didn’t spend an additional dime…and here’s what I have….

Scrabble Magnet Board.

Written on February 4, 2010 by just a night owl in Grown Up Crafts, Homeschool Tips, My home

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A cute alternative to the typical classroom magnet board. I saw the scrabble letter idea here and was able to incorporate it with the board that I already had done on my wall. Since I have ditched the generic plastic magnet letters, my older two kids (and sometimes me) play with the board too. Since there are points on each letter, you can create some pretty fun games.

Supplies needed are:

To make the board:

The board was made by nailing metal sheeting (an 18×24 piece that was purchased at Home Depot) to the wall. I bought pieces of wood (that Home Depot cut down to size) and used black stain to finish them off. The wood was nailed over the edges of the metal

To make the letters

Magnet tape (sticky one one side, magnetic on the other). I used 1 roll that costs 1.50 at Home Depot.

Wood Scrabble pieces. Target has a kit to make a card in the Valentines section. It was 9.99 as opposed to the 19.99 version in the game aisle. They both had 100 pieces.

Cut the magnet tape into little pieces.

Adhere to the back of each letter.

Get help! My 5 year old was a brilliant little helper.

Place on board and have fun!

The Pink and White Room.

Written on January 18, 2010 by just a night owl in Grown Up Crafts

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One of my clients, who happens to be a dear friend of mine, asked me to do a make over on her daughter’s room. Her Ten year old and two year old share a room. Budget $300.

HERE IS THE BEFORE…

HERE IS THE AFTER….

real life design, on a real budget…

HERE IS ONE HAPPY LITTLE GIRL…

HERE IS MY FAVORITE PEICE…

this is just a big square canvas from Joann’s with multiple sheets of scrapbook paper adhered to it with Modge Podge … cupcakes, zebra, dresses, Barbie…What’s not to love.

Octopus Night.

Written on January 6, 2010 by just a night owl in Family Nights, Grown Up Crafts

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We ate octopus dogs on an ocean of mac and cheese under some fancy blue streamers. After dinner, we spent a long time creating a family of octopus-es out of rice, odds and ends, and some mittens from the Dollar Tree. Emma and Shawn worked together. Meet our Octopi friends….there are earrings involved! Fantastically Fun craft idea from Family Fun Magazine.