Tied by an Angel!

I was putting the finishing touches on a baby set, and tied up the Texas flag lovey with my favorite bit of package bling - the crafty angel. It's so cute  and so easy ... I was inspired to attempt my first tutorial for SoSaje. So here we go!  :-)









Materials
   ~  medium butterfly clip (#2 size), available at office supply stores
   ~  8 mm bead
   ~  narrow ribbon, cut to desired length
   ~  threading tool - I'm quite partial to plastic dental theaders since they're so easy to work with, but really any piece of dental floss or strong thread will work

Instructions
The beauty of this little project is that it's so simple, once you're working it from the correct end! In this case, it's the bead that goes on first, not the clip.  :-)

1) Insert the threader through the bead, and string your ribbon through the threader. Slip the threader through your bead so a loop of ribbon is now through the bead.  Remove your threader. (In the case of using the dental flossers, this means separating the sides until the handle splits in half - but not to fear, it can easily be used again since the plastic is quite rigid.)

2) Insert the ribbon loop through the center diamond of the butterfly clip.  From the other side, tuck the bead under the ribbon loop and cinch the knot down to form the angel's "collar."  (Click the photo below to see a larger view.) Then slide the bead down to center the head between the wings ... and done!

 

Use the loose ends of the ribbon to tie up your packages, create a book mark, or tie the ends together and create a whole host of angels with which to decorate someone's office or nook! 

Also a great craft to do with your kiddos or another group of young blessing sharers - Girl Scouts, youth groups, etc. I hope you enjoyed this, and that you'll be sharing angels with lots of others. ♥

A Fluttering Fairy Mobile!

What does one do with a house full of fairies? Set them to tending the flowers and butterflies, of course!

This (temporary) art installation/chandelier is a grouping of five mobiles hanging off our dining room light, that my daughter and her friends assembled during the birthday party. And I came up with this craft all on my own-some! :-) It started simply with finding some pre-cut butterfly and flower foam shapes on clearance. Add some stickers, yarn from the stash, and you're pretty much done.

The clever bit was how I mangled the coat hangers to become the 3D foundation for these mobiles-in-the-round. To duplicate: pull the bottom bar of the hanger up toward the top and get them as close together/parallel as possible; curve the two "arms" around toward each other, creating an arc shape that can be as tight or open as you like; to set, flip the bottom bar OVER the hook so there is now a twist of the hanger wire within each arm. This keeps the shape from falling out, especially if you were using heavier objects in your mobile. (For the foam it probably didn't matter, but I liked the twist effect.) I then wrapped the hanger in a bit of blue tulle to evoke a "sky" feeling. Ta-da!!

The girls enjoyed it. The moms were not overly burdened with clunky, heavy things to lug home. Win-win all round. Hooray!

Glue, by any other name, is just as sticky.

I can't take credit for this idea, but it's such a good one I wanted to share it! At a recent crafting event, the glue for the kid's project was set out in individual "servings" via bottle tops and Q-tips. The containers really set a cap (ha!) on the potential mess factor, since each child no longer had access to an entire bottle of glue. And the provided tool made it a lot easier for my 3-yr old to make precise applications. (No more giant glops that will never, ever dry no matter how long you wait!)

And maybe my favorite bit? This finally gives me a useful way to recycle all the milk gallon and other bottle tops that the recycling place won't take, even though they take the bottles. Hooray!

Instant Art Gallery!

Ah necessity, the mother of invention! :-)

My daughter is at the age where "ART" features prominently in her life - be it crayon, stickers, packing peanuts dipped in water and pressed on to poster board - you name it! I was starting to feel awash in her various creations, and growing increasingly tired of protecting her art from the exploratory nibblings of her 10 month old sister.

So today during the "something different" that used to be her nap time, we created an art gallery for the playroom. Voila!


I grabbed some stick-up hooks from the garage, a box of brightly colored binder clips from the desk, and a stretch of yarn from the sewing stash, and that was it. We threaded the clips on at regular intervals (about 14 inches apart), and I simply tied them off on loops to keep them from sliding around. I tied off two more loops at the ends to stretch between the hooks.


Super simple! Delighted child! No new slew of nail holes in the walls! So simple, and best of all - very nearly free! :-)