Thursday, March 12, 2009

Blooming Liquid Soap Tutorial


I saw this craft over at Allfreecrafts.com and decided to try it. My daughter now has renewed motivation to use soap when she washes her hands. It's difficult to see, but I also added a purple cornflower. The artificial flowers were snipped off two bouquets purchased at a dollar store. I got the green apple soap there as well.

See Decorative Liquid Soap Pumps for instructions and pictures. They added glass marbles to theirs, and cut the stems shorter.

Paper Doll Puppets

These paper doll puppets are so cute! By coincidence, this crafter happened by my blog last week, just as I was browsing her Etsy shop. She also lives nearby in North Carolina.

These will go fast at just $3.00. It would cost me more just to buy all the pretty paper if I were to do this myself.
Check out her shop at End of the Day Crafting.

Monday, March 09, 2009

Make Your Own Paper Flowers













These were very easy and quick! I used the wrapping paper from a box which I received for my homemade vaporizer liquid ingredients.

You'll need:

-Thin paper(ex: packing paper)
- Scissors
- Water color or food dye
- Glass bowl
- Glitter spray(optional)

- Take the paper and simply cut into circles, each circle should be progressively larger than the next. You should be able to see each layer peaking out about an inch. Don't make perfectly round circles, a little uneven and sloppy is good.

- As you cut them out, stack each of them from small to big - about six.

- Then grab the center from the bottom and gently shape(crumple) into a cone, pinching the bottom from the center tighter than the rest. Gently manipulate the petals to make them look like a real flower by pulling down the outer petals. Voila, you've got a flower!

To color them, place a few drops of color into a bowl of water, then using a small spoon, ladle small amounts of the colored water over the flower, hold it upside down to get it to run out, and to dye the underside. Another way to do it is to place a wadded paper towel into the colored water and squeeze it over the flower. You will get a subtler effect doing this. The pink and white one above was done this way.

***Don't soak the flower too much, or it will wilt into a ball of wet paper. If you don't get the color you want, wait until the flower is dry and dye it again, or even layer the colors for more depth.

I dried mine upside down with a clothes clip attached to the pinched area on the underside. This is the area where a stem could be attached, so it's pinched and pointy. When they are almost dry, spray with glitter spray. I use a gold glitter spray purchased from the Walmart craft area.

See more projects and recipes at the Make-it-from-Scratch Carnie.