Wax Paper Stained Glass

Often times when I tell people about my recollections from childhood they are astonished at just what I remember. This is the case with Wax Paper Stained Glass. When I was in kindergarten my family lived in Evanston, Wyoming. The school I attended was large, and had a lot of interesting programs and activities. We always had good crafts and projects in my class, and as near as I can remember, this was one of them. I've been meaning for quite some time to recreate this childhood activity, so here's how I did it!

First things first, I gathered my tools and materials together. I found my used crayons and vegetable peeler at the thrift shop. I also brought a paper plate, wax paper, construction paper, an iron, and some patterned scissors into the equation.

Your first step will be to select the colors for your stained glass, and peel back the wrappers a bit.

Cut some pieces of wax paper. Honestly, the bigger the pieces the easier it will be to make.

If you are planning on making a large stained glass, or a lot of small ones, it might be beneficial to scrape off a lot of wax with your peeler, and collect it on a paper plate.

This was a big mistake. This is waaaay too much wax for this sized piece of wax paper. It escaped off of all the edges. It was a huge mess. Remember, a little goes a long way.

Sprinkle just a little of your crayon shavings onto the wax paper and cover it with another wax paper.

Cover your crayon/wax paper sandwich with a piece of fabric and set your iron to low.

Iron until your wax is melted and spread all out.

Take a piece of construction paper and measure out a frame. You will need a front and a back. 

Don't forget that you can trim your "art" to make it easier to frame if necessary. 

Using white glue, fix the front and back of your frame to your "art."

Find a pair of patterned scissors, if you have them, to trim up the edges and make it cute.

Punch holes in either of the top corners. This is for your hanger.

Using a piece of ribbon or string, make a hanger.

That's it! Find a sunny window in which to display your artwork!

Brazil Nut Reindeer Ornament

I remember having a few of these little fellows on our Christmas tree growing up. While I was making some Christmas tree ornaments for my sister I happened upon some leftover Brazil nuts I had been saving for making reindeer, so I figured that I'd better get to it!

So, for every Brazil nut you intend to use you will need two eyeballs, a short length of ribbon to use as a hanger, a small pompom for a nose, and half a chenille stem (tan works best, but white would be fine as well.) You will also need a hot glue gun and glue sticks to put it all together.

First cut your chenille stems in half. Each half will be a set of antlers for a reindeer.Fold your section of chenille stem in half, then use that fold to make a"w" shape. Fold the long bits into a zigzag formation, taking care that the two sides match. The "w" will sit on the reindeer's head.

The Brazil nut has three sides to it. The bottom is narrow, and the two sides are wide. The two sides come together at the top in a fairly sharp ridge. This ridge is where your antlers will sit. The back is fairly rounded, while the front is pointed where the three sides join up. The point at the front is where you will glue your pompom nose. You can use black, dark brown, or red for the nose. I used one black and one red. 

Next glue your eyeballs on. One on either side of the head. Make sure that they are symmetrical.

Now you can glue the antlers on. The "w" should sit on the ridge at the top of the nut. 

Just behind the antlers is where you should attach your ribbon hanger. Tie a knot or a bow at the top to close it off. 

Once your glue has set you will have some cute little reindeer eyeballing you from your Christmas tree! I love these little guys. It's a really neat use for your leftover holiday nuts. 

Drink Bottle Flower Vase

So, a while back there was a lady at my nursing home who was not doing so well. I decided to bring in some flowers to spruce the place up. My only problem? No flower vase. I decided to make my own!

I found an empty sports drink container and decided that I could figure out how to make it cute! 

First I took off the label and the cap. 

Next, I rinsed it out and cut off the neck. 

After it had dried out a bit, I found a metallic marker to decorate it with. It doesn't have to be metallic, I just happened to have a metallic one and decided to make my vase fancy! 

After you have fancified the vase, you will need some flowers. If you have some growing in your yard, go ahead and use those. All my flowers had either died or been eaten by goats, so I went down to the vacant lot on the corner. 

There I found a bunch of scarlet mallow, and cut a handful. 

I took them home, rinsed off the bugs, trimmed away some leaves and added them to my vase. I added a bit of water and took it over to the nursing home. 

Newspaper Owls

This is another idea I got from the nursing home where I work. This was an arts and crafts project they did a while back. I thought they were so cute that I took a photo so I could figure out how to make them.

The first step is to find a sheet of newspaper with a lot of words on it. A long article, the arrests listing, the classifieds, they all make for good owls. Likewise, if you have a paperback novel that you're looking to recycle, its pages would make great owls as well.














Cut some owl shapes out of your newspaper. Just make a round bottom and horns at the top, doesn't have to be perfect.

















Next, find some scraps of colorfully patterned paper. Any color or pattern should do nicely, but I would recommend abstract prints. It seems strange to me to make an owl out of paper printed with pictures of airplanes or ladies' handbags. Just a thought.















Glue your owl shapes onto the patterned paper, leaving plenty of space all around the shape.

















While your owl bodies are drying, cut enough little orange triangles as you have owls. I've used construction paper for this. These will be the beaks.
















Cut some circles out of black construction paper, and glue them to a sheet of white paper. I used a white pencil and traced around the end of my glue stick to get circles which were at least recognizable as circles, and which were roughly the same size.















Cut around the black circles, leaving a bit of white all around. These are your owls' eyeballs. Glue the eyes on first, then position the beak and glue it as well.
















Find yourself some fancy patterned scissors (if you have them.) Cut all around the newspaper owl bodies, leaving a lot of your patterned paper showing.

There you are! Owls! Now, what can you do with them? Glue white ovals on their tummies and use them as gift tags. Punch a hole in the top and string some ribbon through to hang on your Christmas tree. Glue them to the front of a blank greeting card. Make tiny owls and glue them onto suckers to hand out at Halloween time. Hang them in a child's window. Better yet, make them with a child and let them hang their owls wherever they want!

Recycled Paper Easter Eggs

Here's a cute paper project to do with the kids for Easter this year! I saw one similar to this hanging on the door at the nursing facility where I work, and decided to go home and figure out how to do it! Mom gave me a bunch of scrapbook paper years ago, but I never really got into scrapbooking, so I've been trying to figure out cute projects to use some of it up. Here's one of them!

Here's what you need:

Paper (scrapbook paper, construction paper, old magazines, newspaper, etc)

A sheet of white paper

A pencil or marker

Scissors

Glue (white glue or glue stick, whichever is handy)

First, roughly draw an egg shape on your white sheet of paper. Doesn't have to be perfect. (Thank goodness! Look at how awful my egg shapes look! Bleh!) This will be the right side of your work.

Cut your colored paper into strips. I cut mine about 1/2" wide. If you wanted to, you could use fun scissors with zig zags or waves, or other cute patterns. (Especially if your paper is plain.)

Turn your work right side down, and begin gluing your strips to the wrong side. Since your strips are not likely to be completely straight, overlap them just a tiny bit.

Allow the glue to dry and turn your work right side up. Use the egg shapes you drew as a guide to cut your work into the shape of an egg. (You may need to adjust a bit as you cut, if your egg drawing skills are similar to mine.)

There you have it! Cute little stripey eggs for Easter!

Plastic Canvas Bookworm Book Marks

Willie made one of the little fellows when he was a youngster,  and I decided to figure out how to reproduce it.  I made myself a book worm, and I thought it would be a cute project to make for kids, or to help kids make for someone else. Sorry for the hand drawn pattern, but I had to sort of reverse-engineer this little guy. The black lines are your cutting lines. It's hard to tell, but his red mouth is on the second row from the bottom of his head. The colors listed in the pattern are just suggestions. If you find a wormy color combination that you would like to use, go for it! I have used green, yellow, orange, and brown, and any shade of each color. Just put together what looks good to you!

Bookworm shape

First, cut out your bookworm shape from 7-mesh plastic canvas. Trim off all the little pegs left over from cutting.

Stitch his stripes first

This handsome brown model just needs a face!

I like to make his stripes first, and then fill in the main colors, so, using one of your contrasting colors, stitch on the stripe on his butt, then switch to your next contrasting color for his next stripe.








Stitch his head, but leave spaces to stitch on his eyes, nose and mouth. If you forget to leave a space for his nose, don't fear! Just put a french knot there, and no one will know the difference!









Once all his details are stitched on, you just have to finish his edges. His body and antennae get finished with your main color, and his head gets finished with its matching color (orange, in my pattern.)

The worm at top is Willie's, bottom is my first attempt to recreate.