DIY: How to make Homemade Felt Food for kids and Homemade Yarn Food for kids.

DIY: This is how to make FELT Food and YARN or CROCHET foods for your kids pretend play or for a great gift. I got this idea from our Children's museum, they used scrap craft materials such as felt, yarn and ribbon - with no real shapes they just let the kids make what they want out of what pieces they find. I like the idea of having to use the imagination, and these days the plastic toy food is so realistic, it hardly leaves anything to the imagination. So I figured I would leave the "sandwich", and the "salad" in forms of vague shapes and shades resembling food, so there could be some creativity and freedom of imagination. However, I couldn't resist making the rest of the food as realistic as I could. And because I had no patterns, it worked out that while they resemble the intended food, they still leave something to the imagination :) Plus, it's handmade, using some recycled materials and makes for a precious gift that took time, effort and love to make! Enjoy!

"Making Bacon" - Crochet Bacon using brown and white yarn.

Finally looks like breakfast is ready :) - making crochet bacon, and crochet fried eggs.

The pile and box full of recycled containers I am going to use to "package" the food. Hey it's fun for kids to use real containers that they see us use. Plus, it's great to recycle and saves some money, as I did not have to buy containers.

These are cute little "milk" containers, I have recycled Dannon yogurt containers, washed them and then made cute little labels for them, great addition to my homemade breakfast.  Or as you see in the last photo with the crochet Oreo cookie - it's cute to make cookies and milk!

And of course encourage your little ones to be creative and use various shapes and sized fleece scraps to make a "salad".

ENJOY!!

Some of my favorite places for crafts ideas!

http://www.instructables.com/id/Duct-Tape/
http://craftsnob.com/2011/04/duct-tape-ring/ 
http://mrsgreene.info/2011/03/craft-project-rolled-duct-tape-bead-bracelet/ 

Enjoy! And KEEP CRAFTING!!

Kathy's Homemade Chili

Homemade Chili with Macaroni:
2 cans of chili beans
1 can white kidney beans
1 can kidney beans
1 can garbanzo beans
1 can "ranch style" pinto beans
1 can "chili ready" diced tomatoes
1 lbs ground beef (browned)

FRESH:
1/2 cup chopped finely carrots, green onion, (option) bell pepper, (option) 1-2 jalapenos, and garlic, chili powder, and salt & pepper to taste.

Optional: add Macaroni! Add one box of dry macaroni and 1 can of chicken broth.

Combine all ingredients in bit pot, bring to a boil. Be careful not to burn and stir often. Then bring to simmer and heat on medium till macaroni is tender. Enjoy!

DIY: Homemade Paper Crafts - Decorate with Paper!

DIY: This is an addition to my last post - how to make a homemade paper banner. This one is personalized - you can see I drew it out first. I used LIME GREEN, BLUE and white paper to make this, I also added bright colored ribbon, and yarn to the ends and the middle to make it more festive. The options are endless, and still pretty cheap. Plus if you are making the decorations yourself - you can make them all match!

This is basically the look you get with a homemade banner. This was my Christmas one.

I then tried homemade paper books this year. At the community center one of the groups is called the Book Making Club and I took a couple of their samples to learn how. Basically you can make them any size and color. I used red and green for the Christmas. Plus I used stamps, glitter and the other supplies are scissors, a punch, thread and a threader, a sharpie and a computer to make the photos that went in the "books". I also made these books ornaments. It was a lot of fun and really popular.

This is the what the front looked liked after I finished.

Here is the photos and a finished one.

Enjoy!

DIY: Paper Decorations - Homemade Paper Banner and Homemade Gift bags

DIY: I love working with paper. It's cheap, handy and easy to make a number of different things. From invitations, to scrapbook pages, to personalized cards, and so much more. This year I have been experimenting with more and more paper, to see just how much I can make from just paper (and a computer of course). You don't have to use super-sophisticated clip are or photos to make great decorations, but having a variety of fonts, photos, and icons will come in handy. Luckily, you can surf the Internet and get just about anything. So here is a "gift bag" I made for my daughters 1st birthday, I have since gone on to make luminaries for a wedding, and holiday gift bags. Once you have the pattern down, it's so easy. So here it is again.

Cut, fold and tape! Viola!

Added side creases for effect! Looks a real bag!

This is what the bottom looks like when I tape it, I also tape the side too.

Next is a classic, but always forgotten the "paper banner". You make it say anything, out of ANY color, and use fancy fonts to make it cute! here it goes. So use a 8X10 to make two triangles, then put in the letters you need. Then print on colored paper, or on white if that is what you want. 

For the holidays I use RED and GREEN paper for this homemade Holiday Paper Chain.

Then I matted it to opposite color of paper.

I used two sided tape at the top and used a hole punch to put the string through.

And there you have it! An easy, cute, CHEAP way to decorate and add a festive feel to anything!! This I made and gave to my secret Santa this year. So easy!

Kids Are Heros Blog - Check it out!

WOW, I get teary eyed when I see a child play nice with an animal or carefully move a little bug to safety, or help a younger child with something. These children are amazing! Of course I work in the profession of children and teens - and I would argue with adults that are "children-at-heart" = so I am lucky to work in a profession where I hear a lot of these wonderful stories and get to facilitate many wonderful missions!

http://www.justgabe.com/blog-for-kah/

My first Custom Mascot - Tortilla Chip

Well here it is - my first Custom Mascot. A tortilla chip for a Salsa fest, here is his journey to full fledged live size chip! Here is his own face book page!

 https://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100002541409762

This is the official APRA Arizona Salsa Festival logo. The mission - first to have a successful event so that APRA can keep on, keeping on; and second for me to produce a life size "tortilla chip" to be the mascot of the inaugural event!

So there is NO pattern for a giant chip - or pizza, sponge or cheese wedge. Trust me, I looked and scoured the Internet for ANYTHING remotely close. Nope! I was on my own. So the first thing I did was get dimensions and of course make them larger than life :)

I carefully scaled my salty friend and then went to the craft store. This is what Chip started out at...

A pile of tan felt. I started with the eyes, one so that I wouldn't get confused when cutting the larger pieces of fabric. But also, in the making of the eyes, Chip immediately had character, and it gave me the extra boost I needed to actually "see" that I could do this. Well once the piece were cut, it did not take long to sew together. I soon had a felt "shell" of a chip and next I added it's color. Without the orange, brown and added darker tan (like the logo) - it kinda looked like pizza dough or a sponge.

Next came the hardest point for me, which was making Chip structurally sound and actually "crisp looking, or remotely triangular. I first tried plastic mesh from a hobby store but the weight of the costume weighed the corners down, and once the persons head was in - it just drooped to almost their shoulders. I also didn't want to use anything to "industrial" because people would need to be comfortable in their and I didn't want the costume to weight a ton from a bunch of steel rods. I also needed it to be "squishy" like a mascot and pliable - so wooden dowels wouldn't work - they would just snap if under pressure. What to do?

I figured it out! Unfortunately, the artist added a sombrero to Chip, so keeping a hat on him, and finding a hat big enough was the next step. Then instead of slaving away over making orange tights and a shirt for the "under ware" I bought GOLD colored cotton blend Haynes. A long sleeve shirt and sweat bottoms (which have not arrived yet) off of Amazon because it is a rare color and not carried in stores.

Supplies and materials at craft store = $59.45, a hat at the costume store = $19.99, Sweats on Amazon, plus shipping = $54.97.

Total cost = $134.41

Total time = approx. 20 hours

One of my favorite pics of Chip - dancing at the Salsa Festival. He made it! From office floor to standing (dancing) at event!

How to make a tortilla chip costume

Making a life size tortilla chip

tortilla chip costume 

tortilla chip mascot

life size tortilla chip

custome mascots