Crafting Day

Today during naptime, I ignored the pile of clean clothes on the couch waiting to be folded and put away, and instead I picked up the handy-dandy glue gun I borrowed from a friend. Yep, that's right. Another crafting day. It's kind of my go-to thing whenever I need some down time, some peace and quiet, some relaxation. And after a morning, well actually, only an hour, at the grocery store with my screaming banchees, let's just say that I wanted needed some craft time.

I finally finished my craft that I started the night the girls came over for a Christmas craft party. (You can read about it here.) I am trying to embrace the imperfectness of this project (aka I messed it up but I'm not getting rid of it or starting over!) I love the idea around it, but after trying a new technique that didn't quite work out like I thought, I would do a few things a little differently. Cayman, who decided he didn't need to nap today and instead would enjoy crafting with mama after an hour or so of resting/playing in his room, came out into the living room and asked me what my craft was. I told him it was something we were going to use this year for Christmas. He said, "Oh. It is soo cute," with his big ol' cheesy grin. I just busted out laughing. Then he said, "I wheely like it." Again, I chuckled at the conversation I was having with my three year old son. He walked away to go take care of whatever business he was busy doing. Then he came back to me and said, "I'm going to say that I wheely like this thing again, and you laugh wheely hard again, ok?" He does this fairly often - scripting our conversations because the first time around, the same exact conversation went so well. :) Gotta love him - even when he does sneak out of nap time.

Oh yeah - the point of this craft! It's a countdown to Christmas
"calendar." The clothespins will hold little bags (possibly
numbered) with Christmasy activities and treats for the kids to
open each day in December. Apparently, Cayman will love it.

The part of this craft that didn't work out so well was transferring ink to wood. It works great with black ink, but it doesn't work too well with colored ink. Here's how you do it. Type out your message on your computer in black ink - preferably a thicker type font. Once you have everything how you want it, flip the image (some programs call it the mirror image). Print it on your printer. Place the paper ink side down on your surface. Dip a paintbrush in water and paint over the image. I learned (the hard way) that you don't want to completely saturate the image, just dampen it, well, maybe a little more than dampen it. It needs to be wet, ok? :) Using a sharpee marker, scrape the image with your cap so that all the ink transfers to the wood. You want to rub it pretty hard, but not hard enough that you rip the paper.  Lift the paper off of your surface, and you should have the words/graphics transferred to the wood. It will look aged/antiqued, so you could definitely paint over it if you wanted it darker. I will use this technique again, but I will only use black or maybe brown ink. Colored ink just doesn't transfer well.

I also started a wreath that I saw on Pinterest a couple of months ago. Well, I started the wreath almost as soon as I saw it on Pinterest. But then I quickly realized what a time consuming craft it was, so I haven't picked it up again since. Having the glue gun in my hand can be quite inspiring however. So I picked up where I left off! The instructions for the wreath are really very simple, as long as you have a few months to cut out a bajillion circles from white felt and pin (or in my case today, glue) them into place on a wreath mold. The finished product will hopefully look something like this, although a bit smaller since I chose a smaller wreath mold.

And I'm thinking I will add either an "M" or a few embellishments to it after it's finished. But this is what I have so far. I've still got a ways to go. It should be finished by December. :)

I will not even lie - today I tried to take the easy route and wrap a portion of the mold in a thick white satin ribbon so that I could get out of cutting out more circles. But I think I'm a little too far into it for a change like that! One thing I will warn you to be careful of the next time you find yourself using a hot glue gun with little felt circles: if you drop a circle on your thigh hot glue side down, and then try to brush it off of your leg as if it's a crumb of food or a scrap of paper, it will rip the skin off of your leg and leave you with a perfect circle of raw skin in its path. :( Ouch.