SO excited to share that the Christmas Made in Paper magazine (a sister magazine to Mollie Makes) has featured my Paper Deer Terrarium on the last page. Awesome! Mollie Makes is one of my favorite magazines and Made in Paper is just as neat.
I hope you all have the most amazing Friday + weekend.
– Chelsey
Tags: featured, made in paper, magazine, mollie makes
Categories: Uncategorized
Boo! Scare the bajeebies outta your trick or treaters with my Monster Eye Wreath DIY! Actually, it’s kinda cute and I’m happy to have it on my door! It’s a cheap and easy craft, check out how I made it below. Side note: I sorta thought this looked like a hairy monster boob before I added the eyelashes.
Supplies:
– foam wreath (I used 12″)
– 8 inch smooth foam half ball
– 1/2 yard of “monster” fur material
– hot glue + glue gun
– one 8″ x 10″ piece of black felt
– optional: wire
Directions:
– Add a bit of wiring to the wreath (to hang when you’re done.
– Place your wreath on the wrong side of the monster fur. Push the foam half ball into the center of the wreath on the right side of the monster fur. Fold the fur over each side of the wreath to make sure it covers all the wreath foam. Trim the fir to size. Note: the fur is super messy. I suggest taking the fur outside, after cutting, and shaking. It helps.
– Flip the wreath over and hot glue along the wreath and fur edge (see image above).
– Pull the foam half ball out of the wreath and run a line of glue along the edge. Carefully press it back into the wreath to secure.
– Roll the monster fur over to the back of the wreath and glue it down with your hot glue.
– Cut a small circle out of your black felt and glue it onto the center of your foam half ball…. aka: EYEBALL.
– Optional: Cut a small/teensy crescent moon shape out of white paper for the pupil.
– Optional: Cut out 5 long black felt triangles to create eyelashes. You can also add eyelashes to the bottom of the eye, but I felt it looked too much like teeth.
– Hang that baby up and enjoy/confuse your neighbors!
– Chelsey
Tags: diy, faux fur, felt, foam, fur, halloween, happy halloween, holiday, hot glue, kiddo diy, kiddo tutorial, outdoor, scary, tutorial, wire, wreath
Categories: diy, Holiday - Halloween, paper mama house
Wait, what? I’m in New York City for Better Homes and Gardens! I’ve been a contributor for the BHG Style Spotters blog for…. quite a while now and the lovely people over at Better Homes have invited some people over to New York for a fun workshop! I cannot wait to get started tonight. For now, I’ll just need to focus on not falling asleep while standing… Just landed here at 5:30 am (I’m nuts, but I prefer to fly direct… which just happen to run as red eye flights). Hopefully I can catch a quick nap before everything.
If you’d like to follow along with the whole BHG trip, you can keep watch on my Instagram OR just follow this hashtag: #BHGStyle … Happy Wednesday!
– Chelsey
If you have a post you’d like to share today (really, any post), please feel free to link it up below. Also, feel free to link up to these blogs too… Parenting by Dummies, Project Alicia, Jenni from the Blog, In The Moment With, and Live and Love Outloud.
Tags: blogger, blogger party, bloggy meet up, conference, new york, travel
Categories: announcement, BHG, blogger business, travel
I don’t usually know what I’m doing when I sew, but I do like to experiment. That’s how I came up with this My Little Kitty Backpack DIY (yeah… My Little Pony was on in the background when I named this, hee). It works perfectly for my little preschool girl. She asked for a kitty backpack, and that’s what I tried to make (sorta has a raccoon feel, but she loves it). Below I’ve attempted to share how I made it. Mostly I just guessed and it worked.
Supplies:
– 1/2 yard duck cloth
– 1/2 yard pretty fabric
– 1/2 yard oil cloth
– 1/8 yard of dark grey felt
– 1/8 yard of white felt
– One teensy piece of pink felt
– A small piece of blue yarn
– 1.5 yards of one inch wide belting trim
– 2: one inch wide strap adjusters
A quick how-to:
– First a note: all of these sizes can be adjusted and changed to make the perfect backpack for you. This size fits my little 3.5-year-old nicely. PLUS, I freehand cut the curves/eyes/nose/tail. PLUSandalso: I have totally taught myself to sew and make up all sorts of sewing terms, since I’m usually guessing how to make somethin’. What I’m trying to say: these instructions are crazy.
Fabric cuts:
– Interior of the backpack: Cut two 12″ wide by 13.5″ high pieces of oil cloth.
– Outer section of the backpack: Cut out two 13″ wide by 14″ high rectangle fabric pieces of both the duck cloth and pretty fabric.
– Pocket: Cut out a 6″ x 6″ piece of duck cloth and pretty fabric.
– Cat tail: Cut a 10″ by 12″ piece of duck cloth. Freehand cut 5 piece of dark grey felt.
– Cat face flap: cut a 13″ wide by 7″ high piece of duck cloth and oil cloth. Freehand cut 4 pieces of duck cloth in triangle shapes. Freehand cut 2 white fleece triangle pieces. Freehand cut two 2 inch circles of white felt. Freehand cut two 1 inch circles of dark grey felt. Cut a cute little piece to make the nose for the kitty, from the pink felt.
– Backpack straps: Two 11″ by 6″ pieces of oil cloth.
What I did:
– Place the interior of backpack oil cloth right sides together. Sew a 1/2 inch seam around the two 13.5″ sides + one 12 inch side. On the 13.5″ sides, only sew up to 12.5 inches (the extra inch will be folded back and sewn).
– Pin the wrong sides of the duck cloth and pretty fabric together, from the exterior backpack cuts. Repeat with the other exterior backpack fabric.
– Fold the edges, about 1/2 inch fold, of the cut pocket fabrics in and stitch. Pin the pocket into the center of one of the exterior backpack pinned pieces. Sew the pocket on.
– For the cat face flap: grab the cut cat face flap fabric pieces, sew the eyes and nose onto the duck cloth. Stitch the little mouth (in the shape of an upside down “v”). Place the right side pieces together freehand sew a curve (to make the cat face shape). Trim the extra fabric, then flip the inside out.
– Sew the triangle ear pieces together. Flip inside out.
– Freehand sew a cat tail shape. Trim and flip inside out.
– Grab the exterior backpack and sewn interior backpack pieces. With the pretty fabric facing out (and the interior backpack piece in the center), fold in the edges of the pretty fabric and pin to the sewn oil cloth. Pin two 12″ pieces of the belting trim to the bottom of the backpack. Pin the tail in between the belting pieces. Sew the two long sides and and the bottom of the backpack.
– Fold the backpack strap oil cloth into 1.5 inch sections (right side facing out) and pin. Add a small 4 inch piece of belting strip to the base of each strap, loop into the back of the strap adjusters, and pin to the strap. Stitch the strap/belting strip together.
– Fold in the fabric on the top of the backpack. Pin the cat face flap, straps, a 6 inch loop handle, and ears to the top. Sew, and you’re done!
It’s not the most perfect sewing project, but it turned out very cute and my kiddo loves it!
– Chelsey
Summer is just about over, that’s why I made some Seed Saver Packet Printables. I’ve saved a few seeds from some favorite plants, and plan to save more (prepping some tomato plant seeds as we speak). It’s simple to do.
To make these for yourself, print out the packet printable below and cut out the seed savers. Glue together, label, and add seeds + seal. Save and print when the seeds are ready! Side note: if you have small seeds, like poppy seeds, use some washi tape for any holes/cracks (since the seeds are so small).
Click + right click + save on the image below:
PLUS: these would make very adorable gifts.
– Chelsey
Categories: paper mama farm
Well folks, it’s just about Fall. That means we all need to get ourselves organized… or at least pretend we’re organized. I’ve created a Calendar Work Station just for this. A new DIY for you to check out at Better Homes and Gardens. I’m pretty in love with this thing. I made the whole thing for free (if you really calculate the cost of materials it’s probably under $15).
Want to see how I made it? Check it out on Better Homes and Gardens (comes with free calendar printables).
– Chelsey
Ok. I know. It’s not even September and I’m sharing a Halloween DIY. I swear: there will not be any other mention of Halloween until the end of September (promise). Buuut, Michaels sent me some foam pumpkins and I got inspired. So yeah. Hello Halloween DIY. Ha!
I created a Spooky Halloween Terrarium with this pumpkin. Comes with a little spooky home and crazy/wild bats. It’s intense. Perfect for Halloween 2013.
Here’s what you need to make this:
– A foam pumpkin from the Michaels
– Green floral foam
– Moss
– Wire
– Hot glue
– X-acto Knife
– Wire cutters
– Scissors
– A couple toothpicks
How I did it:
– Use an X-acto knife to cut a hole out of the front of your pumpkin. I cut about an 8 inch hole (I freehand cut, but you could use a pencil to mark out the hole before cutting).
– Optional: to get a bit more light into your pumpkin, cut a small section in the back (I cut the hole so it was not visible when looking through the front hole). I did this because the pumpkin is flammable and I didn’t really want to put any sort of heat source in or around it.
– Place a small piece of green floral foam in the bottom of your pumpkin.
– Put a layer of moss at the bottom (over the green floral foam) for the “ground cover”.
– Cut out a spooky house from my printable. Hot glue a couple of toothpicks to the back of the home. Push the home/toothpicks into the green floral foam.
– Press your branch into the green foam, behind the tree.
– Cut out a few of my bats from the printable (don’t worry about cutting these out perfectly, I didn’t). Gently fold the bat in half (so they look like they’re flying).
::click on image below + right click + save::
– Cut out a couple bits of wire and hot glue the bats onto these wires.
– Arrange the wired bats around the interior of the pumpkin. You can push the wire INTO the foam part of the pumpkin, or have them flying up from the “grass” by pressing the wire into the green floral foam.
Enjoy! Side note: you can place this pumpkin near a lamp to get a wee bit of light into the back for a creepy nighttime glow. Just remember, pumpkin flammable.
– Chelsey
This post was brought to you by,
P.S. these pumpkins were sent to me, free of charge, from Michaels.
Tags: halloween, michaels, printable
Categories: diy, Holiday - Halloween
