More fun with toilet paper rolls

I got this idea off of pinterest!  My daughter, who saves everything under the sun, had about a dozen of these toilet paper rolls saved up.  So we decorated them with markers, but the ends off to make them tilt a little (I know it's hard to tell from this picture), glued the tubes to another piece of cardboard, let it dry, and then put some pencils in them. 

I thought they turned out pretty cute!  Of course not as nice as the posting I found on Pinterest.

bottle cap spelling

items needed:
bottle caps
construction paper or old magazines
scissors
pen/pencil

After researching ideas to use with some of the bottle caps I have saved up I decided to use some of them to help my daughter with spelling and words.

Plastic Bottle Cap Art

I have recently started saving plastic bottle caps.  I have seen some cute plastic bottle cap art around and thought it would be a fun activity for my daughter and I.  Check out some of these cute ideas:

http://www.artgrange.com/michelleworkshop.html

http://inspirationgreen.com/art-from-bottle-tops.html

Not only can you make art, but you can use them to make game pieces or magnets!

Napkin holder made from mini cereal box

We have been trying to figure out what to do with all these cereal boxes that my daughter, Alex, has been saving for art projects.  I really do hope she does not turn out to be a hoarder, because now she does not want to throw away anything in hopes to save items for future art projects.  So today we decided to make little napkin holders.

The first step was to cut the box sides leaving one side together, the bottom, as pictured above.

Then we used construction paper and stickers to decorate the box.  You can see I added a little strip of paper to the end of the box to hold it together.  It worked out OK but I think I need to figure out a different way to keep the box together so the napkins can hang out both ends.

Pop Tab Bracelets

I have never made these before but they look easy and fun.   Check out this video I found while I was surfing around youtube for some new craft ideas:

Puzzles

The other day, we went through some old bags we had and decided to turn them into puzzles.  These bags old Subway children's meal bags-- you know those reusable grocery store bags.  We also received one when we signed up for a zoo membership and used that one as a puzzle too.  We just have so many around the house, just sitting there we decided to do something with them.  Just cut them into puzzle pieces any way you want! 

What to do with those small cereal boxes

My daughter loves these small cereal boxes, because she gets to choose from a different cereal everyday.  We decided to use them to make a city on a piece of cardboard.

She wanted to keep the tops open so she could put her littlest pet shop toys in them.  We found a butterfly in our craft box and glued it to the top of one building. 

Instead of using construction paper to cover the boxes you could use paint or cut out doors in the front of them.   Another idea is using cotton balls to make a wintery scene!

We also used the construction paper to make a street and flowers.  Super cute and my daughter loves it!

Fabric Flowers

Doesn't this look cute.  Read below to learn how to make one yourself!

My daughter loves when I make her things and loves flowers so after cutting some fabric for the cloth necklaces yesterday I cut out some circles of various sizes from the same piece of clothing.  As you can see from the picture I cut out six circles.

For this project you will also need:
fabric glue or needle with thread
buttons for the middle of the flower
candle

Then I cut little slits around each circle.  You don't have to do this but I thought it would look neat.

Using the candle, I held the fabric just over the flame.  The fabric created this curl like effect that was pretty neat.

This is what a few of the circles looked like laying on top of each other.  I had a few different buttons I placed in the center to see which one I liked the best before sewing it on.

I decided to sew this little flower onto a plain white t-shirt.  When I held the t-shirt up I noticed the fabric fell over, so I used the fabric glue to help keep the flower in place.  I think I may be a little scared to wash this.  Hope my daughter doesn't get it too dirty.

fabric necklace

I decided to try this after reading a post on a blog I follow.  I have some clothes my daughter grew out of so I cut one into three pieces and braided it into the above necklace.  I ended up giving it to my daughter and she just loves it.  Below is a close up of what the necklace looks like.

 You can also put on some beads to give the necklace some extra character.  Since this was my first time doing this I decided to start out just making the necklace and I liked the way it looked without the beads.