FaveCrafts

1000s of free craft projects, home decor ideas and DIY tips

Fall Crafts For Kids: As Simple As Leaves, Pine Cones, And Twigs

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There is a very small window during fall when the leaves are changing and glowing in vibrant hues of red, gold and orange. It’s only a matter of weeks before the the tree branches turn bare and the cast-off leaves on the ground crumple and brown.

Natural elements such as leaves, pine cones, and twigs are a great source of artistic beauty and fun for planning fall crafts for kids.

Fall Leaf Crafts For Kids

FaveCrafts offers a glittery leaf project that can be used throughout the fall season as a decorative wall hanging. The Decorative Fall Plaque project simply requires some paint, glitter, and real leaves from your backyard.

Lana’s blog called I Love My Five Kids offers another decorative solution with leaves, pine cones and other natural items. In her Fall Crafts For Kids Easy And Free Guest Post she explains that with rocks, sticks, leaves, pine cones and other objects found in nature, along with tacky glue and wiggly eyes, your children can glue together animals and creatures.

On her blog called Single Mom Blogs, Heather Prinz describes her Fall Color String of Leaves project. She suggests taking a basket and going outside with your kids to gather leaves. In addition, you will need yarn and glue. Then, you can simply tie the leaf stems to the yarn and seal the knots with glue. To learn more about the easy fall craft, check out her blog! In addition, she offers tips for other projects such as Apple Candle Holders, Nature Inspired Shirts, and Painted Gourds.

Pine Cone Fall Craft For Kids

FaveCrafts offers a delightful project in which pine cones can be converted into little ballerinas. Pine Cone Glitter Ballerinas are environmentally friendly and can be made using pine cones and lots of glitter. Your ballerinas can be embellished with crepe paper, party hats, crowns, tinsel garland and small pompoms.

More Easy Fall Crafts For Kids

In her blog called Life Together, Growing In Faith & Love, Meg shows how to make cute fall crafts from materials that can be found around the house. With her project,Fly Black Bird, Meg describes how a toilet paper roll, black paint, buttons, felt, and wiggly eyes can come together to create a kid-friendly black bird.

Meg also shows how a hand print can be used to create a colorful tree in her project called Hand Print Tree.  She explains that you simply paint yours or your child’s arm and hand with washable paint, press it onto paper, and use your fingertips to make multi-colored leaves. It’s finger painting with a seasonal touch!

In her blog called The Honorable Mention, Barbra Stephens shows how to make yarn pumpkins and apples. The project, Simple Yarn Kid Crafts For Fall, is easy enough for preschoolers! All you need are scissors, yarn and pipe cleaners.

If you want to see more craft ideas for any season, check out the FaveCrafts site. You also can post photos of your work on FaveCraft’s Facebook page.

Memorial Day Party Decoration Ideas

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After the long drought of vacation days from work, I know I am gearing up for a fun Memorial Day party in a couple of weeks!  I love making one of a kind party decor that my guests can enjoy and the best part it is- it is so inexpensive!  I especially love Memorial Day decorations because I can use them again in a couple of months!

Here are a couple of my preferred Memorial Day items:

Flag Placemat

This is a great item to add around your backyard barbeque- whether it is for dining on or placing the appetizers on.  It is an inexpensive way to add some texture to the party.  It is also a great way to get the younger ones involved while you are cooking, prepping, etc.  They can easily piece this together with little to no supervision.

Pleated Flag Garland/Bunting

Add the extra spirit of the arrival of summer with this simple to make Pleated Flag Garland.  It allows you and your family to add your own unique touch to the home decor rather than just a generic banner from the store!  It is a great conversation starter and works perfect to string on decks and flower boxes!

Star Spangled Wreath

This wood project allows you to add some beautiful seasonally inspired decor for a fraction of the price of more traditional wreaths!

Star Table Toppers

This is a great project to tackle with the kids.  Cutting out the stars is easy for small hands and then they have the fun of decoarting them with a variety of different felt sticker shapes!

Thrifty Crafts Friday: Felted Sweaters

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Wool sweaters should be dry-cleaned before storing to keep them from developing moth holes. In addition, you can use inexpensive paper napkins and a sewing machine to create your own herbal sachets to repel months in drawers and closets. Fill the sachets with moth-repellent dried herbs such as lavender, cloves, rosemary and thyme. Unfortunately, moth holes do still happen on occasion and damage can occur to sweaters in lots of others ways: stains, tears and boyfriends who do not know that you cannot put wool in the washing machine. If you have a damaged sweater, you can felt the sweater in your washing machine, like my boyfriend recently did on accident. You will end up with a soft and sturdy material for a variety of craft projects.  You can also pick up old or damaged sweaters at thrift stores for cheap if you need more materials. Here are some ideas for what to do with felted sweaters:

  1. Coffee-Cup Sleeves- Keep your fingers protected from a hot coffee cup. Cut up the sleeves of the felted sweater or stitch a strip together into a band.
  2. Felt Pouches– Use the felt to create little pouches for change, make-up or even gift packaging
  3. Ornaments- Use cookie cutters to help you cut out holiday shapes. Here is a Cross Ornament appropriate all year.
  4. Mittens– Turn a felted sweater into the easiest mittens ever!
  5. Brooches- Cut out a flower shape and embellish, or layer with other colors of felt.

Guest Craft Project: Pumpkin Pillow

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Designer Chery Ball of Stillcraftyafter50.blogspot.com sent us a great autumnal sewing project. The Pumpkin Pillow is made from a felted wool sweater and scrap fabric (for the leaves and stem). A touch of embroidery adds wonderful texture to the stuffed pumpkin. The leaves are affixed easily with Aleene’s Fabric Fusion™ Adhesive. Make this now for autumn decorating or bring as a host gift to Thanksgiving dinner.

When Creativity Knocks FAVEulous Find of the Week: Flight of the Monarch Butterfly

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The Fall season brings to my mind the migrating journey of the Monarch butterfly. Tiffany Windsor has created this lovely butterfly plant stake with some Aleene’s Super Thick Tacky Glue, brown grocery bags and a couple other things. The finished butterfly reminds me of the remarkable Monarch.

ANA’S TIPS: Leave out the wooden skewer. Tape a piece of fishing line in between the layers of the butterfly and hang them from your chandelier or on your Christmas tree.

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One of my favorite episodes of When Creativity Knocks is: Giving Back, Monarch Butterflies, where Megan interviews Ranger Chris at Natural Bridges State Beach in California about the Monarch. She then reads a poem: “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” by Pavel Friedman from Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp. We tell you about The Houston Holocaust Museum Butterfly Project, and I teach you how to make a wool felt butterfly.

butterfly3

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Enjoy the episode.

“Teaching the world to craft one door at a time”
Ana Araujo

3 Pumpkin Crafts for Halloween and On

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Halloween is only days away, and while I am still decorating my home and preparing the perfect costume, I am also looking for crafts that will last past Halloween. Pumpkins are a great theme throughout autumn and over Thanksgiving. Basically, they are a way to bring some color into your home and celebrate the autumn harvest. Here are some of my favorite pumpkin crafts for Halloween and all autumn:

Round Felted Pumpkins– These are quick to make and could even be used to prop up place cards at an autumn feast.
Terra Cotta Pumpkin– Using inexpensive materials, this pumpkin still achieves a certain elegance. You can recycle chipped or broken terra cotta pots from your garden for this craft.


Sparkle and Shine Pumpkins– For a more formal gathering, these pumpkins are perfect. The metallic autumn colors of these pumpkin would look great grouped together as a centerpiece.

When Creativity Knocks FAVEulous Find of the Week: Sweets or Meats?

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Hi all my crafty friends:

This week is time to have a little fun with our food groups! Instead of eating them we are going to stuff them. Is it sweets or meats for you? Sweets? No calories in this Donut! Stacy Schlyer has come up with fun take on a high calorie treat and turned it into a Donut Pin Cushion with sugar cookie fragrance and all.

ANA’s Tip:

  • Don’t stop at a pincushion; purchase fleece by the yard. Follow Stacy Instructions only use a large bowl or plate to make your circles bigger to turn them into some tasty throw pillows and don’t forget the chocolate and maple frosting.

Sweet Meats? Protein free meats!

This Week’s When Creativity Knocks Guest, Lauren Venell of Sweet Meats shares with Megan and myself how to make her T-Bone Steak Cat Toy filled with Catnip! Lauren is very cleaver with her own plush butcher shop: www.sweet-meats.com. She also makes pillows Hambone, Porky Chops, Shanin’ Bacon, Stuff Boeuf to name few.

meat


Watch Ana, Megan and Lauren in this fun episode.

I have a little extra bonus for you Wizard of Oz fans. Go to: www.WhenCreativityKnocks.com and register to receive our FREE WCK Tuesday Creative Journal where we are Celebrating 70 Years of the Wizard of Oz!

Till next week,

“Teaching the world to craft…one door at a time!”
Ana Araujo, WCK Creative Designer

When Creativity Knocks Video: International Quilt Festival

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When Creativity Knocks took a field trip to the International Quilt Festival in July 2009. We met some great people and saw many  outstanding quilts and crafts. This is a photo from Bird Brain Designs which featured wool felting by TIna. Her animals are out of this world! Learn more about them and many others that Ana chatted with!

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Watch the episode here.
“Teaching the world to craft…one door at a time!”
Ana Araujo, WCK Creative Designer

When Creativity Knocks FAVEulous Find of the Week: All Kinds Of Felt Critters

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The fall brings me thoughts of sweaters, cooler days, and rich and warm textures. Felt is one of those great textures that never frays and has a whole host of project that you can create. Today we are going to focus on All Kinds on Felt Critters. From bookmarks to finger puppets. So, gather some felt squares, pom pom, wiggle eyes, Glue Dots, ribbon, pipe cleaners, Fabri-Tac and the kids to make some very cute and easy projects!
Check out this project from FaveCrafts: Furry Friends Bookmarks

Don’t stop there! When Creativity Knocks episode this week: SQUID RO. is a finger puppet that is made from “felt”. What is SQUID RO. you ask? It is the brain child from Claire Chambers who creates in the land of the small: Chickenpants Absolutely Small. Claire joined Megan and myself to share how to make this fun and crazy finger puppet in front of “WCK’s Craft Studio on Wheels” at the Makers Faire 2009.

felt-finger-puppet

Sit back and enjoy!
www.WhenCreativityKnocks.com

“Teaching the world to craft one door at a time!”
Ana Araujo, WCK Creative Designer

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