Tag: gift

Polymer Clay Heart Ornaments

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I first picked up polymer clay in middle school. I went through pretty much all of the Klutz kits the local Barnes and Noble had to offer, making all different kinds of art projects. I specifially remember the polymer clay set because I made an adorable little mouse “clay doll”, complete with changeable clothes. By that, I mean it was flat, cut-out clay in a more sturdy form of a paper doll.

Recently I grabbed a variety set of Sculpey clay at a Staples that was going out of business. Or a different Staples that was just having a sale on a day I was bored shopping. Either way, I was confused and delighted to find that Staples carried clay and it was something like 30% off.

Most of that clay has been used up fixing things the kids have broken or making beads (which is a great way to keep kids busy for the afternoon), and I recently felt like making more things. So I grabbed another variety pack on a recent trip to JoAnns and set about making heart ornaments.

These heart ornaments are super cute and available on my Ko-Fi Shop and Etsy Store. They are $15 each with free shipping no matter which shop you buy from, but if you buy from my Ko-Fi shop you get access to subscriber content for 30 days which includes exculsive coloring pages, downloads, and videos.

Birthday Shirts!

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I’ve mentioned before how June is a busy month for birthdays around here. Well, we have two of them. Now that I think about it, that describes every month March through June. Anyway, I decided to make t-shirts for both birthday boys. One asked me for a Baymax shirt and the other was having a cooking party so I made him a cupcake shirt.

I used my contact paper masking method to create stnecils for some fabric spray paint. I made the basic picture using the paint, then added the details in a couple of different ways.

For the cupcake shirt, I went back in with some embroidery thread to create outlines and details.

The other one being a cartoon character, I thought drawn details would fit better with the style. For that I used my trusty Sharpie pens I found on my trip to the closing Office Depot.

They both turned out really well. Well enough to say definitively that the contact paper method really works for creating stencils for the spray paint. It just takes a lot of light coats of paint to prevent bleeding and pooling at the edges of the sticker.

Make It a Bat Cycle

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Remember how I told you there was a part 2 to the birthday gift from Monday?, and also how I procrastinated on it even more than the bubbles?

See, his big gift this year was his first ever bicycle. But that is a thing that is most definitely going to outlast his Batman phase and most likely be handed down to his brother. So he got a bike with flames on it but, through a series of random circumstances saw a picture of it and said he would rather have a Batman bike. Ding ding, birthday gift idea!

I had intended to measure the seat of his new bike (which he didn’t know he was getting yet) and all of that the day before his party so I could make a seat cover to give him the next day, but I never got around to it between laundry and lunchtime for baby brother. Luckily, I was set to stay with brother as he napped the next morning and everyone did things to get ready for the party. After everyone left I snuck in to where the bike was hidden, grabbed quick measurements and settled in at the dining room table to cut and sew a seat cover out of felt.

I had made the decal the night before, since that didn’t have to be any particular size. Then I cut out the four pieces of the seat, stitched the decal to the top, and backstitched them all together with embroidery thread to make the seams as secure as possible when hand sewing. I added a pullstring at the bottom so the cover just slips on the seat and is then secured with the string. Baby brother helped out by taking an insanely long nap and waking up just in time for us to walk down to the party and get cake.

It was a hit. He apparently wanted it put on his bike immediately and was incredibly excited about it. Mom was thrilled that he had his own logo on the bubble bottles. (And, let’s face it, at this age handmade gifts are more for mom than for child.) All around a successful birthday gift set.

How badly do you procrastinate on making things for others? Or am I the only one? Are you one of those super organized people who thinks months ahead about gifts and keeps them in a closet until the gift-giving occasion arrives?