Easy Butterfly Craft

At this point in the summer, you may be running out of craft ideas - this is perfect for people who have standard craft supplies sitting around, but need a fun idea.  

For this project you'll need:

-washable markers

-coffee filters

-pipe cleaners

-spray water bottle

-pony beads (optional)

 

 Using washable (regular Crayola) markers, draw designs on 2 coffee filters.  I tried leaving white space and not leaving white space and both turned out great, so either works.

Then place them on top of a paper towel or plastic bag (to protect a surface below) and mist them with a water bottle.  It's fun to see the colors bleed and your design change.

Then you let them dry.

Then accordion (or fan) fold each, in about 1/2 inch folds.

 

 Then unfold, stack the accordion folds on top of each other.  Then take a pipe cleaner, folded in half and twist to secure the coffee filters.  Leave straight pieces at the top for the antennae.  

Finally, add pony beads at the top and curl the pipe cleaner to secure them.

It goes perfectly with my other art projects on display!

 

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Cousin Camp Music

LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART

 GUARD YOUR HEART

 

PRAISE YE THE LORD, HALLELUJAH

   

EVERY MOVE I MAKE  

I'VE GOT THE JOY

GOLDEN RULE

Colorful Easter Egg Wreath

I planned this project for about a year.  I LOVED the project when I saw it on Pinterest and I LOVE the finished product.  Here is a link to the inspiration blog post by BHG.  BUT it is not as easy as they make it sound!

For this Project you'll need:

-a straw wreath form

 

 -excelsior in green (I found mine at Michaels)

-floral pins

-napkins  (collect these over time, if possible)
-approx. 45 plastic eggs of various sizes (I ended up using 41) 

  [Note: looking back at pictures, I think even more eggs would look good.]

-mod podge - this project used a LOT and I prefer matte

-paint brush
-scissors
-parchment paper
-hot glue gun/glue
  

 
 

Gather your materials.  I used 4 different sizes of eggs.  You only need 1-3 napkins of each color.  You want a variety of colors and different shades of the same color.  And you want some napkins with print and some with gold-foil print.  Other places I found napkins were TJ Maxx, Homegoods, Dollar Tree, Tuesday Morning and Michaels (online).

Once everything is gathered, Step 1 is to cut your napkins in squares.  The instructions I had say 1 inch squares but I found that to be too small/tedious.  I did between 1.25 and 1.5 inch squares.

Step 2: Start gluing the squares onto the eggs using Mod Podge, overlapping the squares.  

a. If a napkin is at all thin or light colored, plan to do 1 or more coats with the squares.  Alternatively (I didn't try this) you could spray paint all your eggs white before this process.

b. In the tutorial, they nicely brush mod podge onto the egg but I had a lot of trouble with that working.  The only thing that ended up working for me was to use my fingers to smear the mod podge on and then smooth more mod podge over the top of each square.  Oh and before you get your hands all gluey, lay out a strip of parchment paper as a place to let the eggs dry (I found it works better than random mail or bubble wrap you have lying around!).

At this point, you get a few eggs done and get excited because some of the napkins are so pretty and you can't wait to see everything come together!

Step 3:  Before adding the excelsior, you may want to tie some twine or fishing line around the wreath as a way to hang it.  Once all the eggs are done and you have the hanging step done, the next step is to add excelsior to your wreath form.  Keep in mind the straw wreath and the excelsior shed.  You can hot glue 1st, but I just placed on the wreath and pinned down with floral pins.  I researched excelsior (because I wasn't familiar with it) and found it's made from wood shavings, which I liked, it makes it seem sturdier than moss or plastic Easter grass.  I found mine at Michael's.  

Step 4:  Lay out the eggs around the wreath, so you get a sense of where you want each color.

Step 5:  Use a hot glue gun to start gluing the eggs in place.  Different sizes and colors next to each other.  Glue in different directions.  After I finished gluing, I spotted three "holes" and ended up making three more eggs to fill them.

Step 6  Hang your wreath and take lots of pictures!  I love mine SO much.  It is SO cheery every time I pull into my house or open the front door to check mail!

Lyndi's Chili

 Everybody makes chili a little bit different.  I've been experimenting with my recipe for a few years now and have finally found my favorite combinations.  I'm sharing it here, mainly so I can keep track of it, but also, hopefully you enjoy it as well!

Original Watercolor Christmas Cards 2022

Wishing all my friends, family and blog readers a very Merry Christmas!

One of my 2022 New Year's Resolutions was to grow my skill in watercolor.  I definitely accomplished that goal.  As evidenced here by a painting done early on (right side) and then the same painting later in the year (left side).

At some point, I decided I wanted to create a painting to become my Christmas cards - the perfect culmination of the year of work.  For all the rest of the year, I followed lessons in a book (The Joy of Watercolor) which really helped compose my drawings, as well as guided me on colors and techniques.  For my cards, I was starting from scratch.  I'm going to walk through my process, in case it's interesting to anyone!

1: The Idea

Probably from watching one of my favorite movies - The Holiday and one of my favorite TV shows - Ted Lasso - I came up with the idea of  "Christmas shops" or "storefronts".  Super charming and Christmasy!

2. Inspiration

I started gathering inspiration storefronts by following @shopfrontspoetry on Instagram and saving them to a collection.  Here is my general inspiration:

3. Drawing

Once I had my inspiration, I needed to lightly sketch it out.  Maybe the hardest step for me.  Drawing does NOT come naturally to me and I've found drawing architecture to be less forgiving than other subjects like flowers!  I ended up choosing these specific shops as inspiration - see if you can match them up to what I drew!

4. Color Mixing

I did a lot of mixing and testing before finally choosing a color and painting my drawing.

5. Watercolor Painting

Definitely a multi step, multi day project. 

6. Scan and Digital Design

I scanned it on a copier at work, using the highest resolution possible.  Then I cleaned up several things and added several things, using Canva.  Finally adding some meaningful "Easter eggs" for my family.  I named the far left store Kringle's Book Shop, as a nod to my Dad, who went home to heaven a few years ago, because he loved books, loved to read, played Santa in our small town and kept Christmas in his heart everyday.  Also to honor my Dad, a red cardinal perched on a windowsill of the building on the left.  The book shop door's kick plate says Schnelle, my family's last name.  The center shop is called The Shop Around the Corner, a favorite movie of my mom and I and the name we always talked about "if we ever got the chance to open a shop."  The image below is before any digital edits were made.

7. Have your cards printed!  I used VistaPrint - a horizontal folded card and chose "Upload Your Own."

Final Result:

To everyone seeing this - Merry Christmas and thank you!

XOXO 

Lyndi