I feel crafty.. yes, I do! I feel crafty... so should you!

We are not snowed in.

We are not stuck inside during the great 49/ 50 states blizzard.

We are just a tiny bit cold, I mean colder than a lot of Texans like... but really just a LITTLE bit cold.

So although I have FEEL like I have cabin fever, REALLY I don't. The kids and I were at the park the other day, they rode bikes outside today with no jackets on. So really I have no excuse for the WINTER BLUES.

Brenda, has a thought that really it is just cold enough that our beds feel warm and cozy so we want to STAY in them! I think that is partially true!

However, honestly we have ZERO excuse.

BUT I am soooo not in a schoolin' mood! I don't wanna learn about lung capacity, or sound out "sch" words or "ng" end sounds, I don't wanna work on memory work or hand out copy work assignments.


I wanna craft!

I feel crafty. It may be from reading blogs, but I have found myself SEARCHING out blogs for crafty things to do... so I really think it is ME!  So I convinced husband that he needed to part with our preciously budgeted out money and give me some crafty dollars!  So I picked four small projects. 

Project number 1.

 Make valentines chocolates out of clay.  Yes, it served a greater purpose... I don't eat them!  I found this on a link from Michael's. 

On the Michael's video they used the soft clay from Crayola I think, but I used actual clay that you have to bake.  The reason is that I wanted it to last a while, not just one season and I have found the Crayola stuff tend to shrink and break apart after a while.  Also the clay I bought was much cheaper! On sale the Crayola stuff was $3.99 a bag, I wanted white, brown and red so that would have been $12.00, but the clay stuff was $2.49 on sale for $1.39 and I bought 5 so it cost me $6.95.  Almost half price.. I also have some left over for Kate to work on her own project.

The only other thing I bought for this project was some mini cupcake holders.  These were on sale for $1.27 at Jo Ann's 

Anyway, I opened up the clay packages and started making the shapes of the chocolate. You have to work it in your hand and until it is warm enough to manipulate.  I helped Emily start one and she was able to roll into a ball, but it was hard starting each block of clay.

 I stopped and used the white to make a topping but it turned tan, THE BROWN WAS on my hand.  DON'T DO THIS! So I finished making all the shapes and washed my hand, it came right off.  From there I decorated the tops with the white and a few touches of the red.

After I had them all designed how I wanted them... I put them in the oven at 200 degrees and let them bake for 25 minutes.  DONE.

I let them cool and then set them up in their chocolate box that I borrowed from Kate's room. ( I think she got a Christmas present in the box, but I just used the lid)

The other three will be presented like this and they will be set out together!

I LOVE IT!  IT totally fit my need to CREATE for a total of $8.22

2. These crafty little birds from Living, Life Creatively.  I saw the on Nester, but found out someone else had made them and low and behold that person sent out a pdf for the design!  WHOO HOO.   It did cost me $5.00 but I am really into the bird thing right now, so hopefully it will be worth the investment!

I went and bought three different material designs at Jo Ann's, a quarter yard each. I USED LIKE 1/ 16 of the quarter yard!  I am going to enlarge the pattern and make bigger birds!

This cost me about  $4.35, I didn't get my dream material, but if I can make them well... I can go back and make others and be more choosy in my pattern of material.  I also stupidly did not walk  into the store with a coupon!

I bought quilters thread.  $2.37 on sale.

and a bag of black beads for the eyes.  $1.29 on sale

and a spool of 24 gauge wire, which I thought I had some but could not find so I bought.  It was $1.29

And a bag of stuffing stuff for 2.99 at Hobby Lobby. (I needed this for the third project also)

So my total for project number 2 is $17.29, but I have supplies minus material to make A LOT of birds!  :)

BTW.  My birdie is sitting on the laptop looking at the birdies from LIVING, LIFE CREATIVELY... he thinks he's the same!  :)


On to project number 3.

I wanted some pillows like THIS for my couch, that I saw on one of my new favorite reads, Felt So Cute.  I went to a thrift store about spent about $7.00 on 4 different shirts, one is a dress to use as the material for the pillows.  My sister came with her sewing machine and said it is very, very hard to sew tshirt material... so she freaked me out!  After thinking and fretting, and seeing how I am NOT a sewer to begin with.... I thought of a way out.!

FUSION tape. I don't need these pillows to last for ever, or to be incredibly durable.  I just want them to sit on a couch for a couple of weeks!  So here goes!

I bought Stitch Witchery for $3.29, plus the $7.00 dollars I spent on the material (shirts from thrift stores) and used the rest of the stuffing bag.... ( I also had to go buy another stuffing bag...didn't know how much stuffing it would take!)  So that make a total of $13.28 for four holiday pillows.  BTW.. the kids now have orders in to make them pillows out of their favorite (old) tshirts!  Matt wants a Star Wars one and Emily asked could we buy old shirt with butterflies!  :)

Project Number 4:

the bird thing does not stop at Chickadees, or robins or sparrows........... I like Owls too!  So I wanted to have some framed owls that were different scrapbook materials, sort of like this...  I thought and thought and was going to do some for the bathroom.. but when I got looking at scrap book pages I found a bunch of schoolish ones!  I thought how cute for over my desk in the school room!  So I got two frames from Family Dollar- they had Chinese symbols in them which I discarded ( I just wanted the $3.00 frame).  I got  6 sheets of scrap book paper at Hobby Lobby (they were $ .59 cents although two of them were clearance to $ .10)  So I spent a total of $8.56 on this project.  The only thing that came out of my budget money was the scrap book paper, because I had bought the frames a long time ago.  So really I spent $2.56....

I had a $30.00 dollars budget which I went over by $11.37 (and it had to come out of my grocery money!)

BUT I FED THE CRAFTINESS BEAST.... so I'm not as hungry anyway!

Happy crafting...