Birthday Present Cake

I got the idea for this cake from an issue of Family Fun. I thought it was so cute that I just had to give it a try. The only thing that I did differently was use Skittles candy instead of Spree candy. Oh, and I added a little gift tag too. Either way this one is cute & super easy.

Here's the cake & how to make it on familyfun.com:

http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/pretty-package-cake-687401/

Ric Rac Side Snap Baby Shirts

I found the cutest idea on http://homemadebyjill.blogspot.com/. She made these little "take me home tees". They were so cute that I decided to give them a try. Here's how mine turned out. They were super easy to make. If I can pull them off then I know you can. If you want to know how just click on her blog mentioned above. Jill is amazingly crafty. There are tons of other great ideas on there as well. It's so easy to get lost in all of the fun ideas on her site. :)

My Crocheted Baby Blanket Attempt

I have a love/hate relationship with crochet. I love it because it's fun to do, and I like the way the needle feels in my hand. I like to work on it while I'm watching TV. It's a relaxing, fun, little hobby for me. The hate part comes in because I always end up with uneven, crooked shapes instead of nice squares. I've tried counting my rows to make sure that they have the same number of stitches, but I always seem to add or lose one here and there. I've also worked on my tension. I finally decided to just make a blanket and see how it turned out. This is actually my 2nd attempt at making a whole blanket, and again I have a wavy-square. I tried to improve the look of it by going around it with a border, but it didn't get much better. Still, I don't want to give up on crocheting. It's so much fun, but I want to make an awesome project one of these days. This blanket has inspired me to sign up for a crochet class. I'm pretty sure that I'm making my mistake when I finish one row and move to the next one. I seem to add in a stitch where I shouldn't, making the rows uneven. Hopefully I can figure this out.

I am glad that I persisted and finished the blanket, though. It was still fun, even if it isn't a perfect blanket. I could still use it. We don't have any babies right now, but we're planning on working on that in the near future. This blanket will be a blanket for at home use instead of when we go out, and I definitely won't be giving any of my blankets away as gifts until I can learn how to make a really nice one, but I can still say that I did it, and I'll keep trying til I get it! :)

Flower Power Side Snap Infant Shirts

I got the idea to decorate some side snap shirts from a friend of mine who is super, super crafty. I'll be posting my attempt at one of her ideas a little later on. After I bought the side snap shirts, I ended up having a few extra shirts, so I decided to add some iron-on flowers to them. I think they turned out super cute, and you can't get much easier than iron-ons. You could use any kind of iron-on that you like for these shirts too. These flowers just happened to catch my eye.

If you've never done iron-on before the main thing I would suggest is that you use a pressing cloth. I have tried it without the pressing cloth in the past and sometimes the iron will stain the clothes from sitting on too long, or the heat from the iron could damage the iron-on itself. It's not that difficult, though. Give it a try. They are super cute & super easy. It was only about a 10 minute project from start to finish, and there is nothing like a little instant gratification.

Cookie Behavior Chart

Okay, so like I mentioned in my last post, I am a busy mom of 4, and with 4 kiddos life is always busy. Someone is always grabbing, poking, or heaven forbid, looking at someone else. It happens in my house & I'm sure it happens in yours, so I've decided to make a behavior chart for my kids. I thought of the idea myself, but I'm sure there are a lot of similar things out there.

I decided to go with a Cowboy Cookie (Chocolate Chip Cookies with Oatmeal- Supper Yummy!) theme because I thought they were cute & my family loves them. I decided to give each kid 3 cookies that they need to keep on their chart each day. Cookies can be taken away for bad behavior, and cookies can be kept or earned back for good behavior. When a kid ends up with no cookies on their place-mat then they will loose some privileges: TV, computer time, etc. When they keep all of their cookies they will get a reward each night- maybe 5 extra minutes on the computer, an extra story at bedtime, to have their nails painted... Then when they keep all of their cookies on for a week we can make Cowboy Cookies as a family on Saturday. My kids are going to love it!

You can change this up however you'd like for your family. Maybe your kids would rather have pizzas up there or ice cream cones. You could even do pictures of ducks or animals and have the reward be a trip to the zoo or a local park to feed the ducks and play. Use your imagination. Have fun with it & involve your kiddos in the process. They love that!!!

To make it, I just printed off 12 cookies using free clip art that I found on-line. Then I used contact paper to laminate the cookies. You probably don't want to skip this step because it will help the cookies hold up when you take them off & put them back on again. Next, I used sticky Velcro to attach the cookies to the place-mat. Then I decided to attach the place-mats to a posterboard so that I could keep them all together neatly and Viola. Bring on the cookies!

Welcome

Welcome to Crafty Adventures and Cool Things! This blog is for all of you craft enthusiasts out there who just love to craft for the heck of it. It's for those of us who aren't nearly as skilled as Martha Stewart, but we still like to give it a shot, and we're pretty happy with our slightly imperfect projects anyway. It's for those of us who are still beginners at sewing and crocheting and a lot of different things, but we aren't afraid to give it a try. Sometimes I'll feature a craft that I thought of myself, and other times I will share with you some cool things that other people are doing. You'll also get to see my attempt at making some of the craft projects that I've found from other people. We'll see how it goes & have some fun along the way. :)

This blog will also highlight some cool things that grab my attention. These things could be anything from a new product that makes life easier or just looks really groovy or fun. It could be something for your home, your car, your kids, your pets, or yourself. I'm a busy mom of 4, so I'm always looking for things to help the day go a little smoother. Feel free to send me your craft ideas and/or tell me about any new cool things that you find.