Tag: diy

Easy Halloween costumes: spider and bat

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EasyHalloweenCostumes

2015 was the first year we celebrated Halloween with the children. To do so, we needed to find costumes which would be easy to make make and still please him (Gabriel) and be wearable (baby André). So we finally decided to make a spider costume for André and a bat costume for Gabriel.

Almost everything we used to make the spider costume was bought at H&M, online (we find it easier to buy online when we look for something very specific and going to the store almost always means finding nothing of what we’re looking for!): we used a black hoodie, 3 tights (they came in packs of black and grey-black stripes so we actually bought 2 packs) and a black baby bodysuit. We started by cutting 2 of the tights at the crotch level which we then filled with wadding so that they look like legs. To hide the place where we sewed them at the back of the hoodie we used an oval of felt with a grey cross on it, so that it looks like a cross spider. We positioned the legs so they have approximately the same distance between them and the arms (we though the baby’s arms and legs count as spider legs, so we needed 4 additional legs). To make the spider’s face we used white felt to make the eyes as well as two teeth. André was wearing black-grey striped tights so that the color of the legs alternated from black (the arms) to grey, black and again grey. We have chosen to do this so that the costume doesn’t look to dark and this is also the reason why we sewed a grey felt oval on his belly. The costume was very comfortable  (André wore it for 4 hours without complaining and he could moved as usual).

To make the bat costume we have also bought a black t-shirt and the pants online (it was amazingly difficult to find a simple black t-shirt with nothing printed on it!). We had adored this costume and we did almost the same for Gabriel. To make the mask we cut a stripe of black felt where we cut the eyes. For the ears we used black and grey felt which we have reinforced so that were stiffer. This however was not enough to hold the ears straight once they were sewed on the mask so we used a toothpick which we inserted between both felt layers and secured by sewing thoroughly with a zigzag stitch so that it doesn’t hurt when touching the skull (we also cut the toothpick ends so that they were not sharp). To make the wings we cut black felt with the wings shape and a smaller shape in grey. We sewed them together using black thread on the grey felt so that we could clearly see the seam (we though it made it look more real). Sewing the wings on the t-shirt was a bit tricky but at the end it worked out just fine! Gabriel was quite happy with his costume.

Our first Halloween celebration was quite successful and we guess it will become a tradition. Next costume sewing: Carnaval!

Welcome Autumn!

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AutumnLeavesPaperGarland

It’s Autumn, Ines’s favorite season! The colors of the leaves change and have inspired us to make a paper garland with autumn colored leaves. To do so, we have cut different shapes of leaves in orange, yellow, red and some in green transparent paper (you can find the paper we used here. We advice to use paper with at least 90 g/m2). We have sewn them together with a yellow thread one after the other, changing a bit their orientation.

autumn leaves garland

 

Other then leaves with amazing colors in Autumn time, we also love going to the Kürbismarkt. It is an event that takes place once a year in our city where they sell lots of pumpkins: for decoration (by the way, that’s where we bought the ones shown in the picture above), for Halloween, to eat… Although its quite a small event we always go there because pumpkins are less expensive and they also have huge pumpkins our son loves to watch. This year we could even see them being transported using a mechanical shovel which is something all kids love to watch!

Rainbow frog crayons

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RainbowFrogCrayons

We have decided to make “rainbow frog” crayons as a goodbye gift for our son Gabriel to give to his friends in his daycare center. The reason for this theme is is that he’s leaving the rainbow group in his current daycare and is going to the frog group in the kindergarten (he’s a big boy now!). To do so, we started by  taking the paper out of the crayons and then cut them in small pieces. We wanted to have a sort of rainbow effect so we cut them with the size of the silicon form where we later melt them and then filled the form with keeping the rainbow order of the colors. We let them melt in the oven at 120°C for around 15 minutes and then let them cool down. We made two of them for each kid which took a lot of time because the form only had two frogs shapes… We then put the crayons in a small plastic bag with a paper holding it where a message said “goodbye rainbow, hello frog”. On the back of the paper, a personalized message was written for every child. Gabriel was quite proud to give the crayons to each of his friends and of course, he also  got two for them. The crayon is very fun to use because of its different colors and the frog shape!

3 Easy watercolor techniques for kids

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3EasyWatercolorTechniquesForKidsOur son Gabriel will soon leave the Krippe (daycare for babies) and go to the Kindergarten. This big event has been keeping us busy for a while now and we will soon share with you some of the thighs we’ve been doing. We have decided to help Gabriel make a personalized small present for him to offer to each of his teachers. Because we have appreciated so much doing this watercolor painting with him (we find it quite easy and love the result), we have looked for different negative watercolor techniques one could use to write  the teachers name (read at the bottom of the post how we made the letters out of masking tape).

Gabriel found the first watercolor painting technique quite funny because it used cotton buds (here’s where we got the inspiration). He has chosen 4 colors and started painting dots all over the surface by pressing the cotton bud vertically on the paper. We had to insist that he makes more dots on the letters so that we could read the name at the end.

In the second technique we used rubber bands to partially covered the surface on which we had already sticked the letters (here’s where we have got our inspiration). We have also asked Gabriel to choose the colors he wanted to use and then let him paint the surface by pressing a cylinder of foam (actually a small painting roll like these) on the paper. We let it dry between colors and took the rubber bands out only when it was completely dry.

The last technique didn’t quite work as planned although we also like the result at the end. It was probably Gabriel’s favorite technique because it implied using a straw to bubble a mixture of watercolor, water and dish soap on the paper or just bubbling it for the fun on the cup filled with the paint mixture (here’s where we got our inspiration). Unfortunately we didn’t take pictures of the different steps but we show here the pictures of another painting we did before the one with the name, to test the technique. We started like in the other techniques by sticking the motive on the paper. We taped 3 straws together that Gabriel used to immerse in the paint mixture and slowly blow on the paper. If no bubbles were formed, he would also try to slowly blow again on the surface of the paper which often made the mixture bubble. We let the paint dry between colors. We find that the colors effet looks great but unfortunately the paint flowed under the masking tape and the probable reason for this is the big amount of water we used every time. We like the stars painting even if the negative of the stars is hard to see but in the case of the letters it was quite difficult to read the name. For this reason, we have decided to cut the letters and put a sheet of paper in one of the colors of the painting behind it. A bit more work but it looks great!

We sincerely hope that Gabriel teachers appreciate these small pieces of art and keep them as a remembrance of the wonderful 3 years Gabriel spent in the Krippe with them! A big “Thank you” to them!!!!

This is how made the letters of their names in masking tape in order to protect the surface of the paper not to be painted. The technique we used to do it has evolved as made all three of them. Here’s are optimized method 🙂

  1. Print the letters/image you want to cut in an inverted manner (mirrored).
  2. Tape the sheet of paper on a window with the printed side against it and tape the backside of the letters.
  3. With a masking tape of a different color, tape the surface of the letters (this will help differentiate this first layer from the following one(s) which is important because the first one could be hard to stick out of the paper)
  4. Take the sheet out of the window, turn it and cut the letters (this will be easy because you’re now facing the printed side of the paper)
  5. Separate the letters in masking tape from the first layer of masking tape.
  6. Stick the letters on the paper and start painting!

Watercolor art

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WatercolorArt

We have been looking for ideas for nice paintings for a future wall gallery and we were inspired by this painting made by children. We have chosen a circle size (actually a masking tape…) and prepared the paper for the painting  by dividing the surface so that the space between the circles is the same. We then drew the circles with watercolor pencils and let Gabriel do the rest! We love the result and look forward to hang in on the wall.

Colorful snapshots of our art moment..

Souvenir de Bretagne (recipe included!)

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SouvenirDeBretagne

We have brought a souvenir for our friends from our last holidays in Bretagne, the local “caramel au beurre salé”, a caramel sauce with salted butter. I must say I really like this sweet treat, to spread on the bread or to eat a spoon of it (just one!)… The jars of caramel looked really sad, with their golden cover, so we decided to personalized them a bit. For each of the jars we made a tag  with Bretagne’s flag on one side and a personalized message saying we’ve thought about our friends when we were out there on the other one (we used Inkscape to make them with Jenna Sue and fzm Embossed Label fonts to write). We cut both sides of the tag with a scalloped circle puncher, glued them together and made a hole with a hole puncher. We used a black and white dotted fabric for the cover which we cut in a circle and held with a white elastic band. To cover the elastic band we used a thin black ribbon which we passed through the tag hole.

materials
printed tag
cutting the tag
finished jars

It wasn’t a lot of work and we really like the personalized result!

before and after

before and after

This has also inspired us to look for a good caramel recipe (we like a quite viscous consistency and the one we had was too liquid). Here’s a recipe we have tested and like a lot, for a small glas of caramel (to make a bigger volume simply multiply the ingredients, but be aware that bigger amounts are harder to make, it’s preferable to make it several times…):

Ingredients:

  • 180 g of sugar
  • 100 mL of cream
  • 80 g of butter
  • pinch of salt (if you used salted butter, you’ll probably not need the salt)

Start by making the caramel by slowly melting the sugar (no water needed, just make it really slowly). Once you have the caramel done (more or less brown, depending on your taste), slowly add the cream you have previously made warm (if you add it directly from the fridge it will strongly boil!). Add the pinch of salt. Once all the cream is well mixed with the caramel take it out of the heat and pour it into a bowl. Now add the butter in pieces and mix well until you obtain a homogeneous mixture. Pour it into a jar and let it cool. Enjoy!

Summer fruit garland

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SummerFruitGarland

Every Saturday we come back from the market carrying several kilograms of fruit! And how inspiring they are…

DSC05517_fotor

We have made a new paper garland inspired by them. To do so, we cut shapes of cherries, slice of ananas, strawberries, blackberries and slices of melon on a bright color paper with white dots. We displayed the different fruits on the floor before actually glueing them together and on the string with tape to make sure they look nice and symmetric. We also made a chain paper garland (each element is made with 2×10 cm paper stripes) with the same paper to hang on the branches we have on the living room buffet to go along with the fruit garland.

Nice decoration to eat nice summer fruits!!

P.S.: We bought the paper 4 years ago for our wedding decoration (picture bellow). Still using it!

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Decopatch display houses

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smalldecopatchhouses

The small wooden houses were a Christmas gift. They are made of thin MDF and came in a kit to be assembled. We really liked them but didn’t really know what to do with them. We finally decided to use them to decorate Gabriel’s bedroom. To customize them, we have chosen green, blue and yellow decopatch paper we had bought a long time ago. Wit the help of Gabriel, we started by painting the background of the houses in white because the decopatch paper being so thin it becomes sort of transparent and would be less white once glued on the wood. We then carefully glued the paper with a suitable glue (vernis colle, in French) and let it dry.  Finally we assembled the different parts of the houses glueing them with wood glue.

How cute are they?

Emotion dice

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EmotionsDice

Emotions have been a topic which interests Gabriel a lot lately: “Mum, are you still mad with daddy?”,  “I don’t want to talk you with, I’m sad”, “I will sit there to calm down…”, “Mum, are you sad? Just a little because you’re not crying”… We decided to make him two emotion dice to help him express his feelings. A first one represents the 6 primary emotions which are sadness, happiness, disgust, surprise, anger and fear. The second represents 6 animals: cat, dog, pig, monkey, elephant and rabbit. The goal of the game is to enact the drawn animal feeling the drawn emotion: “What does a sad monkey do?”, “What does a disgusted elephant sound like?”, “Can you make a surprised rabbit?… Two simple wooden dice and a marker have already gave us great laughing moments!

 

Counting truck mat

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Yesterday we went to the birthday party of Leo, a 3 year old friend of Gabriel. We offered him a counting mat: the goal is to load the truck with the number of objects shown on the door of the truck. We used a clipart we found on the internet (here) which we personalised with his picture. We put a thin metal plate beneath the truck’s door and laminated the mat using a nice paper on the back of it. We bought magnetic numbers to be attached to the truck’s door (where we put the metal plate) and added different objects he can use to count: beans, buttons and bottle caps. Of course the possibilities are infinite, all different objects from everyday’s life like Lego bricks can be used. We hope Leo will learn how to count in a fun way! Gabriel has already asked us to make him a counting mat that we’ll share with you soon.