Valentine Bingo

I made this Valentine Bingo game a few years back for my son's pre-school Valentine's Day party. This is a wonderful game for pre-schoolers to exercise their visual cognitive skills. It focuses on color (or pattern), shape, and size.

I don't have the parts to step you through a demo tutorial, but I don't think there's anything at all complicated about it anyway.

I made mine out of craft foam, but it could be made using cardboard/paper or felt, too.

I cut the game boards out of craft foam, then used a black marker to draw out a grid of 16 squares.

I happened to find a bucket of mixed heart shapes, so I didn't have to cut anything out myself. Yippee!

I needed 16 different shapes but the bucket only came with 12, so I drew smiley faces on a couple, and flipped over a couple of others. You could also use different Valentine-themed shapes. I positioned the shapes onto the cards and glued in place, making sure each of the cards was arranged in a unique pattern.

Then I cut a small square of craft foam and glued it to a craft stick.

I glued one of the shapes onto the front of the square of craft foam.

I repeated this for each of the shapes, until I had a 16 sticks with 16 different shapes.

To call a number, I blindly picked a stick and then showed the heart to the students. I helped them out a bit by asking them to notice the color and shape, assisting as necessary.

For cover-ups, we used blue foam hearts. You could also use candies or kisses or pennies or any other items.

These were easy to make and worked wonderfully well for their party. It was a quiet game that encouraged learning without them even knowing it. And we even offered simple prizes for the winners, which always makes it more fun!

Hope you like it! My pre-schoolers sure did!

And be sure to check out the endless list of inspirational ideas at my home page childmade.com.




I'll be linking on the following link parties...

Tuesday
Reinvented
Toot Your Horn Tuesday
Today's Creative Blog

Wednesday
Penny Pinching Party at The Thrifty Home
Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Designs
Power of Paint Party at Domestically Speaking

Thursday
Transformation Thursday
Show Off Your Stuff Party
Strut Your Stuff Thursday
Thrifty Thursday
Make It Yours Day

Wooden Love Banner

For Christmas, I made a number of Wooden Joy Banners for gifts for friends. I had some wood left over and decided to make myself a Wooden Love Banner for Valentine's Day.


The process was very similar, except I used a red/pink/white color theme, and used 4 blocks to form the word "love."

I decided to base coat the blocks in a flat black paint and sand the corners.

I used a variety of block heights to accommodate the different letter sizes.

Next, I sized a variety of Valentine papers and secured them to the blocks using spray adhesive.

I ran a line of glue along the bottom edge, ...

... then placed a ribbon onto the glue across all the blocks.

I flipped over the blocks and secured a wide piece of ribbon across the back.

Then flipped them again and applied the letters and some embellishments. I love this font! Coincidentally, it's called "Love Letters" -- totally appropriate!

A little bow made out of raffia gets added to the corners.

I decided to slice the ribbons to make the hinges, ...

... though it looks cute secured in a line as well. If you make hinges, you can still display the blocks in a line.

And this begins my Valentine's Day decorating!

Now I just have to figure out where to put it...

I also made a single block with photo clips. Now I need to make one with "XOXO" to match.

You can also do this with stenciled letters or vinyl letters if you don't have access to an embroidery machine. Give it a try! It's very simple and you can adjust it to fit your own theme.

And be sure to check out the endless list of inspirational ideas at my home page childmade.com.




I'll be linking up on the following McLinky parties:

Thursday
Transformation Thursday
Show Off Your Stuff Party
Strut Your Stuff Thursday
Thrifty Thursday

Friday
Victory of the Week
Show and Tell Friday
Frugalicious Friday

Saturday
Saturday Night Special





Clothes Pin Ballerina

For those that don't know, many of my crafts are developed for offering at the Family Christmas Workshop presented by my church. It's a make-n-take style workshop where we provide the supplies needed for 250-500 each of 28-30 different crafts. We try to plan out the supplies as closely as possible, but with the open format of the event, attendance activity is really a bit of a swag and we often have supplies left over. But we also don't like to repeat the crafts from year to year, so the left-over materials need to be re-purposed into another craft.

This is one of those crafts.

My mission was to come up with something to do with the lace left over from the the Victorian Lace Ball ornament. We also had clothes pins leftover from the Clothes Pin Angel.

The materials needed are as follows:
1 - round clothes pin
1 - 5" square of lace
1 - white standard (narrow) chenille stem
1 - 3/8"-wide white chenille stem
1 - red standard (narrow) chenille stem
1 - 6mm brown pom
2 - 2" lengths of 1/8" red satin ribbon
2 - 8" lengths of 1/8" red satin ribbon
1 - 1/2" red ribbon rose
1 - 6" length of gold string
1 - small rubber band
The supplies you will need are: scissors, glue, a brown marker and a permanent black marker.

Begin by drilling a small hole through the clothes pin. Aligning the slit in the clothes pin to the front, like legs, the hole should be drilled sideways, to hold the arms.

Fold the lace into fourths. Snip a small hole at the very center of the lace. Cut the lace into a circle.

Slip the hole in the lace over the tip of the clothes pin. Gather the lace around the clothes pin and secure it with a rubber band.

Slip the narrow white chenille stem through the lace and through the hole in the clothes pin.

Bend the arms up at the shoulders and secure them together at the top. Trim as needed.

Align one of the 2" red ribbons over the shoulder of the ballerina and glue in place.

Repeat on the other side.

Wrap a piece of the red chenille stem around the clothes pin covering the rubber band and glue in place. You could also use a wider piece of ribbon for this step.

To keep the skirt standing out and not drooping, wrap a piece of the wide white chenille around the clothes pin, sliding it up tight to the red chenille stem, pushing up the skirt. Glue in place.

Glue one end of a longer piece of red satin ribbon to one side of the clothes pin legs. Begin wrapping the ribbon around the leg like a candy cane.

Wrap around the toes and reverse direction, wrapping back up the leg.

Add a final wrap straight across the top to finish off. Glue in place.

Repeat the ribbon ties on the other leg.

Next, use the brown marker (or yellow if you prefer blonde) and color in the hair of the ballerina.

Glue the small pom onto the newly-colored hair.

Take a piece of the wide chenille stem and bend to fit the top of the clothes pin, forming a hat or crown for the ballerina. Glue it onto the top of her head, covering the edges of her hair. Add the piece of gold string to the arms for a hanger.

Use the black marker to add eyes to the face of the ballerina.

Glue the ribbon rose to the back of the ballerina to cover the raw edges of the ribbon and chenille.

And there she is. Isn't she sweet hanging from an ornament hanger?

I think my favorite part is the little bun in her hair. And if you give her a spin, she does a perfect pirouette!

I hope you give this a try and let me know how it turns out for you.

And be sure to check out the endless list of inspirational ideas at my home page childmade.com.


Linked up on the following McLinky parties:

Sunday
The DIY Showoff

Monday
DIY Day at A Soft Place
Make It For Monday
Metamorphosis Monday
Just Something I Whipped Up
Making the World Cuter
It's So Very Cheri
Blue Monday
Make it Mondays at the Persimmon Perch
Twice Remembered
Made by You at Skip to My Lou

Tuesday
Reinvented
Toot Your Horn Tuesday
Today's Creative Blog

Wednesday
Penny Pinching Party at The Thrifty Home
Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Designs
Power of Paint Party at Domestically Speaking

Thursday
Transformation Thursday
Show Off Your Stuff Party
Strut Your Stuff Thursday
Thrifty Thursday

Friday
Victory of the Week
Show and Tell Friday
Frugalicious Friday

Saturday
Saturday Night Special

Sock Seal Softie

I thought I'd post another "behind the scenes" tutorial. I hope you enjoy these, because it's sort of like walking around town in my underwear. And though that may be fun for some, I only do it when it serves a purpose. (Kudos to those women on the Dove commercials!)

Today's mission: To take this...

and make a replica of this...

(Click on image for image source)

By the way, if you want to brighten your day, just go into any search engine image tool and search for images of baby seals. I can't even tell you how much time I wasted on this project "researching" my goal. I must warn you, though, you'll find lots of images related to the seal slaughter in Canada too.

So back to the project...

I stuffed my sock firmly and closed off the end at the cuff using a rubber band.

Then I placed a rubber band around the middle to form a neck.

I tied a strip of fleece around the neck to make a scarf, covering the rubber band.

I put a pom for the nose, a couple eye buttons for the eyes and a small black pom for the nose.

Then I cut some flippers or feet or legs (what are they on a seal anyway? I'm just going to go with legs) out of a piece of fleece and glued them to the front holding a present.

And this is what I ended up with.

And I hate it. Tacky. Uncoordinated. Cheap. I hate it.

And the part I hate most is this -- the seam at the toes of the sock.

so I turned the sock inside-out and put a rubber band at the end gathering the toe seam.

I turned it back and stuffed it again. So now I have this.

Then I rebuilt my face at the end of the sock, rather than on the side, using a bigger pom to cover the gathers. I experimented a bit with the nose. Seems too big...

Not bad...

Tried using a small black pom...

I settled on this one.

Next, instead of fleece for the front feet, I decided to use glove fingers.

I experimented with different positions. Forward...

and backwards...

And to the sides though I don't have a picture. I like all of them honestly, but decided to go with forward.

I liked it so far, but it needed some bling. I tried a hat, but it didn't do anything for me.

I tried the scarf again from before, though I had already decided to skip the rubber band at the neck.

I liked the scarf. I had to do the scarf before I did the legs or the scarf would have interfered with the positioning of the legs.

Next I attached the legs.

And this is what I have so far...

Next, I finished the tail. I flattened the cuff of the sock and glued it together.

Then I cut the cuff down the middle to make two .... here we go again ... I'll call them flippers.

And of course, I added my trademark snowflake embellishment. These are great! They come in a bag as confetti with about 500 pieces for $1, and they seem to work on just about everything -- everything winter anyway.

I tried several things in his feet, like a cluster of snowballs, a gift package, a clothes pin holding a note, etc. Nothing struck me in particular, so I opted to just leave him empty-handed for now. But I suspect he could be made into something wonderful for Valentine's day (I'm imagining an engagement ring on one of his feet with a note that says,"Let's seal the deal!" Yes, I know, I'm corny, but you get the idea.)

So I started staging him for pictures. I took several, reviewed the photos, and only then did I see something I hadn't been able to see before...

I didn't make a seal, I made a walrus!!!! D'oh!!

Yippee and bummer at the same time. I really like him as a walrus, but walruses aren't white, they're gray. So I guess I have project number two, except that I don't have any gray socks or any gray dye, so that will have to wait for another time. But I suspect you could make your own from the directions from the seal.

So, back to the drawing board -- Err, craft board. He needs a seal nose, not a walrus nose.

So I cut his nose off. I tried it again with a piece of fleece. Too small, but also not right so I didn't even cut a bigger piece.

Tried it with a pom, too small.

Tried it with a bigger pom. Too teddy bear-like, and I'm having Deja Vu, and ideas for another project.

So I tried a piece of sherpa.

Yup, that will do. Definitely more of what I'm looking for.

So I put it together and it came out like this. Much less walrus-like!

And he's right at home in the snow...





I might embellish his face a bit more with a stitched mouth and some thread whiskers, but I need something "wiry" and I don't have any on hand.

And I also think this would be very cute done as a beanbag, but it's 6 degrees outside and the sand is frozen in the sandbox, so that will have to happen at another time.

I hope you enjoyed another journey with me (and my underwear) and that you give this idea a try yourself! Let me know what you think, especially if you give it a try.

And be sure to check out the endless list of inspirational ideas at my home page childmade.com.

This post will be linked up to the following link parties:

Sunday
The DIY Showoff

Monday
DIY Day at A Soft Place
Make It For Monday
Metamorphosis Monday
Just Something I Whipped Up
Making the World Cuter
It's So Very Cheri
Make it Mondays at the Persimmon Perch
Twice Remembered
Made by You at Skip to My Lou

Tuesday
Reinvented
Toot Your Horn Tuesday
Today's Creative Blog

Wednesday
Penny Pinching Party at The Thrifty Home
Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Designs
Power of Paint Party at Domestically Speaking

Thursday
Transformation Thursday
Show Off Your Stuff Party
Strut Your Stuff Thursday
Thrifty Thursday

Friday
Victory of the Week
Show and Tell Friday
Frugalicious Friday