Make Stuff Archives - Page 3 of 18 - Enjoying the Small Things

Make It: Cozy Fall Campfire Night Light/Place Setting

November 2, 2017 By Kelle

So, the girls have fall parties in their classes tomorrow and, like usual, I wait until a couple days before to plan a craft. I knock it out of the ballpark once it’s done, but I never can seem to get it together in life except for ONE DAY BEFORE. Thankfully, I always share room mom duty with a more responsible mom who remembers to e-mail the parents and take money for donations and doesn’t forget that there’s a party around the corner. I love when I find a good Excel spreadsheet-loving mom to join powers with my glue gun and felt love. So, where were we? Back to the craft. I had picked up a bunch of LED tealight candles on clearance a while ago, thinking I’d throw together some fall candle holder project for the Thanksgiving table. But I ended up updating an old campfire ornament craft I did a few years ago instead–this time to make a fall bedroom night light, and I love how it turned out. We’re calling these Fall Campfire Night Lights…

Cozy, cozy, fall, fall, fall.

They also look really adorable as a place setting for a campy fall dinner or party.

They run a little over $1 a piece to make.

Here’s what you need:

We did packaged wood disks for the class, but for a little more you can get these wood slices for a more natural look.

A glue gun will dry faster, but Tacky Glue works just fine as well and is better for students.

Glue a ring of pebbles along the edge of the wood disk.

Place the tea light in the middle for placement reference, but don’t glue down. You’ll need to keep it free so you can lift it to switch the light off and on.

Break sticks to size and layer around the tea light, making sure the tea light can freely be removed. Glue in place.

Glue a small white pom pom to the end of a thin stick to create your marshmallow roasting stick.

Secure to the bottom of disk/another fire stick with glue.

Cut four “flames” out of the tissue paper–two red, two orange. Glue to the edge of the tea light.

Turn tea light on and add flame to fire. Voila!

When you want to turn your fire off, just lift tea light and flip the switch.

Add to a bedroom night stand for a cozy glow.

Or plan a campy dinner, give every plate their own campfire place setting, and turn down the lights to see a collective cozy flicker.

Everything’s better in miniature!

Now here’s hoping we get some cool weather this weekend for more real fires and marshmallow roasting.

PDA with Your Device? GET A ROOM. The Unplugged Hotel D.I.Y.

January 6, 2017 By Kelle

So, about those New Year’s resolutions. There is one–but it’s really more of an every day resolution for the entire population in our ever evolving plugged-in world, and that is: REAL WORLD trumps online world. The people in front of you win over the people on your screen. The real life creative projects that are begging for your hands and attention win over the device that is competing for them.

I love the convenience, creative ideas and community that my phone connects me to, but I sure as hell don’t want my kids growing up with memories of a distracted mom. And as much as I love the quiet and space to get things done that handing my kids iPads grants me, I always want to challenge our family to maintain a healthy home environment with appropriate boundaries for time on devices. Let’s be honest, we’re facing major problems with device addiction in this country, and I’m guilty of it too. It’s a constant challenge, but one I whole-heartedly embrace. I love my phone but I love my family more. Balance, balance, balance.

A while ago, a family member mentioned that a friend they knew took everyone’s phones at a gathering once, demanding full connection, and assured everyone that their phones just needed to “check into the spa for a while.” I loved the reference, and it triggered an idea I’ve been wanting to do for our family–create a motel for devices in our home and a fun way to encourage unplugged time. If anyone is showing too much PDA for their device, we keep them in line with requesting they GET A ROOM.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the newest lodging in Naples, Florida…The Unplugged Motel.

A comfy 5-star resort for your devices to chill the eff out while you TALK TO EACH OTHER, LOOK EACH OTHER IN THE EYE, PRACTICE COMMUNICATION SKILLS.

Not only is it easy to make, but we had a blast decorating it. I suppose any shoe box would work, but we used a heavy-duty photo storage box we picked up at Michael’s. It was already a nice Palm Springs pink, so we hardly had to do anything to jazz it up. What we used:

I mounted the box to a cake board (baking aisle at any craft store) with a construction stapler to create a platform for our sign and palm trees. We made the sign by covering a flat wood oval (wood craft aisle, craft store) with some mint green scrapbook paper, cutting our “MOTEL” letters and arrow with pink glitter scrapbook paper and hot gluing pearls around it. The skinny dowel rods (wood craft aisle or bamboo sticks from baking aisle, craft store) can be poked into the cake board and hot glued in place. A little moss and some fun mosaic tiles (craft store) glued on to the platform completes the look along with a few miniature palm trees (craft store).

Finally, we cut a hole in the back of the box for charger cords because everyone knows relaxing at a motel is the best way to recharge. Bonus? All your cord clutter gets hidden.

I love that the motel creates a fun way to communicate device problems without nagging and can even be offered to guests or family members who seem to be distracted. “Mom, can I offer your phone a free guest suite at our motel for a little while? It has a pool! And plush linens!”

I want our entire family to keep each other in check. I’ve told Brett to tell me “PDA, Get a room” if I’m not paying attention to the fact that maybe my phone needs to unwind at The Unplugged Motel. And the kids are on board (at least with the initial excitement–ha) with this fun new approach as well. “Your iPad looks tired. Let’s give him a vacation and check him into the motel for a while.”

And when all our devices are stacked up and checked in to the motel, that only means one thing: there’s more vacancy in our home for what matters most…us.

Here’s to more balance in the new year.

Camp Bliss: A Summer Camp Adventure

August 1, 2016 By Kelle

Seeing as we’ve now watched Parent Trap 19 times on this trip (NOT KIDDING–it plays in the car when we’re on the road, and Nella won’t let anyone switch it out), we decided to kick off our own camp day this summer. Actually, I made that sound like a random carefree decision, but let’s be real here. I thought the dickens out of this thing. I started out landing on some cute tube socks around Christmas, thinking “oh, wouldn’t these be cute for a summer camp day,” and then it snowballed until one day I was designing camp logo shirts and googling how to emboss leather. I don’t know how the hell it happened. One minute, I’m throwing canoe stickers into a pile saved for summer and next thing you know, I hold the inventory to run a 3-month camp for the Girl Scouts of America. Whatever, we rolled with it.

We planned this for a weekend with some dear little cousins, but they couldn’t make it this year so we invited some new friends who live near my dad’s cottage. (Lainey had a blast with her new friend but isn’t in a lot of photos here because I don’t know the family of the little girl with her and didn’t have a chance to ask if it was okay to feature her photo.) Also one more disclaimer and I swear I’ll shut up–I’m editing on a tiny laptop with limited software, so these photos are a little off.

Basically, I wanted to give the kids a full camp adventure with an emphasis on arts and crafts lodge because I was the dork who hung out there all day long. What’s that? Time for tug-o-war? No thank you, I’m finishing my 59th lanyard keychain. You go ahead. Also, they are too young for the hot sailing instructor, so I skipped that part too.

Table camp décor: compass plates, campfire centerpiece, pine tree cupcake toppers, mini flashlights. Also, several people have asked about the kids’ tube socks. We wear these ones, and they are perfect–nice and snug.

I fly my camp freak flag much like my Christmas one, so anything that screamed summer camp, we were all HELL YAAAAAAAS. Kayaking? Yes. Archery? Yes. Build a lean-to out of sticks? YES! Okay, we didn’t build a lean-to, but look! Sack races!

Our outdoor nature lesson came from my dad’s butterfly house where more than 30 butterflies feast on milkweed and flowers.

I ran the camp tattoo parlor (Tattly camp set), and I take my job seriously.

We did these camp crafts for the arts and crafts lodge along with several others, and I’d hereby like to say a huge thank-you to my dad and Gary for not saying one word about their back deck looking like a ransacked Hobby Lobby bin.

The 10th Camp Commandment: Thou shalt not hold camp without tie-dye.

Or archery. Even if you don’t ever make it even close to the target. Just fling the arrows at each other and get mad and throw them when they don’t go where you wan them to go. I think that’s how the professionals do it too. One more thing–FAKE ARROWS. Whew, that was an important one.

Camp. of course, ends with a fire. With wood and sticks gathered by the little ones. And hot dogs and marshmallows.

And now, I pause this post to impart the wisdom I gained from toasting marshmallows for 30 consecutive nights. Want the perfect toasted marshmallow? Crispy and brown, bubbly in all the right places?

1. Don’t use those commercial metal sticks they sell. The marshmallows slide off them, and there’s no grip to keep them positioned properly. You need a real stick, scoured from a Walk for the Perfect Stick (proper noun, of course).
2. Don’t go near the flames. Go for the glow–the wood that’s red hot but won’t catch your marshmallow on fire.
3. ROTATE. Think rotisserie. Slowly rotate your marshmallow to even brown all sides.
4. Patience. It’s going to take time. You have to be in it for the long run. Think goals. Perfectly brown takes time, but that marshmallow will be worth it in the end.

With those four rules, you too can create this beauty.

We rightly trashed our camp shirts with marker and glue and dirt and marshmallow. We laughed and made messes and decided that camp is really just real life summer with a cool logo.

Either way, we liked it. And I’ve got 12 months to start planning the next one

So much to do…so little time. wink-wink.

To all our fellow Monday-ers out there, happy day to you.