Heart Shaped Crayon Melties

These are super easy to make, just a bit time consuming in the prep.

You'll need:

Old, broken crayons
Silicon cupcake pan
Cookie sheet
Bowl of water (optional)

Here's how you do it:

Remove the paper from all of the crayons! You'll need enough to fill about 1/2 - 2/3 of each mold. If you can't get the paper off easily, put the crayons in a bowl of water and let the papers soak. They should come off more easily.

When I get bored I peel crayons and divide them into bags
by colors. Strange, yes, but I like making melties. My son
likes them, too. 

Here's the tray all filled up. The smaller the pieces, the more
variation you'll see in the melty. 

Close up of the mold. This one I only put in variations of pink. 

Set the oven to about 225F. Put the mold on a cookie sheet.
It's too flimsy otherwise. The crayons will be liquid,
so this is very important. Peek in on the crayons after about
10 minutes. Once they melt, take them out. 

Wait until they cool to remove. They're quite hot right now. 

Once they're cool, pop them out of the mold. 

Ta da! Melties! You can do any shape, of course, but hearts are
festive for Valentines Day. 

Pocket Removal Tutorial

I used to love watching What Not to Wear. I'm not sure if that show is even on anymore as we don't have cable. But that's not really the point of this post. I thought it odd that they'd comment a lot about sewing pockets closed. I love pockets and never got it, until now. I have a pair of jeans, actually the jeans that I made into skinny ones where the pockets are quite bulky and make the hip area look larger. I've never liked the pockets and since I wasn't happy with the jeans and their fit, I figured I'd just ditch the whole thing. Now since I've made the jeans into skinny ones which I'm thrilled about, I decided I need to do something with the pockets! Here is a tutorial to get rid of flap pockets.

Flap Pocket Removal Tutorial:

Annoying, bulky pockets must go!

Forgot to show me cutting off the huge buttons. Cut or use
a seam ripper to get rid of the buttons. Make sure you don't
accidentally cut the fabric! This flap pocket was sewn in such
a way that I could easily cut it without showing what I'd done.
Cut as deep into the pocket as possible to remove the flap. 

Pocket is all gone! Cut a strip of fusible tape for a quick
no-sew fix to close up the pocket. A better way would be to
hand stitch it closed from the inside. 

Main reason why I had to cheat and use fusible tape. The pockets
are sewn INTO the jeans in this pair. If your jean pockets aren't
sewn in on all sides, carefully cut them out as close to the
seams where they are sewn into the pants as possible. This
will allow you to be able to stitch the pockets closed from
the inside. 

Creative Play: Bubble Painting

I was going to do a post about making play dough, but I can't find my photos! I'm going to have to search for those and hopefully do a new post tonight. So instead, I'm posting something fun you can do with your kiddos if it's rainy, cold or you're just bored! Bubble painting!

All you need is some small cups (I used empty apple sauce cups) dish soap, a bit of water and some food coloring. Put a bit of dish soap, some water and food coloring in a small, shallow cup. Depending upon your food coloring and dish soap, you'll have to play a bit with the ratios. I recommend doing this in a jelly roll pan to contain the mess. You can cut up the final product or fold it in half to make cards, gift tags, etc.

Blow bubbles with a straw. Make sure your child doesn't
inhale! Yuck!

Place the sheet of paper on top of the bubbles,
gently. 

We had a few different colors to play with. Here is one of the
finished pieces of art. 

Busy guy. Little ones can do this by themselves,
but it does get messy. We had more paper
soaked with solution than bubbles when
my son did it himself. He had fun and was
happy with his work which is the most
important part!

Regular Jeans to Skinny Jeans Tutorial

I really wanted a pair of skinny jeans to wear with my Ugg boots. I did get a gift card to the Gap for Christmas, but I wasn't sure I wanted to spend it in skinny jeans. I had a pair of jeans in the closet that I just didn't like the way the looked on me. They were cropped jeans that were tight around the thighs and then flared out at the bottom. I'm sure they looked good at one point, but two kids later, I wasn't digging them anymore. I hate throwing things away so I thought I'd try my hand and converting them into skinny jeans. It worked! Here's how I did it in case you'd like to try.

Regular to Skinny Jeans:

Jeans are obviously too bulky to stuff into my boots without looking a bit funny. 

First Step: Remove hem from the jeans. 

Unfold the hem.
Mine was quite large and thick due to the original style of the jeans. 

I don't have a photo of how I got to this step, but it's simple.
Put on the jeans inside out.
Pin the jeans where you'd like a seam to go and then carefully slip out of the jeans.
*Make sure you're pinning on the inside seam!*

I used a Sharpie, which I don't recommend, but I couldn't
find my marking pen that would show up in the photos.
Chalk works in a pinch if you don' t have a marking pen. Draw a line
showing where you want to sew from hem to where you run into
the outer seam of your pants. 

I cut off the original inner seam so that it laid flatter when
sewing. You can see a bit more clearly how the dotted line
goes from the bottom and angles into the original seam of the
inner leg seam. 

Sew right on that line. Make sure you're using a needle for
denim or other heavy fabrics. Your machine will thank you
and you'll  be less likely to get mad at your sewing. 

Ta-da! One leg is now skinnier than the other. 

Try on the new skinny leg to make sure it fits and you like it.
Look how much nicer it is than the regular width leg!

Further proof of happy, skinny jeans. I probably could take
the knees in a bit more, but I like the fit. If you don't like how
they look, put the jeans on inside out again and see where the
bulges are, mark them with a pin and re-sew those areas. 

Now, time for the second leg. If you're satisfied with the fit
of the first, measure the seam you made from the outer edge
of the leg that is altered. Transfer the measurements to the
other leg, mark, cut and sew. 

Once the side seams are all done, you can fold the original
hems back up and restitch. I didn't use matching thread since
I plan on just wearing these with boots. If you're going to wear
them with flats, I'd suggest using matching yellow/brown jean
thread so that they look more professional.

There you go! Regular jeans to skinny jeans in an hour or less
(maybe more if you're new to sewing,
but still, you get the picture. It's not too hard!