7:15 A.M. Crafting!

It is never to early in the day to start getting the creative juices going! Look at our glam girl Imara starting off her morning (7:15 A.M.) with a little bit of knitting. Wishing you all a "glam" day!!

Presents for Teachers! - Dying Silk Scarves

In thinking of holiday presents for teachers, you could go the normal route (which we usually do) with a coffee cup filled with treats or something of this sort. But this year, the kids wanted to something more handcrafted. So, we decided to share our ideas with you and hopefully inspire you to get crafty this season! Kaden (our crafty little guy) is in afternoon kindergarten this year. He wanted to make his teacher a dyed silk scarf, so we did just that!

You will need:

• rectangular piece of fabric (we used 10" x 54"crinkled silk)
• permanent fabric dye (we used Tulip One Step dyes in multiple colors)
• paper towels
• plastic surface cover (i.e. plastic table cover)

Directions:

1. Cover your surface. We usually work outside on the grass, just to make sure we do not dye anything in the house. 
2. Lay down paper towels where your fabric will go. This will soak up dye under the fabric so it does not settle on the plastic and then soak back up in to the fabric.  

3. With gloves, add water to the dye bottles, shake well.

4. Wet the fabric with water and wring out excess. Apply dye where you want! 

       

5. Place fabric into a plastic ziploc bag and let sit for 4-6 hours. Then rinse well (until water runs clear.)

6. Let hang dry. For cotton and other fabrics it is okay to tumble dry, but since this was silk, we allowed it to dry on the hanger. 

7. Tah-Dah! Kaden's scarf is complete and ready to be wrapped for his teacher!

Hope you have fun making your own handcrafted teacher appreciation gifts this holiday season!


glam girl: Collette

Aleene's on TV!

I was watching the movie 'Made of Honor' on television, and you will never guess who made a cameo... Aleene's Clear Tacky Gel Glue! This made me so excited since Aleene's is one of the amazing brands that the company I work for, iLoveToCreate, is responsible for! It was featured on 'DVD on TV,' (on the FX channel) which is a show that you probably have seen. A quick run-down is, during breaks from the movie the hosts talk about the behind the scenes of what it was like making the movie and things of that nature. While they were showing 'Made of Honor,' they had a segment about hosting the best bachelorette party ever. A create-your-own favor table was shown - which is basically the next wave in the 'candy bar' favor making trend that has been going on for some time now. There were various candies on the table that partygoers could choose from for their favor bag, but there were also grown-up crafts that everyone could participate in. Like, glamming up a pair of basic sunglasses or supersizing the dazzle factor on tiaras. Featured as the adhesive of choice -- Aleene's Clear Gel Tacky Glue!

I was so thrilled, I paused the television and had to snap some photos to share with you!

How fun is that?! I was very impressed! Of course, I know how amazing our products are, but to see it out there being recognized like that - Wow!

From Desperate to GLAM - Thrift Store Headboard Makeover!!

As stated in a previous post, our goal is to completely redecorate Imara's room in the style of "world traveler who now lives at the beach..." and we scored another amazing deal to help bring this vision to life! At one of our favorite stores, ReStore, we found a beautiful twin sized birch colored headboard - solid wood, no scratches, and only $10! It was a light wood color, but it did not stay that way for long. And since is was only $10, I let Imara "go to town" and paint it however she wanted. Below shows the before (which is not the actual headboard, but it looked exactly like this) and the after of her handiwork! She did this really cool weathered look with a bright teal colored paint around the border, and then covered the rattan middle with a yellow-lime color. Continue looking down through the pictures and you can see how it is starting to look in her room... recognize those chairs from an earlier post? The bedding is temporary; we are still on the lookout for what will be her new bedcovers. Let us know what you think - does it match the theme we are going for? Do you have any interesting ideas on how to bring our vision to life? We would love to hear!

Costumes for the School Play - #4 FINAL

The show was a SUCCESS!! Here is a quick look at a couple of the costumes, including our GLAM GIRL Imara in the role of violin, with Aubrey who played a clarinet. Enjoy!

Halloween Costumes!

I wanted to share with you our family's Halloween getup this year, including our beautiful dog Lexie who celebrated her first Halloween with us this year!!

Kaden was Darth Vader, Imara was a baby, and Lexie was... a banana! With all the time devoted to making the school play costumes, I decided to forgo making Lexie's costume even though I really wanted to make her first costume for her. Oh well, thanks to Old Navy she looked cute!

Hope you all had a happy and safe Halloween!!

Sleepover Crafting for Halloween!

Last weekend, our GLAM GIRL Imara had a sleepover with one of her best friends. They had a blast! During their girl time, I caught them decorating bags they intended to use for trick-or-treating on Halloween. Here are some pictures of them getting crafty with a ton of Tulip products!! And with skeletons and glitter in the mix, you know Crafty Chica was there (not the Crafty Chica herself, but a couple of her tote bag designs!)

Aubrey coloring her Crafty Chica tote with Tulip Fabric Markers. She is definitely off to a good start!

Our GLAM GIRL Imara brushing on some Tulip 3D Glow paint to make those eyes glow in the dark!!

Of course with close parental supervision, here she is using the Tulip Heat Setting tool with Glam-It-Up crystals.

A sampling of products used

Here are Imara and Aubrey showing off the brands like professionals!

Tah-dah!! Ghoolish, glittery, glamtastic trick-or-treat bags! 

Costumes for the School Play - #3

So, the costumes are coming right along! There is still quite a bit more to complete, but with a lot of the tedious things complete, I am thinking that the rest will move pretty quickly. I want to share some photos with you of the progress, so I hope you enjoy!

For the two girls playing the role of the flute, I made a simple A-Line dress out of satin in a silver color.

Next, I positioned the flute "keys" out of silver lame fabric where I thought they would belong. 

Lastly, I adhered the silver lame fabric to the satin using Aleene's Fabric Fusion. 

This is a picture of the piccolo that was made in the same fashion as the flute, but with black cotton as the base. Hanging from the neck is the silver lame headband that the student playing this role will wear. 

And here is a picture of the drum, gong, and tambourine:

I am finishing up the costumes for the students' playing the "violin" so I will add that tomorrow. Until then, stay crafty!!

Costumes for the School Play - #2

Life has been super busy... completely nonstop for the glam girls!! Dress rehearsals start this week, and with just receiving the full cast list earlier this week, we are in RUSH mode trying to whip together costumes for over 50 students!
The day today was filled with shopping, cutting, spray painting, and more. The focus was completing many of the accessories for the 'instruments' - like valves for trumpets, a reed for the oboe, jingles for a tambourine, and headpieces for the string instruments. Here are some pictures of what the day looked like:

3" cardboard circles, Krylon Chrome finish spray paint

Imara transforming these into...

...jingles for the tambourine!

I think the tambourine is going to look great! I cannot wait to finish and show you the final result soon. Next were the headpieces for all of the string instruments. These will be strapped on to each violin, cello, and bass, but the first step was getting them ready, see here:

Tracing the scroll headpiece outline

Embarking on the lovely journey of cutting foam... a hint of sarcasm here!

Spraying the 20 headpieces brown

There will be more to come tomorrow, hopefully some finished pieces for all of you to see. 'Til then...

Costumes for the School Play - #1

This is the second year that I will be the costume committee manager for the Reagan Elementary school play! I grew up doing theater and clothing design, so making costumes is so much fun for me!! This year the play involves pretty elaborate costumes. Each student in the show will be playing the role of a musical instrument, which means they need to look semi-convincing as the instrument they are cast! That is my cue to enter... and the team that will be working with me should be assigned at some point this week, so we can get started. The show is in FOUR WEEKS! So, the rundown goes like this, appx 40 costumes, 4 weeks, hopefully two costume checkpoints and fittings, plus a full time job. Whew -- this is going to be a busy month!!

I will be meeting with one of the teachers this week to see what the costume directions are, but in the meantime I have been viewing some images online for inspiration. Check these out:

This is a lithograph of the Kingdom of Harmony:

Image from: Kingdom of Harmony Lithograph from Galerie Dramatique Costumes des Theatres de Paris

 How about this one...

Image from: www.blooloop.com

 Here are a couple of others for inspiration, to be tailored for a younger audience, of course!

Image from: www.craftster.org

Image from: www.craftster.org

So, stay tuned... I will be tracking this costume adventure and giving you the inside scoop as I go!

~Collette

Tie Dye Fun!

Last weekend we had some real fun with tie dye! The Glam Girls, along with Kaden, the crafty 5 year old brother. And when I say crafty, I do not only mean with paint and glue! We set up shop in the backyard (no dyeing allowed in the house) and went to town tying and dying. Take a look at our creations from start to finish below. We used this tie dye: Tulip® One-Step Tie-Dye Kit™;  these dyes are always super easy to use with the best color quality, wash after wash!! Our fun, crafty Saturday looked like this:

Kaden adding color!

Kaden's shirt

Collette's shirt

Imara's shirt

Imara wearing her shirt to school!
(Kaden is wearing his in the background!)