Children's Book Decorations

One of my favorite things to do is make something new with something old.

I hate to throw something away that might be useful, as you may remember. And I love making things for parties or decorations. These flowers (and the banner down below) satisfied all my re-using, re-purposing, fancifying needs.  Plus, they added some cuteness factor for a work event celebrating the service of some of our VISTAs. They were much easier to make than you might expect.

You Will Need:

-Book pages from something your children no longer read (or that have very few words on them so they serve little education purpose to a tutoring program like these)

-scissors

-buttons

-hot glue and sticks

-bamboo skewers

Cut a strip of the page at least 2 inches wide and 8 inches long. Cut fringe in roughly quarter inch increments down one short side about 1-1/2" into the strip. These pages had a little weight to them. For thinner pages, you may want to leave more area uncut so it doesn't tear easily. 

Once all the fringe has been cut, hot glue the uncut end of the strip to the top 1/2" of the skewer. I cut my skewers to different lengths for a little variety. Wrap the strip tightly around the skewer and hot glue the end. It will look a bit like a tassel. Fold down the fringe and hot glue a button to the center. Done! Each flower takes about 5 minutes start to finish.

I also made bunting for the same event but I forgot to take pictures of the finished product :( For that, I cut the pages in triangles. Printed out individual letters that spelled out "Thank You" which I cut into circles. Glue the circles to the center of the triangle and thread some string (I used twine) through them. For fun, you can add a button between each triangle so they more closely match the flowers.



This might also be fun to do with a thrifted version of your favorite children's book. Mine would be "The Oak Inside the Acorn" by Max Lucado. Or anything Dr. Seuss. Or the "Giving Tree." Oh children's books, how I love you all...

Would you be able to use these for a work party? What would your favorite children's book be? I'd love to know!

Sheila

Weekend Inspiration: Cars

Happy Friday! As of yesterday, I'm officially in Florida for at least a few days visiting my family. It's just as hot as I always remembered, but also just as pretty. And of course it's wonderful to see the fam. Dad already made his big eggs and hash browns breakfast and Mom is putting me to work in her kindergarten classroom. Should be fun! With the road trip down here, plus the anniversary of Life Day on Monday, I feel the only truly appropriate theme for this Weekend Inspiration is cars. Eh?

This blog is written in Hungarian, so you might have to translate it (by you, I mean Google) but these little tp roll cars were too cute to pass up.

Now that you've made your own cars, put them to use on this little track made from a cardboard box.

Trick kids into eating healthier! Apple and grape fruit cars.

Turn your little guy or girl's foot print into a little hotrod.

Cut a pool noodle in half to make this race car track. http://makezine.com/craft/car_craft_caddy/

My favorite part of this washi tape race track is definitely the shadow buildings up on the wall. Details.

Easy, quick clothespin cars would be a great impromptu rainy day activity.

These car cupcakes are gorgeous. They are like baby works of art.

I have a project I've roped my Mom into helping me with so I'm excited to share that with you soon. What are you up to this weekend? Anything exciting? I'd love to know!

Sheila :)