Flower Candy Wedding Centerpiece

The closer you get to your wedding day the more nervous you become, right? Well, sure, you have a lot to take care of and much to worry over. Try to relax, though. The calmer you are the better chances you have of pulling off the perfect wedding. And it will be, wont it? The beautiful gown, the gorgeous flowers - every detail has been taken care of. Except for the reception. Have you made the plans yet for the reception? Youll have to have foods, decorations, and dont forget the party favors. Why not make one thing be two? That is, if you make candy flowers as your decorations youll also have your favors taken care of at the same time.Decide on two or more colors for the candy bouquets that look like flowers but are edible. Guests will enjoy the colors and types of candy flowers just to look at, but on their way out of the reception, they can each grab a "flower" as a party favor.Choose two or more colors for the flowers and choose candies in those colors. They can be the same colors as you use in your wedding color scheme or a different choice. Online you can purchase candies of any shape, size and color. Locally, you can still find colorful candies like Red Hots, Gummis, LifeSavers, M&Ms, breath mints, licorice and more. Even if youre only using one or two colors try to find different candies in those colors so that each flower wont look the same.Lay a piece of clear cellophane on the table. Scoop about a third of a cup of the chosen candy and pour it onto the cellophane. Tie a twist-tie around it so that its tight and secure. Cut an additional piece of cellophane, lay the wrapped candies on it, push a floral pick, wooden dowel, skewer or similar item into the middle of the first wrap. Wrap the second cellophane around the first, trapping the stick, then twisting another twist-tie on to secure it all.Push a Styrofoam ball into the chosen vase. Push the finished candy flower into the vase by inserting the stick into the ball. Now make more flowers and add them to the vase. Try to shape each flower just a bit different to add interest to the bouquet. When youre finished, tuck a silk or real leaf, here and there, into the bouquet.Set the bouquets of candy flowers on the tables at the reception as the decorations and offer the guests a "flower" on the way home. Be sure to take a picture of the bouquets before you set them out, though. You wont want to forget just how lovely they were!Candy bouquet video how-to here.

Disposable Easel for Kids

If you have kids at your house you might have a little artist. Most kids love to color, draw and paint but its always such a mess. Markers and crayons are everywhere, kids are creating on the table when you need, but its still fun to see their finished drawings and paintings, isnt it? The only real problem is that you need to relocate your artist. Set up an art station - complete with easel - in the little ones bedroom and art time will be fun for the child as well as yourself. The easel is set up quickly by using a door in the childs room or elsewhere in the house.

Buy a set of over-the-door hooks to set up the easel. You can find them at discount department stores or purchase them online. Theres no installation required; you just open the door and hang the hooks over the top of it. Space them pretty far apart, with one hook near the edge of the door and the other near the hinge end of the door.

Purchase paper by the roll. It can be butcher paper or paper youve ordered online. Just make sure the width of the paper is at least a little less than the width of the door. Its not advisable to buy a huge, heavy roll to make the easel. Slide a shower curtain rod or caf? curtain rod through the opening in the roll and hang it on the door hooks. Pull the paper down to the floor and tape it in place. Tape it at the top, too. Otherwise, some kids might decide its more fun to dispense the entire roll on the floor than it is to use it for artwork. After the masterpiece is finished, the tape can be pulled up and away from the door so that you can tear it off and pull down a fresh paper. If you want, hang a pair of scissors and a roll of tape on the rod, beside the roll of paper. When needed, just lift up the end of the roll and slide them off. You might even consider using glue dots to attach pockets or other holders, down the side of the unrolled paper, to hold brushes, paints, pens, markers and more. Some doors arent flat; they have panels which make that particular door unsuitable as an easel. Fix this problem by simply taping a piece of thick cardboard over the door before hanging the roll of paper. Its a good idea to use cardboard even if the door is a flat one because some paints or markers might bleed through the paper and onto the door. Your child is going to love the unusual easel with the never-ending paper. Youll love it that your childs art supplies arent all over the table anymore.

Picture Frame Tool Center

Im one of those people who generally passes on crafts and projects that require power tools. I can use a rechargeable screwdriver, and possibly a drill - if I absolutely have to - but thats it. Now, though, home improvement stores make it easy on people like me. When you purchase certain products from a large home improvement store theyll cut it for you at no charge. All you have to do is tell them what size(s) you need and they take care of it for you. Thats why I was finally able to take advantage of a great craft that turns an old picture frame into a useful garden tools storage unit, a gift wrapping center, or another choice.

Purchase pegboard and have it cut to the size you need. Be sure to ask if they have any scraps because, sometimes, they have a broken piece which theyll sell and cut very cheap. Although pegboard is large you can do several of these projects at one time, and give some as gifts.

Use a picture frame that has no glass to make the storage center. One option for finding suitable frames is to check thrift stores and secondhand shops for old, framed paintings. Have the pegboard cut to the size of any picture frame to create a large, small, or other storage. Just slide the pegboard into the frame, as you would the glass, and thats it. However, if you want, you can paint the pegboard before putting it in the frame to create a theme or just to give the board a prettier look. Stand or hang the finished pegboard where you want. It can be mounted inside a cabinet door, so that it can be tucked out of sight, or even mounted on a garage wall. There are many different places where you can hang and use the tool center. Insert pegboard hooks to hold whatever you want them to hold. Scissors, clippers, paintbrushes, glue guns, screwdrivers, pliers, tape, ribbon, and twine, are just some of the implements you can hang on the framed tool board. If you want to create a theme for the pegboard you can easily glue on butterflies, flowers, or other accents. If the tool center you make is one that hangs on a wall, and you find that theres not enough room behind the frame to accommodate the hooks, screw a block of wood behind each corner, then hang the frame. This will allow more room between the pegboard and the wall. Once you have one of the tool centers hung youll see that youll need another. The framed tool storage is great in many different places in the house. Pegboard Tool Center

Shaped Fabric Bowls

When you collect certain things, like seashells, you buy items as you see them. You might just be browsing a catalog and find a special shell soap dish you want. Or maybe you collect thimbles and you run into some at a flea market. When you collect things it can be hard to walk on by when you discover something you dont have. But when you make what you dont have you wont settle for what you can find; you get exactly what you want. Thats why youll love a project where you take any shape or image, and turn it into a fabric bowl. Its a simple process that allows you to make a bowl with the shape of a car, train, shoe, flower, building, pet, or most any other shape.Use thick tweed as the color or pattern of the item youve chosen to recreate. Cut the tweed to be the shape you want. This can be done freehand, with a stencil, or using an image cut from a coloring book or magazine. Trace the shape onto the tweed, add details if you want, then cut out the shape.Use felt to cut an additional shape for the bowl. This shape should be identical to the tweed shape. Besides the tweed and the felt youll also need fusible web. Found at places where fabric and notions are sold, the fusible web works to hold to fabrics together. Stack the two shapes, with the right side of the tweed facing upwards, and the fusible web between them. Follow directions to iron and fuse the two fabrics.On the back of the felt, sew small darts, and go all the way around the shape with them. These darts should run from the image, to the edge of the image, and should be short. The darts will help give the flat image a bowl shape. Depending on the size and shape of the image, it could take only two or three darts, or might need several darts. It can be helpful to fold the image so that the tweed is in and the felt is showing, and sew straight over to the edge. The darts, though, should not go all the way into the center of the bowl. Shape the fabric like a bowl, while holding it in your hands, to get a good idea of where to make the darts.Certain shapes make the best bowls. Some ideal shapes include leaves, soccer or other balls, hands, or cars. Play around with different shapes, and various patterns of tweed, to make assorted bowls. Sew details on the fabric shapes to add more visual interest. The bowls can be used in many ways around the house or can be given as unusual gifts. After all, when was the last time you saw a fabric bowl, shaped like a hedgehog?

Pantyhose Painting

Black pantyhose, white hose, fishnet stockings - there are many different types of leg coverings that you might choose to wear with a particular outfit. And, even though you have many color choices, and several styles from which you can select, theres just nothing like the eye-popping look youll create when you do pantyhose painting. If you want your legs to get noticed, they certainly will when you paint a scene on one or both legs of the pantyhose. People will definitely stop to stare! Whether youre going club-hopping, or just trying to get your guy to look at you - and not the television - youll get attention when you wear painted pantyhose. Although its possible to paint on fishnet stockings, youll achieve the best results if you paint on ordinary pantyhose - not tights. You can paint on tights but theres something more intriguing about the painting being done on natural, beige, taupe, tan, or brown shades of regular pantyhose.

It can be helpful to put the pantyhose on, and then draw a chalk perimeter for where you want the actual pantyhose artwork to go. Remove the pantyhose and slide a piece of cardboard into the area where you will be drawing.

Use a paint pen - or more than one - to create the scene you want. Your local craft store likely sells a huge variety of the paint markers. When you use stencils along with the paint pens, you can create your choice of thousands of designs on one or both legs of the pantyhose. The pen contains real paint, which is permanent, and can help you draw a colorful or demure art piece on the pantyhose. Another option for painting the pantyhose is to slide a picture in the pantyhose, and position it on top of the cardboard. If you use hosiery that you can see through, you can easily trace the scene. A good source for pantyhose pictures is a coloring book but you could also use a picture ripped from a catalog, a calendar picture, or an image printed from the internet. Youre only limited by your imagination when it comes to the designs you can draw onto the pantyhose. Draw a gun in a garter holster, a person climbing a rope, a spider crawling up the leg, a hand, bees, butterflies, palm trees, nature scenes, vines and flowers, or other images. Both legs can be made to match or they can each have a different scene. Or, just one leg can be decorated. Put the finished pantyhose on, go out the door, and get ready for people to stop and glare!

Easy Sewing Project: Bandana Table Runners

Dont worry. Your family member - the one who loves bandanas - will never miss a few of them if they happen to come up missing. Of course, once they see the new table runner you made from them they might get suspicious! Who wouldnt love a cute bandana table runner now that bandanas come in a huge variety of colors and patterns? No longer do you have to choose from just the red and white or blue and white design we all know; now youll find bandanas with solid colors, flowers, rock stars, tie-dye and others. Its easy to make a bandana table runner because you dont have to hem the edges of the fabric! There are two different ways you can make a table runner from bandanas. One is to stack two identical bandanas on top of each other, with right sides facing. At one corner, pin them, then sew straight across it, from one side to the other, for a total of a couple of inches or so. Open these up, lay a bandana on one of the two that are stitched together, pin two corners, then sew across it. The corners you sew this time should be opposite the corners you sewed first. Add another and another bandana, sewing them together at the corners, to make the table runner as long as you want. The diamond shapes created by the bandanas makes a lovely pattern for a table runner.

Create a different table runner by starting with two bandanas which are alike. Turn one side of one of the bandana under, lay the fold on the edge of the second bandana so that the two are side-by-side, and sew all the way across it. Keep the stitches very close to the fold. This will adjoin the two bandanas while leaving you with a flat seam that looks neat and tidy.

Make a backing for the above table runner by cutting a piece of lightweight fabric to be the same width and length as the runner. Stack the runner and the backing with right sides together. Sew around three sides of the material and trim the excess fabric very close to the stitches. Turn the table runner right-side-out and sew the opening shut. Press the new runner well on all four sides. Thread a needle and take a stitch, here and there, to tack the bandana to the backing. Make these small stitches along the seams of the bandanas. A bandana table runner can be whimsical, beautiful or even a tribute to your favorite star. Its all a matter of the bandanas you choose for the project. No matter what the design of the bandanas youll have a unique table runner like no one elses!