Iron Craft 1 part B: Dry Snowglobe

I had some finishing touches to do on this one (like figuring out the Shrinkadink with Mom & Jasmine) before it was ready. But now it's done and ready to share!

With three kids five and under, I have to be really careful about what kind of breakable things I make or use. Partially inspired by our Christmas in July series, I made a Christmas-themed "dry snowglobe" that won't make a big mess if my kids get into it.

Materials (Iron Craft secret ingredients in bold):

• Scissors
• White feathers
• Hot glue gun
• Baby food jar
• Shrinkadink
• Sandpaper
• colored pencils (or no sandpaper and colored sharpies)
• Muse token
• Aluminum foil tape

Cut the feathers into small pieces and put them in the baby food jar. (Alternatively, you could use a good amount of glitter. I used both, but the glitter didn't work very well with the feathers.)

Sand the Shrinkadink and use the colored pencils to draw your shapes to go inside the jar. I did a reindeer, Santa, and a North Pole sign. My larger figures were about 4-5 inches tall and shrank down to between a third and half their original size. (We shrank the shrinkadink in a 350 degree oven for 3-5 minutes—but follow the directions on your materials!)

I covered the baby food jar lid with aluminum foil tape on the outside. Inside the lid, I used a muse token (covered with aluminum foil tape) as a backstop for my figures.

The muse token and the figures are stuck in there with hot glue:

The North Pole sign was too short to see over the neck of the baby food jar, so I used other pieces of shrunken Shrinkadink (that I was going to use to make a necklace with my other muse token but I didn't like how it looked) to build a platform. I glued about four of them on top of one another.

To finish your snowglobe, just screw on the lid:

You may want to adjust how much "snow" you want in your jar. My jar was a little over half full of feather fluff and the best way to see my figures was to lay it on its side like this. Right now, it's kind of a cross between a snow globe and one of those "I spy" in a bag games. But that might make it even more fun for my kids, right?

What would you put in a dry snowglobe?

Iron Craft

I was definitely uninspired with the iron craft challenge. In the end, I made 3 items that are so-so at best. (Guess that's why we're called wayward.)

The first one is an inspiration jar. I covered the lid with aluminum tape (which I LOVE!) then  antiqued it by holding it over a candle flame. I used tiny strips of the tape with power words written on them. They looked engraved. I used a black wire to loop around and hold the medallions.

My second craft used the feathers, the flowers, and a bit of T-shirt to cushion the back of the clip on the baby's head.

Finally, I planned a bookmark from the shrinky dink-- but didn't realize how much it would shrink. I ended up with a small rectangle I decided would be a magnet. I edged it with the aluminium tape (something I will definitely do again, but taking a little more care to make it even and straight) and attached a strip of magnet on the back. The end!

Iron Craft 4: Headband and Courageous Moments Jar

So if you missed it we are doing a IRON CRAFT this week. To get the full scoop go here. To see Jordan, Jaime, or Brooke's amazing crafts did click on their names.

Well, I'm not really sure where my headband is at the moment and since my 3 year old niece is asleep in my room, I can't search for it. But as soon as I find it, I will add a picture up here! I used the t-shirt, feathers and flowers.

I also made a jar for courageous moments from the baby food jar, aluminum tape (decoration on the lid), 2 tags (Courageous and Moments), and a shrinkadink (with a quote on it.)

 

 "People are made up of flesh, blood and a miracle fibre called courage."- Mignon McLaughlin 

Iron Craft 3: Magnet Picture Frame, Headband, Candle holder, and Card

So if you missed it we are doing a IRON CRAFT this week. To get the full scoop go here. To see Jordan and Jaime's amazing crafts did click on their names.

After much crafty thought I came up with four different crafts that used all the secret ingredients. The items are:

A magnetic picture frame

Shrinkadinks and tags

Close up and a picture of my SIL's cute fam. The tag says "Forever more"

a headband (idea came from here)

Tshirt and flowers

 a candle holder

Tag and baby food jar. The tag says "wonderful"

and a thank you card

Aluminum tape and feathers

 Enjoy!

Iron Craft 2: Scrapbook Layout

The Wayward Girls had a great time at the beach. We crafted one night and I had a lot of great ideas: dying the feathers, painting the feathers, making a wind chime using the top of the baby food jar, cutting out a feather using Aluminum foil tape, cutting out flowers using the shrinkadink, using the feathers as a mask on a card with paint. All of these endeavors failed in some way or other. At the end of the night, I had made nothing! I was a bit frustrated. When I got home I decided that I needed to go back to my crafting roots and make a scrapbook layout.

I used all of the secret items!  

Paper by Heidi Swap. The light blue looking paper is actually gray.

I'm happy with the end product. Plus I got to scrap about Brooke's shower.

Have you used any different methods in scrapping lately?

IRON CRAFT 1: T Shirt Makeover

Last week, in honor of 250 followers (and an awesome beach trip), we Wayward Girls gave one another an IRON CRAFT challenge: each of us brought one (or two) "secret" ingredients for a craft. Many ambitious plans later, we're (sort of) ready to start showing how we answered the challenge.

We could use multiple crafts to use up all the secret items, but each craft had to use at least two of the secret ingredients. My craft today does just that (with more IRON CRAFTS to follow). (When they're done.) (I LOVE PARENTHESES!)

Materials (secret ingredients in bold):

• Large white T shirt
• Offwhite & gold silk flowers
• Sewing supplies: thread, needle, straight pins, sewing machine & scissors (and rotary cutter, optional)

First, I cut off the ribbed crew collar at the top of the shirt. Then I cut off the bottom hem of the shirt below the hem stitching, like this:

(Save this piece for another job!)

I cut off the hem stitching, then cut off another strip of fabric about 1 inch wide. I pinned the strip about half an inch below the collar on the outside of the shirt. I wanted to sew it down, but Brooke's sewing machine was giving us fits at the beach house and I re-broke Mom's 30-year-old sewing machine, which just got serviced for the first time a couple months ago (for this exact reason!). So I really just pinned it in place to show you how the finished product will look:

And here's a faster explanation than I can give:

I also gathered (well, added folds which I guess are more like pleats) one side of the shirt, but I'm not sure if I'll keep this in, since the shirt seems a little short already:

And of course, the decorative details:

I made the white flower from the bottom hem-edge of the shirt, similar to the ribbon flowers from Mother's Day. It was already nicely creased, so I kept that and basted along the folded edge:

Once I reached the end of the strip (took forever!) I pulled the thread tight to scrunch up the fabric. It curls naturally from this:

Unlike the little ribbon flowers, though, this was going to need a bit more stabilizing to stay together as a big flower. I started by sewing together the center, then as I wound each new layer around the center, I sewed that layer to the last layer:

And voila:

And the (almost) finished product (with a stripey placemat so you can see the collar):

What would you do with a T shirt and silk flowers?

Craft Challenge!

We're so excited to have reached 250 followers--thank you all for your support! To celebrate this milestone, we had a crafty party on our family vacation with a special twist: each of us brought secret challenge materials to surprise one another.

We'd love for you to join in: just watch the video to find out what our secret ingredients are, and the other rules. We'll reveal our crafts next week!



We had a fantastic time at the beach—and be sure to check out the rest of the beach-themed crafts from Six Sisters' Stuff for our Saturday Sister Spotlight Challenge!