Category: Crafts

Sale!: Wilton Tent Sale in Chicago Area 5/31-6/18

May 17, 2013 Filled under Chicago Joy, Crafts, Creative Joy, Deals/Discounts, Savings Joy
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Attention bakers, crafters, and event/wedding planners! Wilton is having their annual tent sale in Woodridge, IL, Friday, May 31st, through Tuesday, June 18th! Wilton is best known for their baking and cake decorating supplies, but they also have paper crafts and accessories for parties and weddings. We actually bought some things at the Wilton tent sale 6 years ago for our wedding and were able to save a ton of money on our unity candle, cake server set, champagne flutes, wedding favor boxes, ring bearer pillows, and flower girl baskets!

The Wilton Tent Sale will be located at:
2240 W. 75th Street
Woodridge, IL 60517

Their hours of operation will be:
Doors will open May 31st, 2013 at 1:00 pm
Mon – Fri 9:00 am – 8:00 pm
Sat & Sun 8:00 am – 6:00 pm

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Create!: Easy to Make Diaper Cake

May 9, 2013 Filled under Crafts, Creative Joy
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2013 seems to be the year of babies! We’re not even halfway through the year yet, and we’ve already welcomed 4 babies into my husband and my families and 3 babies from our friends. I love giving diaper cakes as presents because they’re practical (you can never use too many diapers), really cute, and personal since they are homemade with love. I am very lucky that my husband is willing to help me with these types of things and actually helped me come up with an easy and pretty quick way to make them.

What you’ll need:

  • Diapers (size 0 or 1 for newborns)
  • Basket for the base
  • Ribbon (we use curling ribbon)
  • Wooden sticks like thick bamboo skewers or chopsticks to work as a dowel
  • Small rubber bands (optional)
  • Accessories such as baby bottles; small bottles of shampoo, baby wash, lotion, etc; pacifiers; small books
  • Cellophane wrap

Roll each diaper and place as many as you can tightly in the basket. To make it easier, use a rubber band to hold each diaper in a roll or group of diapers. Once the basket is filled, make 2 or 3 more layers of rolled diapers for the cake by tying ribbon around the group of diapers. Tuck the accessories into the ribbon to be included in each layer. To hold the layers of the cake to the basket together, put a wooding stick in the middle of the diapers in the basket so it is sticking up and place each additional layer over top so the stick acts as a dowel. Use ribbon to secure a stuffed animal or other accessory at the top of the diaper cake, and have fun decorating! Lastly, wrap the entire diaper cake in cellophane and secure the opening at the top with ribbon.

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What a Crazy Week!

April 23, 2013 Filled under Chicago Joy, Crafts, Creative Joy, Kids & Babies, Mommy Joy
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Last week has to have been the craziest week America has seen in a very long time, if ever! Here’s what we were up to…

Last Sunday, we took a FREE tile backsplash workshop at Home Depot:

Last Monday, we prayed for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing and their families:

Then, we stayed up almost all night putting up our back splash:

Last Wednesday, we prayed some more for the victims of the West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion and their families:

That night, we braced ourselves for the storm that was heading towards the Chicago area. We checked on our basement and sump pump, which were fine, before going to bed, but we ended up having to deal with this since Thursday morning:

We stayed up again Thursday and Friday nights cleaning up the basement and prayed for all those who were affected by the flood much worse than we are. We then prayed some more for the residents of Cambridge, Watertown, and other areas surrounding Boston:

Saturday was very busy with my daughter’s gymnastics and dance classes, my husband being called into work, and a wedding we attended over an hour away:

Sunday was another busy day with my Goddaughter’s first communion. I spent the morning making these chocolate covered pretzel rods for party favors:

What I didn’t do last week…

Sleep and study!

What was your week like last week or what happened during your craziest week? Leave me a comment below :)

And make sure to watch for more posts about installing our mosaic tile backsplash, dealing with flood damage, and making chocolate covered pretzel party favors!

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Costume Idea!: No-Sew Princess Dress for Under $20

October 21, 2012 Filled under Crafts, Creative Joy, Kids & Babies, Mommy Joy, Savings Joy
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About a month ago, we had a Super Why! themed birthday party for my daughter. I knew I wanted to dress her up as Princess Presto (Pea), but the only costumes I could find were at least $50, which I was not willing to pay, especially since she probably will only wear the dress once. I found the Dora Ballet Dress pictured on the left on sale at Target for less than $10 and decided to turn into a Princess Presto dress. If you’re not able to find this dress, you can use any inexpensive dress-up dress out there or even check out a thrift store, consignment store, or Goodwill. There are usually some great finds, especially for Halloween costumes!

Except for the dress, I bought all my supplies at Michael’s:

  • Aleene’s No-Sew Fabric Glue – $2.99
  • 10 yards of satin ribbon – $0.50 each spool (1/2-5/8 inch width works best)
  • 3 yards of sparkly green Halloween ribbon – $1.99 each spool
  • 5 feet Tinkerbell rhinestone ribbon – $5.99 (I chose to splurge on this, but you can go without it)
  • 6 pack of 8.5″ x 11″ glitter foam adhesive – $4.79 (you can also get single sheets, which would be less expensive if you don’t plan on using all 6 colors)

These are the regular prices without coupon. Make sure you check Michael’s website to see what coupons are available when you go.

Please keep in mind that the No-Sew Fabric Glue is a TEMPORARY adhesive. It holds up well, but the costume will fall apart if you wash it. They do have permanent fabric glue available that can be washed, but if you plan on having your child wear the costume multiple times, I would recommend you sew everything on to make sure everything is secure. Scissors and a de-threader will also be helpful for this project.

The first thing I did was use the de-threader to gently remove all of the extra embellishments that were on the dress that I did not want such as the tulle sleeves, zig-zag ribbon on the front of the dress and around the neck, and the Dora flower. Then I glued the ribbon at the bottom of each ruffle of the dress. I did this in 1 1/2-2 inch sections making sure the glue dried before moving onto the next section. For the belt, I layered light green satin ribbon with glue until it was the width that I wanted. For the middle, I cut out a circle from the green glitter foam and star from the purple glitter foam and put the star on top of the circle. I then glued it onto the belt on the dress. Lastly, I glued the rhinestone ribbon onto the front of the dress and lining the neck and sleeves. I placed a dot of glue on the back of each rhinestone to do this. The rhinestones actually did not hold up too well with the glue, so if you choose to use them, I recommend sewing around the string in between each rhinestone to secure it to the fabric. Otherwise lil Lia’s dress held up her whole birthday party including the bounce house!

Hopefully, these tips help you this Halloween or any other occasion you or your little one may need to dress up for! If you have any questions or any other tips, please leave me a comment below :) HAPPY CRAFTING!

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Party Ideas!: Balloon Weights & Favor/Treat Bags

September 16, 2012 Filled under Crafts, Creative Joy, Kids & Babies, Mommy Joy, Savings Joy
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We had a Super Why! party for my daughter’s 2nd birthday yesterday, and I just wanted to share some great ideas to help you save some money when throwing a kid’s party:

Balloon Weights:

I learned this super inexpensive idea for balloon weights from my sister-in-law. Instead of buying balloon weights at the store, take a regular bottled water, wrap it in gift tissue, and tie ribbon around the top to hold the tissue in place. I like using 2 different colors and curling ribbon to give it an extra decorative touch. It was REALLY easy and I loved that I was able to use something that I had a lot of for the party anyway instead of having to spend the extra money at the store!

Favor/Treat Bags:

When having a themed party, I find it difficult to get carried away with all the decorations and favor bags, especially when they have themed favor bags/boxes out there that are already made for you. We needed 16 favor bags, so I had to make sure they were inexpensive, but also wanted the kids to like what was in them. Walmart has some great favor bag toys for affordable prices! I was able to make all 16 bags under for $20. Each bag had: sunglasses, “play-doh”, bubbles, and candy. Each girl’s bag had a princess wand, and each boy’s bag had a sticky frog. I was able to get 20 clear treat bags with balloons on them for less than $2. The princess wands wouldn’t fit in the bag, so I tied them on the outside of the bag with a twisty tie and curling ribbon. I did the same with the sunglasses for the boys bag. I think having an item on the outside of the bags actually got the kids more excited for them! I then added a label to make it more “Super Why!-ish” (regrettably, we ran out of color ink right before we were going to print the labels, so they were black & white, but I think they still turned out okay).

Here’s a close-up:

Do you have any other inexpensive party ideas? I would LOVE to hear them! Leave me a comment below :)

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Create!: Decorative Notebooks

March 1, 2012 Filled under Crafts, Creative Joy
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My gymnasts had their first competition a few weeks ago, so since it was their very first gymnastics meet and my first meet as a coach, I wanted to give them something special to remember it by.  I coach 14 girls ages 5 to 11, so I had to think of something inexpensive that would appeal to a wide range of ages. It also needed to be something that wouldn’t take a lot of time to make. My friend helped me come up with the idea of decorative notebooks with gel pens shown above and they were a big hit with all of the girls!

The cost of this project came out to about $3 per notebook and it took about 5-10 minutes to make each one. Here’s what I used:

  • Composition notebooks (no spiral)
  • Patterned paper (2 sheets of each design)
  • Decorative Duck tape
  • 5/8 inch wide ribbon
  • Chip board stickers
  • Gel pens
  • Glue stick
  • Craft glue
  • Scissors
  • Pencil

I bought most of the supplies at Walmart with the exception of the chip board gymnastics stickers and ribbon, which I found at Michael’s.

Money-saving tip: Before you head to the store, make sure to check their website or your local newspaper (Sunday paper or the day you receive your coupon inserts) to see if they have any coupons available. If the coupon is for X% off any one item and you are able to print out more than 1 coupon, make multiple trips or take someone with you so you can have more than 1 transaction to use your coupon.

Here’s how you make a decorative notebook:

  1. Trace the outside of the front and back of the composition notebook on the back of the patterned paper with a pencil, and cut along the lines (you’ll need one sheet of patterned paper for the front of the notebook and a 2nd sheet for the back).
  2. Use a glue stick to paste the patterned paper onto the front and back of the notebook.
  3. Cut a piece of decorative Duck tape that is a little longer than the length of the notebook and lay it flat on the table with the sticky side up.
  4. Hold the notebook closed with the binding down and align the binding to the middle of the length of the tape. Fold the tape over each side of the notebook to make the binding (the tape should also go over the edge of the patterned paper). Cut off the edges of the tape if needed.
  5. Cut about 2 feet of ribbon and glue it to the back of the notebook using the craft glue (make sure the ribbon is even on both sides before you glue it).
  6. Place the stickers on the front of the notebook as you desire.
  7. Tie the ribbon around the notebook with the bow in the front and place the gel pen in the bow.

If the notebook is being given as a gift, personalize it by writing something inside. For my gymnasts, I used the same gel pen that was attached to their notebook and wrote a “Gymnastics Checklist” on the first page inside each notebook. I also drew squares next to each item for them to check the box. My checklist included:

  • Tight body (squeeze your muscles!)
  • Straight legs
  • Pointed toes
  • Straight arms
  • Chin up
  • Stick your landing
  • Smile
  • HAVE FUN!

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Save!: 40% Off at Michaels Through 2/11

February 6, 2012 Filled under Coupons, Crafts, Creative Joy, Savings Joy, Scrapbooking
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Check out Michaels weekly ad online to print out a coupon for 40% off one item through Saturday, February 11th!

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, so make sure you take advantage of the great sales Michaels has going on this week, and inspiring craft ideas! And don’t forget to use the coupon!

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Coupon!: 20% Off at Michaels 12/17-12/18

December 16, 2011 Filled under Coupons, Crafts, Creative Joy, Savings Joy, Scrapbooking
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Print this coupon or show it on your mobile phone to use at Michaels tomorrow, December 17th, through Sunday December 18th, to get 20% off your entire purchase!

They even have some great sales going on right now including their Christmas Blowout where you can save up to 70% on Christmas items!

Plus, they have these FREE make-and-take events happening tomorrow, December 17th:

  • 10 am – noon: Duck Tape luggage tag
  • Noon – 2 pm: Poinsettia card

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Create!: $5 Artwork Ideas

June 22, 2011 Filled under Crafts, Creative Joy
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I’m always looking for creative and inexpensive ways to decorate my home, so I love this article from Better Homes and Gardens on $5 artwork! Here are my favorites:

Silhouettes
Find small but heavy objects to use for your silhouette in this wall art. Wooden clothespins were used in the picture shown. Place the objects on white paperboard, and lightly coat the board with the spray paint of your choice. When the paint is dry, remove the objects, and place the board in a frame.

 

 

Typography Circles
You’ll need embroidery hoops, white fabric, scrapbook letters, and black acrylic paint or a black marker. Arrange the scrapbook letters on top of the fabric to your liking and trace around them with a pencil. Fill in the shapes on the fabric with the black paint or marker, stretch the fabric into the embroidery hoops, and secure it. Cut off the excess fabric along the edges, and hang the art on your wall.

 

Clip It
Head to a crafts store for medium-density fiberboard (MDF) and an oversize crafts clothespin, and paint both of them white. After the paint dries, attach a picture hanger to the back of the MDF and secure the clothespin to the front with wood glue. Then, clip a postcard, print, or photo that you wish to display in the clothespin.

 

 

Centerpiece
You’ll need a foam cube, clear glass holiday bulb ornament, and decorative packing tape. Hollow out a crater in the foam cube with a spoon so that it is large enough to nestle the glass bulb. Wrap the cube with decorative packing tape, fill the bulb half-way with water, and place your favorite cut flower in the bulb.

 

 

You should be able to find materials for these projects at your local craft store. For more $5 artwork ideas, check out the article here.

If you end up making any of these or have some $5 artwork ideas of your own, I’d love to hear about it! Click on the title of this post, and leave me a comment below, or email me  your pictures to myjoymyworld@gmail.com :)

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Create!: Michaels Coupons and Make-It Take-It Events

June 10, 2011 Filled under Coupons, Crafts, Creative Joy, Savings Joy
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Michaels is a great store for crafts, and they have 3 great coupons out good this Sunday, June 12th, through Saturday, June 18th:

Michaels also has some great Make-It Take-It events this week to help celebrate Father’s Day next Sunday:

  • June 11, 10 am-noon: Decorate a Father’s Day picture frame with purchase of a frame.
  • June 12, 1-3 pm: Decorate a Father’s Day tie or t-shirt with purchase of a tie or t-shirt.
  • June 14, 6-8 pm: Decorate a Father’s Day ceramic coffee mug with purchase of a mug.
  • June 16, 6-8 pm: Design and make a FREE Father’s Day duck tape wallet.
  • June 17, 6-8 pm: Make a FREE Father’s Day card.
  • June 18, 10 am-noon: Make a FREE Father’s Day key chain.

If you make it to any of these Make-It Take-It events, I would love to see your finished product(s) and/or hear about your experiences! Feel free to send me a picture of your project to myjoymyworld@gmail.com or leave a comment below :)

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