Something I Didn’t Teach

I always imagined that my daughter will learn everything from me when it comes to arts, and crafts. When I learned to make a rainbow loom fishtail bracelet the day she was at her dad’s, I couldn’t wait to teach her how I did it by hand. But, she wasn’t herself after coming back from a fabulous weekend. Last week, she came home telling me her friend taught her how to do it by hand. I think I am more proud of her that she learned something on her own. She did a couple after I cleaned our patio. She was so proud that she wore it out!

My daughter, future crafter.

An heirLoom

Rainbow looms are the rage these days. No, I haven’t had the chance to buy her one…it didn’t make the Christmas list. But, we bought some pack @ Dollar Tree, and 99c store. So I decided to play around with it, because this is something that I could do way back in the 80’s -90’s where I grew up….and because it’s me, I enhanced it a bit using clasps for the necklace. I don’t know when she’s going to wear these, but here’s 2 of the loom necklaces I made for her.

Saving A DIY FAIL

For Father’s Day, the plan was to make a key holder. That hasn’t changed. The other plan was to use materials that’s left over from previous DIY’s. For starters, there’s leftover mini duct tape from the cowgirl headband I made, tons of jumbo craft sticks. The only thing I bought was a pack of self adhesive hooks from the 99c store.
My daughter has diligently worked on the sides one at a time. I somehow managed to have her wrap duct tape while watching Wizards Of Waverly Place at the same time, or make her to it in the morning before going to school. However, we ran out of leopard print duct tape..so she’s short one side. She didn’t want to make a triangle key holder. What to do? As you can see – we bought a different duct tape pattern.

Now, the question is what to do with the 3 pcs that she made?
Answer: Her necklace holder.

made out of 4 jumbo craft sticks, wrapped with duct tape, and self adhesive hooks

St. Patrick’s Day Mini Series: Necklace

I planned to make our themed crafts per holiday, but when I realized that St. Patrick’s and Easter fall on the same month, I made the decision to lose the lesser holiday [at least in my home]. Then my son saw a beaded necktie @ Jo Ann’s, made a point that it’s at 40% off, [can’t argue with that] yeah – I bought it. BUT, guilt seeped in that I didn’t get my daughter anything. So after thinking over and over what to get for her that she can wear to school on that day, I decided to just make her a necklace, but something that I really worked hard for….

I spent $1.49 for a yard of green tulle, $1.00 for the carnation, $1.00 for the purple necklace @ Dollar Tree, used left over jump rings from previous purchases, and chain….less than $4.00 total

She couldn’t wait until St. Patrick’s Day that she already wore it on the way to do an errand. I love it when she’s proud of me.

***UPDATE 3/1/2013***
I finally found an image for the source of inspiration for this craft. I saw this dress @ Target but I didn’t buy the dress because I knew that I wanted to make the necklace, and that my daughter already has a dress lined up for Easter.
But I wanted to still point out where this idea came from…

Valentine Series: Part 4 – Ready To Wear

Doily Shirts!

Rinoa made her shirt – there’s another one that she already wore, I’ll update the post with a pic. But this one she’s wearing today

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I made this one for me – you can tell I’m not into the whole red and pink thing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jewelry
This was a last minute project. I wanted her to have a new necklace….

Headband
From a headband that she already has, and left over table scatter

 

 

 

 

 

 

***UPDATE***
This is actually the first doily shirt that Rinoa made. She happened to have worn the shirt even before I got the chance to take a pic. I remembered to finally take one after washing this a second time.

011913: Lost and Found

A few years ago, a co-worker gave me a bunch beaded pony tails similar to the image below. through the years, it broke due to my thick hair. at the time, I didn’t have the need to reuse the beads, so yeah – I threw it away.

A couple of months ago, while looking for something at my desk, I found some beads that I didn’t even know I saved. I brought them home thinking I would make a necklace out of it for Christmas. I set it aside. I didn’t find the beads until two weeks ago. I remembered the Pretty Little Liars episode where Emily’s character was wearing a beaded necklace and I thought I should make it for my daughter since I didn’t have a lot. I made it the day after I made the charm bracelet, but I forgot about it until I saw the necklace this morning.

So here’s my daughter’s first DIY necklace for 2013.

Before the blog….

I made a page of How To’s – thinking that this blog would be a tutorial. After thinking about it, I really don’t have new ideas that I can proudly say hey – this is new and this is how you do it. What I did was ,hmm I have all these stuff, how can I organize it – cheaply? So I google and found ideas and tried my best to make it cheap as possible. lol. So, with that thought, I’m taking down the How To page…but I still want to let myself know that I’ve been DIYing before the blog.

Hair clip holder: This was a 100th day project for my daughter’s Kindergarten class. I wanted her to bring something else other than beads, puzzles, or the common stuff kids bring for this day. So I thought, she should bring 100 hair clips. Got the hair clips….but how to put it together? Solution….Dollar Tree wigs, and a poster board. Didn’t think of this as a DIY at the time. [Picture coming soon]

Earring Holder: I keep losing my earrings. That, and my daughter will be getting her ears pierced so I will need to separate hers and mine. To this day, I still haven’t updated the frame. I can’t make up my mind if I want to paint it, or do something else.

Necklace Holder: Where the wall is the only place I can hang them- asap until I decide to make an actual DIY holder

011413: Cleaning up inventory….

Things have settled down quite a bit, and the kiddos are back in school. Somehow while organizing stuff, there are still a few charms from the keychains that I bought from my local 97c store left over. Then I found a charm bracelet [with one charm!] that I got from the 99c store that I was going to use as a stocking stuffer that I totally forgot about. I started working on it, but it was bedtime – so I decided to bring it to work to finish it. I decided to take the original charm off this one and maybe one of these days it will find a new chain to be on.

Here’s the first charm bracelet for my daughter for 2013 from my inventory in 2012.

Until next time – Happy DIY!

2012: Year In Review

What a year it has been! What started out as a thought of not spending too much money for a $75.00 pc of jewelry that a-soon- to- be- 6- year- old- girl- wants- to- have, turned out to be my personal accomplishment of the year.

I named the blog DIY OF THE WEEK to push me into crafting something new and post on Sundays like clockwork. I guess craftiness, not to mention- TIME and BUDGET does not work that way, thanks in part with this life called single parenthood. I will admit that there were times that I could not get inspired or motivated to work on something even though I had planned it, and had the materials to do it. To this day, there’s a DIY Barbie couch sitting under one of my tables, waiting to be wrapped in decorative paper, photographed, and blogged about. My daughter has been using it the way it is on a regular basis, which is the whole point of the DIY project to begin with. Still, one of the many purposes this blog is to keep track of what I’ve done and to motivate me to do more.

I honestly thought that after the jewelry frenzy, and a couple of Barbie furniture, that this blog was done and over with. My head was stuck on just working with jewelry pieces that I lost sight of what the meaning of DIY stands for. With 3 followers, including me – it did kind of bogged me down a bit. If it wasn’t for my co-workers who decorated for Halloween and we all got a “little” carried away, I probably wouldn’t have been re-inspired to make DIY’s not to mention DIY decorations.

Thankfully, the ideas didn’t stop with the Halloween tree. Thankfully, my kids became interested and wanted to get down and dirty with the crafts I’m making. Thankfully, they didn’t want to stop doing DIY. If it wasn’t for budget issues, I most likely would’ve come up with some Thanksgiving décor too.

So, let’s take a trip down memory lane on how I just wanted to make a similar necklace, to realizing that my daughter has too many Barbie dolls but no furniture, to getting inspired with DIY Holiday décor.

I would like to thank my children, Andy and Rinoa. If it wasn’t for both of you, my life would most definitely be boring. If it wasn’t for you guys asking for things I can’t afford this year, I probably wouldn’t have been inspired to try to make it myself. Thank you for finding what I do interesting, and want to be a part of it. Thank you for my co-workers who re-ignited my spark, and I was able to provide our department with a gift from my heart. Thank you for the 300+visitors that found this little blog, the bloggers who took the time to click on that like button. You guys [and gals] are also part of my motivation to keep crafting and blogging so that I have something to post on a regular basis.

Please keep checking in – there’s something always to DIY, ergo – it will be blogged!

Until then,

HAPPY DIY

092312: Belated Birthday Surprise

I finished my daughter’s necklace the last minute. She spent her actual birthday weekend with her dads [her day finally landed on his weekend! he deserves a full birthday weekend with her!!] She came back with pierced ears too! She was so proud telling her dad that I can make her earrings. She loved all her pieces and now wants me to make her more earrings.

This was the piece that she wanted. For some reason, I could not find her birthstone rhinestone chain so I could not recreate this, but for “copyright” purposes, I opted not to make it look as “copied” as possible. Besides, I don’t want to send her to school all blinged up either. so i made it as simple as possible.

My version:

bracelet image coming soon…i have to find where she actually misplaced it.