Erica Deuel, Author at Spoonful of Imagination

I Am Your Biggest Fan {Valentines}

February 12, 2014 By Erica Deuel 1 Comment

Do you exchange valentines with your kids? We do. I love helping them make valentines for their friends, but I get really excited to see what they make each other.

You might remember the Birds of A Feather valentines I made for my kids last year. This year I made these little paper fans to say that “I am their biggest fan.”

As parents we should be our kids biggest advocate, supporter, fan, right!? On Valentines, we will have a fun dinner and all place our valentines on one another’s place setting. Because Matt and I are fancy like that and agreed years ago not to celebrate Valentines Day with a big dinner date.

I bet you have most of these supplies already around your house. I used some left over Christmas wrapping paper, scrapbook paper, glue, scissors, and a few popsicle sticks.

I made a little accordion fan with just plain white paper to test the length of paper I needed to make the size fan I wanted. After I cut my paper to size, I folded them into accordion fans.

I then glued popsicle sticks on the inside flaps of my fans to give them a little weight and stability.

Next, I placed drops of glue in the folds at one end of the fan and used a clothes pin to hold the folds in place while the glue dried. This allowed for my fan to always look like a fan, even when it’s not being used.

While the glue was drying, I printed out a little message and used my 2″ hole puncher to cut them out. The final step was using some string to attach my cards to the fan.

They were so simple, yet I know my young kids will love them. You can embellish them as much as you want! I think ribbon glued around to give them more of a handle would be pretty cute too!

Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day or keep it simple, and more kid centered too!?

We are having crazy ice/snow storms where we live. I hope you are staying warm and safe! Thanks so much for stopping in!

Kid’s Picture Frame DIY Craft & Party Favor

February 11, 2014 By Erica Deuel 10 Comments

Kid parties can be expensive. Can I hear an AMEN!? Yes. I will pretend I heard you relate. I love throwing my kids’ birthday parties, but everything adds up. Plates and paper goods, games, decor, food, and goodie bags all add up quickly.

Something that I have learned is that if you can combine a few things to act as TWO things you can save some money and stress. What I mean by that is why not have the “game” or “activity” also be the party favor? It not only gives you something fun to do, but also something to send home.

Recently I was asked to prep a craft for my son’s homeschool co-op class to do together. I was all too eager and excited. Crafting with kids is a great love of mine. I secretly wish I could still be in elementary school and do all the fun crafts and activities.

I wanted to come up with a craft that was fun, required a minimal mess, and would last longer than a week on the frig. After seeing my talented friends’ photo message board post, I knew I could alter their idea to come up with this fun party craft. Note: If you like this idea, but want an adult version-PLEASE go check out my friends’ post!

The first step was to take a 2″ x 4″ and use my Ryobi Miter saw to cut it into 4″ segments. This created a nice size square base for our photo holders.

I then sand the edges of the wood blocks with my Ryobi Sander to create smooth edges.

Next, I spray painted each block a fun color with Rustoleum spray paint. I picked Valentine’s Day colors since this was for a Valentine’s Day class party, but you could paint any color to coordinate with your party theme.

Once the blocks were dry, I used super glue to attach the clothespins to the wood blocks. After the clothespins dried and were secure, my prep work was done! I now had the base for a fun, perfect kid’s craft!

I simply gathered some pretty scrapbook paper, glitter glue, stickers, and tape and the blocks were ready to be embellished! I love how the kids can cut, use their imaginations, and create something fun and useful with this craft. These little photo holders would be so cute sitting in their bedroom and be something they can be proud of and use all year (not just as holiday decor).

I think each picture frame would still turn out so differently, even though the same supplies are being used. You could see each kids’ personality by how they decorate their picture frame. I decorated the front and back of one, to give the class an idea of what you can do.

These would be a cute way to display those Valentines they receive at a school party, hold reminders/notes, or a school picture. I’m going to take a class picture of my son’s class and print each child out a copy to use in their picture frame holders.

The best part of this craft!? I had most of the supplies. I picked up a 2″ x 4″ piece of wood for about $4, a package of clothes pins for $1, and a handful of sticker and paper things from the Target Dollar bin and I had a fun craft for 16 kids. That’s awesome!

How do you keep kid party costs down!? I love how when we use our imaginations we can come up with some thrifty ideas! I’d love to hear yours!

My Little Pony {Craft}

February 8, 2014 By Erica Deuel 2 Comments

It might get messy. It might take a few steps and seem tedious, but in the end you could have one really happy My Little Pony fan grinning ear to ear.

This craft was a bit of an act of love for my little girl. She loves My Little Ponies. I think she has about six ponies, and they go everywhere with us. There are squeals of joy when ever she sees a My Little Pony shirt, card, show, etc.

One day we were painting and she says she is going to paint Fluttershy (one of the My Little Ponies) and I got an idea. I gave her Fluttershy’s colors to paint with and let her go at it.

She had a blast painting her Fluttershy. If you have a new three-year old, you know her painting looked nothing like Fluttershy. Yet, she was proud of it, and it truly was beautiful. I have so many paintings and “pictures” of hers like this. I decided to help her transform her art into a Fluttershy.

I found a Fluttershy image on google, saved it to word, and stretched the image so it ran off my print area. It took moving the image around my print area five times to print the complete image.

After I printed off my Fluttershy, I taped the puzzle pieces of her together, cut the image out, and laid it on top of Reagan’s painting. I then traced the pony onto the painting, and cut it out.

I then had a painted silhouette image of Fluttershy. I used the paper print out as my stencil. I kept cutting off pieces of my stencil Fluttershy so I could trace those exact lines onto Reagan’s painting to get the most similar image possible. This was wayyyyy easier for me than trying to draw the pony freehand.

Once I had some pencil lines of Fluttershy’s features, I went over them in Sharpie. I ended up cutting out eyes and a wing from a different part of Reagan’s painting, and I glued them onto Fluttershy’s body to give her pony another pop of color and texture.

The next step was the most tedious. I glued yarn to give her pony a more “real” My Little Pony look for the mane and tail. This added another texture that I love. I added a strip of glue and then laid a strip of yarn on top. As I went, I realized it was faster to add a bunch of glue and then lay a bunch of yarn strips on top.

Once all the yarn was in place and dry, our Fluttershy was complete! We think she turned out so cute, and Reagan wanted to carry her all over :).

I had to convince her she was safer to hang on the wall. We ended up placing her in an Ikea frame and did a background matte like I did in this cheap wall art. I love all the color and textures and how this piece just adds another fun touch to Reagan’s bedroom.

So, what about you!? Do you have a My Little Pony fan? You could easily take this concept and turn it into your child’s favorite character.

Thank you so much for stopping in! I hope you have a great weekend!

Felt Flower Tutorial

February 5, 2014 By Erica Deuel Leave a Comment

For the love of felt!

I am all about color. I have found felt and flower projects are a simple way to add that pop of color to an ordinary project or room.

To make this felt flower, I simply cut eight petals out of felt. Each petal was roughly 2.5″ long.

I used wool felt balls as the center of my flower and hot glued one petal at a time on to it. After I had one row of petals around my felt ball, I simply hot glued another row behind.

Once both layers of petals were glued in place, I turned my flower head over. I used sharp scissors and snipped a slice in the felt ball. I created a little envelope fold by doing this. I placed hot glue and then a dowel rod into the hole. After holding the rod in place for a few minutes to let it set, I let it go and had the base of my flower complete!

After I created a few of these flowers, I decided add one more touch to give it a more finished look. I simply used some chiffon left over from making my chiffon flowers and hot glued a little of it in place and wrapped it all the way down my dowel rod. I used a little more glue to hold it in place at the bottom, and it was done!

I think these flowers are so cute by themselves in a vase! As I had them posed in a vase in our dinning room, my daughter came by and wanted to smell them and started waving them around saying she was tinker bell. She is a blast. She gave me the idea that these sweet flowers could be sweet party favors for a fairy birthday party. There are so many possibilities, if we use our imaginations!

If you like this felt flower, I have two other designs you might enjoy! Take a look at this felt flower and my burlap flower design that uses wool felt balls in the center.

For the next three people that buy one of my Spoonful Tribe Craft Kits, I will place one of these flowers in your box. How would you use your flower? So, hurry, click here and buy your kit right now to ensure you get one of these flowers in your kit!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

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