Crafting Secrets

Get a Step-by-Step Guide for Craft Projects For Any Age And Ability, Made EASY 101 Easy Craft Project Ideas.. -Let me know how you like it.

How to teach young children to make a clay Stegosaurus dinosaur arts and crafts project;

get expert tips and advice on arts and crafts for kids at preschool through elementary

school ages in this free instructional video.

All new Molly Monkey directions with the face embroidered on before sewing that piece to the head.

Also, if you are having trouble with the placement for the face, you can print an extra pattern piece for the face, then cut the eyes out and poke holes with a large pin on the lines for the nose and mouth.

At long, long last, I’ve discovered the perfect the Molly Monkey pattern, and the link is down below here for you to download, gratis.

Uncompressed, it turns into a nine page PDF file, which can be opened and printed by a variety of PDF readers, like Acrobat.

Get the whole thing with the Molly Monkey pattern here at no cost to you

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Kids Delight: Playsilks

I finally worked my way into a friend’s house with a microwave to dye some playsilks with Kool-Aid…

Fun, F-U-N,  -F U N . . .

We thought we’d dye two scarves at a time in each color, but it turned out that there was just room for one at a time.

And the color from the Kool-Aid was gone from the water after one silk was dyed so we couldn’t reuse it.

Here’s the gist of the project: First soak all undyed silks in hot water with a dash of vinegar (we used distilled white vinegar) for half an hour.  Then for each silk, mix 2 cups water, 1/2 cup vinegar, and 3 packets of Kool-Aid in a glass bowl–the kids helped with this part.

You’re supposed to let it sit for three minutes, stir, then repeat the microwaving and sitting three times total for each silk.

Make Kool-Aid Playsilks with Your Kids

Others had commented on how dark the silks get and I wanted to try for a lighter playsilk, so I just did the whole process once for my silks.  Rachel wanted to try two rounds of microwaving for hers, although I don’t think the color was appreciably different.

Get ALL the details in this article: Kool-Aid Playsilks

Art and craft

Art and craft convey the inner feeling of the artist. Art is a talent which each person has to discover and it is the indication of the changing time, ideas, thoughts, science, technology and overall culture of the land concern. Craft, on the other hand, has much more to do with working with hands and involves skill, technique, and practice.

Wood carving could be defined as cutting and carving the wood in a desired way. Carving means design or cutting by chipping away at a surface. It is necessary to first identify the texture of wood before the process of carving is initiated. Wood used for carving can be classified into two kinds, namely, hardwood and softwood.

Hardwood -refers to wood that is obtained from deciduous broadleaved trees, which shed their leaves annually. Examples of hardwood trees are teak, oak, rosewood, sandalwood, walnut etc.

Softwood- it comes from trees bearing cones, most of which are evergreen. It is ideal for carving, since it is easy to cut, doesn’t splinter, glues well and is good for laminating. Softwood includes pine, cedar, and fir trees.

Wood carving Techniques

There are various techniques to carve wood. Wood carving may be broadly classified into four types:

Relief Carving: it is a type of wood carving that is basically a two dimensional carving, used for things like wall plaques and household decorations.
Chip Carving: it is one of the oldest and simplest types of wood carving. This is a method of literally removing chips from the wood to form a design or geometric pattern.  Chip carving is used to decorate many household items such as music boxes, spoons, hope chests, beams, borders and ceilings.

Carving in the Round: It is a three dimensional type of wood carving.  This type of wood carving opens the door to every tool you can imagine and any kind of wood.   Some of the more popular figures to carve are birds, people and fish.
Whittling: Whittling is the art of taking a piece of raw wood and carving it into shapes by using a knife.  It is reminiscent of a “simpler” time.

Carving Tools

A set of tools is extremely essential to carve wood into desired shapes and designs. The most common tools used by craftsmen to carve Wood:

Carving knives are basic carving tools. They are available in various shapes and sizes.
Chisels have a cutting edge, and are forced into the Wood to produce carved patterns. Square and skew are the two kinds of chisels.
Gouges are chisels with a partly cylindrical blade. They have curved cutting edges.
Rasps and files are used for detailed carving. They have separate conical teeth, and are excellent for shaping decoys.
Grinding Tools are also called Rotary tools, these are one of the most commonly used and preferred tools. Grinding tools should be used in ventilated areas as they generate a lot of dust.
V-tools are known as parting tools, have cutting edges in the shape of a ‘V’. V-tools are used to make sharp incisions and fine carving.

The wood carving helps to develop creativity and imagination by seeing the world around us and its tradition. The creative process itself gives us many aesthetic experiences and the final effect gives us a huge satisfaction.

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Art and craft is not only meant for children but even many adults have adopted arts and crafts as their hobby. Art and craft provides mental peace to your mind and enhances your inner creativity which usually gets uncovered with other things of life. Being a responsible father or mother you always want your child to enjoy his childhood and to provide him all forms of entertainment. However the intelligent parents will avoid communication mediums like television and video games and will give more emphasis on arts and crafts.

Buying arts and crafts for your child is not a difficult task. There are many sources available but online art and craft store emerges as the best option. This is because if you go to a local store nearby your area then you will only get to see limited collection of art and craft items but online stores provide wide range of art and craft items which gives an opportunity to select the best one suiting your child’s ability and interest.

Convenience is one of the other benefits associated with buying arts and crafts online. Parents usually don’t have enough time to take their child out for shopping so internet acts as the perfect source eliminating limited variety and crowd hassles at local city store.

Online store also helps to buy arts and crafts at cheaper prices as many online stores offers discounts, coupons and festive offers to lure the potential customers. Online buying also gives you an opportunity to compare the prices of arts and crafts available at different online stores to get the best deal at cheaper price.

Earlier online shopping was considered to be costlier because of the shipping costs attached to the items, however now most of the online stores offer free shipping to customers who shop for a certain amount from their store.

Handbags are now a popular fashion accessory as most women love to carry bags of matching color and design with their dress. There are various kinds of fashion handbags in the market that can complement your dresses perfectly. Now you can find new range of fashion handbags that can be customized by using personal logos. These bags can be used as bridal gift as you can place a bride’s initial or wedding date on the monogram.

Evening clutch bag is one of the stylish fashion handbags that can complement your appearance in evening parties. These bags have sufficient space that can hold your personal belongings like mobile phone, money, credit cards etc. which you would like to carry to such parties. Many women wish to carry fashion handbags that have unique designs. They can decorate a fashion handbag easily at their home by following some easy steps given below.

Using rhinestones and semiprecious stones can add a sparkling look to your bag. You can make beautiful floral patterns on the front flap of your bag with colorful rhinestones. You can either make a single design of reasonable size or can put several small designs throughout the bag. You can also buy cabochons from bead stores to embellish your bag. You must use a fabric glue to attach rhinestones, cabochons etc on your bag.

Attaching filigree can give vintage look to your fashion handbag. In case you are unable to find real brass filigree, you can create one by purchasing filigree from a craft store. Paint the filigree with antiquing solution to give it a metallic look.

You can embellish you evening bag by painting it with fabric colors. In case you have limited artistic talents, you can use a stencil to paint your bag. You will find variety of stencils in your local art and craft store and can mix two or three patterns together to produce a unique design.

The idea is to use creative designs to give a unique evening bag that onlooker will admire. However, you can also find plenty of unique styles and designs of fashionable bags at a reputed store. Most of the authorized dealers of handbag have online presence. Hence, you can easily shop for their products online.