Posts Tagged ‘crafts’

Make Your Own Prayer Box

Friday, April 1st, 2016

prayer-box

A good friend gave me a prayer box as a gift. She and her daughter decorated an Altoid tin and placed a pad of paper and tiny pencil inside for prayer requests. Doesn’t the prayer box look lovely?

How to Make Your Own Prayer Box

Step 1: First you will need to buy a tin with candy in it. Eat the candy or give it away.

Step 2: Glue some cloth or scrapbook paper to the top of the tin. Tacky glue and hot glue work the best. Keep in mind the favorite colors of the person you will give the prayer box to, or match it to the home decor so that she will be happy to leave it out.

Step 3: Use a black marker to write “Prayer Box” on top, if you used scrapbook paper. If you used cloth, use cloth markers or puff paint.

Step 4: Glue cloth or scrapbook paper to the inside top of the tin. Type “Prayer Requests,” a Scripture verse about prayer, or a short poem on a sheet of paper, cut it out, and glue it on top of the inside lid.

Step 5: Place a pad of paper and a small pencil in the box.

You are now finished making your own prayer box. Either use it yourself or make prayer boxes for your friends. You can keep track of people’s prayer requests by writing one request on each piece of paper. You can also write your worries on the pieces of paper, and give those requests to God.

To follow my prayer posts, like my Prayer page on Facebook, YouTube, and Google+.

Drawing with a 3D Pen

Sunday, February 28th, 2016

drawing-with-a-3d-pen

I received an AtmosFlare 3D pen for free and was compensated for an honest review.

When I found out this AtmosFlare 3D pen existed, my kids wanted me to get it so that we could make 3D sculptures. It comes with red and blue ink cartridges, so we ordered a few more colors before we got started. They have 12 colors to choose from: red, light pink, pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, black, gray, and white.

Putting the ink cartridge into the pen was pretty self-explanatory, as I show you in the video demonstration below. You take the cap off the ink cartridge and screw on the nozzle. Then place the cartridge into the pen. The colorful instruction pamphlet is simple and easy to understand. A battery is included, which I thought was nice.

I used black card stock paper as the base for each of the 3D sculptures. Black makes a good contrast for taking photos of your sculptures and ensures that your table doesn’t get junk stuck to it.

atmosflare-abstract-art

Drawing with a 3D Pen (Video Demonstration)

Here is our first attempt using the AtmosFlare 3D pen for creating sculptures. We figured out at the very beginning that you don’t want to sculpt too fast. But no worries if you make mistakes: just pinch it off like I show you in this video:

Tips for Using the AtmosFlare 3D Pen

If you watched the demonstration video above, you will get a feel for the pen before it arrives in the mail. These are a few tips we would give someone who is trying it for the first time:

  • For your first sculpture, try making a straight line starting from the bottom and working your way up. When you do this, you will see how fast you can go to make a solid straight line. The slower you go, the thicker the line.
  • You can pinch off all your mistakes, so don’t be scared.
  • All designs need to begin at the bottom and move upward, obviously. It might be easier to grab a real item and place it in front of you. We had a real lantern to look at when attempting to sculpt a lantern.
  • When turning a corner, don’t turn too fast or it will be too thin and start sagging. Don’t turn too slow or the sculpture will stick to the nozzle. I used an empty nozzle on the table to cut the nozzle away from the sculpture. Then wipe the nozzle off with a baby wipe or wet paper towel to make sure it is not sticky so that you can continue.
  • I noticed my kids occasionally wiped off the pen on the card stock paper instead of using a wipe. I think the wipe is more effective because all of the stickiness is removed.

Make-a-tree-atmosflare-pen

Make a Tree with an AtmosFlare 3D Pen

To make a tree, begin with a brown tree trunk. Starting at the bottom, make lines upward until you have the desired thickness for your tree trunk. Branch off around the middle of the tree to add interest. Then make smaller and smaller branches until it looks like a spectacular winter tree.

Switch to a green cartridge. Now make green leaf blobs on the branches. As soon as it’s filled out, you are finished with your tree. (Watch how my son sculpts a tree in the video above.)

how-to-make-a-crown-AtmosFlare-3D

Make a Crown with an AtmosFlare 3D Pen

To make a crown, start with a simple head band. Make your first small arch in the center of the headband. The easiest way to make an arch is to do a vertical line, another vertical line, and then join the two together at the top. Whenever I made an arch in one swoop, it didn’t look as good as the ones I made with two vertical lines first before the horizontal line.

Make these loops all the way along the front of the head band. Make three taller loops on the front at the top. Grab some purple ink and make a rose in the front center. Grab the yellow ink and make dots along the bottom to look like jewels. Now your crown is finished.

Here is a crown my 10-year-old daughter made. It has an insect theme:

Rachels-3D-crownShe wanted me to make her a beautiful princess crown, so I made her the loopy one to make her happy. The 3D pen box says Ages 14+, but my 10-year-old daughter got better at it when she made this flower:

atmosflare-flower

One of my sons created this spaceship. I thought it looked cool.

armosflare-3d-pen-spaceship

Our experience with the 3D pen was super fun. If you have extra ink cartridges from the very beginning, you can play with it for a while before making an actual sculpture.

AtmosFlare 3D Pen Giveaway

Enter below to win a free 3D pen from AtmosFlare. If you would like to see other sculptures to get inspiration, follow AtmosFlare on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. And if you don’t win the contest, you can always buy the reasonably-priced pen here. You can also get the pen at Toys “R” Us and Best Buy.

 atmosflare-

How to Make Beeswax Candles

Monday, April 27th, 2015

how-to-make-beeswax-candles

If you are wondering how to make beeswax candles, here is a step-by-step tutorial. All you need is some beeswax, candle wick, and ribbons or embellishments. We got ours in a kit, but you can buy them separately if you want. Beeswax candles are super easy to make, as far as gifts for people that your children can make.

The sheets of beeswax look like this:

sheets-of-beeswax

Cut the wick to the right size, lay it down, and roll up the sheet. You’re done!

wrapping-beeswax

Here is a 6-year-old, rolling the candle. See how easy it is?

how-to-roll-beeswax

You can make the candle as short or as long as you want.

roll-the-beeswax

If you want it to look like a square, press it against the table on 4 sides.

square-beeswax-candle

You can cut the wax with scissors or just fold it, and it will break on the fold.

green-beeswax

You can make a stack of squares.

stack-of-beeswax

Then put the wick into the middle, and mash it down. Okay, maybe this candle looks a bit weird.  Let’s move on.

beeswax-candles

If you have a triangle of beeswax, you will get a tapered look when you roll it.

 

rolling-a-candle

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial on how to make beeswax candles. See how easy they are to make? Even your toddler can do it!

make-a-beeswax-candle

Make Your Own Bowling Pins

Monday, February 16th, 2015

make-your-own-bowling-pins-2Today I will show you how to make your own bowling pins. You need six plastic bottles, spray paint in two colors, and a ball. You will also need a piece of white card stock paper, a pencil, newspaper, and scissors.

First you collect the plastic bottles. Two-liter pop bottles work well. Remove the labels. Take off the caps, but keep them to put on after painting.

You will want to spread out newspaper under your pop bottles before you shake your spray paint cans and spray the pop bottles. I chose to do three green and three blue.

plastic-bowling-pinsNow you will want to make a stencil out of the white card stock paper. With a pencil, draw some large simple designs. Then cut out the designs with scissors. Just stab the scissors into the center of the design and cut around the shapes. Now tape the stencil paper to each pop bottle, and use the inverse color to spray paint the design.

Let the paint dry and remove the stencil paper. Screw the lids back onto the bottles. Your bowling pins are complete.

bowling-pinsYou will want to go bowling on a flat surface like a hard floor or a back deck. Grab the ball (we used a wiffle ball), and go bowling. May the best contestant win!

dropped-bowling-pins