Mother Crafter

Last Minute DIY Valentines!

February 13, 2012 at 14:04 | Posted in Crafts - DIY, Stimulus, Tutorials | Leave a comment
Tags: anti-valentine, Cookies, Crafts, diy valentines, happy valentine, last minute gifts, Valentine Day, valentine s day

Leaving everything until the last minute? Don’t panic. Here are some ideas for you to whip out the day before Valentine’s Day. Or if you really like to live dangerously, tomorrow.

Here are some cute free printables. My Elephant Love Postcards are one of my most popular post, and they were featured on the Stylelist section of The Huffington Post last week (I am so happy about it!)

Grab some tea bags you have around and make this cute idea.

Make a bookmark for your book lovers.

I love these heartbreakers.

These pins are adorable too.

You can also bake some Chocolate Orange cookies. I made these last week, they are so yummy!

And lastly, a funny one for the anti-Valentine.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! Lots of love to you.

DIY Valentine: Chocolate Orange Heart Cookies

February 10, 2012 at 17:39 | Posted in Crafts - DIY | 1 Comment
Tags: baking, Chocolate, Chocolate Orange, Cookies, DIY Valentine, Heart, Maizena, Recipe, sweet valentine, Valentine Day, Woven Heart

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner! Continuing with the DIY Valentine series, this week I baked some yummy Chocolate Orange cookies.

I got the recipe from a old, old booklet from a famous brand of corn starch in Argentina, Mi primer recetario Maizena. I think I got it when I was 11 years old!!! Ok, forget the old, old part now

They are call Masitas Secas and here is the recipe:

6 oz corn starch – 3.5 oz flour – pinch of salt – 5 oz sugar – zest from 1 orange – 2.6 oz unsalted butter – 1 egg – 1/2 cup orange juice.

Sift the cornstarch onto a clean surface or big bowl with the flour and salt. Make a hole in the middle and put the sugar,orange zest, butter and egg into it. Using your hands, work the ingredients until they are blended all together.

Add the orange juice and form a smooth dough (you might need to add more flour). Wrap it in film and let it rest in the fridge for half an hour. Sprinkle flour onto the counter and roll-out the dough with a (also sprinkled with flour) rolling pin to 1/4 inch thick. Using a cookie cutter, cut hearts shapes and placed at least 1-inch apart on a greased baking sheet. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F for 12 minutes or until cookies are just beginning to turn brown around the edges. Let sit for 2 minutes and transfer to a cooling rack.

The recipe said to make a glaze with orange juice and confectioners’ sugar. Being a choco-aholic, I didn’t do that. It is Valentine’s Day after all, and chocolate and romance have always been synonymous. So… I melted chocolate chips instead. And summerged all the cookies in it. Gulp! Yum!

Then, for final presentation, I put them in a jar with lace around to complete the package.

A sweet Valentine to enjoy. Mi cookies are already gone by now

If you are looking for more ideas to make your Valentines, check the rest of the series, including the Free Printable Elephant Love Postcards (featured in The Huffington Post!), the Woven Heart Racquet, and the Map of Love canvas.

I craft all night and party everyday at these Craft Parties. Check them out and party with us!

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DIY Valentines: Map of Love

January 26, 2012 at 18:42 | Posted in Crafts - DIY, Stimulus | 10 Comments
Tags: awesome valentine, blank canvas, Crafts, DIY Valentine, Do it yourself, Heart, Love Map, Mod Podge, Valentine, Valentine Day, valentine s day, Valentines Day

A couple of months ago I saw this fantastic frame in Pinterest and I knew right away I wanted to make one.

I think the idea is wonderful! And very romantic and cute, so I waited until now to make it so I can give it to my husband for Valentine’s Day. It is an early gift, but he doesn’t mind

Since I pinned it, I’ve been on the look-out to find some maps at my favorite recycle store here in the Bay Area, The East Bay Depot for Creative Re-Use. Not only do they have amazing crap all over the store, they are super inexpensive! I found the maps for 0.30 cents each! (I also found a powerful blender in like-new condition for $6, just in case you were wondering. Jealous now?)

Once I got the maps I needed, Michael donated a blank canvas to me from his art supplies and I put manos a la obra!

I painted the canvas black, cut-out the hearts out of the maps making sure you can see the name of the special cities. In my case, Barcelona, Chicago and the SF Bay Area. I printed the words in a font I liked (adding happily ever after for the last heart), and glued them along with the hearts to the canvas. I applied Mod Podge Matte-Mat to everything, let it dry overnight, and… Finito!

If you need a visual tutorial, visit Mimi Moz. Thank you, Danielle, for the stimulus!

I craft all night and party everyday at these Craft Parties. Check them out and party with us!

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DIY Valentines: Free! Printable Postcards

January 16, 2012 at 13:28 | Posted in Crafts - DIY, Free Printables | 3 Comments
Tags: Do it yourself, free printables, Valentine, DIY Valentine, Valentine Day, Valentine's cards, free cards, postcards, valentine postcards

Here are some (very) cute Valentine postcards you can download for free.

Keep checking in (or better yet, subscribe to my blog so you won’t miss anything) as I will continue with the DIY Valentine series until February 14th, posting more awesomeness.

Are you making your Valentines? What are you making?

I craft all night and party everyday at these Craft Parties. Check them out and party with me!

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Paloma’s DIY First Birthday!

January 13, 2012 at 00:11 | Posted in Crafts - DIY, Stimulus | 4 Comments
Tags: bithday party, diy party, dove, dove theme, Favors, first birthday party, kids party, low budget party, Paloma

My baby turned 1! Hard to believe she is not a baby anymore. This past year was amazing, and watching her grow and develop each day was pretty interesting.

We had a party on our house to celebrate. We actually celebrated all week. So much fun! We wanted to keep it simple, DIY (of course) and low budget. It was very special to made everything ourselves; we wanted the party to reflect our love and care about our precious and amazing baby… oops… toddler! she is a toddler now…

The only thing we didn’t make was the invite. I freaked out 0ne day about not having the time to make them so I ordered them. I didn’t want to spend money and time printing them (remember I was freaking out!), so I ordered a printable design on Etsy and sent them by email. This is the one we chose from MommiesInk. Check the rest of her designs, they are adorable and she is a SAHM too!

So then we decided her first birthday party was going to be a dove theme (for those that do not know Spanish, Paloma means dove). I went to Michael’s for inspiration and navigated the web for a couple of nights. So here are the pictures of what we did (I totally recommend having someone else take pictures; no matter how much you think you or your hubby are going to be able to take pictures at the party, learn from my mistake: you WON’T).

Remember the garlands I wanted to make for my birthday but didn’t have time? Well, I made them. And they were fantastic.

We’ve been taking pictures of her every month with a stuffed elephant to show her growth. We printed them and I made tags and glued them to tiny clothe pins so I could hang them. Cute!

I decorated her high chair with bunting.

Michael made a CD with Paloma’s favorite songs (both in Spanish and English) to hand them out as a party favor. Some of the songs in the playlist included Dan Zanes, Taj Mahal, and Maria Elena Walsh. Also as party favors, I made felt doves. Everyone loved them.

I was going to make dove cake pops but then I got realistic and made cupcakes instead I made kid and adult sizes in three diferent flavors: chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, all with cream cheese frosting. Michael helped me cut the doves with the same paper punch (best idea ever!) out of Wilton edible sheets. And I also baked sugar cookies (yes, dove shaped too).

She had a fabulous and fun time!

There is something magic about making everything yourself. Yes, it is hard work, but it is so worth it! The energy and love you put into it really reflects in every detail.

Is your baby turning 1 soon? What party ideas do you have?

DIY Valentines:Woven Heart Racquet

January 8, 2012 at 23:26 | Posted in Crafts - DIY, Tutorials | 10 Comments
Tags: awesome valentine, craft, DIY Valentine, Heart, Tennis Racquet, Valentine, valentine s day, Valentines Day, Weaving, Woven Heart

Valentine’s day is almost a month away! From now until then, I will post projects and ideas for you to make your own Valentines.

The first project is this pretty cool woven heart racquet.

This was actually a birthday gift for my friend Jennifer, who loves to play tennis and is really pretty good at it (she kicks ass). But it can also be a nice Valentine for anybody.

To make it, you just need to go to your favorite thrift store and look for a (preferably vintage) tennis racquet. I found mine at Goodwill, and it cost me only $2,99 (bargain!). I am a visual person, so I needed to print a diagram at real scale to use as a guide. You can download the one I made here.

Then grab some left over yarn or ribbon you might have laying around, attach a safety pin to one end, and start weaving the heart through the strings of the racquet following the diagram (I taped mine to it).

I started to do so horizontally, but that wasn’t right. So I had to unweave it and start again, this time weaving it vertically. DO NOT do it like this (see below) because the humps of the heart are not continuous.

Instead start on one of the sides of the heart (sorry, no pictures). My yarn was chunky so I only needed it to weave the same line of squares two times (up and down), But if whatever you are using is thinner, you will need to weave up and down as necessarily to fill the squares.

And ta-da! You now have an awesome Valentine for your love one! Easy and very, very inexpensive.

Did you make one? Show me by uploading it at the Mother Crafter Flickr Project Pool!

I craft all night and party everyday at these Craft Parties.

New Year’s Eve Earrings {Quick and Easy Tutorial}

December 30, 2011 at 18:29 | Posted in Crafts - DIY, Tutorials | 2 Comments
Tags: 2012 earrings, fabric earrings, New Year, new year accessory, new years earrings, sequins, sparkly earrings

2012 is almost here! You can welcome the New Year with these quick and very easy earrings that will add spark to your outfit. The best part: you can make them in, like, 20 minutes. Seriously!

You will need:

A small fabric scrap (sequined or sparkly)
2 feathers
2 Earring hooks
2 Jump rings or ring connectors
Scissors and a hot glue gun

(See my new pair of scissors? My friend Julieta gave me these along with a matching measure tape and a cutting knife. They are from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. So cute!!!)

Cut 8 strips out of your fabric (approx .25″ by 2.25″). Open one of the jump ring or ring connector and insert 4 strips through it. If your fabric is thick and does not want to cooperate (certain fabrics have attitude ) you might want to use an embroidery needle to make a hole at the top of the strips. It should look like this:

Close your ring. Now put a tiny dot of hot glue at the top tip of your feather and glue it to the wrong side of one of the strips. Put the hook on and… you are done!! See? I told you it was a fast and furious tutorial!

Repeat all the steps to make the second earring. Or just use it solo. You can also play with the length of the strips to make it longer or shorther.

Happy 2012! I look forward to continue creating and sharing with you a lot more awesomeness through the New Year. Here is to a year full of happiness, love, health, inspiration and craftiness! Thank you for reading my blog. Salud y chin chin! (that is Cheers! in Spanish).

Psst!.. If you make them, show them off at the Mother Crafter Project Pool!

I craft all night and party everyday at these Craft Parties.

Merry Christmas to you all!

December 24, 2011 at 13:13 | Posted in Crafts - DIY | Leave a comment
Tags: Christmas, Cookies, Holiday greetings, Holidays

May the true spirit of Christmas be with you today and through the new year!

I am off to deliver cookies to the neighbors (better late than never!)

Christmas Gift Tags {Free Printables}

December 17, 2011 at 14:06 | Posted in Crafts - DIY, Free Printables | Leave a comment
Tags: Christmas, free gift tags, free printables, free tags, handmade holidays, holidays tags, xmas gift tags

One more week and Christmas is here. Here are some free gift tags you can print so there is one less thing to freak out about.

Perfect for all your gifts and cookie bags! Click on the picture to get it. Enjoy!

I craft all night and party everyday at these Craft Parties.

DIY Christmas Stockings

December 13, 2011 at 23:44 | Posted in Crafts - DIY, Stimulus | Leave a comment
Tags: Christmas, Christmas Stocking, granny squares, how to, jersey knit fabric, prudent baby, stocking contest, stocking tutorials

Who doesn’t like to dig in their stockings on Christmas Day?

This week I submitted two entries for a Christmas Stocking co ntest. Prudent Baby hosted the “Put a Serger in my Stocking” contest, where the prize is a SERGER. I like craft contests. It motivates me, besides winning or not, to create and stop putting off projects for “when i have time” because they have a deadline. I guess I need tough love to craft

Anyway, the stockings needed to be made out of jersey/knit fabric, so I made mine from old t-shirts and scraps of even older t-shirts. The first one is made out of 65+ hand sewn (!) circles that I cut out of two of my husbands old donated T-shirts. The ruffles are like a garden of little holiday flowers.

And this one is for Paloma. I appliqued a flower (for joy), a heart (for love) and of course, a stuffed paloma (dove in Spanish, for peace and her). I also sewed ruffles at the top to make it a little more fun and whimsy.

I do hope to find the serger in one of them on Xmas Day! Of course, if it is in Paloma’s stocking, she is still too small to claim it, so I will be happy to claim it for her ; )

Here are a couple more ideas to make your own Christmas stockings.

Cluk Cluk Sew has a tutorial to make a lined stocking with a cuff.