Adorable Owl Heat Pack

Materials:
*Fabric with predominant color brown (make sure it's not highly flammable)
*Brown felt
*White felt
*Orange felt
*Black felt
*Felt in four bright colors (e.g. green, blue, purple, and pink)
*Chalk
*White rice
*Needle and white thread
*Sewing machine

Directions:
*Resize my template, included below, to the desired size, and print.  You may also want to print a copy of what the owl should look like assembled, which is also included below.

*Cut out all of the pieces of the template and then start tracing onto the corresponding fabric or felt using chalk.  You will need 2 copies of the owl's body from the fabric, 4 wings in brown felt, two large circles cut from the white felt for eyes, two small black circles for pupils, one orange triangle for a beak, and four hearts of each of the four bright colors for feathers.
*Stitch together two pairs of wings and repeat for the other two copies.  By sewing together 2 instead of using just one, this gives the wings some stability.
*Sew the eyes, beak, and feathers to one copy  of the owl's body.  When sewing the feathers, start with the bottom row of feathers and work your way upward.
*Place the copy of the owl's body with the face facing up.
*Place the wings on top with the side with the nice stitches facing down.  Position them such that they are at the height that you want the wings to be at and such that a tiny bit of the flat edge of the wing is sticking out over the owl's body on either side.
*Place the other copy of the owl's body pattern side down on top and begin sewing together, leaving an opening to pour in the rice.
*Add rice until your owl reaches its desired fullness.
*Sew closed and your heat pack is ready to use.  Just pop it into the microwave for a few seconds.

Easy Earrings

     This week's craft takes virtually no time to create and can save you a fair amount of money when compared to buying earrings from the store.

Materials:
*Earring posts
*Small, flat backed objects to turn into earrings
*E9000 glue or a strong all purpose adhesive

Directions:
*Glue small objects to the earring posts and then set aside to dry for 24 hours.  Once they're dry, they are ready to wear :)

Sharpie Mugs + Brownie in a Mug Recipe

     Here is a craft and a recipe in one blog post.  I don't usually post recipes because my cooking skills extend only as far as making spaghetti, but sometimes Brian will come up with something awesome that I can't help but share.  One day Brian came across a brownie recipe that you cook by microwaving in a mug.  We tried out the recipe and it was okay, but not amazing, so Brian used his baking prowess to concoct his own version, which came out wonderfully.  I wanted some way to showcase Brian's delicious recipe on my blog and so I searched the internet for mug decorating ideas, which is how I found out about Sharpie mugs.
     Since Brian and I are both math grad students, I decided to decorate our mugs with math jokes.  If you're not interested in advanced math, feel free to skip ahead to the next section, but I figured I would share the jokes so that any mathematicians in my audience could perhaps get a chuckle.  One reads, "You may be a mathematician if, when being interrogated as a suspect by the police and asked to prove your innocence, you begin by saying, 'Assume, to the contrary, that I'm guilty . . .' (at which point you are arrested)."  The other says, "You may be a mathematician if you know the Greek alphabet, but not a word of Greek" and includes some Greek letters that I find myself using often at the bottom.

Sharpie Mugs

     I found this craft here and have included my own, slightly modified version of the directions below.

Materials:
*Plain mugs
*Oil based paint markers (such as the ones by Sharpie)
*Baking sheet
*Pen
*Pencil
*Printer paper
*Scissors
*Painter's tape

Directions:
*Pick up a solid colored mug.  Thrift stores and dollar stores are great places to find plain mugs for low prices.  I ended up getting mine from Goodwill for a dollar each.
*Rinse off your mug to remove any dirt or other grime that could prevent the paint from sticking to the mug.  Isopropyl alcohol is recommended as a cleaning agent, although I did not try this.
*Cut a sheet of white printer paper down to the size you would like your design to be and sketch out your design in pen or pencil.
*Once you have your design ready, shade in the back side of the piece of paper with pencil, such as pictured below:

*Tape your design to your mug using painter's tape, making sure not to cover up any part of your design with tape:

*Carefully trace over your design with a pen or pencil.  Once you've finished, peel off the paper and tape and beneath your design should show up lightly in pencil, such as in the picture below:

*Trace the pencil lines with your oil based paint marker.
*Let your mug dry for 24 hours.
*Place the mug on a cookie sheet and pop it into the oven and turn the oven to 425 degrees.  By placing the mug in the oven while it is heating, you reduce the likelihood that the mug will break due to a temperature differential.
*Once the oven finishes preheating, bake the mug for 30 minutes.  When 30 minutes is up, turn off the oven.  Leave the mug inside the oven while it cools.  This again makes it less likely to break.
*As soon as the mug is cool, it's ready to use.  To increase the longevity of your mug, I recommend hand washing it when you're done rather than using a dishwasher.

Brownie in a Mug

Ingredients:
* 3 tbsp hot cocoa powder
*2 tbsp flower
*1/4 tsp vanilla
*1 tbsp oil
*2 tbsp water
*Optional: vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, sprinkles, or other toppings

Directions:
*Combine flour and hot cocoa mix in a mug.
*Add vanilla, oil, and water.  Mix until smooth.
*Cook in the microwave for about 1 minute and 40 seconds.  It should look something like this when it's finished:

*Let cool for a couple of minutes, as the brownie can be very hot.
*Top with ice cream, whipped cream, sprinkles, or other favorite brownie toppings and enjoy :)

Pony Bead Sun Catchers

Materials:
*Pony beads
*Metal cookie cutter
*Baking sheet
*Aluminum foil
*Cooking spray
*String

Directions:
*Make sure your cooking area is well ventilated, as the melting beads can get rather smelly.
*Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
*Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
*Lightly spray the inside of the cookie cutters with cooking spray and then place cookie cutters on the baking sheet.  Alternately, you can wrap cookie cutters in aluminum foil, but if you choose this method, you may end up with bits of foil stuck in your sun catchers.
*Arrange beads inside the cookie cutters.  Once you have the inside of each cookie cutter lined with beads, remove a bead from near the top of each cookie cutter.  This will create a hole in the sun catcher so you will be able to hang it up once you're finished.  (As you can see, I forgot this step.)
*Pop the cookie sheet in the oven and cook for 15-25 minutes, or until sufficiently melted.  Keep an eye on the beads so that the gap you've created toward the top doesn't close up.
*Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the sun catchers cool.  Once they have cooled, carefully peel back the aluminum foil and then gently pop the melted beads out of the cookie cutters.
*Use string to hang up your sun catchers.

Photo Silhouette Bookmarks

     I found this craft idea on this blog.  Here are my own versions of the bookmarks, along with some instructions.

Materials:
*Photos
*Scissors
*Hole puncher
*Self-adhesive laminating sheets
*Ribbon

Directions:
*Punch a hole above the subject(s) of your photo where you would like the ribbon to go.
*Cut around the subject(s), leaving about an eighth of an inch of border around everything.
*Sandwich photos between two self-adhesive laminating sheets and then cut out the photos, again leaving a border.
*Punch over the plastic covering the hole for the ribbon.  Depending on how sharp your punch is, it may or may not punch through the plastic well, but you can use an X-acto knife to cut out excess plastic if the hole punch doesn't work.
*Cut off a length of ribbon and loop it through the hole in the bookmark.

Printable Zombie Valentine's Cards

     If you are a fan of zombies and are looking for some printable Valentine's cards, you have come to the right place.  Below are 5 different printable zombie Valentine's card designs, which I based on the stone "conversation" hearts I made last year.  I left them blank so that you could decorate the cards however you saw fit.  I also have included heart templates so that you could cut hearts out of patterned paper and glue them over the three hearts on the to-from half of the card if you so choose.

Materials:
*Printed zombie Valentine's
*Colored pencils, crayons, markers, etc.
*Colored cardstock or patterned paper (optional)
*Scissors
*Double sided tape

Directions:
*Print out some zombie Valentine's cards.

*Color in the cards however you wish.  Alternately, you could leave the cards blank so that your recipients can decorate them.
*If you so choose, cut hearts out of the patterned or colored paper and layer them on top of the three hearts on the to-from half of the card.
*Fold the card in half along the solid black line and tape together so that one face of the card is the to-from page and the other is the Valentine's message.

     What are your plans for Valentine's Day?  Brian and I are planning on watching the 1970's zombie movie Messiah of Evil.

Perler Fuse Bead Zombie Valentine's Owl

     Need another zombie Valentine's craft?  Here's an cute little zombie owl that you can make from fuse beads.  You can also use this pattern to make a non-zombie owl by modifying the eyes.

Materials:
*Fuse bead kit (e.g. Perler beads kit)
*Large square fuse bead pegboard
*Iron

Directions:
*Arrange beads on a large square pegboard in the pattern shown above.  If you would prefer to make a non-zombie owl, you can easily modify the eyes to make a non-zombie Valentine's owl.
*Cover your owl with a sheet of waxed paper and iron the first side, then remove from the peg board, flip over, put waxed paper on top and iron the second side.  You can find more detailed directions here.