Dinosaur Streamers

     Add a touch of whimsy to your dinosaur party with these adorable streamers.

Materials:
*Cardstock in a variety of colors
*Dinosaur template
*Ribbon
*Scissors
*Black marker
*All purpose adhesive

Directions:
*Print the template given below onto several sheets of cardstock and then cut out the dinosaur shapes.  It can take quite a while to cut out all of the dinosaurs, so if you have access to a die-cutting machine or wouldn't mind investing in some dinosaur die-cuts, those might be better approaches to take.

*Once you have all of your dinosaurs cut out, draw smiling faces onto the "clean" side (i.e. the side you did not print on).  Half of your dinosaurs should be facing one direction and the other half should be facing the other.
*Cut off a length of ribbon and glue it between two dinosaurs.  Repeat with the remaining dinosaurs and set aside to dry.
*Once dry, tape the dinosaur streamers to your ceiling, varying the height of the dinosaurs as you go.

Dinosaur Stamped Napkins

     Here's an easy way to dress up napkins for your next party.  If you already have a collection of stamps, it will cost you virtually nothing to put these together.

Materials:
*Stamps
*Ink
*White napkins

Directions:
*Stamp designs onto the bottom right corner of each napkin.  That's really all there is to it.

Glittery Dinosaur Coasters

Materials:
*Wooden dinosaur shapes
*Paint
*Glitter glue
*Permanent marker

Directions:
*Paint dinosaur shapes with paint in a color of your choice.  Set aside to dry.
*Once dry, add a coat of glitter glue.
*After the glue has dried, draw faces on the dinos using permanent marker.

Glittery, Color Dipped Photos

     Looking for a fun way to display your favorite pics?  Try making these color dipped photos and hang them from a photo "clothesline."  I got the idea from this blog.

Materials:
*Paint in various colors
*Glitter paint
*Paintbrush
*Photos
*Painter's tape

Directions:
*To give photos the old-style Polaroid look, crop photos to squares and leave extra white space around them during the printing.
*Using painter's tape, cover the part of the white space immediately below the image.
*Paint the bottom of the photo below the painter's tape using one of the colors of paint.  Set aside to dry.
*Once dry, add a second coat of paint if necessary.  Finish off with a coat of glitter paint.
*Carefully peel off the painter's tape.  Maybe this happened just because my tape was old and had been living above the heat register, but for some reason the tape did not peel off easily and left behind a sticky residue.  If this happens, carefully wash off as much of the sticky residue as you can with soap and water and then cover the photos using self-adhesive laminate.

Photo "Clothesline"

     Looking for a way to display photos, cards, or other items, or to keep track of memos and to do lists?  Try making this photo "clothesline."

Materials:

*Ribbon

*Thumbtacks

*Mini clothespins

Directions:

*Hang the ribbon up on the wall using thumbtacks.  If you're working with a narrow wall, instead of hanging the ribbon straight across, try letting part of it hang down.

*Use the clothespins to hang up photos and other items.

Curious about the color dipped photos hanging from my "clothesline"?  Next week I'll explain how to make them.

Ribbon and Hearts Bookmark

Materials:
*Ribbon
*Scrapbooking paper
*Scissors
*All purpose adhesive
*Stickers

Directions:
*Cut a length of ribbon about an inch longer than you would like your bookmark to be and knot both ends.
*Cut out four heart shapes from the scrapbooking paper.
*Adorn hearts with stickers.
*Glue hearts to the ribbon.

Zombie Valentine's Lotto Ticket

    Here's a slightly different take on the Valentine's lotto tickets I've seen floating around online.  Instead of having prizes underneath each scratch off heart so that your loved one is guaranteed to be a winner, add zombie images under some of them.  You can still think up a prize to correspond to the zombies if you would like, but don't tell your valentine about that beforehand.  Keep them in suspense as they play the zombie Valentine's lottery.

Materials:
*Zombie lotto ticket printout (either my template or your own design)
*Pink cardstock
*All purpose adhesive
*Acrylic paint
*Liquid soap
*Pencil
*Paintbrush
*Scissors

Directions:
*Print out zombie lotto ticket, either my design (pictured below) or make your own design.

*Glue template onto pink cardstock.
*Write/draw/paste in your zombies and prizes.  I used photos of my sister Katie, Brian, and me dressed up as zombies (as well as a photo of zombie gingerbread) for the zombie hearts.  You can use whatever ratio of zombies to hearts you would like.  Since I'm rather cruel, I stacked the odds against Brian, adding five zombies and four prizes:

*Take a strip of contact paper and trace nine hearts onto the back.
*Mix one part liquid soap with two parts acrylic paint.
*Paint the soap/paint mixture across the contact paper.  Set aside to dry,  Add a second coat if necessary.  (Full disclosure: I didn't have any contact paper, so I used packing tape instead.  I stuck each end of the tape to the bottom of a drinking glass and then painted it.  Once the paint was dry, I traced hearts onto the paint using a black permanent marker, ending up with the situation pictured below.  It worked, but it was a lot more challenging than I imagine using contact paper would be.)

*Once dry, cut out the hearts and stick them over the text/image hearts.  Now you're ready to pass it off to a loved one to play.

Unfortunately for Brian, he ended up with a zombie.  Somehow he survived the encounter and I told him he could scratch off until he won a prize.  After a second close encounter with the zombie kind, he finally won a kiss.