Fireworks Earrings

Materials:
*22 headpins
*24 fake pearls of various colors
*2 ear wires
*Round nosed pliers
*Flat nosed pliers
*2 jump rings
*Krazy glue or other strong adhesive
*Wire cutters

Directions:
*Cut each head pin in half, keeping the half that contains the pin's "head"
*Slide a fake pearl onto each head pin
*Using pliers, curve wires slightly
*Create a loop at the top of each head pin and clamp onto a jump ring.  You should end up with 11 head pins on each jump ring
*Attach ear wires to jump rings
*Spread out the head pins around the jump ring and very carefully glue each one in place. Let dry
*Glue a pearl in the center of each earring covering the jump ring

Decorated Dream Journal

There is something nice about having a print journal.  Even if you prefer keeping your journal in digital form, you can always print out the pages and decorate them to create an artistic hard copy.  There are of course a plethora of ways someone could decorate a journal.  For my dream journal, I thought it would be neat to decorate the pages with symbols representing elements from my dream.

Materials:
*3 ring binder
*Sheet protectors
*Paper
*Computer and printer
*Markers or other decorative tools

Directions:
*Record your dreams in a word processing program on your computer.  Choose a font and color scheme that you find appealing
*Print pages from your dream journal
*Decorate the margins of the pages as you see fit
*Slide the pages into sheet protectors and secure the sheet protectors inside a 3 ring binder

Tips for remembering dreams:
*When you wake up from a dream, jot down some key elements from your dream.  I usually jot down only one or two words.  This will help you recall your dream when you write it down in the morning
*Write down your dream as soon as you get up in the morning.  The sooner you write down your dream, the better a chance you will have for remembering all of the details

Fuse Bead Decorative Bowls

Here's a craft my friend Meg directed me to.  I'm including a link to the original post I worked from in addition to my own, slightly modified directions.

Materials:
*Fuse beads
*Cooking spray
*Bowl (preferably one that is not very valuable to you)
*Cookie sheet

Directions:
*Preheat the oven to 400
*Spray the inside of the bowl with a generous amount of cooking spray
*Take a couple of handfuls of fuse beads and drop them into the bowl
*Smooth out the beads so that you have only one layer of beads.  They should just migrate up the sides of the bowl on their own if you press on a spot with multiple layers of beads
*Alternately, you can arrange beads in the bowl in a pattern, like I did with the tie dye bowl.  It may take a lot more time, but you can get some pretty neat results

*Place the bowl on a cooking sheet
*Pop in the oven for 10-15 min
*Take out of the oven and let cool
*Ideally, the fuse bead bowl should pop right out, but that's not what happened for me.  If you use a new bowl without any wear to the glaze and you use a lot of cooking spray you will probably have better results
*If the fuse beads do stick to the bowl, use a butter knife to peel it off the bowl
*These cute little bowls can serve many purposes as candy dishes, key holders, etc., and even wall art

Cracked Glass Vase

     Do you have a glass that has a small crack in it or one that you just don't use anymore, but don't want to ger rid of?  Turn it into a flower vase.

Materials:
*Glass
*Waterproof sealant (if using a glass with a crack in it)
*Stickers
*Ribbon
*All purpose adhesive
*Water resistant scrapbooking "paper"
*Scissors
*Mod podge
*Paintbrush
*Other embellishments

Directions:
*Spread waterproof sealant along the inside of the glass, covering the crack.  Let sealant dry
*Decorate the glass as you wish using stickers, paper, ribbon, and any other embellishments you would like to use

Publish Your Own Children's Book and Make Millions (Parody)

The first (and currently the only) printed copy of Bill the Sociopathic Flying Monkey.  If you send Brian and me $1,000,000, we will autograph this and send it to you.  This incredible deal is only available for a limited time and is exclusively offered to my loyal blog followers. 



     Brian and I finally finished and published our book, Bill the Sociopathic Flying Monkey.  It is available for purchase on amazon.com.  As a side note, Stephen Colbert, if you are reading this (which I'm sure you must be), feel free to shamelessly promote this book, as we dedicated it to you.  Now, without further ado, how to create your own children's book:

Materials:
*Extrodinarily eccentric person
*Legal waiver
*Talented artist
*Tools of "persuasion"
*Computer and printer
*Paper
*Report cover
*Pen
*Celebrity endorsement
*High school level understanding of English spelling and grammar (optional)

Directions:
*Ask extremely eccentric person (I know, I specified an extrodinarily eccentric person in the materials list, but an extremely eccentric person should suffice) to tell you a story.  If the story makes too much sense, find a different eccentric
*Make sure that this eccentric person signs a legal waiver granting you all rights to the ideas this person comes up with.  Alternately, you could do what I did and take the eccentric person on as a coauthor
*Write down the story that the eccentric person told you.  If you are unsure how to put the story into children's book format, look at other children's books for inspiration (preferably Bill the Flying Monkey)
*Find a talented (or at least semi-talented) artist.  "Persuade" this individual to draw illustrations for your story
*Scan the illustrations into your computer 
*Superimpose the text of the story over the illustrations
*Print a copy of your book
*Bind your book using a report cover.  This will make your book highly marketable
*Autograph the copy of your book and sell for $1,000,000
*Submit a copy of your book to an epublisher or print out more copies of your book
*Bribe a celebrity to endorse your book.  Brian and I are still working on this step (hint: Stephen Colbert)

Brooch Pendants

I found some funky brooches at a yard sale last weekend and thought that they were so intriguing that I wanted to use them as pendants for brooches.  Here are the resulting necklaces and some of the techniques I used to make them.

Sun Pendant

Materials:

*Pendant

*Gold length of chain

*Purple length of chain (should be shorter than the gold chain)

*Gold head pins

*6 large beads

*6 gold seed beads

*Clasp

*8 gold jump rings

*Round nosed pliers

*Flat nosed pliers

*Wire cutters

Directions:

*Using pliers, open the first jump ring and loop it through the two lengths of chain and one end of the clasp and then close the jump ring.  Open a second jump ring and attach it to the other end of the chains and the clasp

*Slide pendant through the center of the gold chain

*Take one of the head pins and slide a gold seed bead onto it, then slide one of the larger beads onto it

*Using the round nosed pliers, form a loop.  Wrap the rest of the wire around the loop and cut off any excess wire

*Repeat for the remaining 5 beads

*Find a desirable spacing for the beads and attach to the gold chain using the remaining jump rings

Cat Pendant

Materials:

*Pendant

*One length gold chain

*One length pink chain

*2 gold butterfly beads

*4 gold jump rings

*Clasp

*Round nosed pliers

*Flat nosed pliers

Directions:

*Follow the same directions given for the sun pendant, omitting the inapplicable steps

Fish Pendant

Materials:

*Pendant

*Wire or fishing line

*Pearls

*Gold seed beads

*4 crystal spacers

*Clasp

*Crimp beads (if working with wire)

*Flat nosed pliers

*Round nosed pliers

*Wire cutter

Directions:

*Cut a section of wire or string slightly longer than you would like your chain to be

*Place pendant in the center of the wire or string. String pearls on either side of the pendant, adding crystal spacers when appropriate

*If you are using string, once the desired length of string has been beaded, tie the ends of the string to either side of the necklace clasp, or attach to a jump ring and then attach the jump ring to the necklace clasp

*If using wire, once desired length of wire has been beaded, curl over the end of the wire to form a loop. Slide a crimp bead over the loop and clamp at the base of the loop. Open a jump ring and slide the loop and one end of the necklace clasp into the jump ring, then close the jump ring. Repeat procedure for the other side of the chain

*Cut two more lengths of wire or string, each a bit longer than the space between the two spacers on the same side of the necklace

*Take one of the lengths of wire or string nad put on enough seed beads to fill in the gap

*Loop the wire or string through one spacer and fasten using a procedure similar to the one used on the clasp.  Thread through the bottom spacer and repeat thr procedure

*Repeat the previous two steps for the other length of wire

Cardboard Box Organizer

I enjoy scrapbooking, but I have never really had anywhere to store my scrapbooking supplies.  I tried stowing most of the stickers, full sized pages, scraps of paper, etc. inside one large box, but could never find anything because it was completely disorganized.  I also had a number of smaller boxes, packs of paper, and other items that I stored separately, which made it quite a chore to gather together all of my scrapbooking supplies.  It finally got to a point where I had to do something about it, so I grabbed a large cardboard box and made my own organizer.

What's inside the box:

*Clear storage bags
*The white ribbon is a pulley system to make it easier for me to lift my paper out of the box
*A smaller, decorative box to hold other small items (see this earlier post for ideas on how to decorate cardboard boxes)

Materials:
*Appropriately sized cardboard box
*Plastic bags

Additionally, if you want a lever system:
*Sturdy ribbon or string
*Cardboard
*Scissors
*All purpose adhesive
*Decorative tools to embellish the box (optional)

Directions:
*Separate the items you would like to store in your organizer into categories.  For me, I divided my supplies into stickers, frames and templates, and paper scraps.  Put items intp clear plastic bags.  The bags I used were bags that my curtains came in, but ziplock bags should work as well
*For a lever system like what I have for my paper, cut a piece of cardboard slightly larger than the items you would like to have lifted by the pulley
*Slide a piece of ribbon under the cardboard and place the cardboard inside the cardboard box.  Adjust the length of ribbon until it is long enough to comfortably pull out of the box
*Slide a piece of ribbon under the cardboard going the other way and repeat the prevoius step
*Find the center of each strip of ribbon and glue the centers together so that the ribbons form a plus sign
*Let dry, then place the ribbon in the cardboard box.  Put the piece of cardboard on top of the ribbon, then place the items you would like to lift on top of the cardboard