In the middle of our crazy bedroom switcharoo project, we stopped for a quick, green little snack in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.
The inspiration came from the plastic mesh bag that grapefruit and onions are sold in. After the kids inhaled four giant grapefruit, I was wondering if I could possibly make something out this sack before I tossed it. The result was a quick little basket perfect for taming that treasure at the end of the rainbow (or at least a rainbow of fruit flavors.)
Want to make one?
For this project you’ll need:
As always though … rock what ya got.
Trace and cut out the outline of a small cup or jar on a scrap piece of paper …
… then place paper against the bottom of the glass, wrap the mesh tightly around the sides and trim away the extra mesh. You should have just enough length at the bottom to fold into the middle to make the bottom of the basket.
Carefully add a ring of hot glue to the paper base and carefully fold the mesh into towards the center. Again … carefully.
Trim the top edge to make it flat and run a small bead of glue down the back seam of the mesh to close the side seems. When glue has set, carefully remove basket from the mold.
My kids liked the look of a handle Easter basket style so I added a narrow strip of mesh with a dot of glue on each side to the smaller one. A quick coat of spray paint …
… and my pot of gold was done. Drying time was only an hour.
(And I’m already thinking ahead to Easter and picturing a table setting with these little baskets painted white and filled with small pastel Cadbury Robins Eggs. Yum!)
At the last minute I added a quick shamrock out of felt. No biggie.
So there you go!
Some recycling magic and yummy treat that even St. Patrick would like.
Not your average wooden blocks kids, these Thrive-friendly can blocks get a serious make-over courtesy of some soap, paint and a generous dose of awesome.
Why make these?
Because my kids do this …
every time I hit a case lot sale.
And the problem (other than the fact that it created another mess to clean up) is that cans are heavy. Miserably heavy—especially when that tower tumbles over and enchilada sauce takes out a piggy toe. Or pumpkin puree drops on a thumb.
And then of course there’s the dents and dings and the missing wrappers and mystery meals …
… that make me really, really grumpy when the kids drag out the cans.
So after years of headaches, injuries and swearing, it finally occurred to me to just give them their own dang cans to play with. And I decided that if I was going to go through the hassle of saving and washing and priming and painting several dozen soup-sauce-fruit-veggie-tuna cans, these were going to be the biggest, baddest, coolest looking blocks you’ve ever seen.
And after a week of off-and-on painting …
and hands that look like this because I wasn’t smart enough to wear gloves …
I gotta say:
Mission Accomplished.
Want to make your own?
This project is as easy as they come.
All you’ll need is:
Rock what ya got: house paint, spray paint, craft paint … whatever.
Putting these together is a cinch:
Just PRIME, PAINT and SEAL the outside and inside of the cans. (Two coats of color is best).
Done.
But the fun part is in the details …
… Learning …
… Favorite sports team … or rivalry sports teams—ha! …
… Colors to match your kids’ favorite beat-up well-loved toys …
… Names …
… Or some serious Harley-inspired attitude:
(For more pictures of the Harley blocks, click here)
And since I started making these, the ideas keep coming.
How cute would these be in
ANIMAL PRINTS or POLKA DOTS or PAINTED SHAPES
like trains or planes or cars for all you artistic types?
Or what about cutting some of those cute VINYL SHAPES or using STICKERS to jazz them up even more?
Clean-up is easy: skip the dishwasher sterilize cycle and just wipe down with disinfecting wipes. (Great project for kids while they’re watching TV.)
Storing is easy too: find an old box, drawer or dollar store bin to keep these corralled. Done.
1. The more sizes you have, the better. Here’s what I had on hand:
Formula, tuna and tall spaghetti cans would be great to add, too.
2. Inspect each can for sharp edges or snags, then flatten with needle-nose pliers. For pull top cans, don’t even try to flatten the lip … doesn’t work. Trust me. Instead, cut a piece of craft foam, cardboard, etc. and glue it to the lip. Paint as usual.
3. Prime these babies. No really … prime. These will be knocked down a melllllion times and you don’t want paint chipping off on the first play date or ending up in little mouths. Same goes for a sealant. Two coats wouldn’t hurt, either. (I skipped these two important steps on some of my first cans and have since repainted. Bleh.)
4. Craft and house paint will work fine, just be prepared for more coats. I used craft paint for my orange blocks since that’s all I had and loved how they turned out, but it required six coats to get the color coverage even. Don’t let that discourage you, though. Craft paint dries very fast and I managed to get all of my coats done in one day.
5. This is a several day project. The coats of primer, paint and sealant spread over four days to allow the coats to dry well. But again, don’t let that be a deterrent. This project was a lot like making bread: it takes awhile, but most of it’s waiting. I only spent 5 minutes of painting twice a day so it wasn’t a heavy time draw.
6. If you’re going to stencil letters or designs over the base coat before sealing, wait a couple of days first. I stenciled the next day and, even with low-tack vinyl, some of the paint peeled off. On the next batch, I let the paint dry two full days before stenciling and had no problems. Just make sure to remove your vinyl/stencil, etc. immediately after you paint.
7. If you like the metal look of the cans, you still need to seal them with a protective coating.
8. If you need extra cans, spread the word to family and friends. I sent out a quick Facebook message asking for empty cans and ended up with a couple dozen within a few days.
Inspired by all the cute holiday banners floating around out in Blog Land, this delicious version does double-duty as holiday decor and a treat for your guest to take home with them.
Soft and thick sugar cookies stand in for the traditional fabric and paper pennants, while the royal icing gets a festive upgrade with fun “tattooed” patterns.
Best of all, this was simple and easy to make using items from the pantry that I already had on hand, so FREE!
(Just a note: There are pictures from two different batches so please ignore the differences of colors.)
Want to make your own?
For this project you’ll need:
(For the cookies and icing, use your favorite sugar cookie and royal icing recipes.)
To make the pennants, I cut out a simple template using my nicest junk mail and a pair of blunt-nose scissors from the kids’ pencil box. The size doesn’t really matter as long as it will fit in a sandwich-size plastic zipper bag.
I used my mom’s sugar cookie recipe and rolled it out almost a half inch thick for a super-soft cookie. Trace and cut out your pennants using a butter knife …
… smoothing out any rough edges and baking until just barely golden on the edges.
When completely cool, pipe the letter outlines and around the edge of the cookie with royal icing …
… then flood the inside with more icing …
… and smooth out with a butter knife. And don’t worry if your letters look a little bit like blobs (mine did). Simply scrape away any problem spots with a knife.
Let set for 5-10 minutes and then lightly score decorations in the frosting with a thin knife, cap lid or other interesting shape.
For the “tattoo” color, add a drop of food color to a plate with a teaspoon of water and mix …
… then dip your cap or drag a knife through the color and then through the icing for subtle “tattooed” designs.
No worries if you goof … just blot away color with a paper towel.
Let background icing set before filling the letters carefully with another color.
Let finished cookies set for a few hours to fully dry. Really. Do not rush this.
To assembly the banner, cut the tops off enough zipper bags to cover your letters …
… insert each letter …
… carefully turn over and pull excess plastic taut, taping in place.
Cut a generous length of ribbon/twine/rope, etc. and place above cookie …
…tucking the loose plastic into a neat triangle-ish shape …
…folding over the twine and taping in place. The twine should rest along the top edge of the cookie pennant and be able to slide easily.
To help the banner hang better and keep the cookies more securely attached, attach an extra strip of tape to the top corners so that the twine lays flat across the top and doesn’t pull up at the ends.
Attach the rest of the letters the same way in reverse order or your banner will read backwards.
To keep the cookies from bunching together, wrap a piece of tape between each pennant.
And for the fun part, hang your awesome cookie banner proudly during the celebration …
… and then slide the cookies off the twine to send home with guests for a fun good-bye treat.
And that’s it! Easy, delicious, unique, FREE!
And how cute would this cookie banner look for Christmas? New Years? A birthday party? Welcome home party?
1) Do not rush the drying on the icing or bad, bad things will happen. Oh, and double-check the order on those letters. If you mess up either of these important steps, you end up with this lovely mess.
Yes, this was my afternoon yesterday.
2) If you totally mess up a cookie, don’t freak. Just scrape off the icing and frost again. I ended up doing that on all of mine after “skipping” tip #1.
3) Help out the flavor of your royal icing substantially by subbing out the vanilla extract for a stronger flavor. I love almond, but orange, butter or lemon would be great, too.
4) Cut out a few extra pennants. You may end up needing them – I did.
5) I have really dark walls so I purposely went for light colors and simple patterns. But this would look great with dark, rich colors and bold patterns. How great would olive green and brown pennants look with cream or dark yellow letters?
