How To Dye Dried Pasta To Use In Your Craft Projects

Dyeing Pasta for Craft Projects by Rachel Paxton

Kids love to play with pasta! Who knew something so simple and inexpensive could be so interesting to young children.

Dried pasta comes in a variety of sizes and shapes. If you don't already have some in your kitchen cupboard, you can find a variety of different pastas to choose from in the bulk section of your grocery store. Let your child go with you to pick it out.

Pasta can be used for a variety of craft projects, and it is very easy to dye. It takes only a few minutes to dye the pasta, and a couple of hours for it to dry.

To dye the pasta all you need is:

Pasta in different shapes and sizes
Food coloring
Rubbing alcohol
Several small bowls

Pour approximately 1/2 cup rubbing alcohol into each bowl. Add 10 or so drops of food coloring into each bowl, one bowl for each color. Drop the pasta into the bowl and stir gently with a spoon for a few seconds.

Remove the pasta from the bowl and allow to dry for several hours on a paper plate. The colors will brighten as the pasta dries.

Your kids will enjoy playing with their colorful pasta. They can use it to create macaroni necklaces or they can glue pieces of pasta onto a sheet of paper for a creative work of art.

Children as young as two years old will enjoy counting and sorting the pasta into different piles. Have them separate the pasta by color or shape. They will have fun moving the pieces of pasta from bowl to bowl.

Photo of dyed pasta shapes:
http://www.crafty-moms.com/kids_crafts/dyeing-pasta.shtml

Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and mom of four. For scrapbooking, card making, gift-giving ideas, and more family memory-making activities, visit http://www.crafty-moms.com.

Teaching a Child to Embroider - An Easy Embroidery Project for Young Children

Teaching a Child to Embroider - An Easy Embroidery Project for Young Children by Denise Willms

My mother tells a funny story about when she was a young girl and spent hours on an embroidery project, then stood up and realized she had accidentally embroidered her picture to the front of her dress.

Back then, embroidery was a skill every young girl was expected to learn. Learning embroidery is no longer compulsory, but there are a few reasons why it is still valuable skill for children to learn.

Handling a needle and thread helps develop fine muscle co-ordination

Embroidery allows children to express their creativity

Embroidery helps children develop self-confidence because they are able to create something beautiful on their own

Teaching your son or daughter to embroider may seem like a daunting task, but with the right approach, it can be an enjoyable way for you and your child to spend time together.

Supplies You Need Before Beginning an Embroidery Project

Before you begin an embroidery project with your child, it’s important to assemble the right materials. You can find these in your local craft store.

The first thing you’ll need is about half a meter of white cotton fabric.

You’ll also need an embroidery hoop. Hoops come in various styles and sizes, but you should look for one that easily snaps together so your child can use it independently. Choose an embroidery hoop that will be large enough for your child’s first project – probably around eight centimeters in diameter.

You'll need embroidery floss. Most children prefer bright colors, so purchase a mix of primary colors - blue, red and yellow - or your child’s favorites.

Purchase a real embroidery needle for your child’s use. Craft companies have begun making plastic embroidery needles for children to learn with, but these needles can be hard to push through cloth.

You will also want to have a frame ready for when the embroidery project is complete. A wooden hoop that screws together is an inexpensive, easy-to-use framing option. Like the embroidery hoop, you will want one that is approximately eight centimeters in diameter – large enough to frame your child’s first project.

Prepare an Easy Embroidery Design

The next step is to prepare the design. With your child, choose a simple outline picture in a coloring or picture book. Avoid pictures with details because they will be frustrating for a beginning needle worker.

Hearts and apples are good designs for beginners, or another simple picture that captures your child’s interest.

First, iron the fabric so it lies smooth and flat, and then trace the picture onto the fabric. To trace the picture, place the cloth over the picture. With a pencil, lightly copy the picture onto the fabric. Do not press too hard. Dark pencil marks will be obvious when the picture is finished.

Teach Your Child to Embroider

To begin embroidering, sit with your child at a sturdy table. Show him how to place the fabric in the embroidery hoop and pull it tight.

Cut a piece of thread the length of the child’s arm. Demonstrate how to thread the needle and knot the thread.

To keep the thread from coming out of the needle, tie the ends of the thread together at the bottom. Most children will not be able to thread a needle and knot the thread independently.

The running stitch is the simplest embroidery stitch to teach.

Begin the lesson by demonstrating the running stitch. Start with the thread in the back of the fabric and poke through the spot in picture where the child would like to begin. Pull the thread firmly so the knot in the back is pulled against the fabric.

Following the outline of the picture, poke the needle back down through the fabric about half a centimeter from where you started. Pull firmly so the thread on top is not loose, but not so tightly that the fabric bunches up.

Following the outline of the picture, poke the needle back up through the fabric about half a centimeter from where it was pulled down. Again, pull firmly so the thread on the bottom is not loose, but not so tightly that the fabric bunches up. After a few stitches, invite the child to try it on his or her own.

This is hard work for a young child, and he or she may become frustrated.

Don't jump in to help if your child experiences problems. Give him time to solve the problem independently.

Do provide help if asked or if your child becomes frustrated. Allow your child to take a break when he becomes bored or frustrated.

How to Change the Embroidery Thread

When a thread becomes too short to continue embroidering, or if it’s time to change colors, tie a knot by stitching three times in one place to end the thread. Thread the needle for your child with new thread or, if your child wants to try threading it alone, help him or her do so.

Framing the Embroidered Picture

When the picture is completely embroidered, it’s time to frame it. To frame the picture, cut a piece of white cotton fabric to place behind the embroidered picture. This will give a finished look to the back.

Lay down the base of the wooden hoop and put the backing you just cut on top of the hoop. Center the embroidered picture on top of the hoop and place the top part of hoop on top of the picture. Screw the wooden hoop together to secure the frame. Trim any excess fabric from around the picture frame.

To decorate it further, you can glue lace or beads to the outside of the frame

Hang up the picture where you and your child can see it every day. It will be a lasting reminder to your child of what she accomplished, and it will be a reminder to both of you of the time you spent creating something beautiful together.

Denise Willms is a homeschooling mom of two, and owner of WAHM-Articles.com. You can find more information

Scrapbooking ~ Fun with Foamies Easter Scrapbook Layout

Fun with Foamies Easter Scrapbook Layout by Rachel Paxton

Kids love making craft projects out of foamies. You can find them for almost any holiday or occasion. Watch for them on sale after holidays, one container can last you for several years! Joann's and Walmart usually have good selections of them.

We had fun making crafts with our Easter foamies last year, and there were still enough left over to play with this year. I got out some Easter pictures from last year I hadn't scrapbooked yet, and came up with a couple of cute layouts using the Easter foamies.

For these scrapbook layouts, you will need a container of foamies that includes alphabet letters. The Easter set I found had a bunch of pastel letters to spell out the word "Easter", so that worked out perfectly.

Supplies:

Easter foamies
Eight family Easter photos
12x12 sheet of pastel, solid-colored scrapbook paper
2 12x12 sheets of coordinating spring or Easter patterned scrapbook paper
Scrap of white scrapbook paper
Paper cutter
Glue stick
Coordinating pastel brads (optional)

I created two different layouts for these sets of pictures. The background papers are the same color but a little bit different pattern, and then I used one sheet of solid-colored paper for matting for both layouts.

Easter Scrapbook Layout #1:

For the first layout, I cut a long, vertical piece of solid-colored scrapbook paper. It is about 2 inches wide, and is placed about an inch from the left edge of the patterned paper, and an inch from both the top and bottom of the page.

If you want you can attach pastel colored brads to the corners of this vertical piece to draw more attention to it. If you are going to use them, attach them to the four corners of the piece and then glue the entire piece centered about an inch from the left hand side of the patterned scrapbook paper.

This vertical piece will be used to showcase some of the Easter foamies. After I glued this piece in place I placed four foamies vertically on it, two Easter eggs and two bunnies (see photo).

I next cut out a white piece of scrapbook paper for the heading on the page. It is about 6 inches long and 3 inches high. I then matted this piece with solid-colored scrapbook paper. I then glued this piece approximately an inch from the top and an inch from the right hand side of the patterned scrapbook paper.

On this heading piece, I spelled out the word "Easter" with the foamies. I let my pieces go slightly over the left and right-hand edges of the matting, but if you want you can cut out a bigger caption piece to fit all the letters (see photo).

Lastly, I arranged and glued on four Easter family photographs. I arranged them so that they were slightly overlapping the solid piece on the left and slightly overlapping each other. For time's sake, I didn't mat these photos. If you want to, you can use the solid-colored paper to create mats for the photos.

Easter Scrapbook Layout #2:

For the second layout, I cut out and glued on the solid colored piece on the left the same as for the first layout. Instead of using the bunnies and Easter egg foamies, I vertically spelled out "Easter" with the foamies.

On this layout I did not include a caption at the top, but I did use the solid-colored scrapbook paper to create mats for the photos.

After I glued the solid colored piece on the left-hand side of the page, I arranged the four matted photos on the page and glued them in place. I then used Easter egg shaped foamies to fill in the spaces between the photos.

There you go, two easy Easter scrapbook layouts using Easter craft foamies!

Photos of finished layouts:
http://www.crafty-moms.com/scrapbooking/Easter-foamies.shtml

Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and mom of five. For scrapbooking, card making, gift-giving ideas, and more family memory-making activities, visit http://www.crafty-moms.com/.

Take Your Business to the Next Level With Printed Products From PrintingHQ.com

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of printinghq. All opinions are 100% mine.

Small crafting businesses such as ours can benefit from using an online printing company for some of the products that we need to promote our small business. It is no secret that sometimes producing a product like a bookmark or a business card that we use as promotional materials can be more expensive when done at home than by using a quality printing company.

As Crafters, we like to make a difference in the materials that we produce to give to others. We are making a statement about our company, so a business card is not just a business card. It becomes a work of art after we embellish it and make it stand out. But cost is a huge factor in our small businesses. So outsourcing your business card printing or your custom postcards can be a huge benefit cost wise. Once the product is in our hands, we can make it our own.

The folks at PrintingHQ are professionals when it comes to producing quality products that we would be proud to hand out. They have items that we can use when setting up for craft venues such as vinyl banners, brochures, catalogs, notepads and much more. First time buyers can even enjoy a 10% off discount by clicking on the black box at the bottom of the page. Come by and check out the awesome products that they carry that you can use in your craft business.

Scrapbooking ~ Beach Vacation 2-Page 12x12 Scrapbook Layout Idea

A few days ago I was cleaning out some boxes from one of my storage closets and came across an old box of photo's from the mid 1990's that I had forgotten about and when I found them, I knew I had to scrapbook a few of them. I found in the box these old photo's from 1995 when we took a week long trip down to Ocean City, New Jersey. We have been going to the Jersey Shore for family vacations since I was a child. I did this 2-page layout in the 12x12 format size.

Page One (Shown Above):
I decided to make my own background and decide to mix colors of ocean blue, dark sand, pale yellow and navy blue together for my color scheme. I don't use yellow often and it was time to use up some yellow paper. I took a piece of ocean blue colored scrapbook paper that has sand & yellow colored polka dots on it and use it for my main background. I then tore a piece of dark sand and light blue paper into strips and glued them together. I then added those strips to the top and bottom of my background paper. I used my scrapbooking software to make my title block and it simply says Ocean City, N.J. I cropped it down to size and matted it onto dark blue, dark sand and yellow paper leaving an 1/8" border around each matting. I attached it to the top of my layout with glue dots. For this page I had 4 photos which I cropped down and rounded their corners and mounted them onto the dark blue scrapbooking paper, rounded the corners again and left an 1/8" border and attached them to the page using glue dots. (see photo for placement). I used 3 rub-on words (Sun Lover is above the 2 photos of my daughter), (Sun and Sand is under the top left photo) and (Road Trip is under the bottom left photo). I had a journaling block that was shaped like a postcard from a journal block set that I had purchased and mounted that onto dark blue paper, cut it out and attached it to my page. I then did my journaling on that block.
Page Two (Shown Below):

For this page I wanted it to coordinate with page one but not match it exactly so I used a piece of light blue 12x12 scrapbook paper for the main background. From the polka dot paper that I used above (I had 2 sheets of it), I tore off 2 strips that measure 3" in width. I then used a glue stick and attached them to the top and bottom of my page. I took a piece of dark yellow paper and cut it down to measure 5" by 12" in length and glue it to the left side of my page. I cropped down 3 photo's of the three of us packing up our hotel room to get ready for our trip home. I didn't matt these and glued them on the yellow paper that runs down the left side of my page. Above the top photo of my daughter is a blue seashell sticker and under the last photo of us in the car going home is another blue seashell along with a word sticker that says Bon Voyage.

The right side of the paper I used word stickers that say The Journey Home Begins and underneath that is 2 purple seahorse stickers, a star fish sticker and a large sticker of a sandcastle and sand bucket. I think it came out nice and clean looking. Not a perfect match to page one but a nice coordinating page.

Product Review ~ Avthing In Its Place Organizing Wall Shelf For Your Craft Rooms!

Today I have a really exciting company to introduce you to called Avthing In Its Place. This wonderful company has some of the most fantastic home furnishings I have ever seen! This store has fireplaces, home entertainment & media furniture, home office furniture, bedroom furniture, jewelry storage, entryway furniture, kitchen furnishings, bathroom furnishings, dining room furniture, waterfall wall decor and so much more! Wow, I could totally remodel and upgrade my entire home by just shopping on Avthing In Its Place! Their variety is just amazing!

My Review: The generous folks over at Avthing In Its Place sent me their SEI HZ6245 Wall Mount Craft Storage Rack w/Baskets in Black for me to review. I have been an avid crafter for 30 years now and I even have an entire room in my home that is dedicated as my craft room. I love all kinds of crafts, especially scrapbooking and quilting. This crafting organizing wall unit measures 35 1/2" W x 8 1/2" D x 27 1/2" H in size. There is a top shelf where you can store all of your small supplies in baskets, bins or in jars (not included). Under that is 2 metal rods where you can store your ribbon rolls, paper rolls and other things that come on rolls like gift basket wrap, etc. Under that is a large shelf that holds 3 rattan baskets (included) where you can store more supplies. I love these baskets as it keeps everything together, neat & organized. Under that are 5 fabulous hooks so you can hang supplies off of them too! I love those hooks as there is so much you can hang off them! Finally, there is another metal rod where you can store more rolled paper, cellophane or ribbon rolls. This rack is such a space saver!

This organizing wall rack can be used in other areas of the home too! I can see it being used in a kitchen to store your spices, herbs, take-out menus, plastic wrap, foil, etc. You get the idea! It would be great in the kid's room storing all of their arts & craft supplies or even in your laundry room storing all of those laundry supplies we all seem to accumulate!

My Overall Impression: Wow...I have needed something like this for years and now I finally have one! This craft organizing wall unit is extremely well made and it will last for years! I love how the top shelf has the railing so that my items don't slide off. I love those baskets for storing all of my rubber stamps, ink pads, decorative edge scissors and other scrapbooking supplies. Those metal rods are fabulous for storing all of my ribbons on and now I can easily see each one without dumping my old box all over the floor to find the right one. I can not say enough good things about this rack! I am absolutely IN LOVE with it!

Purchasing Information: You can purchase this fabulous product from the Avthing In Its Place web site for only $129.99 and it is worth every dime!

I would like to thank the great folks over at Avthing In Its Place for sending me this fabulous craft room organizer! I love it!

Disclaimer: Shelly Hill has personally reviewed the product listed above. Shelly was not compensated for her review but did receive a free product to evaluate for all of her blog readers here on the Passionate About Crafting Blog. Please read my Terms of Service Policy & Disclaimer Policy for additional information. My opinions stated in this product review are honest and unbiased. Your thoughts & opinions might differ from my own. Information contained on this blog is copyright 2011, All Rights Reserved.

Guest Blog Post ~ Nice sketchbook for inspiration

Guest post written by Mac Stephens
Even though I'm only an artist in my spare time, I'm inspired by all kinds of things around me and love to have a sketchbook with me at all time. Now, I can't exactly be sketching while I'm on the clock at work but sometimes I'll break it out when I'm hanging out in other places. But I've filled up my old sketchbook, so I thought that I'd get really creative and make a new one of my own filled with inspiring images.

I picked up a box of art books a while back at a yard sale and thought that I could use the pages from some of those and cut them down to size for the sketchbook. Then I just had to figure out how to put the book together. While I was online looking that up, I found some Wireless internet companies deals. After I showed them to my roommate, we agreed to sign up for one of them for our apartment.

I thought that those art pages would be some great sketchbook inspiration and make it a little more interesting for when I thumb back through the sketchbook.

Scrapbooking ~ Mommy and Me Scrapbook Layout in Purple Color Tones

I wanted to make a 12x12 scrapbooking layout for my daughter's scrapbook that features her and my little grand daughter and I finally got around to it a few days ago. I decided to do this layout in purple since little Gia was wearing purple that day and I think it turned out beautifully.

My background paper is a light shade of purple with a tonal swirl print. I took another sheet of purple striped paper and used wavy edge scissors and cut it down (remove 4" off each edge) and glue it across the center of my paper to add contrast. I used my Cricut machine to cut out my MOMMY and ME letters on the number 2 size Dial and used my glue pen to glue the letters onto the page. I had 2 photos which I cropped down and mounted onto dark purple cardstock, rounded the corners and left an 1/8" border and mounted them onto the center of the page using glue dots. I had a poem about being a mother that was printed on vellum and I cropped it down and framed it out with dark purple cardstock and attached that to the page (top right) with glue dots. I took a piece of white satin ribbon and tied it into a bow and used a glue dot to attach it to the poem box.

I had to cardstock words, one that says LOVE and one that says FAMILY and mounted those onto purple cardstock to frame them and then attached them to the page with glue dots. I had a dark purple 3-Dimensional flower (made out of paper) that I added a brad to the center and then glued it onto the page. I dated the layout in the bottom right corner. I didn't journal on the front of the page as I want my daughter to write about the day we spent together so I made a coordinating page with another photo and journaling block on that for her to fill out. I think this would make a great Mother's Day layout too...clean and simple!

How To Make An Easter Basket From Cake Icing Plastic Tubs

My trash to treasure craft project for the month of March is on how to take a clean and empty cake icing can (icing tub) and turn it into a mini Easter Basket. These is a great way to keep those plastic icing tubs out of our landfills and turn them into a cute Easter basket. You could decorate them and turn them into candy containers for other holidays of the year too! For mine, I used an empty cake icing tub that I removed the label from and washed it.

I then used my 1/4" hole puncher and punch 2 holes into the tub, one on each side so that I could thread my ribbon handle through the holes once done. I used scrapbook paper to cover the outside of the tub so measure your tub and cut your paper accordingly. I used a liquid craft glue pen to glue the paper to the plastic tub and left it dry. I then used my hole puncher again and punched holes through the paper for the handle. I had some pretty purple satin ribbon that had light purple crystals hanging from it and glued that around the top edge of the icing tub.

I then used a piece of white sheer ribbon that measures 1 1/2" wide by 7" long and threaded that through each hole and knotted the ends inside to serve as my pail's handle. I purchased a pack of Easter theme'd rub-ons from the craft store for $1.00 and rubbed them onto the paper that surrounds the pail.

Now you can add a little bit of Easter basket grass and fill your little pail up with some chocolate candies and jelly beans! This project costs about $1.00 to make and even less if you have a lot of left-over craft supplies lying around.

Scrapbooking ~ Child's Art Work 12 x 12 Scrapbook Layout Idea

A few weeks ago our little grand daughter was up visiting with us and her and pappy decided to get out the box of crayons and make me some new refrigerator art. They spent over an hour drawing and coloring together and I wanted to remember this special "play date" by scrapbooking one of her precious drawings that she made for me. I did this layout in the 12 x 12 format.

My background is a piece of 12 x 12 scrapbook paper done in a denim jeans print. I cropped down her original crayon drawing so that it only takes up 2/3 of my page. I then mounted it onto black cardstock, cropped it down leaving a 1/4" border and then mounted it again onto red cardstock, cropped it down leaving a 1/4" border and then mounted it onto my background paper. I had 3 hand shaped stickers in primary colors and attached them to 3 of the corners of her artwork to serve as photo corners. I had a photo of her that I cropped down so that it measures 3 1/2" by 4 1/2" in size and mounted it onto red cardstock, leaving an 1/8" border and then mounted it onto black cardstock leaving an 1/8" border and then attached it to the bottom right corner of my layout so that it over-laps her artwork. I used glue dots for this.

I had a sticker that said MY ART and placed it onto red cardstock. I then mounted this to black cardstock and cropped it down leaving an 1/8" border and mounted it under her artwork as shown in the photo using glue dots. I had a sticker of a box of crayons and I placed that onto red cardstock and cut it out leaving an 1/8" border and then mounted it onto black cardstock leaving an 1/8" border. I attached that to the bottom left of my page using glue dots. For my journaling block, I made a red crayon out of red scrapbook paper just by cutting it into a crayon shape. I then inked the edges with black ink and used a black fine tip marker to make the crayon stripes. I used a navy blue fine tip marker and did my journaling on the crayon.

I didn't want the layout to be too busy as I wanted to highlight her drawing and not a slew of embellishments. I think it came out great and it took me about 30 minutes to create.

Scrapbooking Baby's First Haircut 12 x 12 Scrapbooking Layout

first official haircut at a local salon back in December 2010 and I wanted to mark the event by making a scrapbook page. I did this 12 x 12 layout in yellow and blues as I love those 2 colors together.

I started used a piece of 12 x 12 yellow scrapbooking paper with small blue swirls printed on it for my background. I took a coordinating sheet that was blue with yellow swirls and cut it down until it measured 4 3/4" by 12" and glued it to the right hand side of my page. I then took 1/4" wide blue rick rack ribbon and glued that along the two edges. I used bright blue letter stickers and spelled out MY FIRST HAIR CUT and attached them to the page. I had a sheer yellow fabric pocket and placed her lock of hair inside it. I then attached a yellow ribbon bow and pink satin ribbon rose to the top center of the pocket to add interest.

I cropped down my photo of my daughter and grand daughter and attached a cardstock yellow frame to it and then mounted that onto light blue scrapbooking paper and trimmed the edges to leave a 1/4" border. I then placed it onto my page (top left). Right above my photo is a 3-D embellishment word that says MEMORIES. To the right of the photo is another 3-D embellishment that says BABY'S FIRST HAIRCUT. Underneath the photo I used stickers to spell out her first name. I then had 2 pretty 3-D embellishments that had princess and hair quotes printed on them with ribbons and brads attached and used foam dots to attach them to the page under the photo.

This layout took me approximately 40 minutes to make and I think it came out pretty. My grand daughter's favorite color right now happens to be yellow (it's the only color word that she can say so far) so the yellow layout is appropriate. I also staggered my sticker letters so that they were not spot on straight as I wanted it the wording to be more child-like.