DIY: Fun with Tiny Animals

Remember those tiny plastic animals you used to play with as a kid? They would come in those skinny tubes- all sorts of farm animals, or exotic...even dinosaurs! I absolutely loved those little guys. They provided endless hours of entertainment in my childhood.

Well it turns out you can still have fun with them as an adult! Pinterest has been blowing up with fun DIY projects using these little toys, and it caught my eye. I splurged and bought a GIANT tube of farm animals at Target. Yesterday, after spending 2 days in because of the snow, I decided to get a little creative and do some DIY with these animals. I ended up making myself a ring dish (Mikie, sadly, broke our bathroom ring dish last week, so I needed a replacement) and I dressed up a couple of picture frames. I'm really excited with the outcome...it's got me hooked to tiny animal crafts!

For the ring dish I started with a plain candle dish from Ikea. I painted it a nice pale shade of blue, and set it aside to dry. Next I painted my animal of choice (I used a duck!) and set it aside to dry. Once everything was dry I used a tiny amount of Gorilla Glue to attach the duck. Technically you are supposed to hold down the item for about 30 minutes, but since it was new paint I didn't want to risk smudging it. I let it sit for a couple of hours and it dried just fine!

The finished product came out perfect!!

Next I took two plain picture frames from Ikea- put a couple of wedding photos in them (awwwww). I painted a few animals a neat shade of blue, and attached them the same way. They came out really cute!!

(sorry for the terrible photo...I meant to snap a better one!)

These two crafts were SUPER easy, but there's a few more things I want to make with these tiny animals. Stay posted and happy DIYing!! 

xoxo  Kate 

Meet the Team...Kate!

Well, I figured it was about time I formally introduced myself. As I mentioned in my Muffin Recipe post, I love to bake! I also love photography, crafts, writing, all things design and art...the list goes on. Sadly, I never seem to have enough time for all of these things...but hopefully this blog changes that! 

This is my incredible other half, my husband Mikie. He's always making me laugh, inspiring me, supporting me, encouraging me. He's my everything! (and this is our epic hero/heroine shot, taken by the lovely Jess!) We've been married ALMOST a year (time flies!!). I'm in my early/mid twenties, and have been writing/crafting/baking/doing some sort of art for as long as I can remember. 

My husband and I currently live on a farm, but we are looking to start our own little home. We have a pet lizard. She's an albino leopard spotted gecko, named Skwisgaar (because I thought she was a boy for 2 years). We really want to get a baby hedgehog, and if we do- you better believe you're going to be spammed by endless photos. 

It's always been my dream to do what I love, and maybe make a little bit of money to survive from it. I hope this is the start of that, but in the very least it will be me having a ton of fun with some of the best ladies I know. That's something, isn't it?? 

I think I said everything else in my other post, so I will stop myself from boring you with more silly details about my life. Thank you, whoever you are, for reading our posts and helping us to make our little dreams come true! 

*don't forget to check out our instagram! @sewsweetshop

DIY Paper Flowers

Another snow day in the northeast has kept me home bound again. So I figure what better to do than to craft!

If you've spent anytime on pinterest, which I suspect you have, you've seen these wonderful paper flowers.

Well, a few years ago I was asked to decorate for a wedding, the bride was in love with the idea of paper flowers.

So there I was tasked with making bouquets, boutiners, corsages, center pieces the whole nine yards. I didn't know the first thing about making paper flowers, and I've always been terrible at origami, but after reading a lot of different blogs, and a lot of trial and error, a whole wedding was decorated and beautiful!

Well my friends, if you're ever asked to decorate a wedding, or you just want to make yourself some pretty flowers that wont wilt and die on you here is a quick little how to for you!

Theses roses are by far the easiest to make.

Depending on the size you want, start by cutting out a round piece of paper, and then cutting a spiral from the outside in.

Starting rolling inward.

When it has been rolled all the way in, depending on how you want the flower to look, tight little bud or a larger bloom, you can release the spiral a bit.

Glue the bottom of the flower, and hold it all together tightly.

And there you have it!

This next one takes a little but more work. I generally make these between 4-6 petals large.

Here are the steps.

Fold the paper into a triangle.

Remove the excess paper, you are left with a small square folded into a triangle.

Fold each corner into the top.

Now take each corner and fold them open.

Take the tops and fold them down.

And then fold them in on themselves

Fold the paper in half end to end.

Glue them together. A hot glue gun works much better, however today I was working with regular white glue so I used these clips to keep them together while they dried.

After these are dried glue them to each other until you have a full flower.

The end result can be beautiful!

With a little bit of creativity you can make these into bouquets, boutiners, corsages, anything you need!

I hope these DIY's were helpful! 

Happy crafting everyone!!!