It was ambitious. It pushed my creativity. And in the end, I’ll tell you now – it ROCKED!

Over the next two weeks, I’ll be posting 11 more gift crafts that you will LOVE. Promise. And YES, kids can make all of them! They may look hard, but they aren’t! Some may be more appropriate for tweens, but nearly all of them can be made by kids as young as five. I’m seriously so proud of this series – I can’t wait to post them!

I’ll be updating this page every time a new project goes up, so bookmark it now to come back and see what’s new!

Related Pages: Printable Christmas Decorations, Printable Gift Tags, Printable Box Templates

Day 1 - Kids Modern Art Wall Plates	Day 2 - Upcycled Photo Frame	Day 3 - Super-Easy Flower Brooch
Day 4 - Anthropologie Seashell Bottles	Day 5 - A Gift for the Pets	Day 6 - Dollar Store Gilded Cake Stand
Day 7 - Easy No Sew Scarf	Day 8 - Easy Yarn Wreath	Day 9 - Easy Beaded Ribbon Necklace
Day 10 - Ballard Designs Inspired Art	Day 11 - Easy Cell Phone Case Pattern	Day 12 - Homemade Hot Chocolate Jars

Check out all of the Woo! Jr. Christmas kids activities while you are here!

Paper Cone Advent Calendar	Christmas Ornament Advent Calendar	Star Garland Advent Calendar	Magnetic Kids Advent Calendar
Recycled Christmas Card Advent Calendar	Paper Envelopes Advent Calendar	Embroidered Advent Calendar	Paper Craft Magnetic Advent Calendar
Christmas Origami Advent Calendar	Matchbox Advent Calendar	Scrapbook Tins Advent Calendar	Old Halloween Candy Advent Calendar

Be sure to also check out these snowflake crafts, Christmas handprint crafts, or this paper plate penguin craft!

I’ve made this tutorial crystal-clear with step by step photos so that even a teenager can pull this together on their own.

Free Summer Top Sewing Pattern

To break her out of her “making pajama pants rut”, I taught her how to make this ultra simple tube top with a simple rectangle of fabric and elastic thread. If elastic thread intimidates you (it did me for a while!), don’t worry about it for another second. Sewing with elastic thread is just as easy as sewing with regular thread. I’d say it’s easier, because it does so much shaping of the fabric for you, so you don’t need to worry so much about cutting precisely.

Even though this project is easy enough for teens, don’t think you can’t whip up a few for yourself! You can finish them in less than 2 hours – more like an hour and a half, tops!

(ooooh… bad unintentional pun.)

What You Need to Make This Summer Top

Fabric (see measuring guide below)

Regular coordinating thread

1 spool of elastic thread

Steam iron

To determine how much fabric you need, print and complete this super-simple measuring guide:

Free Easy Sewing Pattern - Strapless Summer Top

*Disclaimer – If you have a rather busty figure, I’d recommend adding straps to this top!

Strapless Summer Top Sewing Instructions

Step 1 – Sew your rectangle into a tube

Step 1 - Sew a Tube

Step 2 – Hem the top and bottom edges

Step 2a - Press raw edges

To make this super-easy, press the fabric down 1/2 inch, then again another 1/2 inch. Then turn it over and topstich the hem in place with regular thread:

Step 2b - Sew the pressed hems

Step 3 – HAND wind a bobbin with elastic thread

This may seem like a real pain in the rear, but it’s not. You can do it in less than 90 seconds. DON’T pull the elastic as you wind, simply keep it snug but unstretched. Then load the elastic thread bobbin into your sewing machine. Keep regular thread in your machine needle.

Step 3 - Wind elastic thread bobbin

Step 4 -Start sewing rows with the elastic thread

Line up the right side of your presser foot with the hem you just sewed. Now simply start sewing rows around your tube. You will be doing the exact same thing on both the top and bottom of the shirt, so you can start on either end. Make sure that you have the right side of the fabric on top, so that the elastic thread gets sewn on the wrong side of the fabric.

Some sewing machines may have a hard time if you backstitch the elastic thread at the beginning of your row. If so, just start and be sure to backstitch at the end of your rows.

These rows are also referred to as ‘smocking’.

Step 4 - Sew rows with elastic thread

Depending on the weight of your fabric, the elastic thread won’t pucker much at first. Don’t worry about this – a little steam iron magic will take care of it when we’re all done.

Step 4 - First row of elastic thread

Step 5 – Starting a new row of elastic thread

You are going to sew 5 rows of elastic thread on both the top and bottom of the shirt. Along with your hemmed row, that will be six stitched rows each.

Some people prefer to cut their thread and tie it off on each row. I prefer to keep it all one long piece of thread, to minimize any future breakage. To make sure that there is no pulling between the rows, pull the fabric away from your presser foot about 3 inches and then put it right back down under the presser foot, lined up along the previous seam. This will give it just enough slack to prevent puckering where you don’t want it to pucker.

Step 5 - Start a new row of elastic thread

One bobbin should be just about enough elastic thread to get through 5 rows. But if you run out, no worries. Just wind a new bobbin, start sewing where the old thread left off, and make sure you tie the ends together on the back of the fabric.

Tip - Start new bobbin

Continue sewing rows until you have 5 with the elastic thread.

Sewing with elastic thread

Step 6 – Repeat elastic thread rows on the other end of the shirt

When you are done with one end, it will look like this:

Step 6 - Finished one end, do the other

The back of the rows will look like this:

Wrong side of elastic thread rows

Do the same on the other end of the tube top.

Step 7 – The fun part – steam the elastic and watch it pucker!

When you’re all done, fire up your steam iron. Do not touch the thread with the iron! You simply need to hold the iron right above your elastic thread smocking and give it a few shots of steam. Your elastic will pucker right before your eyes.

Step 7 - Steam Away!

Step 8 – Look cool and sip some iced tea in your new summer top!

Free Sewing Project - Easy Summer Top

Summer Top Variations

You can also make this top with a completely different look by omitting the bottom smocking rows and wearing it with a belt. Adorable!

More Teen Crafts

More Teen Sewing Patterns

Easy Bulletin Board Decorating Ideas

Recycled Crafts: T-Shirt Surgery

Some of you may have noticed that lately I haven’t been posting very frequently, that our newsletters haven’t been going out, and in general, things have been mostly quiet on both Craft Jr. and the entire Woo! Jr. Network. I’m happy to say that it has been due to (mostly) very awesome reasons! (The not so awesome reason is that my brand new laptop is still getting “repaired” after almost a month. But I digress…)

Anyways, I’m kind of rather spectacularly proud of the fact that my first book, Mom Blogging for Dummies, is pretty much done and is getting ready to go to press! It is coming out this July – squeee!

Mom Blogging for Dummies by ME!

Let me just say that writing a book is way more work than you probably think it is.

No. More work than that.

It pretty much took up every spare second of my time (and then plenty more hours on top that didn’t fall into the ‘spare time’ category). The lovely and talented Lorna Doone Brewer has been keeping you entertained with projects while I’ve been busy, and I’m happy to say she will continue to do so even now that the book is complete. Over the next week or two I’ll be getting back into the swing of things around here, and more regular posting shall commence!  If you can’t wait for the book release, you might want to pre-order Mom Blogging for Dummies now just to make sure you’re the first on your block to get a copy!

Lots of book writing + running a business + being a mom = brain drain

As satisfying as it was to write a book, it was also a little draining. Mostly this was due to the fact that without any of the aforementioned “spare time”, I was unable to do any sewing, crafting, or creative projects for about 4 months. I know, right? I kind of went bonkers. So this last week I blew off many overdue side projects, emails, and important communications to replenish my creative soul (sorry to those who are still waiting for emails – that’s next on my list, promise!). What did I do? I sewed. As in, sewed so much that I actually got sore from it. I promised myself I would make my first quilt when I was done with the book, which I did – it’s almost complete!

But this last weekend was the really fun part of getting my creativity back – I sewed softies!!

Making Stuffed Animals

I just have to say, sewing softies (Stuffies? Plushies?!) is rather addicting. I made one for myself, then went on to make one for each of my kids, too. None of the patterns are mine, but I’ll show you where to get all of them:

Fancy Peacock from the book Little Birds

Stuffed Peacock Pattern from Stash Books' Little Birds

I bought the book Little Birds based solely on the fact that I saw this peacock on the Stash Books Blog (eye candy alert) and literally HAD to make one for myself immediately. He is proudly perched in my craft room now, and I get happy just looking at him. I mean, who wouldn’t be happy looking at this adorable thing??

Little Birds from the Stash Books Design Collective

Pikku the Penguin from the book Little Birds

Stuffed Penguin Pattern from Stash Books' Little Birds

So, have you ever bought a book based on one awesome project, only to find that the rest of the book is only mediocre? Well, that’s NOT the case with Little Birds. I have plenty of work-related catching up to do this week, and I’m having to talk myself out of making more birds. That sounds really odd when I say it out loud…

Anyways, this little penguin was adorable and perfect for my youngest daughter. I made it out of a recycled cashmere sweater, so the resulting toy is beyond soft and cuddly. I had a hard time giving this little one up.

Little Birds from the Stash Books Design Collective

Stuffed Angry Bird from Obessively Stitching (Free Pattern!)

Stuffed Angry Bird Pattern from Obsessively Stitching

My son wasn’t quite as impressed with the rather girly-girl birds in the first book. So we went over to Obsessively Stitching, where Care has created sewing patterns for all the Angry Birds and green pigs, too! My son had the hardest time deciding which one he wanted me to make for him (complicated further by the next book – you’ll see what I mean). But he was kind of ecstatic when I was done with this. He’s not usually into stuffed animals, but his love of the Angry Birds game outweighed his usual disdain for softies.

Asp Turtle from the book Beasties

Stuffed Turtle Pattern from Diana Schoenbrun's Beasties Pattern Book

I have to admit, this pretty darn adorable turtle isn’t entirely representative of the things you’ll find in Diana Schoenbrun’s Beasties book. My oldest daughter is a turtle lover, so I used the pattern but made it extra cute (don’t you agree?!). The book, however, is filled with softie patterns that can be truly called “Beasties” – a cyclops, werewolf, Loch Ness monster, aliens, a yeti, and some truly strange creatures that pretty much defy explanation. This book was filled with so many cool monsters to make that my son asked if he could make one all on his own. Yep, an 11 year old boy asked me to teach him to sew because of this book.

Beasties Patterns by Diana Schoenbrun

So, that’s where I got the stuffed animal patterns to make my own softies. You may see another post like this in the near future – but I promise I have to get caught up on emails first. :)

FYI – these are not affiliate links, I live in Illinois and pretty much can’t use affiliate links at all anymore – new weird tax law, don’t ask. :(

But I did get a free copy of Beasties to review late last year. I feel pretty bad it’s taken me so long to write something about it! I bought the other book with my own hard-earned pennies. :)

I love the homemade animal crackers and dip idea at the bottom – especially if you can use fall cookie cutters for the shapes!

Be sure to also check these Thanksgiving cupcake ideas and keep the kids busy while you are cooking with our Thanksgiving coloring pages!

Kaiser 612904 Fall Themed Cookie Cutters Qty 8
Price: $16.5
Kaiser 612904 Fall Themed Cookie Cutters Qty 8

I’m traveling a long way for Thanksgiving this year, so I’m going to have to live vicariously though all of you who get to cook up yummy stuff for the holiday. But I’m having Christmas Eve at my house, so get ready to be blasted with tons of Christmas cooking ideas soon!

Be sure to check out these Thanksgiving kids crafts and these Thanksgiving coloring pages while you are in the neighborhood. You might also like these printable Thanksgiving place cards, too!

Teen sewing projects are great for adults, too – mostly because of the wonderful easiness and instant gratification they offer. I really love nothing more than to sit down at my sewing machine and have a finished project an hour or two later. Longer projects are fun too, but they frustrate my teen because she easily loses patience when things get tedious. I was the same way back then.

The best part of these easy sewing projects for teens is that almost all of them can be made with less than a yard of fabric – or sometimes even things you already have laying around the house!

Recycled T-Shirt Scarf	Recycled Denim Room Organizer Sewing Project	Easy PJ Pants Free Pattern	Easy Summer Top to Sew
Swimsuit Cover Up Tutorial	Reversible Bag Novice Level Pattern	Easy Drawstring Backpack Pattern	Newsboy Hat Pattern and Tutorial
Jeans Purse Craft	How to Turn Old Jeans Into a Mini Skirt	Cell Phone Case to Sew from Recycled Jeans	Beach Towel Blanket Sewing Project

More Sewing for Teens

These books on Amazon are perfect for teens who really love to sew!

One-Yard Wonders: 101 Sewing Fabric Projects; Look How Much You Can Make with Just One Yard of Fabric!

I own One Yard Wonders and I can’t say enough great things about this book! It’s great for both beginner and intermediate sewers and includes pattern pieces for all the projects in the book. Plus it’s only $15, which is what you would pay for only one full price sewing pattern!

Sew Teen: Make Your Own Cool Clothes

I don’t own this one – I found it while writing this post. Next time I buy books from Amazon, I’m totally buying this!

And I’m just happy if I remember to buy the kids Valentine’s Day cards in time to pass out in class!

Hello Kitty Hello Kitty Cake Pops	Pillsbury Pops Pillsbury Easy Cookie Pops	Cupcake Pops Valentine Cupcake Pops	Chocolate Cheesecake Pops Bakerella’s Cheesecake Pops
Pink Cake Pops Pink Valentine Cake Pops	Chocolate Cookie Pops Dipped Chocolate Cookie Pops	Cookie Pops Assorted Cookie Pops	Stained Glass Cookie Pops Martha Stewart’s Cookie Pops

Check out more Valentine’s Day crafts and activities while you are here, too!

Normally my crafts are much less involved, but I used to do a LOT of mosaic when I crafted for a living, and I really miss it. This does take several days to complete because of the drying time involved with adhesive, grout and polyurethane. But the whole family helped with this project, so it will be an extra special present that was totally worth the time we spent on it!

Thanksgiving Turkey Mosaic Platter

What You Need to Make This Thanksgiving Mosaic Platter Project

Thanksgiving Mosaic Craft Materials

Everything I needed for this platter I got at my local craft store:

Small unfinished wooden tray

Craft paint (I used brown and red)

Glass mosaic tiles – 3/8 inch in 7 colors. I bought mine in two fall color assortment packages – Red, yellow, orange in one, & off white, tan, brown and reddish brown in another.

In addition to what is pictured above, you will also need:

Sanded tile grout - off white.

Water based polyurethane (my preference because it doesn’t smell at all and is super-easy to clean up).

E6000 glue - perfect for adhering glass to wood.

Beads for the beak and eye, or you can use pliers made for glass cutting to shape these pieces.

Sandpaper

How to Make this Keepsake Thanksgiving Platter

Plan Your Thanksgiving Mosaic Pattern

“Stain” Your Wood and Do A Trial Run

First of all, water down some brown paint and use it as a ‘stain’ for the outside edges of the wood platter. When I painted art furniture for a living, I found this method to be WAY easier than messing around with oil based stains, and gave nearly identical results.

After the paint has dried (which will take less than an hour), sand the wood to remove all rough edges. You can do this before you paint, but I wanted a weathered look, so I sanded after I painted.

Then start arranging your tiles on the platter to get an idea of where you will want to place them with the glue. I highly recommend this trial run, because trying to ‘draw’ with glass squares is a little challenging, especially around curves. I also discovered that I had started my design too far from the bottom edge, so when I glued the tiles, I knew to start much further down.

Glue the Mosaic Tiles in Place

Turkey Mosaic - Glue the Glass Tiles to the Platter

E6000 is both a tricky and forgiving glue to work with. Tricky because it is not so easy to spread and dries kind of fast. Forgiving because even though it dries fast, it doesn’t dry all the way for a longer period of time, which means you can make minor adjustments in tile positions if you need to.

The way I found worked best was to spread the glue in the shape of an area I wanted to cover – such as the turkey neck, then body, then half of the feather area, etc. Then press your tiles (grooved side down!) into the glue. Once the tile has been on the glue for a few minutes, try not to pull it up again. But you can move it slightly from side to side if you find you need to make adjustments for fitting pieces into your design.

Since I didn’t want to cut the tiles (too sharp for little hands to help), I used a few beads I had on hand to make the beak and eye. If you want to cut tiles for a more precise fit, use pliers made for glass cutting. Really – trust me on this, don’t use anything else to cut glass tiles. It will save you hours of frustration and wasted broken tile pieces (and probably sliced fingers. Yes, I speak from experience).

If you were tiling a floor, you would have to make sure that your grout lines were always a certain width, but for a craft project, you have way more leeway. Just make sure that no spot is big enough for another tile to fit there. You can see I have a few awkward gaps in some places, but I love the look of handmade stuff, so I purposefully didn’t let myself get perfectionistic about placing the tiles into the design.

Allow Your Mosaic to Dry

My kids loved helping me with this part, and even fought over turns. We’ll probably have to do more mosaic soon!

Once your tiles are in place, allow the platter to dry for at least 24 hours.

Grout The Mosaic

Important - before you grout, tape off the wood around the perimiter of the tiles (like you would if you were painting). The grout sticks to raw wood (unfortunately very well), and makes for a real mess you would have to sand off later. I used clear tape that you can’t see in these pictures.

Grouting the Glass Tiles

I bought my grout at Home Depot, just using the smallest container they had of pre-mixed grout. I always hated mixing grout myself. I used an old kitchen spatula to spread the grout between the tiles. Be sure to press the grout down in between the tiles and spread it around as you smooth it in all directions. Sometimes the grout looks like it is everywhere when it really isn’t, so it’s very important to spread in all directions to get it down into all the various spaces between the tiles. The kids helped with this too, just make sure they either wear gloves or don’t get it on their skin.

For grouting around the beads, make sure you uncover them enough to see them. My beads were not as tall as the tiles, so there is a slight indentation there.

When you’re done, scrape off as much excess grout as possible. It should look somewhat like this – don’t worry about the haze:

Mosaic Thanksgiving Platter - Grout Completed

Let the grout dry for at least an hour or 90 minutes. Then use a wet sponge or paper towel to removed the grout haze. It comes off quite easily now.

Let the grout cure for an additional 24-48 hours, according to the label directions.

Final Step – Protect with Polyurethane

You have to seal and protect the platter so that you can clean it later after use. I hate the fumes and cleanup of normal polyurethane, so I use a water-based polyurethane if possible. I wouldn’t use it on hardwood floors or furniture, but it’s perfect for craft projects. Be sure to cover both the top, tiles and bottom of the platter. Put on two coats and let dry between coats according to product instructions. Sand lightly between the coats, too. I know it’s a PITA, but it makes sure the second coat adheres to the first coat, especially if you are using a gloss finish like I did.

Thanksgiving Platter - Mosaic Pattern

Here’s the finished product with a top view so that you can use it as a pattern template!

More Thanksgiving Crafts

You might also like this keepsake Thanksgiving plate craft, or here are easier turkey crafts for younger children. Here are also some Thanksgiving appetizer recipes to serve on your new platter!

I’ve always loved carving real pumpkins, but never really got adventurous with the designs, knowing that the thing would be mush in a week or so. I recently found some Funkins artificial pumpkins on sale, picked up a few, and suddenly I found myself carving pumpkins non-stop! If you aren’t familiar with Funkins, they are made with a solid type of foam that make them both carvable and realistic looking. They come in several shapes and sizes, and even color variations, including white pumpkins.

Artificial Pumpkin Carving

Funkins Carving Tips

I started out with one of my little pumpkins to get an idea of what it was like to work with the material. For the most part, it was just like carving a real pumpkin, which as we know can be a bit challenging sometimes. The foam is thick and requires as much pressure to cut it as a real pumpkin.

Mini Funkins Pumpkin Display

The tools I used at first was a very cheap wood carving set, which for this kind of job, worked just fine. They made perfect little squares and circles, and sliced through patterns pretty well. A little saw might have been better for longer cuts, but most of the stuff I was working on were small, short cuts. I experimented with carving out only the skin of the pumpkin, leaving the “flesh” intact. That turned out OK, but the foam looked pretty ragged.

But then my husband brought out the Dremel and it was like a hit of crack, I swear to you! I still needed the carving tools to make the small squares, but the Dremel was my new tool of choice.

That is, until I started making mistakes with the Dremel. Mistakes that were hard to fix and that started to tick me off.

Fixing Pumpkin Carving Mistakes & Troubleshooting

Getting Sharp Corners

Some of the mistakes I made with the Dremel might just have been because I didn’t have the right drill bit to use. But regardless, it’s pretty hard to get into tight angled corners with a round cutting bit. You get ‘sloppy’ corners that don’t look like they are supposed to:

Cutting corners with a Dremel

The way to get sharp corners is to go back in with a straight carving tool and carefully clip out the remnants that the Dremel left behind. Easy peasy.

Paint Fraying and Peeling

I noticed that sometimes the dremel breezed through the foam pumpkin, but left behind some frayed paint coating like this:

Frayed Edges on the Funkin from Dremel cutting

The way to get rid of it was to go back with a sanding bit and clear away the flakes of paint. DO NOT peel them off, because they will peel away from the part of the pumpkin you want to stay intact!

Ragged Cuts in the Artificial Pumpkin

Once that sanding bit came out, it was hard to stop. I was able to clean up a lot of my mistakes with it. Rememer the ragged cuts in the foam I got from the wood carving tools? Smooth as can be with the sanding tool. Plus it made it look much more realistic instead of bad exposed foam:

Jagged Cuts in the Artificial Pumpkin

After I cleaned up some of the edges, I ended up getting really anal retentive about making all of my edges smooth. So I took the Dremel bit and sanded over every single one of my previous cuts and edges. I would never go though this much trouble for a real pumpkin – but since I knew the artificial pumpkin would last, I wanted to make it as perfect as possible.

Fixing Cuts You Didn’t Want to Make

The most frustrating part was when I didn’t hold onto the Dremel hard enough and it went awry on me. That sucked. So instead of letting it ruin the pumpkin pattern, I incorporated the mistakes into my design.

I started making swirls on the sides of the pumpkin, with the intention of the ends looking clean like they did in this first shot. But then the Dremel made a big hole on the end of the swirl like in the second shot:

Pumpkin Cutting Mistakes

So I could have made all of the swirls wider, which would have been a huge pain. Instead I just went back and added random ‘dots’ to the swirls, to make it look like they were there on purpose. I liked that look better in the end, anyway!

Turning Carving Mistakes into Design Elements

But the one thing I couldn’t fix this way was that one of my more fragile carvings broke right off.

Attaching Broken Pumpkin Pieces

My attachment point was t-i-n-y, so I had to use something very thin to attach the pieces together. A toothpick would work if I had a little more width to work with. But I didn’t, so instead I used two small segments of floral wire. I stuck them into both ends, and gently pushed them together. I found out the hard way that Funkins are stronger than skin, and in my first attempt the wire shot right into the end of my thumb. OUCH. So please be careful with this step!

Some of the paint chipped when the part broke off, so I touched up the seam with a little bit of off white paint. I’ve zoomed in very closely in this photo, but you can’t really see the fix if you’re standing and just looking at the pumpkin.

Pumpkin Carving Patterns

I have a lot of posts of pumpkin stencils I’ve drawn myself or hacked out of clip art:

Disney Pumpkin Stencils

Scary Pumpkin Stencils

Cute Pumpkin Stencils

Spongebob Pumpkin Stencils

Ni Hao Kai Lan Pumpkin Stencils

Buy Funkins and Pumpkin Carving Tools at Amazon

12 Inch Orange Funkin	10 Inch Orange Funkin	8-pc. Mini Wood Carving Chisel Set	Dremel Variable Speed Rotary Tool with 55 Accessories