Beaded Bottles

Dick Blick is an Art Supply Company that I love. They come up with fresh project ideas every year, that are above and beyond any other company that I have worked with.

I'm extra lucky, because I'm going to meet the crafty geniuses from Blick tomorrow, when I attend the American Camping Association Conference. They always have amazing samples that I love to see.

This craft struck me as a simpler, yet more intricate kind of mosaic project. The beads are stuck onto the bottle with wax, and can be removed fairly easily if needed.

Instructions

I love Shrinky Dinks.

Cute earrings, huh? Can you believe they're made with good old Shrinky Dinks? So simple and the best part is watching them shrink. Just when you think they are going to fold into themselves, and be ruined forever, they magically flatten out.

One caveat, always punch the hole in for the earring hook BEFORE baking, or else...

Great for key chains, necklaces, book marks, scrapbooking embellishments...endlessly wonderful.,

I love Shrinky Dinks.

Button Frame and Flowerpot

What can I say, I'm a sucker for punishment. Mosaic work can be tedious, and is usually a big mess when we start the grouting process, but the end result is really wonderful.

This project is a little different because it uses buttons instead of tiles, and I think it looks really quirky and cute.

The how-to's can be accessed here:

Inspiration Card

We have offered Scrapbooking to our campers for the past 4 or 5 summers, and this year, I'm planning to extend into Paper Crafting.

Here is a pretty card that can serve as a starting point for a lot of other cards.

We'll need some card stock, pretty scrap-paper, some embellishments, a nice choice of rubber stamps and colored pencils.

Another option would be to emboss the rubber stamp area as well.

Instructions for this card are here.

Painted Rocks

This might be the simplest craft yet, I don't understand why we haven't ever done this. This would be great for boys and girls alike, and can run the gamut from simple to extremely detailed.

I love this most as a rainy day craft, since we need so little prep to get it ready. Just nice smooth rocks and stones and acrylic paint. Then we'll seal them with acrylic spray. Voila!

All Natural Bath Products

Last summer, we created custom bath salts using
2/3 cup Epsom salts
2 or 3 drops of candle fragrance
A few drops of food coloring.

We stirred our mixture with wooden craft sticks, and poured our bath salts into glass jars which we decorated with pretty gem embellishments.

This was a great craft for our youngest campers, and though we didn't get a chance to do this with our oldest campers, they all seemed very interested. This summer, we will definitely give the older girls a chance.

I found a cool site called www.kitsforcrafts.com. They have all kinds of project kits and recipes for homemade, all natural bath products, just right for kids. Perfect!!!

Day One

Every summer, I pack up my three children and head for 2 months as camp art director for a Pennsylvania overnight camp. Though I'm only at camp for 8 weeks, I spent many months preparing project ideas for our campers. This blog is going to journal the different project inspirations and ideas that I have.

Today, I have no inspirations, other than to start this blog! But, as soon as I start coming up with stuff, you'll be the first to know.