Tutorial Time: Make An Indoor Snowball Fight Set

Now that December is here I'm feeling extra festive & thought I'd start the month with this fun winter-time how-to: a DIY Indoor Snowball Set!

I saw a similar idea in a catalog and thought it was cool.  Have snowball fight fun, but without the cold and wet mess?  I'm in!  I did not dig the sort of high price tag though.  I also discovered that the "realistic" snowballs were really just giant pom poms...which doesn't seem all that snow-like to me, so I came up with my own version.  I think these look & throw more like the real deal:

The best part is this project uses basic materials and is super quick to make.  It's also the perfect DIY holiday gift for kids (or kids at heart)!  Here's how to make 'em:

Materials:
- 2 skeins of fluffy white yarn (I used Bernat Pipsqueak)
- 10 to 12 golf practice or ping pong balls
- Crochet hook
- Small bucket
- Vinyl & adhesive cardstock
- Die cutting machine (or stencils and scissors)
- Optional: plastic needle

Most of the supplies were things I already had at home so it made this a quick & fairly inexpensive project.  I started by threading some of the yarn through two holes in the ball.  Used a plastic needle makes this easier. Then I knotted the yard to hold it in place on the ball.  

Then carefully wound the yarn around the ball, spacing it evenly.  I also did one with a regular ping pong ball by holding the end until I had things wound a few times which worked great too if you don't have the holed balls.

I wound until the ball was snowball sized as desired.  Staying tennis ball-sized or smaller so keeps the weight light enough for indoor play.

I cut a yarn tail a few inches long and then used a crochet hook to pull the tail under a few tightly wound strands.  I repeated this several more times until the tail is hidden and secure.  Then repeated it all with the rest of the balls.

The secret to the snowball's success is in the fluffiness of the yarn.  It means you can't see the individual strands so each snowball looks like downy soft snow and has a soft to the touch, yet firm feel like a real snowball:


For a cute container, I used a galvanized bucket and made sure sides were nice & clean. Using glittered adhesive card stock, I cut my lettering using my Silhouette Portrait.  I found some free holiday fonts (Alpha Shapes Christmas Balls and Grand Hotel) that were ideal.

I weeded with a toothpick to remove the portions I wasn't transferring:

I also cut an oval from some white vinyl (about 5in wide by 3 in high) for the background of my label.

I recommend applying the oval to the bucket with some transfer tape, smoothing that out with a credit card or scraper first, and then using transfer tape to apply the lettering.  I put my lettering onto the vinyl before I applied it and it meant fiddling around too much trying to get air bubbles out around some of the letters.  So learn from my mistake and don't do that!

The transfer tape made it easy to keep everything even.  After carefully peeling it away the bucket was looking pretty good:

I added those fluffy snowballs to the bucket & we were ready for a little indoor snowball action.



A few other tips:  Remove delicate or breakable items - these are quite soft, but could still knock something over.  Vacuum/sweep the floor first so your snowballs don't become dirty or collect a bunch of dust too quickly (dirty snow, real or fake, is not fun, nor easy to clean).  If any strands of yarn become dislodged from over-vigorous snowball throwers, aka kids, just use a crochet hook to snag them back into place.  Now, enjoy a snowball fight and stay warm & dry at the same time;)

Cutting Machine Stencils with Rae Gun Ramblings

Today we've got a special guest, Marissa from Raw Gun Ramblings, with a great Cutting Machine Tutorial: How to Make Freezer Paper Stencils.  So let's get to the goods and see how to make these!

Hi, I'm Marissa from Rae Gun Ramblings.  I blog about all things crafty, tasty, pretty and just plain life. I'm an insanely huge Harry Potter fan, fresh pasta addict, and married to a crazy talented musician. I also run a handmade baby and toddler clothing shop on Etsy called Rae Gun. Hopefully you'll stop by my blog and shop and see some of my latest adventures.

Today I want to show you how to use your cutting machine (or an exact-o knife plus some patience) to make awesome stencils. Sorry most of my examples are Harry Potter themed, I wasn't kidding when I said I'm a big fan, but the wonder of freezer paper stenciling is that you can make anything you want.
  
Freezer Paper Stenciling

1. Pick your design and cut it out of freezer paper. You want the shiny side down so consider that while positioning. I used my Cricut and put the shiny side on my mat when I cut my stencils out but you can use a Silhouette or even an exact-o knife and put a print out under the freezer paper to trace. I use a program called Sure Cuts A Lot for the Cricut that allows you to cut almost any image you find or make on your machine. Keep in mind that when you pick a design the simpler the better. When I cut the Potter font it usually takes me 3-4 tries and when I cut the Lego Star Wars stencil it took me 2 tries (luckily the paper is cheap and comes in a gigantic roll). This is the most time consuming and annoying part. And you may need to trim it a little when you're done cutting.

2. Iron the stencil on your shirt (or bag or whatever). Shiny side down. Be anal about this make sure you do a good job getting all the edges. This is the step that I worry about most since if you don't have it ironed tightly, paint might get onto parts you don't want.

3. With a board or more freezer paper (shiny side up towards the part of the shirt with the stencil) in between your shirt layers use fabric paint (I got mine at Jo-anns and Michaels) and a foam brush and apply the paint. Blot and smoosh as opposed to brush.  Don't go too heavy at once just keep on blotting and adding a little paint at a time. I add a pea-bean size amount to my brush each time.

4. Next you pull off the stencil. I like to wait about an hour. It will still be wet so be careful not to touch the paint and not to touch the wet stencil to the shirt. Sometimes I use one hand to lift the paper and the other has a pin to either hold down the shirt or lift up stubborn parts of the stencil.

5. Let dry and enjoy.

I hope you stop by my blog to say hi and definitely let me know if you have any questions or try it out.

Thanks for sharing this today Marissa!  Don't forget there's a new giveaway for some great cutting machine tools going on now - click HERE to head over & enter!

CraftShare: Using Add-on Tools in Cutting Machines

We've been getting crafty with cutting machines this week, so today is all about using different tools to let your creativity go wild.

Both Cricut & Silhouette have designs you can buy and add-on accessories for their machines and most scrapping stores have loads of pre-fab embellishments, but as a someone crafting on a tight budget I can't really go wild with extras.  This is why I love the gear I used for today's projects - more bang for the buck!

My Personal Fave Paper Crafting Tools:

• Sure Cuts A Lot Software makes it easy for me to make exactly what I want with minimal effort and there are loads of free svg files out there so I don't have to design from scratch.  I've never had to buy extra cartridges or files for designs.  EVER.  It also imports all my fonts from my Office Suite so it doesn't involve sifting through cartridges or a giant online catalog to get the right look for my text.  

• CRI-Kits Gel Pen Kits add the detailed touches my horrible handwriting can ruin and are a lot nicer & faster than trying to cut tiny shapes and lettering from paper.  Being easy to use also makes it easier to be creative.  I also love the effects the metallic & glitter gel pens add (and how I can uses them outside my machines as well).

• CRI-Kits Embosser Kit let you get fancy looking with vellum or metal without it being too complicated.  Just like the pens, there's an easy-to-swap-in holder, so you can do your drawings, cuts and embossing quickly & efficiently.

The key element to success with any/all of these tools is doing things in the right order.  For a layered card like the one above above:

Step 1 - I used SCAL to cut out the background card & corners (from a free svg file for making invitations).  

Step 2 - Then I made a rectangle design with my custom text in it (using the cute Care Bears font no less!).  I deleted the rectangle and used a CRI-Kits gel pen in my machine to write the text.  

Step 3 - Then I hit "undo" and deleted the text instead.  Hitting "reload" instead of "unload" made sure the cut would be exactly in the right spot.  I swapped in my cutting blade & cut it out.

Step 4 - For the embossed border I put a sheet of vellum on my embossing mat & swapped in my embossing stylus + holder.  In SCAL I made a rectangle around my original text box and inserted in some baby-themed stock images, shrinking them down so they'd make a perfect frame.  I deleted off the text rectangle and embossed away.  Repeating Step 3, all pieces were now cut & ready to stick together.

Sharing this with my FAVE LINK PARTIES too so click HERE to check them out!