kid craft – Page 3 – SunnyMommy Creations

Posted on June 21, 2024June 21, 2024 by Sunshine — Leave a comment

Mermaid Dresser

Much to my surprise, my five-year-old held up her part of our deal to clean up after herself for over a month, and now she’s earned a room makeover. Her theme? “Under the Sea.” We have spent a good deal of time looking up very elaborate options, but my first project was easy enough to tackle before really diving in deep.

When she was a baby, we bought a few dressers from IKEA and stained them… By that, I mean my husband and father-in-law stained them without supervision, and now they are grey instead of white. Now, finally it was time to fix them up so they’re more little girl-friendly!

Supplies:

(As an advertising affiliate and Amazon Associate, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. But it doesn’t cost you anything extra and helps me keep up my site!)

Old dresser
Spray paints (I used 2 metallic spray paints and 2 flat spray paints)
something round for tracing
paint pens

Step 1: Clean and prep. I thought I might have to sand the dressers, but they still felt like they’d take paint just fine despite the stain. I did wipe them down pretty well just to make sure I wouldn’t be painting over any dust/gunk. Depending on the finish of your dresser, you may need to sand and/or remove old paint.

Step 2: Spray paint. I wanted the mermaid scales to look a bit iridescent, so I made sure my dark blue and dark purple were metallic spray paints for a sparkly finish. I also used a pink paint and a light green paint for undertones.

I wanted the colors to flow and look right as one “painting” over the whole dresser, so I left the drawers in the dresser as I spray painted.

Starting with the undertones, I sprayed on the green paint first, making sections here and there that I could blend with the other colors.

Then I did the pink over other sections.

For the dark blue, I again sprayed it on its own sections, but I also lightly went over the green to blend the two colors.

I did the same with the purple, going over the sections that remained and then also lightly going over the pink.

I did this for the top and sides of the dresser as well as the drawer fronts. I also then pulled the drawers out a little bit to spray a little color on the drawer edges.

That done, I let the paint dry. While staring at this dresser, I decided that I wanted the other, larger dresser to kind of match this one without being too matchy-matchy. So, I hauled out the drawers and spray painted the fronts of the drawers the same way I’d done the whole other dresser.

Step 3: Trace mermaid scales. After carrying the dresser and the drawers back to my daughter’s room, I tried to decide how big I wanted the scales to be. I settled on a coaster for my template, but you could use anything round that you can trace.

Starting at the top of the top drawer, I found the middle and held the coaster so that about half of it made the rounded bottom of my first scale. First, I marked on the coaster where each side started my tracing – this helped me be sure from then on that I was making the same size scales. I then traced this bottom portion of the coaster with a blue marker – which ended up being a lucky choice that gave me a cool end result. I went all along the top of that first drawer and made evenly placed “scales” for the first row.

Moving to beneath this first row, I lined up my coaster’s lines on the sides so that this next scale was centered under where the above two scales met. (Basically, stagger the scales.) Again, I traced scales all along this second row.

I repeated this all down my dresser drawers, continuing the scales on the bottom of one drawer onto the top of the lower drawer so it all flowed together.

I then did the top because my daughter wanted “scales all over!” Next came the sides of the dresser.

Step 4: Paint over the traced lines. Honestly, just the traced marker lines looked pretty cool, though they were a little too subtle for my daughter’s taste. So, I took a paint pen and traced over all my lines.

(I let the girls do the top of the dresser, although I was twitching and grimacing the whole time. 😬)

I used a pinkish-purple paint pen, and the blue marker lines bled into the paint to give it a really cool, shifting hue as I went. This was totally by accident, but it ended up looking pretty.

The nice thing about the paint pen I used was that I could wipe it away if I messed up, though I had to be quick before it dried. For the top that the girls worked on…Well, they’ll always be able to see where they helped. 😆

Step 5: Finishing touches. You could alternate painting the lines in different colors to give a more varied look, but I liked how mine turned out. I worried that I would need to put a clear coat of polyurethane over the dresser to protect the scales from scratching off, but I’d been right that the paint adhered to the stained (or semi-stained, let’s be honest) finish on the wood. IF you need a clear coat, now’s the time.

Deciding I was done, my daughter and I put on the shiny little drawer pulls, and that was it!

For the big dresser with the painted drawer fronts, we added these same drawer pulls as well. I agreed with her that putting scales on these drawers would have been too much, but the two dressers tie together nicely without being overwhelmingly mermaid-y.

Now I just have to figure out what “Under the Sea” mural to paint on one wall. And how to build an underwater cave. And how to make a sunken pirate ship bed. Wish me luck! 😜

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Posted on May 29, 2024May 29, 2024 by Sunshine — Leave a comment

From Water Table to Fairy Garden

This is a project that is great to do with kids!!

My girls outgrew their water table at Grammy’s house… And by that, I mean they’ve moved on to controlling the hose directly and making a wet mess that way.

To give the water table a new purpose, I decided to copy an idea I’d found on Pinterest, but in our own way. Most fairy gardens will have, ya know, plants. However, we didn’t want to use any dirt in ours since water would naturally pool pretty easily and we didn’t want a muddy mess. Instead, here’s what we came up with.

Usually materials that Grammy already had at her house, we rummaged through the craft room and found spray paints, white rocks, black rocks, aquarium rocks/marbles, shells, and some coco fiber liner. I also went to the garage and grabbed some extra pea gravel. Since our water table was basically one level, I also took cheap little pots and used them to make “islands” in our garden. To give all these rocks some life, we found some fake succulents and also some sticks from the yard. Add in a few spare outdoor decorations, and that was it!

Supplies:

(As an advertising affiliate and Amazon Associate, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. But it doesn’t cost you anything extra and helps me keep up my site!)

Old water table
Spray paint
Decorative rocks
Aquarium marbles/rocks
Pots and containers
Pea gravel
Fake succulent plants and flowers
Coco coir fiber liner roll
Sticks
Sea shells

Step 1: Clean and deconstruct the water table. I took a hose to the whole water table and used a little dish soap to scrub it clean. After wiping it dry, I took out the little spinner that was in the center of our table. Then I also removed the stopper that kept water in the table – I want it to drain now!

Step 2: Spray paint the water table. To make the top of the table look like land, I sprayed the outside, top, and inside lip a brown color. For the high section in the middle and also the little “pouring” section, I used a grey color to make these look like mountains. (Depending on the dividers of your water table, you could choose different colors for different sections too – perhaps green for a lawn or blue for a section that will hold water as a lake.)

I didn’t worry about painting the bottom of the water table’s top, since this would be covered by rocks, marbles, and pots anyway.

Step 3: Add pots. First, I spray painted a bunch of cheap pots/containers so they would sparkle and stand out from all the rocks. Once these were dry, I wanted the pots in first so I could figure out how I wanted these “islands” to be arranged. I also wanted them in first to avoid having to shove the rocks around as I tried to get the pots to sit flat. Since one container was going to be a pool, I definitely wanted that one to sit flat.

Step 4: Add rocks and marbles. We started with the white rocks, then the black rocks, making different little sections for the two. (I’m told they will be for day and night lounging. 🤷‍♀️) We REALLY liked the look of the aquarium rocks, so those went around the container that would become the fairy pool.

Step 5: Add details. It might have been easier to draw on the mountain rocks before adding things into the water table, but at least this way I knew how far down to draw. Using a permanent marker, I quickly drew little boulder rocks all over the areas that I’d painted grey.

Step 6: Fill pot islands. We put one large rock in each pot to help fill them and hold them in place. Then I used pea gravel and filled them the rest of the way.

You could fill the pots with dirt and plant real flowers in them, but, again, we wanted to avoid any dirt that might cause a muddy mess.

Step 7: Make a fairy house/hut. I took a square pot/container and cut one side to make a door. Then, taking some of the coco fiber liner, we hot glued a piece on top to look like a roof. That was it – very easy.

I also cut a long section of the liner and made a little bridge going from the raised “pouring” section to the middle section where the spinner had been. Grammy was on glue-gun duty, and she glued this bridge right onto the water table.

We then glued the house onto the end of the bridge that covered the pouring section. To really help hold the house in place, I added pea gravel around the sides of the house, and we found a cool rock to place on the roof as well, which added some whimsy to the look of the house.

Step 8: Fill in with flowers/shells/sticks/decorations. First, I spray painted our collected sticks white. While these dried, we got to work sticking the fake succulents into the pea gravel of the pots. We also used one to help pin down the bridge to the center section, cutting a little hole in the liner over where the spinner had been installed.

Grammy had a few outdoor decorations that we stuck in the pea gravel too, and an old lantern turned upside down sat on the rocks to become a cool “fairy beehive,” or so I’m told.

For around the fairy’s pool, we placed a bunch of old seashells, and these also covered the top of one of the pots because that is, of course, where beach fairies live.

When the sticks were dry, we shoved them down into the pea gravel inside two pots on either side of the garden, and these trees gave nice height to the…landscaping, I guess you’d say.

Really (as I hope is evident by our choices), you can use any decorations to make anything you want in your fairy garden!

The last detail to add was water in the pool, and then it was time to play!

I love that this was a good group project, and the kids got to use their imaginations and creativity. I like that we found a new, “big kid” use for the water table. Also, I love that we could use spare materials to make a great, low-cost, mostly natural home for fairies! 😆

DIY Must-Have Lists

Posted on April 30, 2024April 30, 2024 by Sunshine — Leave a comment

Faux Stained Glass Vase

For our wedding, I purposefully bought tall glass vases as centerpieces, planning to later use them for decorating our home(s) for years to come. Fast forward, and now I’m looking around at them and wondering how to change up the look they’ve had ever since. Several have homemade candles in them and so I want them to remain clear, but for a few I wanted to find a way to add some color and/or texture.

Since this one was sitting in our dining room beside a stained glass lamp, I figured I’d give it a go and make the vase look like stained glass. I’d done this before to the glass cabinet doors in our pantry, and I hoped it would work on a vase. Spoiler – it works great! You could do this on any glass vase, no matter the shape, too, so I’m sure there are many, many cool looks you could create using this method.

Supplies:

(As an advertising affiliate and Amazon Associate, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. But it doesn’t cost you anything extra and helps me keep up my site!)

Plain glass vase
Glass paint
Liquid leading

Step 1: Clean the glass. My vase was very dusty and had smudges from little fingers, so I first cleaned the inside and outside of the vase really well. The last thing you want is gunk stuck on as you’re painting!

Step 2: Paint the colors. I had absolutely zero plan for what I was painting, and I ended up going pretty abstract but also making flowery shapes. You could copy a pattern and colors you like, or you could plan out shapes first. There are all kinds of cool stained glass pictures you can find online to replicate!

I used a normal crafting brush, a little lid for squirting out the paint, and the glass paint itself. If you want the colors to be really strong, you might want to let it dry and do another coat, or do it pretty thick as you go. I only painted on one quick coat, and I let it be stronger in some places and more transparent in others.

Don’t worry if you think your painting doesn’t look too great at first. Once you put the liquid leading on, it really pops! I also didn’t worry too much about having straight or smooth edges, since I would be going over everything with outlines.

I let this dry a few hours just to be safe (and because I got busy doing other things), but it dries pretty quickly.

Step 3: Apply liquid leading as outlines. If you’ve never worked with this stuff, it’s a bit like puffy paint that ends up looking like the lead on stained glass. It has a sticky consistency that dries pretty quickly, and it leaves a painting with a cool 3D effect.

I was worried at first that this would run down the vase or drip as I went, so at first I turned my vase on its side and applied it that way. But once I had to do the other side, I stood the vase up again and had no problem applying it that way. It does take a second to get used to how much you squeeze out as you go, but it’s pretty easy.

After a while, the spout may get clogged and make it harder to get any out smoothly, so just take a second and clear the tip from time to time.

I outlined between my different colors and also added some lines between the shapes where I could see different brushstrokes.

The liquid leading does look a bit grey as it comes out, but it dries nice and dark – black like lead.

See how beautiful that is with light coming through?!

That is it! I set the vase in place and let it dry. I’m really happy with how this turned out, and of course now I’m eyeing the rest of the vases and wondering how many more I should do. 😉

DIY Must-Have Lists

Posted on March 27, 2024March 27, 2024 by Sunshine — Leave a comment

Hydro Dipped Easter Eggs

This week, I felt like I’d been a bad mom lately and so decided to spend time with my girls coloring Easter eggs. We started the good-old way with baking soda, food coloring, and vinegar. But after poking and draining about six eggs to color the shells, I’d kind of had enough of that and tried to think of a way to decorate the bagful of plastic eggs we had lying around.

I’ve wanted to hydro-dip…something (anything really) for a while, and it seemed like painting Easter eggs this way might be kinda cool. So, after a quick trip to Michael’s yesterday, we had all the spray paint colors we could think of and were ready to go.

Is this a particularly kid-friendly art project? Not really. LOL. But my girls were surprisingly helpful and did a great job – the key to my success lies entirely in the plastic gloves I made them wear.

Step 1: Spray on a base layer. In order for hydro dipping to really work, I’m told you need a base layer of paint for the spray paint to stick to. So, I took my bag of plastic eggs and popped them apart so they’d sit flat. Then I took a plain white spray paint and sprayed all over the eggs to get a good coat on. I went with white because I figured that would help them look the most “realistic” as eggs when finished.

Supplies:

(As an advertising affiliate and Amazon Associate, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. But it doesn’t cost you anything extra and helps me keep up my site!)

Plastic easter eggs
Spray paints
Gloves
Cup or other container

Step 2: Prep for painting. Once the base coat was dry (I gave mine about 4 hours), I snapped all the eggs back together and took them in a basket out to my deck. This seemed like the best place to do this at the time simply because I wanted good ventilation while working with the girls.

It’s important to have everything ready to go because the paint will dry pretty quickly in the water, so you want your eggs right there when you start. I made sure to shake up all of my spray paint cans really well too. Because I wanted to dry the eggs inside (it was a windy day), I lay a silicone baking sheet and a few paper towels on the kitchen counter to be ready. And perhaps most importantly, we made sure we had gloves in place.

Step 3: Hydro dip! I used a solo cup because I figured the eggs didn’t need a lot of room to dunk them, but you could use a spare Tupperware container or an old whipped cream container or something else entirely. Really, it just has to be a container that’s deep enough to submerge the egg.

I filled my cup a little over 3/4 full of water, then took it to the deck. My girls stood ready with an egg each, and then I began spraying the paint into the cup. I made sure to spray in the center of the cup each time, and I held the can about 6 inches above the cup as I sprayed so it didn’t shoot everywhere. It only took little bursts at a time to get enough paint into the cup to cover the surface.

We found that we really liked the metallic spray paints, and the blue and purple covered the surface really well. I alternated my combinations of colors, and really there was no bad way to go.

Each time, when I had enough paint to cover the surface, the girls would slowly lower a plastic egg down through the paint. Sometimes we’d have to turn the egg over and do the other side again, but this was no problem because the paint on the egg adheres REALLY fast, so it doesn’t drip or anything. For a few eggs, we also found that setting them to float on the surface and then just rolling them also pulled the paint to cover the eggs, though this took a little longer.

We did about 30 eggs in 45 minutes, so it went pretty quickly. I never had to refill the water, and I never bothered cleaning the cup because the paint you don’t use moves to the edges anyway. The girls had a lot of fun dunking the eggs, shaking off the water, and then running them inside to sit and dry. Our gloves got messy, and I was worried about the paint pulling off the eggs as we set them down, but that turned out to not be an issue because of how fast the paint sets.

I will say that my eggs had little holes at the tops and bottoms, so that helped to drain any water that got inside. Once they were all on the paper towel to dry, I did give them a few hours before using them to decorate.

Now we have cool eggs that I can use again next year too! And they were so easy, I’m sure we’ll make more again. 🙂

DIY Must-Have Lists

Posted on December 31, 2023December 31, 2023 by Sunshine — Leave a comment

Candle Holders from Pop Bottles

Here’s my last DIY project for the year on the last day of 2023!

Once the charm of Christmas is over, I remember how much I dislike the early darkness of winter. (I can practically hear you people making jokes about my name, but trust me – I’ve heard it all. 😆) In my younger/single days, I often left up white Christmas lights all winter to make my living spaces more cozy despite the cold, dark nights. Now, I live with a husband and 2 small children who can’t remember to turn off a room’s “big lights” for anything. So, cozier light is harder to come by these days.

BUT, my girls do enjoy candlelight, and flameless, LED votive candles are a great, safe way to add touches of coziness scattered about where my family is least likely to leave on the house lights. Plus, I get the extra fun of figuring out cool holders for the candles…

Enter my second use for the pop bottles from my last project. I used the top halves of pop bottles to make Christmas bells, and now I found a use for the bottom halves – candle holders!

Supplies:

(As an advertising affiliate and Amazon Associate, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. But it doesn’t cost you anything extra and helps me keep up my site!)

pop bottles, various sizes
Flameless votive candles
hot glue
coarse sea salt
faux moss
gloss spray paint
flower petals
wine corks
metallic gold paint pen

Step 1: Cut bottles in half. If you haven’t done my last project with the top parts of the bottles, then take new pop bottles, wash them, and cut them to whatever heights you like. I’d already cut mine a little lower than halfway down, so those were the sizes that I had to work with. But you could make them as tall as you like, or even cut them at an angle so that the “backs” of your candle holders will be tall with shorter “fronts” to show more light. Really, you can cut them any size or design you like!

To cut the bottles, I found it worked best to stab a knife in to make hole, then use scissors to cut around the bottle. Again, I made mine in as straight a line as I could…especially since I didn’t think of the angled idea until way after. LOL.

Step 2: Rim with hot glue. As you’ll see in the following options, there are a few ways I made candle holders. But for each option, I started by rimming the tops of the cut bottles with hot glue. This adds some texture, keeps the cut tops from being jagged or sharp, and makes a “melted glass” looking edge.

And now you pick how to finish!

Option 1: Paint the rims. For a few of the bottles that had flat bottoms, I simply used a paint marker and colored over the cooled/hardened hot glue. I used a metallic gold paint pen, and I like how shiny and pretty this made the rims, leaving the rest of the candle holder clear to see the brightest light.

I filled the base of the bottle/candle holder with a bit of coarse sea salt, partly to look pretty and partly to help the base be heavier. Setting a flameless votive candle in the center, these were done! You could fill your bottoms with different things for these candle holders, since this option leaves the insides most visible. I might change things up and replace the salt with pebbles at some point. Or beads. There are lots of options!

Option 2: Glue the sides and roll in salt. For other bottles with flat bottoms (these were SmartWater bottles), I spread hot glue on small sections at a time and then rolled that side over a plate covered with coarse sea salt. This used a lot of hot glue sticks, but honestly these surprised me in the end and were my favorite.

Once the salt was stuck all over (some gaps are fine), I took these candle holders down to my workshop and used a clear gloss spray to coat them. This helped hold the salt in place and also added a crystal-like shine to the salt.

With these dry, I took them back upstairs and again poured some sea salt into the base of each candle holder. (You can’t really see what’s inside these options, so the salt was fine just for adding weight.) Setting a flameless votive candle in the center, these were done too!

Option 3: Make a cork base. The bigger, 2-liter bottles had bottoms that were very obviously pop bottles, so I wanted to hide these bottoms a little better. One way I did this was by using wine corks left over from another project. First, I took a knife and cut them in half, lengthwise. Next, I used hot glue and spread it on each cut cork’s flat side, then pressed the cork against the bottom of the bottle. I did this all the way around the 2-liter base, using 17 halves of corks.

Because I only had enough corks left to do a smaller bottle, I did one of those the same way. (I guess we need to drink more wine 😆) But I like having a little variety between the sizes with the same style option, so these 2 together look nice. Once all the corks were on, I again poured in sea salt to add weight to the base. This especially helped on the 2-liter-sized candle holder, since the opening was bigger and you can really see what’s inside. I put more salt in this one than I had in the smaller candle holders, and it looked nice against the cork.

I ended up using my gold paint pen on the top, glued parts of these candle holders as well, just because I liked how that looked better than leaving them plain.

Painting the top of my cork candle holders.

Option 4: Faux moss wrap. On another 2-liter bottom, I went around the top again with a thin bit of glue, then quickly dipped the top in salt. This rimmed the top with texture and a bit of sparkle. I didn’t need to spray these tops with gloss since there wasn’t much salt on there.

Next, I spread hot glue over small sections and pressed on faux moss to cover the bottle’s bottom. I decided to go all over with the moss, leaving only the top exposed where the salt/hot glue showed. This ended up looking woodsy and wintery, and it really looks better in person than in my pictures. I used green moss, but you could do this in different colored mosses too!

Again, I added some salt to the base for weight, then placed in a candle.

Option 5: Cover in petals. I’ve had these white flower petals for forever and finally had a use for them! Starting at the top of a 2-liter bottom, I put a dab of hot glue on the bottom of a petal and stuck it on so that the majority of the petal stuck up above the edge of the bottle. I continued to do this with petals all the way around the top, overlapping them a bit and gluing them down onto each other if they stuck out too much.

Once the top layer was on, I went around with a lower row of petals. Then I did another lower layer. Finally, I heavily glued on petals around the bottom.

This petal-covered candle holder already looked pretty, and once I got a votive candle inside… 😍 This one ended up being my second favorite. …I may need to scrounge up more petals and do more!

That was it! I like the variety I ended up with. They looked cool without candlelight inside, and I’m SO glad this plan worked out and they look even cooler with candlelight shining through! 😆

Candle holders in action…

I’m sure there are many other things you could stick on the outside of these candle holders too! Beads, sequins, wood sticks – what else can you think of?

One IMPORTANT note: The hot glue might deform the plastic bottles a little bit if too hot. Since I was covering the bottles anyway, this wasn’t much of a problem. But it’s a good reminder that you MUST use flameless votive candles, because real fire will absolutely melt these and be a serious hazard.

I found flickering, LED votive candles on Amazon, and you can buy packs of them for pretty cheap…so I’m certainly making even more candle holders in the future. 😜