Do you remember getting these when you were little? I do!

 Stick the capsules in water (warm definitely works best) and the sponge inside opens up and it's in a shape!  I loved these when I was little, and my kids do, too.  BEST of all, they're at the dollar store :)  So I grabbed a package of them and made these:


Pretty easy to do.  Here's what you need:

• Magic capsule sponges (or I suppose any old stamp you've got will work, too, but where's the fun in that?? :) )
• fabric paint
• plain shirt
• small paint brush
• glue
• old plastic lid (easy to cut, like tupperware)
• scissors

I went to Target looking for dirt cheap inexpensive plain kid's tees, and I found cute little tank tops in a bunch of colors.  They were $3!!!  Nice!  So I had the girls pick their own colors, and they picked...

all the same color.  I was hoping they would pick some different ones, but hey, I let them choose.  Purple is cute!  So these tanks took a spin in the washer (no fabric softener per the fabric paint's instructions) and a tumble in the dryer, a quick ironing, and they were ready.


Let the sponge capsules float around in some warm water for a few minutes and you've got this:



And again, I let the girls choose.  They picked a horse, a giraffe, and an anteater. (Still haven't done the giraffe yet, ran out of steam...maybe tomorrow...)  These sponges are a little small, so I needed them to be attached to something so that I could hold them easily, be able to press down evenly, but I also wanted to see where I was placing it.

In comes the tupperware lid that lost its mate to save the day.

Chop it up into smaller squares/shapes, use some glue to stick the sponge animals on, let them dry, and you've got your stampers. If you use regular glue, like me, when you go to wash these out (unless you toss them), they'll fall off the plastic.  If you want them to be a little more permanent, maybe hot glue? 


To make the circle designs that I did, first I roughly traced the animal onto some scrap paper and lay them on the shirt where I wanted the design to be.  Very helpful when it came to actually doing the stamping.

Stick 'em in some paint (white is a good idea for a base coat if your shirt isn't white), and start stamping.  You may need to fill in spots that the sponge doesn't quite finish.  They aren't perfect.

Here's a picture of all the horsies after one coat of white:

I went back over with my small paint brush and gave them a couple more coats, mixing the white with some sparkly light pink.  Let them dry (check your paint's directions, I used Tulip fabric paint, and it says to wait 72 hours before washing), and you're done!  OOoo oh yeah, they also had dinosaur shapes, cute for little boys! Or little girls that like dinos, of course :)  And definitely try different color combos, different shades of the same color... endless possibilities! 

I've got a couple of crafty-things in the works, but in the meantime, I just wanted to let you know that steppingthrucrazy.blogspot.com is now steppingthrucrazy.com!  Yay!  So bear with me for a few days, blogger said it could take anywhere up to three days for everyone to access my blog at its new domain.  Apparently if you go to the old URL, it should just redirect you... hmmm, we'll see how that goes.  Anyway, I should have a DIY post coming up later today or tomorrow, but in the meantime, check out this linky party blog hop from Trendy Treehouse!

YES WAY.  I know, I know, I use a lot of Mod Podge.  Is there a project I've done where I haven't used it?  Hmmm if there are any, I don't think there are many.  I love that stuff!

So my last post was a revamped bracelet with some string circles... and I had so much fun with those circles, I decided to make a couple of necklaces, too :)  Here's the basic idea behind turning one of those circles into a pendant:


You can start the same way I did in my bracelet tute and wind the string up between your fingers, but I did a little something different.  Again digging into my scrapbooking stash, I found these:


Eyelets!  Yeah, not sure why I bought these... clearance???  Must have been.  I think this was one of those one-dollar finds at Jo-Ann's...

One of these little things is going to be the center of the pendant.  Stick the little eyelet in some glue, grab the end of the string, stick that to the glue, and start wrapping.


Once the string is wound around the eyelet a few times, stick it upside-down to the ever-trusty painter's tape.

Keep on winding the string until it's whatever size you want.  (If you didn't see my Bracelet post, check it out- it'll show you how to do the tape thing).

Now when you get to the size you want, you can either just cut the string and skip this next step and use a jewelry bail if you want, or you can make a loop with the string, like this:

Start by looping the string up...

and over, and continue going around the circle.







Slather on a coat of Mod Podge (but don't cut that string just yet!)
Start winding the string around again, but this time on top of what you've done already.  You're making another layer.
Wrap the string all the way back to the middle, and cut it off.  It doesn't have to be perfect, it's just getting covered up anyway.


Slap on some more podge, and cut out a circle of fabric to cover the back.  I used a piece of t-shirt.
Let it dry, and carefully peel it off of the painter's tape.  Here's a view from the front:

Now to pick the necklace to string it on... I just grabbed three strands of string, knotted the ends together, and braided them.  Laced the pendant on, and decided to do one extra step, just a finishing touch.

With yet another piece of string, wrap it around the pendant's loop, and tie it in the back.  Wrap the string around until the loop hanging from the necklace to the pendant is covered, and tie it off in the back.  Trim the ends, and it's done!




Let me know if you've made some of these, I'd love to see them!  Leave a link in a comment, or send me an e-mail!  I would totally love to see something made from one of my tutes!  Have fun!

I have to say something.  Just in case you were wondering... anyway, I have TONS of ideas running through my head (my poor little notebook is taking some abuse!) but for some reason most of my most favorite ideas I keep putting off, and I keep coming up with things to do in the meantime that I totally pull out of my you-know-what.  I don't know why I keep putting them off... maybe I'm too excited to start and mess up?  Aaah I'll get to them eventually.  SO, moving on, I have another DIY for you...

I found a really basic bangle bracelet at the dollar store a little while ago, and finally did something with it.  Bracelets are fun, definitely going to have to go get some more!  So I took this bangle, wrapped it with ribbon, and added my own embellishments.  This is what I came up with:


Wanna make one?  Here's what you need:

• Plain bangle
• String
• Painter's tape
• Ribbon
• Mod Podge
• Hot glue
• Scissors
• A little somethin' sparkly (optional... sorta)

Alright, start by wrapping your bangle up with your ribbon, and cover the whole thing.  Secure in place with hot glue at the beginning and the end.  Just in case you're not sure which way to wrap, here's a pic:
Alright, now for the embellishing.  Those circles going all the way around the bracelet in the top picture are circles of string that I Mod Podged together.  Start by taking three strips of the painter's tape, and tape it down, sticky side up to something.  I used a plastic lid.







The Mod Podged side is hard, but the side that was stuck to the tape is nice and soft.  So now that you've got your circles of string and your ribbon-covered bangle, you can start gluing!

I had my circled overlapping each other, and placed them so that the ends of the string would be covered by the next circle... like this:





 For the last one you'll want to make sure that you can stick the end of it under the first circle you glued on... just so it looks nice :)

Now you could leave it as-is, which is nice and natural...

 but I needed a little sparkle.  Some little sparkly rhinestones that I had laying around in my scrapbooking stuff (yeah, I don't scrapbook.  I just like all the stuff that scrapbookers use!!!) and I glued one to each center.

And you're done! :)




Trying to be creative with pictures.... errrr, hmmm.... not sure about the one with the shoe.  But oh well, it adds character.....?




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