Tag: diy

DIY No-Sew Care Bear Dog Costume
It’s that time of year again! Time to make a cute costume for my dog that she will not enjoy wearing. I love Halloween and I love my dog, but as much as I try, my dog does NOT love Halloween. That being said, she is a really great sport about wearing costumes and gets lots of love from passersby as we walk around the neighborhood trick-or-treating with our kids. Read on for instructions on how to make this DIY No-Sew Care Bear Dog Costume.

This year, being a child born in the 80s, I decided to make a Care Bears costume! This costume is SUPER easy to make. The only real work is finding a stuffed animal similar in size to your dog and cutting with a scissors. As you can see below, the Care Bear I bought is a little small for my dog. It would have been better if I could have found one a few inches taller as my dog has long legs, but it still worked out ok. You could make your dog a teddy bear, tiger or any stuffed animal that is big enough.

DIY No-Sew Dog Costume Materials:

Make sure to pick a stuffed animal large enough to fit your dog! Some ideas are:

14″ Bear with Cap: https://amzn.to/3AWfTxU
20″ Sloth : https://amzn.to/2WqgMja
23″ Alligator: https://amzn.to/3a2ZdsN (You’d have to cut a circle around the eyes for your dogs face and leave a the mouth/snout area intact)

Dog Costume Instructions:

Step 1: Find a stuffed animal similar in height to your dog. Any stuffed animal that is standing (this is important, a stuffed animal in different positions will not have the legs in the correct place for your dogs legs) will work, I chose a the Care Bear above. Here is a link to the 14″ Care Bear I used – https://amzn.to/2Y3TEri

Step 2: You are going to cut out the face on the stuffed animal where your dogs face will fit through. Next, cut a slit up the back of the stuffed animal and holes on the bottom of the two lower legs/feet. See photos below. You may have to get creative and cut holes behind the bottom legs depending on how the stuffed animal is sewn.

Step 4: Remove stuffing inside costume. I left stuffing inside the upper arms. In addition, I left a separate section of stuffing in the belly because it was sewn to the rainbow and it looked cuter.

Step 3: Finally, fine tune the costume. To do this I cleaned up the hole around the face a little by cutting it more evenly along with the sides once I found the correct sizing. You can also hot-glue some ribbon to each side of the slit up the back. Then tie the ribbons together for added stability when your dog is walking.

Time to try your DIY No-Sew Care Bear Dog Costume on your dog:

Your dogs face goes through the face hole and their front legs through the bottom two legs of the stuffed animal. The top two legs/arms will stay stuffed, you will not cut any holes in them. As you can see in the picture above, I originally stopped cutting just below the back of the head. Because the hole was not large enough, I ended up cutting much further up the back. You will have to try it on your dog and see how much you will need to cut.

Look how happy she is. Is it the costume or the treats I was holding just off camera? Who knows? What I do know is that I took her to the bus stop with my kids in this costume and she was the talk of the bus that day. And there you have it, our DIY No-Sew Care Bear Dog Costume! Happy Halloween all you dog lovers!

Finished Product

Look at her doing her best Blue Steel modeling poses. 😂

More Costumes:
September 30, 2021
DIY Unboxing Gift
Like many kids, my girls have been asking for LOL Dolls for their birthday and Christmas. But, I’ve watched them with those toys and they don’t actually play with them all that much. What they really liked was the unboxing experience. They love opening the little compartments one at a time and savoring the surprise. So this year, I thought I’d make an unboxing gift of my own. Let me tell you, this gift idea was a HIT! Read on for how I made a DIY unboxing gift.

Fidget Toys

The first thing I did was come up with some small gift ideas that would work in “compartments” of a box. With fidgets being so super popular this year at my daughters school, they were already on her wish list. I ordered a fidget pack off of Amazon and then added a few pieces of candy for extra fun. You could fill it with dollar bills, candy, doll clothes, art supplies, and anything smaller in size. The options are really endless. Next, I laid all the items in an old shipping box I had to make sure they would all fit.

Design Compartments

Once I decided how they would all be laid out, I cut some pieces out of a different cardboard box and hot glued them standing up to make separate compartments for each item. I would recommend this cardboard knife, it is a lifesaver if you need to cut a lot of cardboard.

Fill & Wrap

Once I made all the compartments and filled them with items, I taped a piece of wrapping paper to one side of the box. I laid the wrapping paper over the top and drew dashed lines along each compartment wall so my daughter would know where to “punch” to get the item. I was able to feel the cardboard walls beneath the paper so I knew where to draw. I then added numbers just for fun.

Finally, I taped the wrapping paper to the other three box sides and that was it! My daughters face lit up when she understood the idea of the gift and had a blast opening each compartment and discovering what was in them. It was so much fun, in fact, that my younger daughter has already asked me to do this for her birthday.

DIY Unboxing Gift In Action
More Gift Ideas
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September 20, 2021
DIY Tie-Dye Face Masks
This school year is going to be a little different, if your kids are headed back for in-person learning face masks will mostly likely be mandated. Some kids, mine included, do not love wearing masks especially for 6 hours straight. So, to make masks wearing more fun for my kids, we made it into a craft! I thought they would be more likely to wear a one-of-a-kind trendy mask they could show off to their friends. Here is how we made our own DIY tie-dye face masks.
Tie-Dye Kit

I would recommend getting a tie-dye kit. The Tulip One-Step Tie-Dye Kit is the one I ordered, you can find it through our affiliate link here: Buy on Amazon. I really like the Tulip line of tie-dye, I find they produce bright, vivid colors. This kit had more than enough dye for us to tie-dye 50 face masks. I know what you’re thinking, 50? Yes, I bought a lot so we have plenty for my kids to use at school without having to wash them every day. For the 2020 school year, our school is requiring each child to have 4 clean face masks for each day of school. That can add up quickly as some masks are selling for $15 – $25 EACH online.

White Cotton Face Masks

So, after some late night googling, I found the perfect white cotton masks on Amazon, they come out to roughly $.60 a piece! You can find the masks I used here (affiliate link): Buy on Amazon. Make sure to pre-wash your masks before you dye them!
Note: These masks fit my 9-year-old well after I washed and dried them, but are a little big for my 6 year old. I will be tying the ear loops and may add a stitch to each side to make them fit snugly on her. They just fit me, so I would not recommend them for adults with larger faces.

Other Supplies

Most of the time, tie-dye kits come with all the supplies you need except for the actual clothing items you are dying. If you can’t find a kit, you can still buy the dye but you will need to buy additional supplies separately.
The items that come in a kit are: disposable gloves (the dye WILL stain your skin so gloves are a must), rubber bands, table covering, plastic bottles.
Other items: old clothing you don’t mind staining or an apron, plastic wrap and a plastic bag.

Step by Step

First, prep your area. Cover any work surfaces with plastic or do this project on your lawn. You’ll want to use rubber bands to create the different shapes and patterns for your tie-dye. Your kit should come with some instructions on how to position the rubber bands or there are tons of instructional tutorials online such as this one: Tie-Dye Techniques. I just let my kids go crazy and rubber band their masks however they wanted. I did a few with the standard spiral technique.

Then, you’ll want to start adding the dye. Because my hands were in gloves with dye all over them, I didn’t take pictures of this step. Basically, once your dye is dissolved into the water just start squirting it onto your masks! It helps to only choose a few colors at a time or create a rainbow pattern. If you put too many colors on top of each other, your masks will turn a lovely shade of brown, so keep that in mind.

Washing your tie-dye

Once you’re done adding the dye, the masks need to sit so the dye can set in. Wrap each one in it’s own piece of plastic wrap so they don’t dry out. Let them sit for a few hours or even overnight if you want really vivid colors. Then they each need to be rinsed in water until the water runs clean. (This step took me forever with 50 masks to rinse!) Finally, wash them according to the instructions in your kit. I washed mine in hot water and then washed them a second time before putting them in my dryer. They came out bright and beautiful as you can see in the pictures below!

My girls are really excited to wear these DIY Tie-Dye Face Masks. They can’t wait to show them off to their friends!

Tip: The more dye you put on a mask, the darker it will be and the longer it will take to rinse clean.

DIY Tie-Dye Face Masks Supplies
- White Face Masks – Buy on Amazon
- Tie-Dye Kits – Buy on Amazon
- Cute Target Face Masks – affordable masks at Target in their Cat and Jack kids clothing line. Theirs are $2 a piece sold in two packs. – Buy them here
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July 31, 2020
Make Your Own Harry Potter Howler Valentines!
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner! At our house, with my craft-loving kids we love making homemade classroom valentines to hand out! This year my 8-year-old decided she wanted to hand out Harry Potter Howler Valentines, but the only Harry Potter related valentines we could find in the stores had pencils. Which, if I’m being honest, are not the most exciting. I have so many pencils from every school function over the past few years that they just keep piling up. And I don’t know about you guys, but my kids aren’t allowed to bring anything edible so candy is a no-go.

For those reasons, we decided to make some Howler letters and include Harry Potter Stickers inside. See the stickers we used at our affiliate link here: https://amzn.to/38MYERa. My daughter loves them and helped throughout the entire process! A little paper folding and tape made her valentines come to life. Below I have pictures and instructions. Hopefully, they inspire you to make your own.

Supplies needed:
- Red paper – similar to this https://amzn.to/2GHmGkB (affiliate link)
- Tape
- Scissors
- Harry Potter Stickers – https://amzn.to/38MYERa (affiliate link)
- Printed Harry Potter Howler Valentines Template (free download below)
Downloadable Valentine Template Download

Instructions:
Fold two corners of the red piece of paper so they come to a point in the middle like the first picture above. Then, fold each long side in towards the middle. Fold the straight end in about an inch and a half and tape in place. This step is simply to make the paper a little shorter so it is totally optional.
Next, fold the whole paper in thirds. Print the valentine template and cut evenly into 3 pieces. On each piece, cut an inch of the white paper off the top and bottom. We will be using these cut pieces for the teeth. Cut slits along each inch wide piece making sure not to cut all the way through. Fold the teeth along the edge of your cuts like the picture above on the right.
Finally, assemble your valentines. I used tape because it is so much faster than waiting for glue to dry, but you could use that too. Tape the valentine template to the folded red paper, on the side with all the paper folds. After that, tape the teeth on the top and bottom and then use a pencil to curl the edges of the top corners of the valentine. Lastly, tape the Harry Potter stickers inside, have your child sign their name and voila you have your own Harry Potter Howler Valentines!

I used heart stickers to keep the valentines closed, but wouldn’t these faux wax seals be so cute! You could also add a little giveaway other than stickers, just get creative. I found some cute bracelets, broom pens, or temporary tattoos as options (affiliate links). Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Love Harry Potter like we do?
Check out our Homemade Harry Potter Dog Costume

Love crafting?
Check out our DIY Light-Up Astronaut Jet Pack
January 28, 2020
DIY Light-Up Astronaut Jet Pack
Guys, something amazing happened in female history this past Friday! The FIRST all-female spacewalk took place! I kinda can’t believe it took this long, but it is still an amazing achievement nonetheless. 👏 GO GIRLS! 👏 As it just so happens, my younger daughter is going as an astronaut this Halloween! We saw the costume in the store last month and both instantly thought it looked amazing. In honor of this historic event, I wanted to share how I created a DIY Light-Up Astronaut Jet Pack for her costume. She wanted it to be big, have fire coming out of the jets and light up. Never one to back down from a challenge, I got to work. Here’s what I did:

Jet Pack Materials

I wanted the jet pack to be light. My daughter is 5 and it needed to be light enough that she wouldn’t hand it to me half-way through trick-or-treating. (You know, like she’s done in years past with various costume accessories.) I found an oatmeal box which was the perfect shape for the middle portion and super light when empty. It had angled corners instead of standard right edges that I thought would make it look more, I don’t know the word for it, space-like. I also used two plastic juice containers for the jets. Below is a list of the materials I used. *affiliate links

Cardboard box – this is a link to the actual box I used: https://amzn.to/2Sa6bCy
Ribbon for straps – similar to this, mine was from Michael’s and leftover from another project: https://amzn.to/2vCoAAt
Silver Spray Paint – https://amzn.to/2qzpTxP
Glue Gun – https://amzn.to/2tgXmPb
Felt – like this, again mine was from Michael’s and leftover from another project: https://amzn.to/2OhEMO1
LED Lights – Similar to these, these have more lights on each strand. Mine were from the Dollar Store: https://amzn.to/2tYnAX9

First, I added straps made of ribbon to the box by cutting two holes on the top and bottom of the box. Then, I tied the ribbon in knots inside the box. I tied the ribbon to the top two holes first, then measured the strap length on my daughter while she held it to her back. I then used hot glue to connect the juice containers to each side, this formed the basic jet pack shape.

Painting & Design

Once the glue cooled, I chose to paint the jet pack silver. To do this I used a silver spray paint + primer similar to this one (affiliate link). I covered the straps with paper before I sprayed anything. It took me two coats to completely cover the writing on the box.
For the flames coming out of the jet pack, I cut out yellow and red pieces of felt in a flame shape. I hot-glued them into the bottle openings. I printed out a NASA logo and glued it to the front of the jet pack and made a black stripe using electrical tape under that. Here is what it looked like before I added the lights.

How I made the Jet Pack light up!

I could have stopped there, the jet pack looked great and fit my daughter well. But, she really, really wanted it to light up in some way so I thought, why not. I got two sets, one red and one yellow, of the battery-powered LED Lights from the dollar store. Yes, they only cost me a dollar! I decided to make two rows of each color lights underneath the black stripe.

First, I measured out that a light would be placed every half-inch, based on the size of my LEDs. I marked a spot for each light with a ruler. Then I used an x-acto blade to cut x shapes on each spot. Once I had an x cut into the cardboard, I used a small screwdriver to push through the x. This made a hole the perfect size for each light. The holes were just about the exact size of my lights.
I pushed the lights through each hold, securing with hot glue as I went a light at a time. Then, I secured the battery pack on the inside of the box with hot glue as well.
I left the bottom of the jet pack open for now so I can access the lights and turn them on when needed. I just tape it shut with clear tape when she wears it. She is thrilled how it turned out and I am too!
Note: It’s hard to see the lights in the picture above because I took these pics when the sun was shining brightly. You can see in my other pictures at the top of the post that the lights are surprisingly bright! And there you have it, a DIY Light-Up Astronaut Jet Pack for a little one in your life! Have fun creating!

We have other DIY crafts, check them out here: DIY Harry Potter Dog Costume or our Harry Potter Howler Valentines!
October 21, 2019