School/kids crafts

Paper Dragons!

15:08 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

Happy New Year! Today we celebrated Chinese New Year at school with some dumplings, decorations, fancy outfits and... crafts! It's the year of the Dragon... a year of excitement, surprises and big, bold innovative projects! A year to take risks (why not?! Even if you're not a big astrology/mystical person like me!)! To celebrate this exciting new year, we decided to create some beautiful paper dragons! Wanna make em? I found the project over here and made a few changes! Enjoy! ♡

Beautiful colours!

We made the body with a paper chain instead of an accordion!

School/kids crafts

Egg Carton Penguins!

21:07 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

Penguins! Who doesn't love 'em!? The kids at school go craaaazy for them, and I have to admit that watching Happy Feet, makes me pretty darn happy... Come on, a tap-dancing penguin? Does't get cuter than that! Since we are exploring the continent of Antarctica at school, we decided to make the little guys for Friday's craft...AND out of recycled materials: egg cartons!






Wanna make one? You'll need....
     ❅ Egg cartons (two "cups" per penguin)
     ❅ Black tempera paint
     ❅ Construction paper
     ❅ Yarn
     ❅ Pipe cleaners
     ❅ Glue
     ❅ Scissors
     ❅ Googly eyes



Instructions:

① Start by cutting out the little cups in the egg carton and painting the exterior black. ② When the paint is dry, glue two together, to form the body of your penguin. ③ Cut out a belly, a beak, wings and feet out of construction paper and glue on. ④ Accessorize! Ear muffs, scarves, hair... Let your imagination soar! 

All done!

The future...and a new dress.

10:12 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

Sewing

DIY Fabric coaster tutorial

15:25 Natalie Karine 1 Comments

I was looking for coasters the other day and was amazed at how expensive they can be! So I decided to make some myself...with fabric! They also make ADORABLE gifts!

Wanna make your own?! It's pretty easy!

You'll need:
  ✄ fabric (2 pieces 4.5” x 4.5”per coaster)
  ✄ felt (1 piece 4” x 4” per coaster)
  ✄ thread
  ✄ sewing machine
  ✄ iron



① Get your supplies! ② Align your fabric. Place the first piece of fabric right side up, the second, right side down and then the felt on top. ③ Pin together. ④ Sew through all the layers, all the way around (as close to the outer edge as possible), leaving a 2” opening (to turn inside out later on). ⑤ Clip corners. ⑥ Turn inside out and press with an iron. ⑦ Sew all the way around. I even sewed diagonally across, creating an “X”. Voilà!

School/kids crafts

Que Seurat, Seurat.

16:38 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

It's been a while since my last school craft! Those 2 weeks of winter holidays sure were great, although I did miss the little guys!

The first craft of January was inspired by the artist of the month, Georges Seurat. For those of you who don't know, Seurat was a Post-impressionist French painter from the second half of the 19th century. He was also a master of pointillism! (remember that assignment you had to do in art class out of only dots... the one that made you want to rip you hair out?!)  Check out all those dots! Woah! So here is an easy version of pointillism for 5 year olds!




What you'll need:
             ✏ White cardstock or painting paper
             ✏ Tempera paint
             ✏ old pencils (with erasers!)
             ✏ paper plates
             ✏ pencils and markers

So basically, the kids paint with old pencils, using the erasers as their paintbrushes, stamping little colorful dots of paint onto paper (You could use a Q-tip too!)! The students had to choose a scene first (such as outer-space, a landscape, underwater, etc) and draw out some shapes with a pencil (check out that pink rocket ship!). When all the painting was done, they were able to use markers to add even more dots, and texture!

Comme on dit en français...Fantastique! Bravo les amis! ♥♥

WOW! Sooooo many dots! Seurat would be proud!

Polka Dot Nails!

18:12 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

Last night, my gal pals and I decided to have a girl's night! What happens during one of these fabulous events you may ask? Well there was hot chocolate, cookies, silly movies and.... MANICURES! My friend Megan brought over her super fancy nail pens and sparkly shades and we all ended up with fabulous nails! ♥


Today's post is inspired from last night... Polka Dot Nails! Ou la la!

       What you need:
              ♥ 2 different shades of nail polish
              ♥ shish-kabob stick or toothpick
              ♥ Clear topcoat



 Step ① Choose two different shades of nail polish! I chose a dark pink and a light pink!

Step ② Apply one color over all your nails, as you would normally.

Step ③ Paint little polka dots (I did them in rows) with a shish-kabob stick. To make things easier, pour a little bit of nail polish on a piece of cardboard and dip the stick in the tiny puddle.









Step ④ Apply a top coat.... and voila!
Awesome polka dot nails!

Here's my friend Kat painting her cat's claws! Even Kitty had fancy nails last night! Hah!

DIY cards,

Retro New Year's Cards!

17:08 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

It's official... homemade cards are the best! I thought you might like to see some New Year's cards I made for some Toronto friends I visited last week!

I had this old day planner full of old vintage images... so I cut it up and tad-am! Beautiful fun retro cards!

Enjoy!

xo
Natalie





Wanna make some? You'll need:

        ✿ old vintage images
        ✿ colorful cardstock
        ✿ patterned paper
        ✿ glue, scissors and coloring pencils!

DIY crafts

Chapel of Love

10:27 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

Want the tutorials again?! Here's the Tissue Paper Pom-pom How To from Martha Stewart's site!

And my own pennant banner tutorial!

Turned out adorable! Black, white and red color theme!

The happy couple!

Me (left) and my best gal pals!

Goodbye 2011...Hello 2012!

09:56 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

Goodbye 2011! You were a good year full of fun times (and some not so much) but again, I have so many new experiences and accomplishments to be proud of!


So, for this new year, I decided that I wanted to do a whole bunch of stuff! Some silly things, some more serious, but most importantly, all things that I am capable of doing and that I've been meaning to do! No point in giving yourself unattainable goals. Oh and I have a whole year to accomplish these! Most importantly, this little exercise lets me do some introspection, finding out what matters to me! ♥


I figure that if I get to do half the things on my list, things are pretty good! I already started the 1st one last week! :)

Happy New Year friends!

xoxo Natalie