Crafting Paper Flowers -- Crafty Sundays Review

 

Disclosure: I was sent a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I haven't done a Crafty Sundays review in a while but want to share this great paper flower book with you. I love making various paper flowers and finding different ways to make them. Today I am sharing Crafting Paper Flowers by Emily Paluska. This book uses quality crepe papers to make the flowers. 

My Love for You Is Like a Garden with Free Printable Match Game and Flower Craft Round-Up

 

Disclosure: I was sent a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I am working with The Children's Book Review and Flying Cardinal Press for this blog tour post. I will receive a small stipend for posting my review.

Spring is in the air! I see the tips of our daffodils, tulips and irises poking out of the soil between the mounds of snow. Spring is my favorite season. I love watching the world come back to life. I saw my first robin last week, so I know the warmer weather will be here soon. That means it is time to think about my garden. Today I am sharing a beautiful book comparing love to a garden. I made a match game with the beautiful illustrations and have a round-up of flower and garden crafts as well as a giveaway!! It is fun post! The book is called My Love for You Is Like a Garden by Laura Smetana. 

Flower Print Cards -- Fun & Easy Nature Craft

 

Today I am going to share a fun and easy nature craft. Last year or two I saw a post about hammering pansy flowers and getting a print on fabric. I have no idea whose post I saw. I believe it was on Facebook, but that is about all I can remember. It is a craft you can do with kids, but it involves hammering so watch little fingers! I wanted to try the craft on paper since if I used fabric, I would want to be able to wash it and assumed the print would wash out. I pulled out some blank foldover cards and picked some pansies. I pulled out the hammer and worked in my husband's workroom. My first try did not go as planned. I just put the flowers on the card and began hammering.

Cherry Blossom Season in Old Tokyo 1000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

 

Disclosure: I was sent this puzzle in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I haven't shared a puzzle in a while so today I am sharing a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. It features the woodprint of Utagawa Kunisada. Did you know that Vincent Van Gogh collected Japanese prints? Almost half of his Japanese prints were Utagawa Kunisada's. (Source) The puzzle is Cherry Blossom Season in Old Tokyo 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle from Tuttle Publishing. 

Fabulous Paper Flowers for Valentines, Home Decor, Spring Celebrations, and More!

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Last spring, I used a book by Emiko Yamamoto to create paper wildflowers which I used on spring cards. Today I get to share her next book that also gives tutorials and templates to make beautiful paper flowers. The book is Fabulous Paper Flowers by Emiko Yamamoto.

DIY Holiday Ornaments for Tweens, Teens & Adults -- Crafty Sundays

 

Today I'm going to share a few more ornament crafts. These crafts can be made by tweens and higher. The first was inspired by some ornaments I saw in a small local gift store. The ornaments I saw were glass balls with flower petals glued on all over it. I saw them and said we can make those with our pressed flowers. Every spring and summer I like to pick flowers from our yard and press them. I often use my dictionary but also have made a homemade flower press. I use the flowers in different projects from notecards to vases/pencil holders. This year we Mod Podged some onto glass balls.

Diamond Painting with Craft Ease

 

Disclosure: I was sent this kit in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My birthday is fast approaching and this year thanks to Craft-Ease I have made myself a great gift! Now pink roses are my favorite flower and my favorite color combination is pink and turquoise, so when Craft-Ease asked me to pick out a kit and I saw this beautiful Roses on Turquoise, I knew it was for me. 

Fun Facts about Dandelions with Craft & Recipe Round-Up

 

This week is National Wildflower Week! The other day I shared a post on Facebook about dandelions. A friend had posted it and I assumed it was true but wanted to know for sure. I decided to investigate the common wildflower, dandelions, and wow, what an interesting plant. First, did you know dandelions are in the same family as the sunflower and aster? Whether you see wishes, food or weeds, there is something here for you including where they came from, how to harvest them and how to rid your yard of them if you really want to (fun fact 11).

Paper Wildflowers -- Crafty Sundays

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Today I am going to share one of the craft books I am saying is Earth Day related. Now paper crafts in general aren't usually Earth Day crafts unless they are recycled crafts. However today's crafts are making paper wildflowers. My hope is when people see how beautiful the paper wildflowers are they will plant more wildflowers or at least let them grow when they pop up. Many of these wildflowers will attract pollinators to your yard. Plus if they are natural for your area they will help all the wildlife. So now I share A Beginner's Guide to Paper Wildflowers by Emiko Yamamoto. 

Cultivated -- Beautiful and challenging 1,000 piece puzzle

 

Disclosure: I was sent this puzzle in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I love puzzles. I tend to get a bit engrossed in them. Hazel realized at a young age to have Steve do puzzles with her because I get too obsessed with them. Today's puzzle challenged me quite a bit. I love the picture of the beautiful flowers on it, but the border was so hard!! This puzzle is Cultivated 1000 Piece Puzzle by Christin Geall. 

The photograph is beautiful and with winter still upon us the flowers are a sign of spring coming. Inside the box are the 1,000 pieces and as well as a photograph of the complete picture. I always start a puzzle by finding the edge pieces and piecing the border. This I found extremely hard. In fact I didn't finish the border until near the end of the completing the puzzle. The dark border and the dark background was a real challenge plus the edge pieces fit together not always in the proper order. I kept undoing what I thought was right. I couldn't complete the left border until I had the pieces that connected them to the interior in place.

Once I started on the flowers it became a bit easier. I enjoyed this puzzle and found it to be a good challenge. I do recommend it for older puzzle lovers say 14+. I did not work on it constantly but it took a couple weeks for me to complete it. The border did frustrate me which made me take a bit of a break from it. The puzzle is a wonderful quality and the photograph on it is beautiful.

I will say that I am rather proud to have completed this one!! If you love flowers and puzzles this one is for you!! 

Hoops Hooray! -- a Crafty Sundays Review

Disclosure: Leisure Arts sent me a copy of this book in return for an honest review. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. The links are affiliate links where I will receive a small percentage of any purchases made through them at no cost to you. Thank you for supporting Crafty Moms Share!

Hoop art is extremely popular these days. It is so easy and fun to do too. I don't know if you ever caught any of the ones I featured in Crafty Weekends in the past. There have definitely been some creative and beautiful ideas shared! Today I am going to share a book with tutorials to make your own hoop art. It is Hoops Hooray! by Ashley Millhouse.

Kid Made Mother's Day Card Ideas with Round-Up

Can you believe Mother's Day is only a week away? This year with remote learning going on the kids are not getting help from their teachers to make cards and gifts. That means it falls on the kids and the dads. Steve brought up the idea of shopping for Mother's Day cards with Hazel and whether it was safe. I reminded him that most of our stores here are closed and will be until after Mother's Day. I suggested they go to our local Walgreen's but when push came to shove Hazel did not want to go out. She has been home since this has started except for our walks when it is nice out, a trip to her school for her yearbook picture, a trip to a good friend's house who is also social distancing but we needed to exchange things with one another and trips to her grandmother's house with Steve. I went to Walgreen's and picked up a couple of cards for her grandmothers. She was afraid one of them would not like getting a homemade card. I found it hard to believe but figured it was worth getting cards for her to give them. She can make one for me. Then I got to thinking of the dads out there who haven't had to deal with this before. I got the idea of sharing some when I got an email from Crayola featuring a flamingo card. I figured we had to try it since Hazel LOVES flamingos. 

Surviving through our new normal--Toilet Paper Roll Craft Round Up & More!

The world is a scary place and has gotten a whole lot scarier the last few weeks. I believe we are truly afraid of the unknown. We do not know who will get the Coronavirus, who will die from it and what will happen during this time. There are predictions but it is scary. Now we are dealing with this stress and fear and our kids are home with us because it isn't safe to have them at school. And then there is the whole stores wiped out of toilet paper (and other things) going on. Craziness! 

DIY Flower Wreath & Crafty Weekends Link Party

A few weeks ago I was in one of the craft stores and checked out the flower summer wreaths. I couldn't believe how expensive they were so I looked at supplies. I found this twig wreath and two flower stems on sale. Since our front door gets so much sun that hot glue melts, I used wire to secure the flowers. I cut the stems of the flowers and stuck the stems into the spaces in the wreath. Once I got the flowers arranged how I liked them, I wrapped the wire tightly around the stems and hid them with the flowers and leaves. I added a ribbon to hang it and now have the perfect wreath for my red door.

Japanese Crafts -- Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

Disclosure: We were sent these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are our own.

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. This year I thought I would focus on Japanese crafts. I have written a few posts about Japan and Japanese culture over the years. If you want a general overview of the country and its culture you should check out my review here. When I looked at my shelf of books to review I saw a bit of a pattern and realized I had a collection of books about crafts in Japan. Part of what I love about these books is most of them also teach a bit about the culture.

DIY Spring Art Decor Crafty Weekends Craft & Link Party

We have had a hard week and a half or so. Last weekend Hazel had the stomach bug and a high fever. I managed not to catch it from her but then Thursday I got it while we were out at our last trip to the Boston American Girl Store (it closes on the 20th). I am finally starting to feel like I may be back to normal tonight. However on Tuesday or Wednesday I did manage to run some errands and found the sweetest spring wall decor at Joann Fabrics. However I didn't want to spend the money on them and thought it would be fun to make our own. I happened to find some smaller framed Valentine wall art in the clearance section and some scrapbook paper on clearance as well. Then I got some wooden circles at Walmart. Hazel and I decided to use our words for 2019. I painted the circles with chalkboard paint because I had some. We picked out our background paper and glued them in. I wrote our words on them in pink paint marker. Then glued the circles into the frames. Next we decided to decorate them. 

Magical Forest Fairy Crafts Through the Seasons -- a Crafty Weekends Review & Link Party

Disclosure: I was given this ebook in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Are you getting ready for the holidays? We are and are loving it. Today I am sharing a fun book for kid crafters or for adults to make crafts for or with kids. This book reminds me of our Waldorf days perhaps because they always had their first Forest Fairy book on sale at the holiday fair at the Waldorf School. Afterall fairies are part of the magic of Waldorf. The book is Magical Forest Fairy Crafts Through the Seasons by Lenka Vodicka-Paredes and Asia Currie. 

Paper Flowers Chinese Style a Crafty Weekends Review & Link Party

Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing sent me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Tonight I am sharing with you a fun book to make beautiful paper flowers. It is Paper Flowers Chinese Style by Liu Fang and Yue Yunyun. Now Hazel loves making flowers but has not explored this book with me. 

Autumn Crafts with Dollar Tree Supplies -- a Crafty Weekends Craft and Link Party

Disclosure: I will receive a small percentage from any purchases made from the Dollar Tree links. All opinions are my own!

This week I am sharing some easy fall crafts with supplies from Dollar Tree. They had some cute autumn ribbons. I chose a plaid. I also got a burlap ribbon spool and one of the adorable fall owls. I also used a 10-inch Styrafoam wreath form. I wrapped it with burlap ribbon and used a pin to hold it. Then I tied a bow with the plaid ribbon and hot glued the owl and a decorative pick (I bought elsewhere) onto it. I attached a loop of twine as well to hang it. I am going to give it to my parents to hang on their door of their new condo.

Fabric Fun! Natural Dye and Tie Die -- Crafty Weekends Fun and Link Party

This week we have been having fun with fabric and dye. Back in 2012, we experimented with sun dyeing wool yarn with various natural items. However Hazel really does not remember any of it and she inherited my wool allergy, so we never did anything with the yarn. I thought it would be fun to dye some cotton fabric and let her try it again. I also bought a tye die kit earlier this summer and have been wanting to let her try it. So this week we did natural sun dyeing and tie dyeing.