Kristen Anne Glover

Five in Tow

Save the Broken Books!

If you are a parent, you have undoubtedly come upon a crime scene like this:

Oh, the carnage!

The victim: A perfectly good book

The perpetrator: Chubby Hands

The crime: Shredding pages when Mom thinks Chubby Hands is sleeping

It’s hard to know what to do with books once they’ve been victimized.  Tape?  Staples?  Sometimes that’s the best way to go.  But we have some books in our library that have been taped so many times, they resemble a collection of Egyptian mummies.  Any reasonable person would throw those books away.

But I’m a bibliophile, and I can’t stand throwing away books, especially since the most abused books in our library are my favorites.

So instead of throwing out those beloved books, I turned them into magnets!  Every day, I get to enjoy these little reminders of the many sweet times I’ve spent reading to my children.  That’s much better than tossing them in the trash!

Guess How Much I Love You?  I love you so much I can’t throw you away.

Here’s what you need:

1 ruined book (The Very Hungry Caterpillar makes darling magnets!)

1 (or more) packages of bubble magnets (see below)

Modge Podge (you can buy it at the craft store or make your own using equal parts Elmer’s and water)

Scissors or a 1″ paper punch

Craft glue or a hot glue gun

Here’s what you do:

The process is very simple.  I picked up a couple packages of bubble magnets at Staples for about $1.99 each.  You can get the clear plastic bubbles at the craft store, but they’re way more expensive and don’t include the magnets!

Staples magnets=cheap and effective

It is very easy to peel the magnets apart and remove the previous graphic.

Using the magnet, find images or words from the book that you’d like to magnify under the bubble and trace it with a pencil.  Cut it out with a sharp scissors.  If you have a  1″ punch, you could use that to punch out the images instead, but the punches don’t work on board books.

Brush modge podge on the underside of the bubble

Brush modge podge on the underside of the acrylic bubble, being  careful not to get it on your fingers or on the top of the bubble.  Place your circle cutout face-down into the goop and flip it back over onto some aluminum foil or parchment paper.  You should be looking at your image under the plastic bubble!  Press out any air pockets and continue with the rest of the circles until you are finished.

Modge podged and ready to dry!

Double check to make sure you didn’t get any modge podge on the tops of the bubbles.  If you did, wipe it off with a damp sponge.  Double check for air  bubbles as well, and then use a heavy book to weigh down the tops of the magnets while they dry.  This may take several hours.

Once dry, glue the magnets to the back of the bubbles using a hot glue gun or heavy-duty craft glue.  Allow to dry completely.

That’s it.  You’re done!  Aren’t they adorable?  I love them so much, I actually look for broken books at thrift stores.  They make great gifts for baby or bridal showers, teacher appreciation gifts, or even a travel tic-tac-toe game for the kids (just use two different books for the pieces and a metal tin to serve as both the game board AND storage container).   Have fun!

Book magnets make a great Valentine’s Day or teacher appreciation gift!

DIY Butterfly Chandelier

Today’s project is full of ribbons and paper butterflies–perfect for the first day of May!

I was inspired to make a butterfly chandelier for my daughter’s room when I saw one here.  I posted it to my Pinterest board and actually set about to make it.  Score one for me!  Pinterest: 5,062  Kristen: 1.  I’m catching up.  Here’s proof:

Ta-dah! One butterfly chandelier!

A chandelier like this is super easy to make (but it will take a little bit of time to punch out all. those. adorable. butterflies).  Here’s what I did:

1) Gather supplies

I purchased a package of foam pipe covers at my local building supply store for about $2.50.  The package contained 4 foam covers cut into 3′ lengths.  Two of these would become the wreath forms for the chandelier.

I also purchased a large monarch butterfly paper punch (Martha Stewart brand).  This was by far the biggest expense of the project.  The punch retails for over $16.  Fortunately, I had a coupon (woo hoo!).

I also picked up a stack of scrapbook paper since I’m not a scrapbook girl (don’t judge me) and didn’t have any on hand , various ribbons, and a roll of pink tulle.  I already had various crystal beads in my stash to decorate the ribbons.

2) Create wreath forms on the cheap

Wreath forms are expensive.  You can make some for waaaay less money using the foam covers I already talked about.  I created the biggest form from one piece of 3′ pipe foam.  Simply secure the ends with heavy-duty tape to form a circle.  The second form needed to be slightly smaller, so I cut the second piece down to 2′ and secured the ends.

3) Wrap the forms

I found it beneficial to wrap the foam wreaths with pink tulle because I didn’t want any gray to show through, and it was cheaper than ribbon and less time consuming than punching out a gazillion more paper butterflies to do the job.

4) Punch butterflies until your fingers fall off

You will need approximately 50 bazillion paper butterflies.  Somewhere around 20 bazillion butterflies, you will wonder what on earth you were thinking when you chose this project and you will curse Pinterest, even if you don’t normally curse.  Push through the pain.  You’re nearly there!

5) Assemble (in other words, glue, glue, glue!)

No one can eat dinner until the butterflies are glued!

I strung crystal beads on some of the ribbons, wound more ribbon around the wreath forms, and connected the two wreaths with even more ribbon and tied all that ribbon into a bow around a big ring.  The cat was very interested in this whole process.

Then, I glued, and glued, and glued.  So. Many. Butterflies.  Then I punched out more butterflies (because apparently, 50 bazillion butterflies wasn’t quite enough) and I glued those on too.

Pretty soon (not really) it was done!

When it was finished, the heavens parted and angels sang!

After soaking my hands in Ultra Strength Bengay and taking a couple dozen pictures of the chandelier, we hung it in my daughter’s room.

Its final resting place

I’m still hoping to find some more crystal (read: plastic) chandelier beads to add to the final product, but for now, we’re enjoying the look of it in her room.  I would have hung it above my own bed but my husband had something to say about that.  He’s such a dream-killer.

Is this a project you’d like to try?  I have a butterfly punch you can borrow and a couple extra foam-thingies…if you dare.

Organizing the Boy

My son is a pack rat.  He saves everything from bits of broken pencil lead to rubber bands to dried flower blossoms.  Recently, we moved him into his own room, and in the process, we purged a large portion of his collection.  By we, I mean I, while he whined and gave me lots of reasons why that broken plastic fork needed to be moved to his new room.

While I wanted to throw away all the bent nails while he was sleeping, being a parent is all about compromise, so I thought about what I could do to make both of us happy.  I wanted a neat, tidy room with a spot for everything.  He wanted to keep all of his treasures.

One day, as I was walking through the garage, I spotted a solution.  My husband had a leftover piece of pegboard from a workbench project.  It was the perfect way for him to display some of his favorite “treasures” without leaving them all over the top of his dresser in one giant heap.

 

The finished product!

One of the edges was damaged, so my husband cut it down for me.  I painted it with some heavy-duty grey porch paint we had on hand.  Painting it was a necessity–it gave the board a finished, almost artistic look which is great because it’s now the focal point of the wall. I would love to make an interesting display out of it, but then my son wouldn’t have any place for his stuff and we’d be back to square one.  But if anyone ever wants to make a giant Battleship headboard, this would be the way to go!

While the paint dried, the boy and I ran to the hardware store and purchased a bunch of hooks, baskets, and other accessories for his board.  I wanted a magnetic strip for the top and bottom, but couldn’t find one so I bought two metal rulers and hot glued them to the painted pegboard.  A couple of magnets, some with clips, allow him to hang up art or other keepsakes.  My husband donated a magnetic knife holder so Jonathan can hang up his pocket knives, but it’s a little too heavy so I’m going to keep looking for a simple strip.  We need to add a few more hooks and some magnetic spice jars for things like nails, but for now, it’s done.  What do you think?

The Pegboard

It will never look this neat again.