Three Pinspired Crafts

The first little craft I tackled was inspired by this idea which uses felt and paperclips to create these sweet little page markers. While they are adorable... they looked a little fragile for small fingers (and I had no felt).

{Little Lovlies Tutorial}

I picked up some "jumbo" clips at Target and I was on my way...

I modified and simplified the design a bit and used some ribbon scraps I had from some stationery projects along the way. 

A simple, looped knot was all it took.

A tiny drop of glue helps keep the simple knots nice and tight.

 I think they turned out really well. I'd be happy to see these poking out the pages of any of my cookbooks or any of those novels written for "young adults" that I find myself enjoying too much lately (The Hunger Games, Twilight, The Girl of Fire and Thorns, Divergent). I actually added these to a PiperSimone Papers gift basket I donated to a local school charity.

The next project came about by accident.

I had intended to use all of these beautifully packaged Martha Stewart craft supplies to make some sweet monograms for the girls' new bedroom makeover. 

It all looked so easy...  

Sadly, after several failed attempts and smudgy, smeared results, I was growing more and more frustrated.

Smear-fest

 Glancing to my right, I found the small pile of paint chips I'd been slowly collecting over the past few weeks as I pondered decorating palettes for the girls' room and the bathroom. I'd seen some great ideas on Pinterest using these paint chips and so I picked up at least 2-3 of each color to save for future crafts.

My salvation. 

 A few paint chips and some tape...

And I had this:

So much better than the smear-fest!

 Here's how they look on the wall:

The failed Martha stenciling project left me without any monogramming in their room (and if you know me at all, you know I love a monogram!). So the next "pinspired" project was underfoot.

I picked up some wooden letters from Michaels and set to work trying to make something similar to this:

{Letter Perfect Designs on Etsy}

Supplies needed: white paint, Elmer's glue, buttons

 The girls got to help with this project. It was so easy (and they did something similar last year in Sunriver on vacation with our friends thanks to Heather Stewart and her crafty ideas).

Flashback from 2010

 Then I glued them onto some canvases I had spray painted aqua.

They took 196 buttons.
I know this because I purchased 200 and we had
only 4 left-over! 

 Here's how they turned look on the wall:

There you have it.

Three little crafts we had a ton of fun making and feel really proud about creating.

I hope you're pinning and playing!