Martha Stewart Glittered Card Kit Review

I recently picked up a fun glitter card kit (Martha Stewart Create line) at my local

Big Lots store. It was a great buy at $2.00 for a kit that includes:

5 Martha Stewart glitter colors

card stock with matching envelopes

8 die cut birds.  The bird die cuts already have adhesive on them

so it makes covering them in glitter a super easy task. I just peeled off each section and then chose

the glitter that I wanted to use.  I made up all the birds that I wanted to use.

As you can see, these are easy and fun to do.

Then all I did was attach them to the cards.  I also used a few as Christmas Tree decorations.

I recommend checking out your local Big Lots to see what type of fun craft kits they get in.  Since they buy out old merchandise from manufacturers, I often find some pretty cool crafting supplies and great prices. The price of this kit (at $2.00) was less than buying one bottle of Martha Stewart Glitter at my local craft store.  I love the Martha Stewart Glitters from her Martha Stewart Crafts Glitter Set in the Rich Essentials because they have an interesting texture that reflects light better than the normal glitter set.




Disclosure

Christmas Card Craft Projects: Easy Ways to Recycle Old Cards, Part 2

As promised, here is part two of the Christmas Card Recycling kids craft projects we came up.

Todays card is another fun old Christmas card we had on hand that was left over from a previous year.  The colors on this card made it really easy to work with to create a fun recycled Christmas card project.
     The first project the kids made was a door stop.  They used a heavy piece of wood (left over from another project) which they painted black. Then they used some left over paper, ribbon, and rhinestones to decorate the wood block.

We also had some "Martha Stewart" Glitters available for them to use to bring a little sparkle to the card.

Perfect Printing Pouch

       Note: when working with glitter,  to keep the mess to a minimum,  I recommend using the Perfect Printing Pouch which keeps the glitter from sticking to the entire card surface.  It is a handy tool when working with glitter or embossing powders.  I just can not recommend this little gem enough.  
      Once the glitter had dried, the kids used more of the dimensional tape to attach the card to the wood block.  You can find dimensional tape at the local craft store and sometimes the local dollar store.

As you can see, this was a super easy project for them to complete in just a short amount of time.
For the next project, we decided to use a box that originally held some Benefit Cosmetics.  The box is a was trimmed in colors that worked really well with this card.

The box also had a cut out in front that could be used to hold a photo once the product advertisement material was removed.

They just added some rhinestones, a couple of charms, and cut the card down to fit into the frame.

Another super easy quick Christmas card recycling project that gave them fun results.  All of these projects were great because it they were so very easy to complete and held their attention long enough to finish the project.  Plus, I did not have to go out and buy any supplies. We just used what we had on hand.

Disclosure

Christmas Card Craft Projects: Easy Ways to Recycle Old Cards, Part 1

If you have ever sent or received Christmas Cards, you know how hard it is to throw away some of these fun treasures.

     I have a box filled with both old Christmas cards; as well as some left over cards from years gone by.  I decided to come up with some easy craft project that my kids could do to re-use these cards this year.
We located some simple craft supplies (scissors, glue, dimensional tape, glue dots, glitter, etc.) that we had around the house.

Above are some of the new Christi Friesen Glitzy Glitters.  I love the different textures in these glitters, because they really reflect light a lot and make craft projects a bit more fun.

Hint: when working with glitter, I recommend using the Perfect Printing Pouch which keeps

Perfect Printing Pouch

the glitter from sticking to surfaces.  By using it, the kids were able to control where the glitter adhered to on the card.  It is a handy tool when working with glitter or embossing powders.
     I then took a couple of cards that I had duplicates of and had the kids cut out some of the elements.

Then they added glitter to parts of the card.

They used the dimensional tape to attach the snowman cut out to the card base.  The tape gives the card a bit more dimension and the snowman a bit of a shadow.  In the snowman card below, the kids cut out the hat, the scarf and the red gift box.

They added some highlights with glitter, as well as some rhinestones to make the card pop.  As you can see this is super easy and just requires a little drying time (for the glitter).  Tomorrow I will post another easy Christmas card recycling project.

Disclosure

Rust-oleum Chalk Board Paint Covered Refrigerator Project.

My kids love to express themselves and create their own art.  So I decided to give them a space where they can draw, write, etc. by painting my refrigerator with chalkboard paint.  It is a large refrigerator and will give them plenty of drawing area to work with.

One of their holiday drawings

After looking at the various brands of chalk board paints, I chose to use Rust-Oleum Black Chalkboard Paint .  It is easily available at Amazon.

 I used about half of the can to paint the front and sides of my refrigerator. I did paint about three coats on each section, since I knew it would get daily use.  I just used a roller brush and painted in on the clean refrigerator surface (following the manufacturers suggestions).

I decided to use one side of the refrigerator for daily review of writing or math concepts.  Either they write it out (math problems) or I write it out while explaining the concepts to them.

Example of terms the kids write out

The front is reserved for the kids to express themselves, as you can see in the pic below and the Christmas tree drawing at the beginning of this post.

We use a microfiber towel that is moistened with water to erase the surface.  These leaves very little dust behind and keeps the chalk dust from traveling around the kitchen.  The kids love it and it has proven to be a great tool for re-enforcing English and math concepts for them which is not bad for a $12.00 investment. We recently discovered that we could use our 3-d glasses to view the drawings on the refrigerator, which makes it an even more fun project.

Disclosure