2 Fast and Easy Minecraft Projects

So my daughter chose a Minecraft theme for her 7th birthday party!  It was pretty exciting, except that there's no Minecraft party goods in stores (not that I have found anyway).  So I made a few projects at home.  They were so easy, fast, and inexpensive! Can't beat that.

I started with the Steve head.  I made this the morning of the party, and it took less than 30 minutes!  Unfortunately, I didn't think to get any in progress photo's for you, but really -- I think it's pretty obvious when you look at the finished product.  Then literally 5 minutes before kids were set to arrive, I said to my husband "we don't have any games!  Maybe I should make a 'pin the tail on the pig' game and we could use the Steve head as a blind fold?"  He looked at me like I was crazy.  I knew he was thinking 'you have 5 minutes... it'll never happen.'  But I already had it in my mind how I could very quickly make this pig, and in less than 5 minutes! 

So I did.  And below you'll see a quick and dirty explanation of how I went about making these projects so you can do them too!

 

Steve Head:

1. Start with any box that is roughly square, I used an old box from baby wipes

2. Use full sheets of brown to cover sides of box.  You can use any adhesive you like. (If you prefer only one face, cover 3 sides)

3. Stack several sheets of black construction paper and cut them into squares that are roughly 1/6 the width of your box.  It's better to err on the side of too large because you can always overlap them;  too small and you'll have gaps between your squares, or you'll need to add an extra and they won't line up.

4. Following the pictures above, use 6 squares of black across the top of the face, then one on each side of the face just below the top row.  Then to create the mouth use 3 squares, centered on the bottom, and a half square above each side of the mouth. 

5. (optional) follow step 4 on opposite side of box to create another face. 

6. Create the eyes using a square of white, with a half square of black placed on top and position on face.

7. Use a small square to make the nose.  I did not have a good color for this, so I simply cut a square of brown packaging tape and stuck it on for the nose.

8. Cover the entire top of the box with the black squares (and back of head if you chose not to create the optional second face)

9. Following the second picture above, apply 2 full rows of black squares along top of box, then continue down center until you reach the bottom of the box (or for one face, continue down 2/3 of box, leaving brown exposed next to face).



 

 

Pin The Tail on The Pig:

1. Start with a large sheet of paper, foam board, cardboard, etc.  I didn't have a single large sheet, so I used invisible tape to piece together two sheets of 11x17 printer paper.

2. Place a full sheet of pink construction paper for the pigs body.  It should be slightly to the bottom right of center.  Perfection is NOT necessary! Leave a space un-stuck for the legs to go under.

3. Use 4 rectangles of pink for the pigs legs and place them under the body as pictured above.

4. Cut a square of pink paper about 6"x6" and place as shown for head.

5. Cut a square of red paper about 2"x2" for the nose and place on face.  (Optional: cut a few smaller squares and place on pigs back for freckles)

6. Using black and white paper, create eyes as shown above that are slightly wider than they are tall and place on face.

7. For tail: cut a long strip, about 2" wide of pink.  Cut a long strip about 1/2" wide of red.  Using invisible tape, tape them together as pictured blow.  Then cut along dotted lines (about 1/2" thick) to create tails.

 

And you're done!  Have each kid write their name on their piggy tail and affix a small piece of tape to it.  Spin 'em around a few times, and see who gets the closets.  Enjoy the laughter the ensues.

 

Happy Minerafting,

Nicole

Painting Cheap Skulls

 So, we all know I truly love Halloween.  I don't know why, but I really do think about it all year long.  I also am truly cheap.  I hate spending any money on anything!  So, when I spotted some plastic skulls at the dollar store, I picked up two, with no real plan in mind.  Of course they were really cheap looking, solid beige, with no real definition. With a few colors of paint, and some paper towels, I created these:



 Unfortunately, I don't actually have a tutorial, but if there's any interest at all, I'd certainly make one!  In the meantime, I'll describe what I've done here.  I started by blacking out the eye sockets, nose, and jaw area with some black craft paint.  Then I painted the teeth white so they'd have a little bit more contrast (I'm not sure if this step was necessary).  Next I 'aged' the whole thing by applying dark brown craft paint all over the skull and wiping the paint off the raised surfaces with a  paper towel;  this is a very typical patina method.

 At this point, they looked much better and I could have easily stopped there, but I wanted to add some more interest to them:

 I continued to age the skull with some more dark brown and even a little black.  I then used some dark red and black craft paint to make some bloody areas around the eyes and a couple of wound marks.  I used both a wet and dry paper towel to blot them out a bit making them look a little streaked and clotted.  I used some of the blood in the teeth area too which added a great depth to them.



 The last step is to use a very fine brush to make the 'fractures' in the skull with some black craft paint.  Just make some jagged lines that get thinner as they spread out.  I tried to make the skull on the right here look like it'd been smashed with a hammer. and the one on the left like it'd been stabbed with a kitchen knife or maybe chopped with a machete?

 As you can see here, they don't need to be perfect up close, because no one is likely to be studying them this closely.  Use your imagination here, there's so many possibilities!  If you scroll back up to the very first picture you can see there where I used this technique to make the eye socket look a little broken.

Happy Painting,~Nicole

Tonto and The Lone Ranger

I've finally decided on (some) of the costumes for the family.  Hooray.  I'm going to be Tonto, and Ronan will be The Lone Ranger!  I'm going to follow Johnny Depp's 2013 version relatively closely, albeit a female version.  I threw together a 5 minute sketch to visualize what I'm thinking:

Since Depp played Tonto bare-chested, I needed some coverage.  I have a brown overbust corset that has beautiful stripes I think would suit this costume well.  I'll need to make or find some sort of beaded chest piece like Depp wore in the movie to help a bit with the coverage also.  I'm not sure if I'll try to wear some sort of shirt or not, I suppose it will depend on the weather; last year was so miserably cold I almost wish I hadn't gone out at all!  Keep your fingers crossed for some warmer weather.

Oops, got off topic.  Back to it:  I'll need some feathers and beads and such for my hair, bandanna, bracelets, and belts.  I'm not sure if I want to stick with the pants (like Depp's character wore) or go with a skirt?  I think some nice flouncy fringed pants would look great with a pair of knee high, fringed, red moccasins. 

My cousin, Amanda, of Amazing Moments, does unbelievably amazing face and body painting, so I'm relying on her to give me a hand with the face paint, and some of the tattooing/war paint.  Right Amanda? ............Right?

Oh... and I need to find a dead bird.  wtf.

Halloween? Already? Yes.

Call me crazy, but I'm getting started on Halloween costumes already!  Since I always make our costumes, and generally get most of my supplies through thrift stores or garage sales, I have to start early.  It doesn't help that I have at least 4 costumes to put together!  I have always liked to do group costumes, but the kids are getting old enough now that they are starting to ask to be certain things/characters. 

Last year we didn't do anything that matched, but I got to have some fun with Ronan:

Yea, I'm pretty messed up.  ;)

We also made this great spider egg sac that's been so popular on pinterest:



It's easy enough the kids can do it.  You just stuff an old sock or something inside a pair of old white tights, then hot glue some spiders inside and out.  Done.

Last year wasn't my most creative year, so I'm going to throw in some older pictures, just because I can.

Here I am in 2009 with Quinn and my sister

And here's the old man, and the family tree.

And here we are in 2010

The really funny thing about this one to me is that my sister and I had planned to be the Mad Hatter, Queen of Hearts, with Quinn as Alice.  Then we realized we had no out fit for her (then) new boyfriend, Ty, so we figured he'd just be the Knave of Hearts.  We didn't realize that a nave was basically a slave or servant.  oops.

That year all our costumes were completely from scratch, I even made Quinn's dress (without a pattern, ouch), and my awesomely over-sized top hat.

Do you have any awesome ideas for group costumes?

~Nicole