Cleaning ink

What a surprise I had to find Emily had used pen to write all over her white bed.

She even signed her work. Off to google I went and one website said try shaving cream or hairspray. So off I went to gather my supplies.

I tried the shaving cream but it did nothing do I moved on to the hairspray not expecting anything much but the ink just melted away!
So I just sprayed and wiped and all the surface ink was gone quite easily but you could still see the indents.

Back to google and I collected my next supplies.

I even enlisted Emily to do the scrubbing with the toothbrush but all the photos are too blurry.
All the ink stains disappeared and I wiped it down with paper towel and spray and white and you can’t tell what Emily had been up to!

Alexander’s birthday present

Emily seems to do well out of my creations and I’ve been thinking what to make Alexander for his birthday. I have seen on Pinterest of storing toy cars on knife holder magnetic strips. Unfortunately the metal in modern toy cars is negligible and this doesn’t work. I toyed (ha ha) with the idea of attaching magnets to the cars and doing it that way but thin strips don’t have the grip to hold the weight of the card and bigger magnets means you can’t drive the cars anymore.

So next idea was hot glue Velcro strips to the cars.

I originally put the strip lengthwise but that means the cars slide more than roll but if I just put it on the middle section that was enough.

I found a canvas (the last one! Time to buy some more they’ve been so useful) and Emily got to painting. Green for grass and A’s favourite colour.

My first idea was to lay ‘roads’ using felt but I didn’t like how it looked as my felt wasn’t long enough to do a length without a join and because I had cut it thick it just didn’t represent my idea.

I changed ideas and because Alexander us interested in maps I printed out maps of where we live, the new house and other significant places i.e. grandparents’ houses.

I glued this on with Mister Maker’s gloopy glue – craft glue mixed with water. I let dry and over a period of couple of days ( while A was at school) E and I covered the maps with 2 layers of gloopy glue.

I then used the felt to make an A in the middle. Unfortunately this is where I stuffed up. I glued the A on upside down, ie the maps are now the wrong way round.

Here is the finished result. I am pleased with it, I hope A will be.

The banner at the top is perhaps for his cake but I am starting to think it is too big and looks good draped over the canvas.

Girl’s hair and jewellery organiser mk II

We are going to a birthday party tomorrow and the invitation specified no gifts but I asked if it was alright if E and I made something for the birthday girl. With permission I gathered together all the materials I had on hand from when I made Emily’s organiser. Thankfully I still had extra cup holder hooks so this did not cost anything since all the materials were lying around the house.

I had a small canvas because when I did the sibling tree craft the canvases came in groups of 3.
I covered it with scraps of batting that otherwise would get thrown out for not being useful. I knew I was holding onto them for a reason. 😉 it was a jigsaw putting the pieces together but I didn’t take any photos this time as u had E helping me.
We covered the canvas in craft glue and stuck down the batting. We then went through all my material and she picked out the sand material as hers.

This tune I think I managed to do the corners better, I didn’t cut but instead folded and stapled.
E helped me stapling in that she held my hand.

She then picked out the ribbons and this time instead of placing the ribbons horizontally I stapled them vertically with E choosing colour order.
I decided to staple them vertically because for hanging things like hair bands and other things they slide down. This way the hooks aren’t all used up but the ribbons can be used for more than just hair clips.

Emily and I then screwed in the cup hooks and voila all done! Cheap, cheerful and very quick.

Because we had time we also made some bracelets to hang.

As you can see I have a carabiner with E’s hair ties.