I Heart Hearts Headband DIY

It takes less than an hour (or maybe a bit more time if you are hand sewing) to stitch up this adorable velvet 'i heart hearts' headband! After I made the heart garland earlier today, I began to crave a stylish little something with hearts to wear...I've been meaning to attempt a headband for a while now (to keep my unruly bangs in check), and those hearts were just the inspiration I needed to set out.

To make this sweet and simple headband, you will need the following supplies (most of which you probably have on hand):

• 2" velvet ribbon in a rich red
• felt: i used a sparkly red and cotton candy pink - and since i didn't have wool felt on hand, just used the squares you find at the craft store.
• vintage cotton scraps, cut out into hearts
• coordinating all-purpose thread (or embroidery thread if sewing by hand)
• pink, scalloped elastic

1. To get started, make two heart templates on paper, one large and one small.
2. Using your templates, cut out hearts (one big, one small) from your vintage cotton.
3. Using templates again, cut out hearts from the felt, but make both big and small hearts about 1/8" bigger all around.
4. Pin the vintage cotton hearts on top of the felt hearts and sew.
5. Use a sewing tape measure to determine the circumference of your noggin. We'll pretend it's 14". You'll want to cut the ribbon to be 10" and the elastic to be 4". Be sure and cut your ribbon with a "V" at the end so it looks pretty where the elastic attaches.
6. Determine where you want to place your biggest heart, and pin. When sewing to the ribbon, try to trace the stitches you made when assembling the heart - this looks nicer.
7. Place the smaller heart layered slightly atop your secure big heart. Sew.
8. Secure the elastic to the ribbon with a pin, leave about 1/2" excess. The excess inch of elastic is to make sewing easier - you want the finished headband to be 13" so it's not loose when you wear it. Sew the elastic to the ribbon.
9. Repeat with other end of the ribbon and elastic. Trim off the excess elastic.
10. Wow! You're all done and you made a super-sweet headband! Wear and smile!

Recycled Crayon Tutorial

Everyday, I make sure to have 'Arts & Crafts' with my daughter, Marley. She definitely enjoys when we scribble together with crayons or dabble in paint. Funny thing is, it seems her favorite part is eating the art supplies. When she's not nibbling on the crayons or chewing on the paint brush - she's throwing her crayons on the floor, breaking them into pieces - of course while saying "uh oh". Since her crayon set was trashed, I decided to gather up all the pieces and make big marble crayons which will be easier for her to color with anyway.

Collection of Marley's broken crayons (note the nibble marks).

It took a little bit longer for me than the instructions to be found online suggested, but the results were worth it. This simple craft took me back to the many crayon-days of my childhood: 'stained glass' with crayon shavings, the pleasure and satisfaction of the names of colors - like 'cornflower blue' (this was really confusing for my six-year old brain), endless hours of coloring books. I could continue to wax nostalgic, but instead - I've made a tutorial for you:

First, you'll need to remove all of the paper. This is the most tedious part of the task, it seems Crayola has decided to glue their paper to the crayons these days...

The next step is to sort your crayons. I wanted marbled crayons, but not too crazy-colored, so I created six groups based on colors: reds, oranges, greens, blues, purples, and browns.

I highly recommend a mezzaluna for this craft - it lets you just rock the blade back and forth over the crayons, and keeps the bits from flying everywhere.

Once you've chopped each color group of crayons, pour into baking cups.

Baking cups placed in muffin tin, oven set to bake at 200F. Keep an eye on the crayons while they melt. And while you're waiting (other instructions promised a ten minute wait - these took nearly thirty minutes).....

Munch on one of these yumyumyummy all natural ice cream sandwiches from RubyJewel. Obviously, this isn't a necessary step for your crayons to come out great - but it does make the time pass more pleasantly.

Once you remove from the oven, simply allow to cool until hardened. I LOVE the green one...not sure why the others look so completely un-marbled. Ah well.

Not bad, eh! Of course, now Marley's sure to eat her crayons - they look like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups!

They work good as new - only better!