TUTU-torial

My daughter’s birthday is coming up and wanted her to look fabulous, so I decided to make her a tutu!

Making tutus are really easy. Just follow these steps.

You will need: 
Lots of 6 inch spools of Tulle in the colors that you like. For this project I used off white, light pink, purple and fuchsia.
½ inch braided elastics
Needle and thread or a sewing machine, if you have one
Large book.
Satin ribbons (this is optional, but for this project I used ½ inch old-rose colored satin ribbons)

Step 1: Measurements and the Elastic Band
Get your child’s waist measurement using the elastic band. Then take off about 2 to 3 inches from that as the elastic will stretch when you put in the tulle. Sew the edges together.

Step 2: Tulle Cutting
I measured the approximate length that I want for my daughter’s tutu, double that and cut the tulle according to that length. To illustrate, I cut about 16 inch length of tulle, for a length of about 8 inches. You need to double it when you cut the tulle because you will fold it in half when you get to tying them on the elastic band.

Step 3: Planning your Pattern
With the colors I chose, I layered three different tulle colors for one knot on the elastic. The more tulle I layer, the fluffier the tutu gets. In this case, I used three layers, layering white, light pink and purple tulle for one knot. And planned a pattern of alternating that with a three tulle layer of with white, light pink and dark pink. Then I plan on accenting the tutu by placing a satin ribbon for every 3 knots.
For this project I used a total of 24 knots. So this means I needed…

24 piecss of 16 inch tulle lengths of white

24 pieces of 16 inch tulle lengths of light pink

12 pieces of 16 inch tulle lengths of purple

12 pieces of 16 inch tulle lengths of fuchsia

8 pieces 16 inches of old rose colored satin ribbons

Step 4: Knotting
This is where the large book comes in handy. You will use this to hold your elastic. Have the elastic band wrap around the book stretching it up a bit. This will make knotting the tulle easier.
There are two ways to knot your tulle around the elastic. See the illustration.

For this project I used the first method, but used 3 layers of tulle. Keep knotting on the elastic until you finish all around it. This is actually the fun part, as this is where you see your tutu coming into life. Exciting!

Step 5: Trimming
Now I know I used 16 inches of tulle to make about an 8 inch length, but your finished tutu would have uneven edges, thus trimming edges are necessary. Take a ruler and trim the edges to about a 7 inch length. Move your ruler all round the tutu until all the edges are trimmed and even- length looking. 
Your tutu is now finished

This is what mine looked like.

Add accents to your tutu if you wish. You may hot glue some flowers on the waist band or on the tutu itself, wrap a satin ribbon around the waist band and/or make a bow. For this project though the satin ribbons were enough accents for me as I plan to have my daughter wear a headband with a flower on it and accents on her tutu might already be overkill. An important note however for using satin ribbons… to keep the edges from fraying, very quickly burn the edges of the ribbon with a lighter. It only takes a second to seam, too long and you will be having a burning mess of satin ribbon and easily combustible tulle. So be careful!

Turkey, Sundried Tomatoes, and Mushrooms Quiche

You will need

9” pie pan

Pie crust dough

1 cup cooked shredded turkey

1 cup sun dried tomatoes, chopped

1 small can mushrooms, drained

3 eggs

½ tsp salt

dash of pepper

1 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Grease the pie pan or spray with non stick cooking spray. Spread the pie crust onto the pan. Crease the edges of the dough.

Whisk the eggs. Add the milk, salt and pepper.

Put the sun dried tomatoes, mushrooms and turkey onto the pie crust. Pour in the egg mixture.

Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes.

Serve and enjoy the yummy warm quiche-y goodness!

Turkey, Spinach and Cheese Quiche

You will need

9” pie pan

Pie crust dough

1 cup cooked shredded turkey

1 cup blanched, chopped and drained spinach

½ cup grated cheddar cheese

3 eggs

dash of pepper

1 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Grease the pie pan or spray with non stick cooking spray. Spread the pie crust onto the pan. Crease the edges of the dough.

Whisk the eggs. Add the milk and pepper.

Put the spinach, turkey, and cheese onto the pie crust.

Pour in the egg mixture.

Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes.

Serve and enjoy!

Owl Masks

This is a fall craft project I did with my students. I used some yellow, brown and orange construction paper and some feathers. I drew mask shapes from the yellow construction paper, a beak shape from the orange construction paper and the top of the owl head using brown paper. I had my students cut these shapes, assisting them to make the holes for the eyes on the mask. Then they glued on some feathers on the mask, and then they glued over the feathers, the top head and the beak. 

An easy fun project for our owl theme day.

Paper Mache Giraffe Bank

A friend’s son’s birthday was coming up and the son is into giraffes. I decided to make an interesting present for her son, thus the idea of making a paper mache giraffe bank was born.

If you ever know of anyone who is into giraffe’s as well, here are the steps to making this giraffe bank.

You will need

Lots of paper  (I used circulars, junk mail, newspaper inserts, and kindergarten writing paper…. I find that the softer the paper, the easier it absorbs the glue and the easier it is to mold it into form)

Lots of crafter’s glue

A kitchen towel roll

2 toilet paper rolls

empty container of Nestea Iced Tea

a small balloon (the ones used for water bombs)

yellow and black acrylic paint

brown fuzzy pipe cleaners

brown sticky felt cloth

brown felt ( a tad shade lighter than the brown sticky felt)

sand paper

scissors, cutter

masking tape

2 spherical pencil toppers

black foam sheet

hot glue gun and glue sticks

Step 1: Make the skeleton for your paper mache project

Take the iced tea container, this will be the giraffe’s body, and make a slit or hole on one side. This is the hole where the money can be dropped in. The top or lid will be the giraffe’s bottom. This can be screwed off to take the money out.

Then, cut the toilet paper rolls in half, these will be used for the giraffe’s legs. .

Blow up the balloon into the desired size. This will be the giraffe’s head.

Tape the legs to the container. Tape the kitchen towel roll on one end of the container. This will be the giraffe’s neck.

Tape the balloon on the other end of the kitchen towel roll. This will be the giraffe’s head.

Step 2: Glue paper like crazy

Cut paper into small pieces. Put glue in a small tub or container. Rub glue on the skeleton of the giraffe project and glue layers of paper. Keep gluing and gluing and gluing paper. Make a lot of layers. Mold the paper while still wet with glue so the edges and joints are smooth. Let dry. Do the same for the lid of the container. Make sure that you put the same number of layers so that it will be consistent to the thickness and size of the body.

As you glue the paper. Mold the tail, and the ears, and the horns.

Step 3: Sanding and Painting

When the glue is completely dry, your project will feel hard. Then it is time to sand off the rough edges. Then paint over with yellow acrylic paint. You may need to put two to three layers of paint to make sure that the print on the paper does not show. Don’t forget to sand and paint the lid. Let it dry.

Paint the spherical pencil toppers with black acrylic paint and let those dry as well.

Step 4: Coat with Glue

When the paint is completely dry, paint over the surface with white glue. This will give the paper mache a nice finish.

Step 5: Embellishing

Cut the sticky felt cloth in circles of varied sizes. Stick over the felt cloth and cut around it leaving a small border. Hot glue in several places on the giraffe’s body.

Paint black acrylic paint on the feet of the giraffe. Make it about a third of an inch. Cut 4 circles from the black foam sheet and glue this on the bottom of the giraffe’s feet. Make sure they are the same size as the feet. Then glue around the base, a strip of black foam sheet with the same thickness as the paint.

Cut strips of brown felt and paste on the neck. This will be the giraffe’s mane. Paste a strip of fuzzy brown pipe cleaners to make the joints for the mane look cleaner.

Cut out a tail, ears, nostrils, and hair from brown felt cloth and glue this on the giraffe as well. Glue the painted pencil toppers on the top of the horns.

Glue googly eyes or paint on some eyes for the giraffe.

Put it a ribbon on the neck and  your present is ready to present.

Turkey Bean Project

For our Turkey Theme day, I had my students do a project using beans. We used black beans, white beans, red beans, and pinto beans.

We glued them on the turkey template that I made.

My students were so involved and quiet when they completed the project and I would have to say they did a swell job!