DIY Decorated Candle

Having littles requires getting those creative juices flowing in terms of handmade gifts. This was a super cute gift I got, I'm not sure from what occasion, but I just thought it was the perfect small present that wouldn't take much effort or time to do and is absolutely adorable.

What you need:

1. Candle: like the one in the picture in a glass jar. You can find one at Walmart or any dollar store for the most part. 
2. Paint with a pointed tip on it (for writing the letters)
3. Ribbon and/or other accessories

Instructions for this particular candle:

1.  Paint whatever design or letters on the glass, and let dry. 
2.  Glue rhinestone on top of lid.
3.  Tie ribbon around the top. 

Provided by Kelsey B. 

DIY Colored Bobby Pins

Recently I started getting sick and tired of my bangs constantly being in my face, so I started haphazardly pinning them back with two or three bobby pins. Sure enough, soon after that I began getting bored with plain bobby pins and when I saw colored pins at the store, I was in disbelief that someone would pay what they were asking for when you could just make it.

 

All you need is:

1. Regular bobby pins
2. A piece of paper
3. Nail polish in whatever color you want the bobby pins to be 

Here's how ya do it:

1. Take the bobby pins and pin them onto the edge as shown in the picture
2. Use the nail polish to coat one side of pin. Let dry. 
3. Depending on how well the color showed up, you may have to multiple layers. I had to do about three for the pink and red and two layers for the blue. 
4. Once dry, flip over the page and repeat steps two and three on the back side of the bobby pin. Make sure paint the curved end of the bobby pin too!
5. Let dry, take the pins off the paper, and style away!

Provided by Kelsey B.

Spray Painted Coasters

Sometimes I like to be super classy. This usually involves baking and listening to my Frank Sinatra Pandora station while wearing my bathrobe. Other times it involves making coasters on my patio.

What You'll Need:

- Incredibly Plain Tiles (Lowe's sells tiles for super cheap. I bought packs of 10 tiles for like, 83 cents.)
- Spray paint of your choice
- Newspaper, Newsprint or any other thin paper
- Clear Spray paint
- Felt stoppers for the bottom
- An outdoor area or awesome ventilation

1. Get a set of 4 or 5 tiles and set them up against each other on top of the newsprint/newspaper so that they are touching. Preferably making a square.
2. Spray paint the tiles white, unless they're already white, and in that case you can skip this step.
3. Pick out your color palette. You're going to have to spray the base colors rather quickly, so it's just a good idea to have them picked out ahead of time. You can have as many colors as you want for the base and then one color for the top coat.
4. Begin spray painting the tiles as one composition (don't worry about the fact that they are individual tiles, focus on the overall shape of the square). Don't worry about making it look good or in even layers now. Be sure to spray some layers of the paint over the other layers. Make sure you do this pretty quickly. You want the paint to still be wet for the next step.
5. Once you've done about 6 or 7 layers of paint, take a piece of newsprint/newspaper and touch the paper to the paint and peel. This should bring up some of the spray paint. Continue to peel up different sections of the paint until you're satisfied with the way it looks.
6. Next, rip up pieces of newsprint into fun and different shapes. You can make them about any size you want, but I usually opt for smaller pieces so I can layer them and have more control.
7. Lay the ripped up newsprint onto different sections of the tile square. What ever you cover with the newsprint will remain the colorful, peeled part you can see now, so if you like a certain section of the colored part, cover it up with the newsprint. When you place it on the tiles, make sure it sticks to the tile, but not too stuck. I usually rub it quickly with my fingers just to be safe.
8. Once you have your papers ready, take the spray paint that you picked for your top coat and spray it over the tiles. Make sure you cover the edges of the tiles as well.
9. Peel off the pieces of paper you laid down on the tiles and let the tiles dry. It usually takes about 20 minutes to ensure that they're dry enough for the next step.
10. Once they're dry, take the clear spray paint and spray the tiles. This should prevent the paint from chipping or being ruined by cups. Let the tiles dry for about 30 minutes.
11. After everything is dry, use the felt circle pieces as little feet on the bottom of the tiles to make them safe for tables. Place one in each of the corners of the tile to make it even and stable.

And done!


Provided by Jenna M.

Should Pad Blanket

Since I came to college, I've discovered the wonder that is Goodwill. I don't know if you know this, but it's awesome. Out of all the shirts I usually buy, about 87% of them have shoulder pads in them. So obviously I cut them out. I had begun to have a pretty good collection of random shoulder pads, since I usually don't throw things like that out. Since I had nothing else to do with them, I decided to sew them all together!

What You'll Need:

- Shoulder Pads (This might not be practical if you don't own quite a few shoulder pads, but this could work for anything you have a surplus of that's made of cloth.)
- Sewing Needle
- Thread
- Scissors
- Pins

1. Begin by pinning the shoulder pads together. Honestly, the more you pin, the easier it will be to sew together. Make sure the shoulder pads are layered over each other in a stable way so that everything is touching.
2. Once everything is pinned, start sewing! I did mine by hand because I'm in college and poor and don't have my machine in my apartment, but I would highly recommend using a machine if it's available. It doesn't really matter what color thread you use. For my blanket, I picked a neutral gray because the shoulder pads I have are already so quirky and eclectic that I didn't need to have anything too "out there".
3. THAT'S IT!

As you can tell by the pictures, I'm working on my blanket in small stages and then I'm going to sew them all together at the end. It's a personal decision to do that, just because I feel more comfortable working with small areas when sewing.

Enjoy!

Provided by Jenna M.

Monogrammed Tiles

So, like any other college kid in the world, I'm broke. Well, not broke. But definitely not in the situation to drop a ton of cash on a present for whatever given reason for which gift giving is socially expected. Coming into this school year, I realized just how much I could end up spending on my (unknown at the time) Littles. Therefore, I devised a plan. Find things I like in the store, and instead of buying it just make my own version of it. The following is what happens when I find hundreds of plain ceramic tiles in my garage. In this case, I made some for my Littles, then wanted one for myself and room mates.

WHAT YOU NEED:
Ceramic tile
Background paper (I used Christmas wrapping paper, but you could use any paper-type material)
Mod Podge
Sponge brush
Sharpie
Ribbon
Hot glue or super glue
Mini shaped mirrors

1. Take the tile and measure out a square of paper that will fit the entire front. Cut out square.
2. Put thin layer of Mod Podge on tile with sponge brush, then carefully place paper on top. Smooth it out and let dry. 
3. Once dry, write whatever you like on the paper with the sharpie. Let dry. 
4. Paint another thin layer of Mod Podge over the sharpie drawing. Let dry. 
5. Hot glue mini shaped mirrors on to the tile in whatever pattern you please. 
6. Turn tile over and measure out how much ribbon you want to make the hanging loop. Mine were about 11 inches in length total for each tile. Be sure to include an extra inch on both sides to hot glue to the back of the tile.
7. Hot glue each end of the ribbon to the back of the tile. Let dry. 
8. HANG! 

Provided by Kelsey B. 

Hey There!

Over the past couple of months, a little thing called Pintrest has somewhat become life consuming for most of us. After weeks and weeks of repinning and liking things, we’ve decided to actually put those ideas to use and make the things we find. And by we I mean the girls of the Epsilon chapter of Sigma Phi Lambda at Texas State University. This blog will consist of everything we find that we can hot glue, sew, or put glitter on.

And so our adventure begins...