Candy Sprinkle Necklace by Texas Monkey

For Thursday's Tutorial I want to share with you how to make Candy Sprinkle Necklaces.  A girl can never have too much jewelry or shoes in my opinion.  They are staples in fashion and in my wardrobe and no matter how blah I may be feeling or how up and down my weight may be, I can always shop for shoes or make jewelry and immediately feel better.  I was in the middle of filling an order for bottle cap and scrabble tile necklaces and thought, man I really need something different to offer even if I just do it for gifts or for fun.  The next few weeks I would browse sites, aisles of stores to try to have an Ah Ha moment only to come up short.  But one day when I was decorating some cupcakes for my daughter's school it hit me, Why not make candy sprinkle necklaces!  And so it began and now I want to share with you how you can make your very own to share with your friends, your daughters or yourself. 

First thing is gather your supplies.

Materials Needed:

• 
  
  Envirotex Lite
• 
  
  Candy Sprinkles
• 
  
  Candy or Ice Cube Molds (Must be silicone)
• 
  
  Bail
• 
  
  Ribbon or chain necklaces
• 
  
  Super Glue

 If you notice in the pic I tried the plastic molds, these do no release the Envirotex so use the silicone only.  I chose to do hearts with a mixture of color sprinkles and stars with red, white, and blue sprinkles in light of Memorial Day and July 4th coming up.

Start by mixing your Envirotex Lite according to the packages directions.

Next just pour your mixture into your molds and then sprinkle your candy into the molds with the mixture.

Now is the waiting process, you'll need to let it set for 72 hours so that it hardens. At that point, you're just going to pop them right out of the molds.  File the edges to be flat and smooth if needed.

Take your bail and super glue it to the back of each candy sprinkle charm.

Simply string your necklace through the bail and stick a fork in you because you're done!  Real easy uh!  I used a ball chain for the star and colored ribbon necklace for the heart.

Now go find someone to give this to and watch them squeal with delight.  Or better yet adorn yourself with one and watch people try to figure out how you made it. 

Hope you enjoy making these.
Happy Thursday Ya'll

Thursday's Tutorial - Firecracker Favors

I was looking for some cute favors to make for our July 4th events this weekend and came across this adorable idea on Family Fun and wanted to share it with you here.

Don't be nervous -- these fireworks aren't the exploding kind. In fact, they're meant to be grabbed (and eventually eaten!). Made from candy rolls, they add a sparkling touch to a Fourth of July party.


Materials
Roll of candy like Life Savers
Colored tape
Foil party picks



Instructions

For each firecracker, remove the outer wrapper from a roll of candy. Wrap the inner lining with colored tape.

Insert foil party picks into the center of the roll, snapping off part of the pick if needed to get the correct length.

I know that everyone who gets one of these will just ooh and aahh over them. 
Here's another link for making these at UCreate.

How cute!!!! 
Happy Thursday Ya'll. 

Thursday's Tutorial & I Made it On Tip Junkie

Have you seen this awesome "Mom I'm Bored" Jar from Somewhat Simple? I love it, I don't have kids old enough to need this yet but I'm tucking this one away for future use when I do start hearing those 3 dreaded words, Mom, I'm Bored. 

Go check it out. 

So I'm sure most of you know who Tip Junkie is right!?  Well I'm so excited to share that she has featured my Monkey Themed Birthday Party on one of her party posts today.  Please go check it out and show her some love.  Click Here

The MacKid Coby Snapp Video Camera winner will be announced today via the newsletter.  I wonder who won?  Are you subscribed?  You have lots of giveway chances available to you if you do.  I have some great ones in store.  Just click here to sign up. 

Have you read about Blogmania yet?  Texas Monkey is so excited to bring you It's My Party Giveaway.  You won't want to miss this one, I have some great prizes lined up for the winner and many more to add. 

And Don't Forget Talkin Tuesdays where we are getting to know our readers and gaining followers all in one stop blog party link up.

Come back tomorrow for For You Friday, where it's all about you! 

Happy Thursday Ya'll.

Thursday's Tutorial - Beach Chair Towel Cover

When I received an email from Lisa over at This Is Me asking me if I'd like to share her beach towel tutorial on Thursday's Tutorial here on my blog, I was giddy with glee and of course said yes.  I love showing my readers amazing ways to make their life easier and as the summer hits us with the big stick of heat I know we will all me making our way towards the water and this adorable beach towel with little surprises will make that trip so much better. 

Lisa Writes:

First off you should know I am a messy sewer. My grandmother is a professional seamstress and would shudder if she saw my sloppy seams etc. But since this was for my own use and just something I threw together in less than 30 minutes, I did not go to any great lengths to make it perfect.

Supplies Needed:
Beach Towel
Terry Cloth Material or a 2nd towel
Sewing machine
Items needed for the beach


First I started with one of the cute Target Dollar spot beach towels. The covers I had seen online used longer towels but I had these, they were cute and CHEAP so they were perfect for my needs. I had some cheap light pink terry cloth material on hand (I seem to have a hobby of collecting fabric!) but you could also use a 2nd towel for the back and pockets. If you were clever enough you could cut around and use all the seams the towel already has to prevent hemming or using the serger on the ends. A serger would have came in very handy for this product but I don't have one and did not want to drive 40 minutes to my grandmothers to use hers. I used a simple tight zig zag stitch on the raw edges of my pockets and back. You could fold it and hem it to make it look more professional.


I had not used my embroidery machine in almost a year so I needed to test it out, the back of the chair cover was the perfect way to do so. I embroidered an L on it just to make sure my machine was working. I cute the light pink terry cloth wider than my towel because A) it was a wider material and B) I wanted the cover to fit any beach chair and this was the easiest way to make sure it would work on wider chairs. Sew the back section onto the top part of the towel to make the part what will slide over the chair to keep the wind from blowing your towel away or slipping once you sit down.

Next I laid out all my "beach" items. A book, sunscreen, sunglasses, camera, cellphone etc. and cut the pocket sizes to make sure all my items would fit in the pockets. On the back part I made it longer so it could be folded down to "close" the pocket. You gotta love the Dollar Tree for Cheap Beach reads! Of course I will end up with more than this in the pockets but I used these items as a guideline when deciding on the sizes.
 
 

Sew the pockets up and then sew them onto the towel with a single straight stitch. TA DA... Your beach towel chair cover is ready for some fun the sun! These pictures aren't the greatest but they are the only ones I took before the rain moved in.

You can personalize them with coordinating colors, embroidered names/initials ( I did my initials on the top of the cover). Use a design stitch on the pockets, add velcro or buttons to keep your items secure in the pocket, sew in a built in cellphone pocket and so much more! You can make the back flap shorter, I was using a piece already cut and didn't know what to expect so I figured it was better to use too much than not enough. I have a few sections gathered at the seam to create a wider area to fit large wider chairs.


I am going to use another towel to make a large beach tote so my chair cover, beach towel and all other beach items will fit inside. I hope you enjoyed this simple tutorial and are ready to make your own chair cover. Send me pictures! I would love to see your creations. If you have any questions please feel free to ask.


I love this and this is something even the newest of sewers could make.  We already had our girls beach trip but I know we will be making our way to the water many times this year to cool off.  This is Texas ya know.

Happy Thursday Ya'll.

Thursday's Tutorial - Painted Aged Walls

I'm so excited to share this awesome tutorial with you today.  I have many friends and family members who are into painting.  And I have quite a few friends that flip houses and I have awesome readers who are amazingly talented and thought everyone would love to see a step by step tutorial on aged wall painting. 
I contacted Rachael from Mrs. Adventure and she so graciously agreed to share her tutorial with all of us today.  If you haven't been over to visit her yet please do so, she's got some amazing talent and shares that talent with her readers via tutorials and posts.  Such a giving gal!  So let's get started shall we?
Racael writes:

"So easy a cave man can do it"

You will need: 

A blank beige / cream wall. 

A glaze, I used Valspar's Mocha # 94825

(for a 12x12 room it took me 1.5 bottles of the glaze so about $30 bucks)

Then a small pan with a roller and a small pointy brush (See photo below)

A sponge (this small one worked the best for me, I know its more work but the finished product looked much better than when I tried the larger sponges).

Step 1:

Take a roller and roll a generous amount around on the wall like so:

Step 2:

Then take your sponge and start dabbing all over your rolled on paint.

Keep dabbing in between the blank spaces as well as the covered ones.

Step 3:

After you have done this a couple of times, the paint will start to dry. Once you get to the edge of the previous coat you can blend the two areas together this will create the "lines" you see on my walls. (see photos below)

(before blending)

This photo shows the wall after blending, As you can see the areas of overlap create darker "lines" make sure these are NEVER strail always curved for a more natural look and feel.

 Step 4:

Once you get to a corner, if you want the corners to be darker (like my room) paint this "pattern" in the corners first then fill in.

This way you can go back to the corners with a 2nd, 3rd coat to get just those areas darker.

After your walls are covered in your first coat (you will be sick of dabbing for sure). You can go back and add your "aged" cracks and seams.

Making Cracks:

Take a small paint brush and swiggle (is that a word?) a line on the wall with your glaze like so:

Then take the end of your brush to the end of the line and make the "ends" like a V like so:

Then to make the crack more "real" I took my sponge and lightly dabbed around the line after it was dry to make it even darker like so:

Adding more seams:

Ok to get that plastered seams look (like the photo below)

I went back after my paint was dry and make them simply by dabbing with a semi wet sponge in a line, and you can do these from the corners, ceiling or just down the wall (I did all three).

After going around and adding a dab here and there, and making cracks where you want them, YOU ARE DONE!

Hang your curtains and enjoy your new room.

Isn't that awesome!  I love what she did to her room.  And because I'm just a sucker for Before and After shots lets take a look at them.

Before:

And After:

Impressive huh?  Hope you are inspired and both Rachael and I would love to see pictures if you do this or have done this.

Happy Thursday Ya'll.

Thursday's Tutorial - T-shirt Dress

Today's Tutorial is so stinking cute and although I wish I could say I did it, I can not.  It comes to us from Sumo's Sweet Stuff.  Have you been to her blog yet?  It is chalked full of well Sweet stuff like Tutorials, crafts, recipes, and more.  You must go by and tell her hi. 

She is going to show us how to make a t-shirt dress.  If you are around my age then you may remember wearing t-shirt dresses as a child and if you're like me the thought of that memory just scares the poo out of you, let's face it they weren't that cute, big hair, wacky fabric at the bottom and a wild colored t-shirt at top that probably had glitter fabric paint on it.  But this one is oh so precious that any little monkey would be excited to wear it. 

So Let's get started.

Here's what you need:

- t-shirt (mine was a $3.50 tank from Wal-Mart)

- fabric

- iron

- sewing machine/accessories

- buttons (optional)

You'll want to start off by using a dress your little girl already has for some measurements. For the body of the dress, you'll want to measure across the width, and then cut your width of fabric to be one and a half times that. As for the length, you'll just want to figure how long you want the dress to be, subtract how much shirt you are leaving, and there's your measurement for the length. If you are smart, use the fold of the fabric to cut this piece out. That saves you sewing a side. You can see that I was not smart.

For the ruffles, you'll want to make them as long as two times your width since you will be gathering them to make them ruffle. For the width, it just depends on how long your dress is going to be and how many different fabrics you are using. I needed five ruffles that would be about three and a half inches wide, so I cut them at four inches to account for seams. Again, use your fold! I got smart this time!

You'll want to pin the two right sides of your fabric for the body of the dress together and sew the seams. I used a 1/4" allowance.

Next I ironed a 1/4" on the bottom of the body and sewed it.

At the top of your body, do a gathering stitch by setting your stitch length to the longest length. Don't backstitch here! You'll need your thread ends nice and long so that you can pull.

After I did the body, I closed up one of the ruffles, ironed and hemmed it, and did the gathering stitch at the top. This was the ruffle I wanted to go first.

Next you are going to pin your ruffle, body, and half shirt together and sew a quarter inch seam.

Turn it right side out and top stitch.

Doesn't this look like a little 80's dress??

Then you're going to want to hem and gather all of your other ruffles. Here's a little pile of ruffles!

Then, measure the distance that you want between ruffles. Okay, I was living on the edge and just eyeballed it! Pin your ruffle down and sew it all the way around.

Then top stitch all the way around. Do this for all of your ruffles.

Looking good so far!

Then I decided that I wanted to put something on the sleeves of the tank. I traced a circle and cut it in half.

Then I ironed down the curved edge and sewed it....

And then did a gathering stitch to give it a bit of a ruffle.

Sew them on to the tank.

Make a cute flower and hand stitch it on.

Hand stitch on some buttons.

And you are done! A cute, unique dress!

I also made one out of a onesie for my baby.

Then put them on the cutest girls you know and admire your work!

How awesome are these?!  Please go tell her hi and browse around her blog and have fun making your own t-shirt dresses.

Happy Thursday Ya'll.