Home - 30 Minute Crafts

No Sew Toga Costume

September 8, 2015 by Carolina 5 Comments

With a yard of fabric and a few other crafty supplies, you can whip up this no sew toga costume in just a few minutes! Sure, a toga feels like an obvious Halloween costume – but when was the last time you had a toga-clad trick-or-treater at your door? And with a fun fabric like this gold shimmery fabric I picked up, it becomes a fun costume for any kid to wear (and highly reflective – something every mom wants in a trick or treating costume)!

I whipped up this costume as part of Craft Lightning week. All week long my friends Angie from the Country Chic Cottage and Jen from 100 Directions and I, along with our crafty friends from around the web are sharing 15 minute or less Halloween crafts, and I’m sharing a 15-minute or less Halloween costume each day this week! Check out yesterday’s Mushroom Costume. And be sure to scroll down to the bottom of this post to check out more fast and fun craft ideas.

This Toga costume idea started when I was at JoAnns and saw a yard of this gold fabric in their remnant bin. Perfect!

Here is what you need to make your DIY Toga Costume:

1 yard of gold fabric (for a child’s costume – if you’re making this for an adult, and you don’t want an uber-mini skirt, grab a bedsheet instead)
Headband
Fake Ivy (from the silk/floral section)
Hot Glue
Pin Back
Large medallion (from the jewelry section)
safety pins

Make the Greek Headband:

Start by making the crown. You could go more traditional and find Laurel leaves or Olive leaves, but for the sake of simplicity, I just grabbed some ivy. To match the rest of the costume, I could have painted the leaves gold, but I kept it simple.

Cut a length of ivy several inches longer than the headband.

Start twisting around the headband.

Twist all the way around the headband, twisting back at the ends.

How to make a Toga:

You can use a brooch you have on hand for the embellishment at the shoulder, or hot glue a pin back to a large medallion from the jewelry section of the craft store.

I had my son leave on his gym shorts, but remove his shirt. You could make this same costume for a girl, but I’d recommend a tube top underneath to avoid any embarrassing wardrobe malfunctions. I wrapped the fabric around his torso, under one armpit. I grabbed the top corner from the back, and the top corner from the front. He’s skinny, so I moved my hand in several inches on the front, grabbing along the edge, instead of the corner.

I tied these in a double knot.

I covered up the tail on the front with the medallion. Then used safety pins on the side to pin it closed under his arm.

The crown of ivy went on his head, around the back and resting on his ears. Costume was complete! Obviously, he’ll need some sandals before he would be able to go trick-or-treating.

If you enjoyed this toga costume, you might also like this ladybug costume, magician costume, and monster costume.

For more fun Halloween Crafts, check out these projects:

Any Googly-eye fanatic (like me) will love these monster pinwheels from A Girl and a Glue Gun.

Aren’t these spooky coffins adorable? Michelle’s Crafty Plan-it has the step-by-step for you to make your own!

Laura’s crafty Life will show you how to whip up an adorable button card for Halloween.

Duct Tape and Denim added some simple spooky to her decor with this fun mummy model.

I love how DIY Inspired transformed this simple owl into sparkly Halloween decor.

Halloween is the first creative holiday in months, and a great reason to make a Halloween count down like this one from Jen Gallacher.

Artistic Endeavor shows you that there are no excuses for not making fun Halloween decor – especially when it is as easy and fun as these mummy cans!

And if you’re a fan of upcycling, these easy Boo jars from Occasionally Crafty are another fun and easy way to make your Halloween decor out of recyclables!

Our crafty Guest Host, Jen Goode from 100 Directions, shows you how to make your own spooky treats with these eyeball cookie pops.

And my crafty co-host, Angie from the Country Chic Cottage, made this fun Halloween Banner:

Filed Under: 15 minute crafts, craft lightning, easy, fabric, halloween, kids, quick, simple Tagged With: costume, easy, Simple

Simple Mushroom Costume

September 7, 2015 by Carolina 10 Comments

With Halloween coming up, I’m constantly asking my kids what they want to dress up as for Halloween. Otherwise, I’ll wake up Halloween morning to realize that I still don’t know, and don’t have time to make anything fancy. For those of you in the same shoes, I’m sharing fun, fast, and easy Halloween costumes all week long – like this Mushroom Costume! That’s right – a Mushroom costume. Doesn’t sound too exciting – but it is super cute! Any kid will look adorable asking for treats dressed like a Toadstool, right?

This is part of another awesome Craft Lightning Week. This week my co-host Angie from The Country Chic Cottage, and our Guest Host Jen from 100 Directions and I, along with our creative friends from around the ‘net are sharing fast Halloween crafts that can be done in 15 minutes or less!

I’m sure you’re wondering how in the world I came up with the idea to make a Mushroom costume! I was wandering the aisles of my local crafts store with my kiddos, trying to come up with costume ideas. My oldest picked up one of these Smoothfoam half-spheres, and the idea just popped into my head! He was excited to put it in the cart, and I was thrilled that I came up with a simple and inexpensive idea for a unique costume. It would be great for a parent or sibling of kids dressed up in a Mario Costume – or a Little Miss Muffet Costume! But it is pretty special all on its own.

To make your Mushroom or Toadstool Costume you’ll need:

12″ Smoothfoam Half-Sphere
Pencil
Paintbrush
Red Paint
White Shirt

Start by lightly drawing large oval/circles on your smoothfoam. Make them large, and cover lots of area – the more white dots, the less you’ll need to paint red (and the faster this costume will come together)!

Paint in the negative space around the dots with your red paint, then allow to dry.

Put on the white shirt, add the mushroom cap, and your costume is complete! Super fast, super simple – you can make it in the morning, and wear it that night!

Looking for more Halloween craftiness? Check out these fast and fun Halloween crafts that you can make in just 15 minutes (or less!)

Over at Frugal Elegance, you’ll learn how to make these spooky skeleton luminaries.

Turn the most versatile decor item (the mason jar) into a fun ghost votive with Lisa Stuf.

Mothership Scrapbook Gal shows you how you can whip up a fun and simple Halloween Card.

My Very Educated Mother shows you how to whip up these adorable poseable mummies!

Add a little creepy to your front door with this great Halloween Door Decor from 365 Days of Crafts.

Even if you don’t dress in a costume this Halloween, you can still get wrapped up in the holiday – with this Halloween headband from Lucky Scarf.

Laura Kelly made this fun printable Halloween garland – with Ugly sweaters! What a perfect way to celebrate this fall holiday!

Over at Mad in Crafts you’ll learn how she made this fun glowing Halloween sign!

Come back tomorrow – I’ll share another fun and fast Halloween costume, as well as a bunch of other fast and fun Halloween crafts!

Filed Under: 15 minute crafts, craft lightning, easy, fast and cheap, halloween, kids, paint Tagged With: costume, Foam

DIY Confetti Birthday Seals

September 2, 2015 by Carolina 1 Comment

Surprise your friends and family with these fun Birthday Seals! I made two printable versions – one to print on a laser printer so that you can foil them, and the other with colorful dots that you can inkjet so you don’t have to foil them.

Thanks so much to Online Labels for sending me these fun labels – I had a blast creating this project! If you want to make your own, I used these scallop-edged labels. Here is the printable file for the foil labels. Be sure to use a LASER printer to print them! If you don’t have access to a laser printer, foils, and a laminator, you can still make these seals using the full color version.

Whether you choose to foil them or not, these seals are so much fun to add to any envelope. I give you the step-by-step in the video.

These are so much fun!

I might have made them in four different colors… because you never know when you’ll need a fun foiled confetti seal!

Here is what the colorful printable looks like:

Filed Under: 15 minute crafts, paper, printable Tagged With: birthday, quick

DIY Minion Dry Erase Board Eraser

August 27, 2015 by Carolina Leave a Comment

Do your children love Minions? Mine do. Very few days go by where I don’t hear “Beedo! Beedo! BEEDO!!” So, of course, Minion School supplies are a must. This year, there was a school supply I was not used to seeing – dry erase board eraser. In an effort to use less paper, practice is often done on small dry erase boards, so of course, an eraser is a must. There was an option instead of buying an eraser – send an old (clean) sock. This gave me an idea. Why not craft up the sock and turn it into a DIY Minion Dry Erase Board Eraser? I upcycle a sock, check off an item on the school supply list – and add a Minion to my son’s school supplies – WINNING!

Supplies:
Small, Clean sock
Batting scraps (or pillow stuffing,or a second, larger sock)
Felt: Yellow, Blue, Gray, White, Black
Scissors
Hot Glue
Fabric Paint

Start by folding your Batting scraps, or larger sock.

Insert into sock, then tuck the top of the sock in as well. Adjust until smooth.

Place the sock on the yellow felt, and cut an oval-ish shape to size.

Glue on with hot glue.

Cut an oval-ish piece of blue, the same size as the yellow piece.

Also cut two grey circles, two slightly smaller white circles, and a strip of black. Cut the top and sides of the blue to form the overalls.

Glue down the body, then the black stripe for the goggles, then the grey circles, and finally the white circles. Use fabric paint to add the details – hair, eyes, mouth, and seams on the overalls. If you have fabric paint with a nozzle – awesome! I couldn’t find mine, so I used plain paint with a paintbrush.

Once the paint is dry, your Minion Dry Erase Board Eraser is complete! I surprised my son with his, and he was super excited to take his little minion to school!

Filed Under: 15 minute crafts, easy, fast and cheap, kids, paint Tagged With: easy, minion, no sew

Terial Magic Flowers

August 20, 2015 by Carolina 1 Comment

When I did my review on Terial Magic for Craft Test Dummies, I made a couple projects… including this fun fabric flower. I love this, because you can turn your favorite fabric into beautiful flowers! And it is a great project for using up scraps. I realized I never shared the step-by-step with y’all here, so it is about time I show you how to make these quick and easy fabric flowers.

You’ll need:
Fabric
Terial Magic
Wire
Beads or Buttons
Floral Tape
Scissors
Pliers

Cut a 25″ length of wire. String on the bead or button. Twist, twist, twist the wire.

Treat the fabric with the Terial Magic according to the instructions on the bottle. Then cut out teardrop shapes for petals.

Place the points of the teardrops next to the wire stem. Wrap with floral wire to secure. Start with 1 or 2, then keep adding more.

Wrap the floral wire down the stem.

Open up the petals – your flower is complete!

Filed Under: 30 minute crafts, easy, fabric, fast and cheap, quick Tagged With: flower, no sew, scrap

DIY Lego Stickers

August 8, 2015 by Carolina 3 Comments

My sons love their Legos, and I love how many hours of playtime they get with their Legos! They use their imaginations to build cars, spaceships, helicopters, homes… and sometimes flying helicopter homes that can go to outer space! They enjoy customizing their Lego creations, and we discovered that vinyl makes the perfect Lego Stickers to customize their Lego bricks even more!

Making these stickers is super easy. Start with basic Lego Bricks that have smooth sides… any shape or size is fine.

You’ll want my Lego bricks vinyl weeding sheet. The squares and rectangles on this page are already set to be the right size for Lego Bricks. Place your designs inside the boxes, and they’ll be easy to cut out.

I created these on my Sizzix eclips2, but the Lego Bricks vinyl weeding sheet is an .svg file, so you can use it with any cutting machine that accepts .svg files – most do.

Once you’ve created all the designs you want, delete any unused boxes so that you can save your vinyl for future use. You don’t want it cutting out all those extras until you’ve filled them with shapes.

Then cut your vinyl! Peel away all the background. This is where you’ll see the magic of having the weeding sheet.

Once you’ve peeled away the background, it is easy to “weed” away any of the pieces you don’t want. Leaving you with perfect stickers.

Cut a small piece of vinyl transfer tape – just slightly larger than the sticker you want to place on the brick. Press firmly on the sticker, and lift.

Place the sticker on the brick. Rub down.

Carefully remove the transfer tape. I get the best results when pulling completely in the opposite direction (backwards and not upwards).

Ta da! A custom lego brick!

Make lots (and lots, and lots)!

If you have an eclips2, here is the cut file I used… feel free to add more designs, or remove the extra weeding boxes.

Filed Under: 15 minute crafts, easy, fast and cheap, kids Tagged With: cutable, lego, vinyl

Metal Stamped Statement Necklace

July 24, 2015 by Carolina 6 Comments

When you make your own jewelry, you can easily add custom pieces that make it extra special. With metal stamping, you can add names or words that are special to you. This statement necklace has metal stamping on two of the rings, which adds both a textural element and special meaning to the necklace.

Impress Art sent me some of their wonderful stamps and blanks to use for this project. If you’d like to make your own metal stamped statement necklace, you’ll need:

Metal stamping blanks (rings)
Metal Stamping tools
Various sized rings and jump rings
Jewelry Pliers
Jewelry Chain

Decide what you want to stamp on your rings. I chose “Love” for one and “Faith” for the other. There was plenty of room to stamp each three times.

Connect the stamped rings and other assorted rings to make a chain.

Add other rings along and between the chain to make a decorative statement piece.

Use jump rings to add necklace chain to either side.

Cut the chain to the desired length, then add a jewelry clasp.

Your statement necklace is finished!

Filed Under: 30 minute crafts, fast and cheap, jewelry Tagged With: impress art, metal stamp, necklace

Mini Lego Tin

July 21, 2015 by Carolina 3 Comments

My boys, like most young boys, love all things Lego. Last year, we had the chance to go to Legoland with our family, and they loved it. One of the things my oldest especially loved was trading Minifigures with the Legoland staff. It is one of the fun little “extras” at Legoland… bring some of your own Lego Minifigures, and swap them with staff members who have their own. Last year, we tucked our Minifigs into a mint tin, which was the perfect size. For our upcoming Legoland trip, I thought I’d make a special Mini Lego Tin.

If you’re planning a Legoland, check out their awesome promotions. I was asked to share this great promotion with you – with any purchase at a participating McDonald’s in Southern California (L.A. and San Diego) in the promotional period, Kids Go Free with paid adult ticket to LEGOLAND® California Resort and your choice of LEGOLAND Water Park or SEA LIFE® Aquarium. Offer ends July 31st 2015.

To make the mini Lego Tin, you’ll need:
Small Mints tin (like Altoids or similar)
6×10 flat lego piece (any color)
Matching paint
Air-dry clay
Paintbrush
Hot Glue

Glue the Lego piece to the top of the tin.

Put the air dry clay around the Lego piece to even out the area between the Lego piece and the tin.

Smooth the clay out. If it starts to dry out, put a couple drops of water on your finger, and smooth over the clay.

Wipe away any excess clay and allow to dry. Once dry, paint the clay and the tin to match the Lego piece.

It may take 2-3 coats of paint. Once the paint is dry, you’re done! Enjoy your tin, perfect for trips… especially one to Legoland!

Check out these other fun Lego craft ideas:

Lego Necklace
Lego Ring
Lego Mask
Lego Inspired Gift Boxes

Filed Under: 30 minute crafts, easy, fast and cheap, kids Tagged With: box, lego, toy

Monster Book of Monsters in just 30 Minutes

July 20, 2015 by Carolina 7 Comments

The Harry Potter books (and movies) are full of all kinds of fun magical creatures, like the Monster Book of Monsters. These are the little things that make the story so magical and fun! Making your own Monster Book of Monsters is easy to do, with just a few supplies, and in only a few minutes.

I made this project as part of the annual Rae Gun Ramblings series celebrating Harry Potter crafts! You can go check out all the other awesome projects that are part of the series… but for now, let me show you how easy it is to make your own Monster book of Monsters. When you get down to the bottom, you’ll find an awesome Harry Potter inspired giveaway as well!

To make your own Harry Potter inspired Monster Book of Monsters, you’ll need:

Faux Fur from Shannon Fabrics
Hardback Book (I picked one up at Goodwill)
Googly Eyes
Red Felt
Hot Glue
Scissors

Start by placing the fur right-side-down, with the book open on top, and cutting the faux fur about 2″ larger than the book on all sides.

Cut in towards the spine both at the top and the bottom, at an angle, and cut away. Then use hot glue to glue the spine in place.

Mark the corners of the book.

Cut away the corner, so that the flaps of fur are angled. Then glue down the flaps one at a time.

Repeat with the other side. You now have a furry book!

To secure the eyes, first move the fur a little, so that you create a part in the fur where you want to glue the eye.

Add a generous dab of glue to the back of the googly eye.

Secure in place, where you created the part in the fur. Repeat for all the eyes you want to add.

Once you’ve added all the eyes, you can pet down or fluff up the fur on your Monster book of Monsters.

Add a tongue by cutting a rectangle of red felt, then curving one end. Place between the pages so that the tongue sticks out.

Your Harry Potter inspired Monster book is complete!

Check out this fun Harry Potter inspired giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Filed Under: 30 minute crafts, easy, fabric, fast and cheap, google eyes Tagged With: 30 minutes, book, diy, kids

Crafty Giveaway

July 13, 2015 by Carolina Leave a Comment

All last week we celebrated back to school with nearly 100 different back to school craft ideas! To continue the celebration, we’re offering an awesome giveaway, this great Sizzix bundle… great for back to school crafts and so much more!