Make a Cement Patio Look like Bricks

We always replace things around our homes, like throw pillows, paint, rugs and d?cor items, because we often get bored with things and want to change it up a little. Other things stay the same for years, like the furnishings. Some things are much easier to redo or change whereas other things are more costly. One thing most people rarely give a make-over is a concrete or cement patio. It stays the same for as long as you own your home. Some people, however, do like to paint the patio, from time to time, just to give it a fresher look. Paint is the best make-over you can give to a patio but you can always take painting to a new level. Use a simple and fun painting technique to give that ordinary patio the look of bricks.

A slab of cement can have a completely different appearance just by painting it. Select a color of patio paint thats very neutral, like light gray, off-white or even a light tan. This will give your new brick patio its background. Follow the instructions on the can as for drying time, outside temperatures, etc.

When the patio paint has dried you can move on to the next step. Mix a few drops of raw umber acrylic paint into the patio paint then take a natural sea sponge and apply the paint to the cement. Lightly sponge on the new color, all over the first color, and allow to dry. Make brick stamps by using household sponges. Cut a sponge to be seven and a half inches by two and a quarter inches. A serrated knife makes it easy to cut the sponge into the brick shapes. Glue the sponge to a piece of wood to finish the stamp. Choose the brick color that you want to use, paint it onto the brick stamp with a roller, and youre ready to stamp. The roller helps you dispense the paint easily without over saturating the sponge. Mark out a grid on the cement with a chalk line tool. The contraption is just a box with colored chalk inside and a piece of string. When you hold the string taut, then pull it up and release it, a colored line is snapped onto the surface to use as a guide. Stamp the brick shapes inside the grid pattern on the cement. Each time you stamp a brick, align the sponge, then press down on it with the wood. Youll get a perfect brick shape and look every time. The finished brick-stamp patio is convincing until a person actually walks on it. Its fun, though, to create the fake brick look which changes the appearance of the patio as well as its surroundings. See fake, painted-on brick here.

Embroidery Hoop Turkey

Embroidery is beautiful but is really becoming a lost art. When some people think of embroidery they think of their grandmas needlework on hankies. In fact, your lovable grandma might have even left you some embroidery supplies, like thread and hoops. The thread probably isnt much good after all these years but those hoops sure can be useful. There are lots of things you can make from embroidery hoops and, if you already have them, thats a real plus. If you have none, theyre not expensive, and you can find them at craft stores and some discount department stores.When you use two different-size embroidery hoops you can make a cute Thanksgiving turkey, which youll want to display, year after year. An embroidery hoop is actually two hoops. One is slightly smaller than the other. You remove the larger one, lay your fabric on the smaller one, then reposition the large hoop over the small one. Theres a tiny screw on the top of the large hoop and, when you twist it, you tighten the two hoops to form one - with the fabric trapped between the two. So, take apart your two hoops and youll quickly make that Thanksgiving turkey to hang on the wall.Choose a fabric to represent the color of the turkey. The fabric shouldnt be too thick. Good colors include tan, brown, yellow, or orange. Cut a piece for each embroidery hoop. Lay the fabric on the appropriate hoop and tighten the ring around it. Do this to both hoops.Glue one of the embroidery hoops to the other to create the body and head of the turkey. Just position the small hoop on top of the large one so that two-thirds of the small hoop is on the large one. Glue in place with hot glue or another suitable adhesive.Cut two circles of black felt and glue them onto the small hoop to create the eyes for the turkey. Cut a yellow triangle for a beak. Cut a waddle from red or orange felt. The waddle can have the shape of a flat, wooden ice cream spoon, or even the shape of a deflated balloon. Glue it beside the beak.Cut colors of felt into simplistic feather shapes, and glue them to the underside of the large hoop, so that the feathers stick up above the hoop. Cut tiny feet shapes for the bird, from black felt, and glue them to the backside of the large hoop, so that they hang down below the hoop.The finished turkey is just adorable and can hang on a wall anywhere in the house. Its such an easy project - and cheap, too - but you end up with a cute Thanksgiving decoration that youll display for many years.Embroidery Hoop Turkey

Ship-in-a-Bottle-Type Wine Bottle Arrangement

It takes a lot of patience, and steady nerves, if you want to make a ship in a bottle. Youll invest hours of time, and lots of money, but the finished piece is magnificent. You can do something similar to create an interesting arrangement inside of a wine bottle. But you wont have to spend all that time and money; its a very simple process to "build" many different things inside the bottle. When youre finished, use the bottle as a table centerpiece, a mantle accent, or even as a gift.After the chosen bottle is clean and dry, you can begin creating the scene inside. Instead of putting things right at the bottom, you can make a pedestal for the scene. To do this, use a cylinder of Styrofoam or even wood. Youll find these at a craft store; choose one with a diameter the same size, or smaller, than the opening of the wine bottle. You can paint the pedestal or use it as-is.To insert a Styrofoam cylinder, first push a wooden skewer through one end. Apply some hot glue to the opposite end and carefully push the cylinder through the opening. Press the glued end against the bottom of the bottle and hold it until it sets. Remove the skewer.To insert a wooden cylinder, place a tiny dot of hot glue on one end. Stick a small-diameter, wooden dowel to it. Use this as the handle to put the cylinder in place. Apply hot glue to the opposite end, push the cylinder through the opening, and wait for the glue to set. Hold the cylinder down with a skewer as you pull the wooden dowel off of the cylinder.After you have a base in place you can add any number of details. Attach tiny, silk flowers, add shells, or even make foam shapes. When you cut a foam shape, like a boat, you can easily insert it into the bottle. After cutting the shape, and adding any details you want, loosely roll boat, and lower it onto the cylinder. With a bit of glue applied to the cylinder, you can easily attach the boat. If needed, use a skewer to unroll the foam shape.Craft stores have all sorts of miniatures that you could put inside the wine bottle. Lower miniature people, a flag on a pole, a rubber pet, or another choice, and glue it to the pedestal. You can also litter things on the inside bottom of the bottle itself, like tiny rose petals, bitty shells, beans, rhinestones, glitter, tiny stones, or other embellishments.When youre finished creating the scene you want, just cork the bottle, and set it anywhere in the house. It makes a lovely accent for a bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, or other area of the home.

Preschool Valentines Day Crafts

Little kids love holidays maybe moreso than the average person. They enjoy doing crafts, too, but their little hands often have trouble creating. When Valentines Day rolls around preschool kids want to get in on the fun. You can help them have a great time and get creative by purchasing a few inexpensive craft supplies. With these, they can make Valentines Day decorations, gifts and more.

Kids can draw around their hands to make special cards or small gifts. After drawing around one hand cut it out for the child or let him use safety scissors to cut it himself. The child can write "Happy Valentines Day" or "I Love You" on the hand, with your help. Cut out an image of both hands and the child can make a small gift. Use a glue stick to apply adhesive around the edges of a product lid, such as one from a spice jar. Wrap the wrist area of the hands around the lid to make a look of two hands facing each other. Now the child can set a small tube of lotion, candy bar or other object between the hands.

If you purchase cardstock hearts kids can make all sorts of cool things. The hearts are avaible in various sizes and colors at a craft store. A child can glue a pin backing hardware piece to the backside of the heart to make a Valentines Day pin. Or, tape a bunch of hearts to a string and hang it in the house as a heart-theme garland. Make something completely different with the cardstock hearts when you use several of one size then one larger heart. Glue the tip of one heart to the top part of another heart, on the backside, and continue adding more and more hearts in this manner. End with one larger heart on top of a vertical row of smaller hearts. Glue on wiggly eyes, pipe cleaner pieces and other embellishments, to the large heart, to make a Valentines Day caterpillar that hangs on a wall. Purchase two red, white or pink plates used for birthday parties. Cut one plate in half and use it with a whole plate to make a valentine holder. Put the half-plate on the whole plate and glue the edges together. They can decorate the plates with stickers, buttons or other embellishments. Poke a hole at the top of the large plate. Kids can put their valentines in this adorable hanger. Preschool kids miss out on all the fun that happens in school on Valentines Day. But, with a little help from you, they can still make decorations, cards and gifts for that special day. All of these projects are quite inexpensive and perfect for little kids with little hands.

Heart-Shaped Wedding Favors

People used to just get married, decorating around the chapel and reception room with flowers and bows, but nowadays its much more exciting. A bride now creates a theme for the wedding and sets about producing a look that will match that theme. The cake, decorations and even the party favors are then made or bought to go along with the chosen theme. One popular theme for any wedding - beach, chapel or otherwise - is a heart theme. Its not at all hard to find or make heart-shaped decorations and accents for the wedding and reception.Your guests will have many delicious foods to sample at the wedding reception, and going along with the heart theme, a delicious favor as well. Make heart-shaped pop-tarts and youll create party favors which are as beautiful as they are scrumptious. Even if your wedding doesnt necessarily have a heart theme the pop-tarts will fit right in.Use frozen pie crust or dough to make the heart desserts for the wedding. Start by allowing it to thaw then rolling the dough out just a bit. Dont make it too thin; just roll it out so that youll have a bit large dough piece with which to work. Alternatively, you can make your own dough.Use a large, heart-shaped cookie cutter to make hearts or just use a paring knife to cut out heart shapes. Youll need two heart shapes for each pop-tart you make. Set one shape from each pair onto a baking sheet.Spread a teaspoon of the chosen food on top of each heart shape thats on the baking sheet. This can be jam, preserves, peanut butter, chocolate or another choice. Spread the food nearly to the edges of the heart shape but not all the way to the edges.Use a small paintbrush, dip the brush in milk, then apply it around the edges of each heart. Lay the second heart on top of the first one, and do this to all of the pop-tarts. Use a fork to press down on the edges to crimp them shut. If you want, sprinkle on red baking sugar. If not, you can later make the pop-tarts whatever color you want. Bake the hearts until they just start to brown.After cooling the wedding desserts, and if you didnt use colored sugar, frost them with icing. Youll give them a much more elegant appearance; frost them in colors of white, pink and/or red.Freeze the cookies for a few hours so the frosting will harden. Place each cookie in a clear cellophane bag and tie it shut with a colorful twist-tie or a piece of curled ribbon. They favors are scrumptious, beautiful and fit right in with nearly any wedding theme.See heart pop-tarts here.

Three Clothes Hanger Gifts for a Bride

Everyone needs hangers so they would make a nice gift to give a new bride. Ordinary hangers arent fancy enough to give as a gift but, when you give a make-over to regular hangers, you can craft a gift unlike any other that the bride will receive. Since there are many different ways to make-over hangers, you can give the bride the perfect set for her. Whether its a set of wooden hangers, or wire hangers, you can turn them into designer versions.

Make a set of wooden hangers to give to the bride - and the bridesmaids - before the wedding. Anyone would love a hanger that spells out a name or other word. The hanger later becomes a treasured memory from the occasion. Use bendable wire and spell out "Bride", "Bridesmaid", a persons name, the word "Love", or another word. No matter what word you write, start and end with the wire up. The upwards-facing wire is necessary to attach the wire word to the coat hanger.

It can be helpful to print out the word you want to make with the wire and then use it as a pattern to bend the wire. Lay the wire on the word and bend and curve it to match the printed word. Drill, or have two holes drilled, on the bottom of the wooden hanger. Dispense hot glue into the holes and put each end of the wire into one of the holes. With the hook of the wire facing left, the word should read from left to right. Wrapped hangers also make a nice gift for a bride. Plastic hangers look much more impressive after being wrapped with ribbon, yarn, cord, beads, or fabric. Begin at the area where the triangular piece of the hanger turns into the hook. Use hot glue to secure the end, wrap the material all the way around the triangular part of the hanger, and then wrap upwards around the hook. Use hot glue to secure, here and there, as you wrap the hanger. Make a slightly different version by wrapping the hanger with foam first. Wire hangers look like designer versions when you wrap two of them together. It can help to put a piece of clear tape around the two hangers, at a place on the hook, and at a couple of places on the triangular area, to hold them together as you wrap them. Wrap with ribbon, yarn, or another material, as described with the plastic hangers. A wrapped hanger looks so elegant when you attach a silk flower to the front of it. After the hanger is wrapped you can simply glue the flower, a bow, or other embellishment on, right where the hook meets the rest of the hanger. The new bride is going to adore them!

Closet Nursery

Are you stressing over the fact that you live in a small place and youre expecting a baby? Are you worried because there is no extra bedroom to turn into a nursery? Sure, its a nice idea that the baby would have his or her own room, decorated and set up like nurseries are, but whats more important is that the baby is loved and taken care of. A crib can be set in the living room, your room, or even in your own hallway. Stop crying over there being no nursery; create one! Look around your home to see if you can find a makeshift nursery - like a closet, or a recessed area. Its a little disturbing to think of your baby in a closet, but when you get the nursery all fixed up, you wont feel that way at all.

A closet might not sound like the best place to put your baby but thats because you havent tweaked it yet. It just needs a crib, and some other baby-theme elements, and it will be a nursery - even if its a small nursery. Roll the crib on in there and you can do other things to make the room look more appropriate for a baby.

If the closet has a bar for hanging clothing, you could use that for holding the babys clothes, or you can remove the bar. Thats particularly appropriate if the bar will have clothing hanging directly over the crib. If there is a shelf above the bar, fold the babys clothing, and store them on the shelf. Under the crib, theres lots of room for the babys needs. Seasonal or too-large clothing can be stored in small bins under the crib. Put the lids on the bins and youll have an area for setting powder, oil, booties, and similar things. There should also be plenty of room for storing diapers; stack them under half of the crib and put bins under the other half. On the walls around the crib you have room to hang baby pictures, put up small shelves, and otherwise decorate. The wall area is important because, otherwise, you just have a crib in a closet. Frame baby-theme fabric to create nursery art, or just cut felt letters, and stick them to the wall with double-sided tape. If you still need room for hanging certain clothing, consider a freestanding coat rack. You can leave it tall, or cut and remove a section, to shorten it. Or, you can build your own with spindles from a home improvement store. Set it just outside of the closet nursery and use small hangers to hang the childs coat, sweaters, and similar things, on the coat rack. The nursery might be small, but its suitable, and made with love.

Baby Shower Gift Cube

At the upcoming baby shower, the new mom and the guests will think youve put out lovely decorations, but in reality, theyll actually be gifts! You can make the most adorable gift boxes that look like baby building blocks that can hold small surprises for a new boy or girl. Make as many or as few as you want then set them around as baby shower d?cor. When its time to open the gifts just present them to the mom.

Cube-shaped boxes are necessary to make the gift cubes. The boxes must have a lid thats hinged by a fold. Close the lid and glue the flap in place so the lid can no longer open. If the box is white you can use it as-is. Otherwise, paint the box the color of your choice and allow to dry.

On four sides of the box glue on a piece of scrapbook paper, gift wrap or fabric. Make each side look different by the supplies you choose. Set the cube on a table. Forget the top and bottom of the cube, and for now, decorate only the four sides. Do so by first gluing the chosen paper to each side. These papers should be just a fraction smaller than the side of the cube, all the way around so that you can see the paint. On these four sides glue a letter to spell out "BABY" - one letter on each side. This can be done by cutting the letters out of other paper or by using stickers. After the lettes are in place you can then decorate the other sides any way you want. Cut around the paper on one side of the cube that features a "B". Cut up one side, across the top of the paper, then down the other side, but dont cut across the bottom. This creates a small door by which the gift can be viewed. Now youll make a small closure for the door. One way to make it is to simply attach two pieces of ribbon. Glue one ribbon to the decorative paper and the other ribbon to the box itself. Tie these together to close. Another way to make the closure is to glue a tiny square of cardboard inside, at the top, just behind the cut area of the box. With the door open, glue the piece so that the edge of it is along the edge of the cut area of the box. The cardboard piece should hang down slightly, so that when you open the box you can see it. Attach a small Velcro dot to this cardboard piece and the opposing dot to the door. Inside the cube you can place a small stuffed animal, booties, a rolled-up garment, socks, hair accessories, gift cards or other small objects. As the beautiful cubes sit around the room no one knows theyre actually gifts. The new mom will love them!

Beach Wind Screen

Ah, the beach; what a wonderful slice of heaven! The scent of the warm air, the waves gently rolling in, the beautiful scenery - theres no better place on earth! Its nice to play in the water, lie out in the sun, play with others on the sand - or just sit quietly and read a book. Well, thats not happening, is it? The nice breeze that others love is not the most favored part of the beach experience for a reader. You simply cant keep your place while your pages keep flipping and turning, and in the meanwhile, your hair is blowing in your face or the sand is kicking up and stinging you. Not a fun time! You wont have to deal with any of those issues anymore after you make yourself a quick and easy wind screen. The portable wind blocker is easily rolled out to block the wind or rolled back up to take home. It can be used by someone who just wants to read or even by a mom who wants to protect her young baby.

For this project were going to use a really long piece of canvas, however, you can use another choice of thick fabric and adjust the measurements to make a much longer, much shorter or even a taller version. Use a piece, for this project, which is 6 yards long by 54" wide.

Along the two longest sides of the material, fold under a half-inch, then sew along to hem each side. Where the hem begins and ends, sew these small areas shut, and this will ensure no sand gets trapped inside the hem. Start at one short end and fold it over three inches. Sew along the raw edge to form a pocket for a dowel rod. Do the same to the opposite end. These two end pockets will hold the dowels for the ends of the wind screen but youll need extra pockets between these two. Measure and space evenly between the two end pockets to form two to three more rod pockets. With each of these, fold the canvas to make the three-inch pocket, then sew straight down to secure. Use two-inch wooden dowels to prop up your wind screen while at the beach. Simply push one dowel into a pocket, and into the sand, stretch the fabric out, then push in the next dowel. Do this until the screen is where you want it. Make it a wall to block the wind thats coming from one direction, or make a screen - with four dowels - and make it into a square that surrounds a baby. No matter what your particular situation youll never be bothered by the wind again! See the wind screen here: http://www.marthastewart.com/268280/portable-windscreen?backto=true&backtourl=/photogallery/sixty-beach-ideas