More Crafts for Friendship Day

Butterfly Pins

Materials Needed :

Yellow Felt
Black hair pin
Blue Felt
Pin or magnet strips
Pink Felt
Hot Glue Gun
Pattern for wings
Tacky Glue
½ inch black pom-poms 3 per butterfly

Note: You can use any color of felt you want, just make sure you use 3 different colors per butterfly.

Butterfly Pattern to print

Directions:

For each butterfly do the following:

Cut one base wing out of yellow felt
Cut one center wing out of blue felt
Cut one top wing out of pink felt
Use a craft stick to spread a thin layer of glue on the outside edge of the yellow base wing felt.
Place blue center wing felt on top of yellow and press together.
Spread some glue in the center of the butterfly's body.
Press the hair pin into place.
Take the pink top wing section and press into the middle of the butterfly on top of the hair pin. Only press into the glue a very small part of the pink wing.
Spread some glue on 3 pom-poms and press into middle of butterfly.
Bend pink wings up against pom-poms.
Let dry.
When dry you can either glue on a magnet strip or a pin.
You can use any color felt you want. See our examples below. (this picture is not very good - better ones will be posted later, at least you get the idea - you can't see the bright colors). We used neon green and neon pink and bright purple for the top wings in the example. You can use either pastel or bright colors.

Cinnamon Ornaments

Materials Needed :

1 cup cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup applesauce
cookie cutters
ribbon for hangers
nail to make hole

Directions:

Mix dry ingredients together.
Add applesauce and mix until it's the consistency of play dough (may need to add more cinnamon or applesauce).
Roll out to about a ¼ inch thickness on a surface coated with cinnamon. Cut out desired shape with cookie cutter.
Poke a hole in top of ornament for some type of hanger when dry (We used the real small width ribbon for hangers).
Place on cookie sheets and air dry 4 - 5 days. Turn the ornaments over once or twice a day so that they dry evenly.
If you want you can paint on them when they are dry (We didn't but you could).

Note: I found another recipe that says to bake the ornaments at 150 degrees for 1 hour and then turn the oven off and leave them in for another 2 to 3 hours. You might want to try that instead of letting them air dry.

I always double the batch. You can find cinnamon in bulk at warehouse type stores (then it's not so expensive - Sams club or Cub foods is where I find it). We made stars, hearts, bells, teddy bears, and trees.

Build a Birdhouse on Friendship Day

Try your hand on building a bird house and gift it to your feather loving friend. The pleasure of having a bird in your premise, without caging it is enormous. If you too, want to be friends with birds, you can build a bird house, and gift it to your feathered friends, by hanging it somewhere safe.

Bird Palace

You can either go for some of the established designs, or just modify a wooden letter box, to turn it into a bird house.

A few basic things of a bird house are:

Wood is the favored material. Pressed boards and metals are a strict no no.
There should be enough (small) ventilation holes everywhere except the roof. Some drainage holes should be provided at the floor.
The roof should be well extended, shading the entrance hole by at least 3 inches, acting as a sun shed and not letting rainwater in as well.
It should be well protected and out of reach of predators like cats and pests as well. Special lookout should be maintained to see that ants are not forming a line to the house. If required, ant killing pesticide should be applied.
Placement should be done with thought. The opening should face away from the prevailing wind, the houses should be situated in partial sunlight. Subdued color tones are best, except for those placed in direct sunlight where white is needed to reflect the heat.
Don't place the houses too close together, as birds needs territories. 1 in ¼ of an acre is good.
Keep a strict, but non-obtrusive watch on the bird house, and keep a water source nearby.
The size of hole that you make in your bird house and its height above ground will determine, in part, what kind of bird your bird house attracts.

Bird houses can be of different shapes and sizes, depending on your imagination. The easiest way is to convert a wooden letter box. You will need to extend its roof to shed water, and make a round hole towards the top, and the ventilation and drainage holes.

For those who want to make it from scratch, first make a plan of it on a paper, and then proceed with your design.

A typical checklist may be:

hammer and ½" finishing nails
waterproof glue
sandpaper

And a typical work procedure may be :

drill with 1-3/8" hole saw and ¼" drill bit
½" plywood in sizes you have decided, (5.5 inches to 6 inches square is standard), for two bottom sides and two inside supports
¼" plywood for two roof sections, each around 7inces by 6 inches.
¼" plywood for the front and back sections.
5" length of dowel to finish the top, and 3" length of dowel for bird perch
optional: paint or stain

Instructions:

Assembly Instructions:

Before proceeding with each joint, start the nails, tapping into position, then apply waterproof glue along the joint edge.
Butt and glue the two bottom sides together.
Next, glue and nail the back section to the bottom sides.
Glue and nail the inside supports.
Using the 1 3/8 hole saw, drill a hole in the front section so that the top of the hole is 2" down from a corner; see finished photo for detail. Use a ¼" bit to drill a hole for the dowel perch, 5'8" below the bottom of the larger entrance hole. Sand the edges smooth, and sand all other inner parts of the bird house before nailing down the front.
Glue and nail the front to the bottom sides and the inside supports.
Position roof sections so that they meet, but do not butt at the top.
Glue and nail the roof sections into place. The roof overhangs the sides, as shown.
Glue the 5" dowel in the channel between the roof sections to complete this joint.
Sand all surfaces.
Lastly, glue the 3" dowel into position as a perch.

Your bird house is now ready to stain or paint as desired.

Mini Bags for envelops

Instructions:

Take the envelope and seal it (like normal).
Cut off one end of the envelope (this is the side of the normal envelope). The top and bottom of the envelope become the sides of the bag - the sides of the envelope become the bottom and opening.
Decorate the flat envelope however you want. The cut off end will be the top of the bag, so make sure designs are right side up.
We used stamps and ink pads to decorate our bags. We had multi colored ink pads and made random designs on the bags. Girls do tend to press down to hard on ink pads, so you need to supervise this process closely.
Let the envelopes dry for a few minutes if you used ink pads and stamps.
Fold each side of the envelope (envelope to & bottom) in about ¼ to ½ inch or so and crease well. It needs to be creased well or it will be hard to form the bag.
Fold the bottom of the envelope (envelope side) in about ½ inch or so and crease well.
Now open envelope to create the bag - creased sides allow the envelope to open like a bag and creased bottom give it a flat bottom. You may need to crease the sides and bottom a little more as you open the bag.
There will be two little triangular pieces left from the side folds on the bottom. Tape or glue these pieces to the bottom of the bag.
Use a scissors to make a small hole in each side of the bag near the top. (this will be for the handle)
Insert curling ribbon into hole and tie a knot. Repeat for other side.
Decorate tissue paper the same way you did the bags and place in bag for a fancy effect.
Put the treats or small prize into the bag. Give to someone special.

Weave a friendship bracelet

Instructions:

Rating:
Made with 5 different colors(60" of 4, 78" of 1) arranged:
1L, 2L, 3L, 4L, 5L, 1R, 2R, 3R, 4R, 5R.
Threads should be prepared in the usual way folded in half.

Fk == forward knot.