Visor Tissue Holder

Materials Needed:

1 - 11" X 8" piece of foam
2 - 12" X 1/2" pieces of elastic (my visor is 6" wide)
Old map
Sissors
Glue or Spray adhesive
Sewing Machine

On one side of the foam  measure 2 3/4" from each end of the foam and draw a line as a fold guide. Make sure when folded this leaves enough space to pull tissues through the opening.

Cut the map to the same size as the piece of foam. Spray one side of the foam with spray adhesive or spread with glue. Attach the map to the foam piece. Before the glue dries fold the foam on the guide lines you drew earlier. I put a weight on mine and allowed it to dry fully in a folded state.

Cut 2 pieces of elastic to 12" or 2 times the width of your visor. My visor was 6" wide so therefore my elastic would need to be 12 inches. I added about 1/2" to each of mine so it wouldn't be quite so tight on the visor.

Sew each piece of elastic end to end, so you now have two elastic circles.

After the glue has dried sew the elastic about an 1 1/2" from the outside edge on the map side of the foam only in the middle section (between the 2 fold lines). I used some tape to hold the elastic in place while sewing.

Fold the foam on the fold guide lines and sew each side along the edge.

If you want your tissue holder to hold more tissues you could change the size of the foam accordingly. This size works for me because it isn't intrusive.

I love it because it make for easy access to the tissues while driving and I love the map covering.

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Cutesy Crafts
I Gotta Create

Tin Man Yard Ornament

This cute little TIN MAN yard ornament was my husband's holiday craft gift. He was a hit with the children.

Needed Items:

     Wire Snips

     Rivet Gun

     Silver spray paint

     Various other paint (for decorating)

     1 - Large Coffee Can

     1 - Large Chili/Stew Can

     4 - Vegetable Cans

     4 - Soup Cans

     2 - Sardine Cans

     1 - Small Funnel

     5 - Bottle Caps

As you can see from the pictures you rivet the cans together to make the body, head, legs and arms.

The ears, hands and nose were cut from the ends of the cans. Be careful as the edges are quite sharp.

The funnel is glued to the top as a hat and the entire thing is spray painted with silver paint.

Decorate as you desire.

Family Tree

My mother asked me to bake a cake and decorate it for a family get-together over the weekend. Because I am not a professional cake decorator I needed to find a simple way to make a cake that was presentable to my entire family. Early last week I decided since the cake was supposed to represent my entire family I would do a family tree.

While discussing it with my daughter she had the wonderful idea to make cupcakes instead of a sheet cake...so much easier! We had decided to cut out gum paste leaves for each cupcake and write everyone's name on them.

When we explained our idea to my creative husband he had the amazing idea to make apples instead of leaves which turned out looking so much prettier against the green cupcakes.

My younger sons joined in to help make cupcakes and cut out apples. This project turned out to be a family project that I enjoyed very much.

We baked 96 cupcakes (we had to have extras for snacking and those many accidents). We also cut out and decorated 40 apples (a few of these didn't make the trip).

The apples are made from tinted gum paste that we rolled out and used a cookie cutter. Apple shaped cookie cutters are hard to find so I reshaped a heart-shaped cutter. The little leaves are also gum paste. I used chocolate frosting to make the stem and it was a great glue for attaching the leaves.

The trunk of the tree is chocolate cake. Each of the cupcakes in the tree was frosted green and then I used a leaf tip to decorate with small leaves before putting the apples on top. The "grass cupcakes" were frosted green and then I used a grass tip.

Such a simple cake was a big hit with our extended family. And so much fun for my immediate family to work together.

 It would be a cute cake for a classroom as well.

This post does contain affiliate links and I may be compensated for any purchases but I only post products that I have used.

Drawer re-organized

My silverware drawer was in need of organizing. It was one of those things I had every intention of doing since the day we moved into this house...6 years ago.

Last night I finally tackled it! I used some extras I had laying around. 

An unused yoga mat...they work wonderfully as drawer liners.

Left over laminate flooring

A few screws

AND

a little effort and some time

The result is so much more useful and eye-pleasing.

I'm a Little Teapot...

I rescued this little teapot from the trash and gave it a good bath...not bad looking.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find the lid and I rose motif on the front didn't match my decor.

That was easily corrected with a little bit of paint. Amazing how big a change a little bit of paint makes.

I could have chose a brighter color that would have better highlighted the design but my kitchen accent color is green.

So I added color with flowers. These daffodils made this little teapot sing!

A teapot that was on its way to the city dump yesterday is the centerpiece on my dining room table this morning.