So my 7 yr old came home the other day from camp and was like “Mom, we’ve got to go do this experiment, it’s so cool!”

And it WAS pretty darn cool, so I thought I’d share it with you guys!

These are his instructions, and he did the experiment and showed it to me:

You’ll need 3 jars.  Fill the first one 1/2 full with water (room temperature), second one 1/2 full with oil, and the third 1/4 full with water and 1/4 full with oil.

Then take food coloring, and put a few drops in the first jar, and stir.  See how the water mixes with the food coloring and now the water is all blue?

Then put a few drops in the second jar.  Stir it up as much as you can, and the oil and water still don’t mix!

Now for the REALLY cool one.  Put a few drops in your half and half jar–which will now have separated back out so that the oil sits on top of the water.  You’ll see that the food coloring is caught in the oil, and sits at the bottom of the oil, on top of the water.  Now watch and wait.   It may take a few minutes, but as you watch each droplet of the foodcoloring will “explode” like fireworks into the water!

Pretty cool, huh? Looks like my nail polish from this weekend!

Afterwards, we shook it all up and watched what happened. (We took bets on whether the oil would be blue when it separated back out.)
Now I just need ideas on what to do with a jars of oil and blue water… any ideas?? :)

From 2012:

So Sunday evening, after a marathon session of watching Series 2 of Doctor Who with the Boy (who between that and Harry Potter is becoming quite the Anglophile), we had the sudden realization that Tuesday was Valentines Day… oops!  I guess we need a bunch of cards for the classmates!

Yesterday after school we sat down to come up with Vday cards, and the Boy (first grade) has been obsessed with the idea of Valentine’s Monsters.  Well, he’s a boy, so monsters just come with the territory.  He had a blast designing his own cards, and with a little help from mom & Photoshop, here are the results!

How to make your own easy and personal homemade monster cards:

1. Have the kid design his own monster on a full sheet of paper.  We used pencil for the lines and colored with light colored markers. Have the monster hold his hand out, so that you can add your own real-life lollipop. (The Boy insisted on 3 different designs)
2. Write a pithy saying.   The boy decided on “Have a Yummy Valentine’s Day” for one, and “I’m watching you, Valentine” for the one with all the eyes.  OK, a little stalker-y, but he’s 6.  This isn’t supposed to be Hallmark!  He wrote out the saying, and signed the cards.
3. Scan the drawing and the words.  If you have photoshop or something similar, you can make the scanned drawing look a little cleaner by adjusting the Levels.  (Slide the left most slider slightly to the right, and the rightmost slider to the left, to remove shadows from the scan and darken the lines.)
4. Use a photo editing program to shrink down both pieces so you can fit approximately 8 cards on a page.  We used the same words with 2 of the monsters, to save time, since his writing isn’t exactly speedy.
5. Print on cardstock, and cut apart.
6. Use an exacto knife to cut two slits near the hand, and slide the lollipop through.

This version is meant to be a Death Eater robe (I took the liberty of having it double as Draco’s school robe as well).  This could of course work for a wide variety of hooded robes, including Jedi robes!

So I grabbed it, and a couple more old t-shirts and with my handy dandy sewing machine, I stitched this up.  Note, I am not a seamstress.  I have no patience for measuring or exactness.  So this is not the most perfect job ever, but he loves it.

And you don’t have to have a sewing machine to do this – there isn’t a ton of sewing involved – but it just makes it go faster.

I only lined the inside of the hood with the Hogwarts House color (in this case, green), but add an extra green tshirt and I’m sure you can figure out how to line the whole robe if you prefer.  And leaving out the lining all together makes this a much quicker and easier project, if you want to go all one color.

You’ll need:

• 3 XL mens t-shirts (2 black, 1 in green for Slytherin (pick your color for another house))
• a small length of elastic and a button to make the closure.

Step 1:

Cut the Tshirt down the front from top to bottom.  If the shirt has a design on it, like mine did, you’ll want to turn it inside out and treat the inside like the outside from now on.

Step 2:

Open the shirt up so the neckline is flat, and measure the neckline.

Step 3:

Trim the bottom off of your 2 extra tshirts.  We’ll be using these large squares to make the hood.  You’ll likely only need the front, but save the back in case you mess up.

Step 4:

For the 2 rectangles cut above:

Place with bottom t-shirt seam at the bottom, and trim so that the width is a little bit (1 in) longer than the width of our collar.

Step 5:  Place the ‘good’ sides (the side you want to show) of the squares together, and sew around 3 sides of the square.  Leave the bottom t-shirt seam side open.  Turn inside out so that your good sides are now showing.

Step 6:

Place the black side of your hood against the good side of your robe body (the original tshirt hem of your hood pocket should line up with your robe collar).  Keeping the green piece out of the way (so you don’t sew it) sew the black portion of the hood on to the body.  You’ll end up with a seam inside the robe, with the “shirt hem” on the hood sewed to the collar of the shirt.

Step 7:

Sew the hood seam.  This would be neatest done by hand, sewing from inside our pocket, but I was lazy and did it on the machine, so I ended up having a black seam inside my hood.

Basically take the top left and right corners, pull them together, and sew the seam that you create.

Step 8:

Finally, we just have to attach some sort of fastener.   I decided just to sew on a simple button, and a loop of elastic.  Knot a 6-8 in piece of elastic to make a loop.  Make a hole in one side of your collar and feed it through to the inside.  Sew the elastic down to the inside of the collar to secure.  Sew a button on the collar on the opposite side.

See also: How to make a Death Eater mask

One of the most creative people I know, Colleen (of the great indie online fabric store Some Art Fabric & and the brand new Sloth Craft) has gifted us with this fabulous blue jean remake tutorial.  Born of a wrong sized thrift store purchase for jeans for her daughter,  this is a great example of how to take something ordinary and turn it into something way cool!   As always, we LOVE our guest posters!  Hope you enjoy this great tutorial as much as I did!  — Dot

Blue Jean Remake – by Colleen

I sew. Sewing defines me as a person and as a crafter. I don’t remember learning to sew, I know I did not spring from my mother’s loins with the skill. My dad taught me some time between yesterday and forever ago. I had my first job sewing before I was double digits, child labor was not an issue, since I worked for my dad.

Sewing lead me down the wicked path of fabric and fabric brought me to where I am now, someone who owns an online fabric shop, Some Art Fabric.

I also love thrift stores, I purchase most of my kids clothes there, as well as supplies for much of my craftiness. Recently I went shopping sans children. I found some jeans that I thought would fit #1 child. I was wrong. So I decided to deconstruct the jeans and add in some space so that they would fit. This tutorial is an idea, and assumes that you have made a pair of pants before or at least worn a pair enough time to be able to figure out how they go together.

If it don’t fit! Alter it!

Colleen has lovingly prepared the tutorial as a pdf.
Download the 5 page tutorial: Jean Remake

Hope you enjoy!
As always, we’d love to see it if you try it!
And if you want more inspiration from Colleen, be sure to follow her blog, Some Art Talk!

Here’s one — too cute and funny. There are a bunch more, from Yoda to Jedi to Clone Troopers to Leia… Go see ’em all!

Heather Says:
“Star Wars fans make costumes all year-round for various events, so it’s no surprise that there are a lot of costumes from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away represented at Halloween. I found some handmade Star Wars Halloween costumes that I absolutely loved this week, so I’m writing a post this week highlighting some of the best. Check out my previous posts in the series: 25 Best Geeky Handmade Costumes, 9 Kids’ Food Costumes, 7 Handmade Lego Minifig Costumes, 6 Adorable Pixar Costumes.”

Basically, I had a bunch old fabric scraps that I had lying around the house (leftover cloth from Dragon Wings, the ends of his pants that I had cut off into shorts for summer, pieces of ribbon, that sort of thing).  I cut these into random shapes, both geometric and organic, not really worrying about neatness– there were circles, squares, spikes, and just random triangle like pieces, in a variety of colors and fabrics.

I had picked up a nice mixed pack of googly eyes in the Dollar Spot at Target the other day, so I added some random eyes to the mix.

I made a couple of large squares out of leftover brown fleece (from Perry the Platypus’ tail!) to serve as a base for the designs.

Then just let him go to town making up his own creatures.  We didn’t glue anything together (although you could certainly do so)– I just let him make up his monsters, then took pictures of them to ‘Save’ them (my little video game junkie understands that analogy!)

It was his idea to get some markers to add additional decorations and designs.

Then when he was finished, we just rolled up the cloth, with the pieces inside, and it went into his art box for future use!

Here are the results of The Boy’s safari, and below the pic are some tips for taking one with your kids!

Click here to see the full picture set on flickr!

And here’s a previous one from February..

Tips:

• Do use a decent digital camera.  While I wouldn’t give him a fancy digital SLR or anything, resist the urge to just hand over a disposable (taking LOTS of pictures is key!), or one of those ‘kid cameras’ with less resolution than your cell phone.  A decent digital point and shoot will provide the best pictures… and don’t be surprised if you get a few really nice ones!  And that’s motivating to the kids.
• Review camera handling and rules prior.  His main rule was that he always had to have the wrist strap on.  And also to keep his fingers off the lens!
• Pick a good walk:  It should be long enough for plenty of interesting subjects, but short enough that he or she doesn’t get worn out.  And make sure there is plenty of variety of subjects.   Once you’ve done your neighborhood thoroughly, consider driving or biking a bit a way to start your safari!
• Encourage, but don’t micro-manage.  Let him find what he wants to photograph.  Make occasional suggestions (“Do you see anything cool on the ground?” but not “Take a picture of that red leaf”)
• Switch off occasionally to get a picture of the kid!
• If interest is flagging, try a ‘Find the Picture’ game.  “Can you find something that’s shiny?”  “that is moving?”  “How about something that’s orange?”
• Afterwards, we go back and plug the camera into the computer, and do a slideshow of all his shots.  Blurry pictures can be deleted (although don’t dismiss those with artistic merit!) so you just save off his best.  You go through together to pick your favorites.
• Then upload a set of his favorites to flickr or some other photo sharing spot, where he can share with friends or family!
• You can also use something like big huge labs or Picasa to create a mosaic of a few favorite shots.  Maybe they go up on a bulletin board or become a card for grandma!

So, get going on safari… you don’t even have to be a kid to do it, ya know?

Noah Dziobecki created a dead on Star Wars-themed version of Goodnight Moon, called Goodnight Forest Moon. You can download the book here.

The Boy loved Goodnight Moon when he was little, and now he’s completely into Star Wars in all it’s forms.  So this is totally cool.  You can download a pdf of the book, and he gives very detailed instructions on how to print and make your own version.

“In the great metal room, there was a comlink, and a tauntaun, and a holo picture of..” (pdf)

Here’s a few tutorials to start you on your way!

Kids Refashioning Tutorials:

There are a ton of these out there, these were just a few I had saved in my ‘to write about’ file!

• TUTORIAL: Boy’s Sweater Vest (from a Man’s Sweater) at MADE (via OnePrettyThing)
• The 15 Minute Dress (made from Bandannas!)
• Another cute sweater vest idea, this one for a girl from an accidentally shrunken sweater
• Make baby leggings from a scarf.

• Here’s another idea – Baby Legs from socks!
• So cute! Kid’s pants from shirt sleeves.
• Also from Indie Tutes, a child’s dress from an adult T-shirt (great use!)
• A girls sundress from a men’s shirt.. too cute!

• Or a girl’s dress from a fun T-shirt!
• An oldie but goodie, with Easter around the corner: A bunny hat from a kid’s t-shirt! (via Craft)
• T-shirts make great materials : Make Baby Sleep Sacks or Make a cute baby hat!(via Little Birdie Secrets)
• Toddler Lounge Pants from old T’s – comfy and stylin’!

• Toddler Ruffle Skirt from T-shirts a Sew Much Ado
• Girl’s Jean skirt with flower trim made from (duh) old jeans.
• Mom’s old skirt becomes a cute girls dress.

And some for the adults

(sorry guys, this are pretty much all for the girls — someone find me some good men’s refashioning and i’ll post it!)

• fancified cardi at Angry Chicken
• Cute belted skirt from a men’s dress shirt at CraftStylish.
• Men’s Shirt to Dress at Clevergirl

• Another men’s shirt to ladies shirt refashion
• Another one, via Whip Up, cute peasant top from a men’s shirt.
• Ugly Mom pants become a flouncy skirt!
• Pretty flower necklines for t-shirts

And a few that were published right here on Dabbled!

• Winter’s not over yet, has your little kitten lost his mittens? by Heather from Dollar Store Crafts
• Turn two outgrown shirts into a new long sleeve Tshirt by Me!
• Give old girls jeans way cute new life by Colleen from Some Art Fabric / Slothcraft.

(Got a cool refashioning project you’d like to see published on Dabbled? Email Us- dot[at]dabbled[dot]org!)

Featured here? Be sure to grab a Button!

This is a very simple design, which could of course be expanded upon and be made even more creative. And wouldn’t something like this be a great accompaniment to a gift of homemade finger puppets?

I had the handy hubby write up detailed how to instructions, so if you’d like to make one yourself, go here!

Some other kid-related blasts from the past you might enjoy:

• Elephant Purse HOW TO
• Make a Play Stove from an old side table
• Ikea Hack a Toddler Bed
• Mod 2 kids t’s into a long sleeve t-shirt
• How to Make Silly Sweater Monster Puppets

OK, back to work on my new top secret project!  I’ll share it with you guys as soon as I can :)