More Reindeer

I know- I am on a reindeer kick. They are so cute it is hard to resist. These reindeer are the results of my realization last night that I needed to come up with some teacher appreciation gifts quickly. (Has this year gone by MUCH too quickly for anyone else?). I took Tiger with me to Target to pick things out and quickly realized that, although I am exceptionally grateful and appreciative of my children's teachers, by the time I got gifts for two teachers, six aides, and three bus drivers and their aids (three), it is expensive to have children. From Hershey's candy bars I made these reindeer (inspiration from here).   

 I tried to do something a little more special for the actual teachers. I picked up a couple of gourmet popcorn containers, but that seemed a little blah, so I wrapped them in white felt and added a scarf and some coal and a carrot. Hopefully that makes it a little more fun. If nothing else the other kids in the class will get a kick out of it for the day.

A whole herd

I mean that literally:

 And a slightly closer view. I decided to make neckerchief slides for all the boys (like this one). I only had a few red pom poms and a few brown. I thought about doing yellow noses to keep with the whole cub scout theme, but couldn't bring myself to do it. 

What was I making so many reindeer for you ask? Why to adorn my pack meeting invitations for this month. Don't mock to poetry too much- I spent all morning working on that prose. I designed them in Paint (someday I will get Photoshop- it could happen. It is right up there with the Silhouette I also dream about) and sent them to Walmart's One Hour Photo. I figured that was much cheaper than buying paper and making invitations or getting the ink and printing them out myself.

On Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen...

I was browsing Pinterest and saw a reindeer garland (here) that was cute. I didn't have the patience to cut out each reindeer, so I went and checked out what I had available on my Cricut cartridges. I found these ones on the Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge (sleigh too) so I cut them out. I also don't have a mantle (or fireplace for that matter) so the next dilemma was where to put them. Since my wreaths have all gone missing since last year, the back of my door was bare. It is no more. (The picture I took into PicMonkey to play with just because I could).

Grawr!

My jeans were getting quite holey. Because I abhor clothing shopping for myself (something about large full length mirrors in a little tiny booth just doesn't work out so well for me), and I was tired of flashing my knees around everywhere, I patched them. Maybe later I will remember that I am in my thirty's. :)

My son LOVES them. In fact, this morning as he was getting ready for school he had to keep showing Monster what he was up to. If he ever gets to the point where he wears out his pants before he outgrows them, I am definitely making a monster patch.

(I can't find where I got the idea originally, but a search for Monster Knee Patches will give you all the direction you could possibly want). 

For the little ballerina

Kitty was invited to a Ballerina birthday party. I googled Tutu Bow Holder, and perused the vast number of imaged that popped up. I then combined them to come up with this:

 To make it a little more obvious that it was for holding clips and hair bows, I made these cupcakes (tutorial here) I added little sparkles for sprinkles.

I wasn't able to make it to the party, but I heard the birthday girl had to go and hang it up right away.

Holiday Neckerchief Slides

You know that you have posted too many pictures when Google tells you that you have exceeded your free storage allotment. Have no fear- I cheated and created another gmail account for myself and invited me to be an author. :) Now you too can know what this Cubmaster wore to Roundtable this month.

Isn't he cute. My mother-in-law gets the credit for him. A peanut glued on a leaf with a bit of pipe cleaner for the beak and some ric rac for the waddle. Add a couple of googly eyes and a bit of 1/2" PVC pipe and you are good to go. 

 

(the view from the back- in all honesty, he could be put on an alligator clip to make a bow, or anything else your heart desires)

Want to know what I am wearing next month?

I may add a little green bow if I remember to pick up some thin green ribbon.

 For added fun, I wrapped the PVC in ribbon. 

I would show you the spider and bat that I wore in October, but they are currently hiding in the abyss that I call my bedroom. If I find them, I shall share, but until then, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Snow Day

OK, honestly there is no real snow here. If there ever were, I am sure the city would shut down. Since we couldn't have the real deal - and Dad was off hiking with the scouts and left us unsupervised - we made snow men. We started by painting little bits of dowel leftover from a scout toolbox project. I thought about taking a picture of the kids painting, but thought it best not to leave a 2, 4, and 5 year-old alone in a room with paint while I went to find the camera. Occasionally I am smart like that.

After embellishing with felt and pom poms and paint and ribbon and anything else we felt like, we have a family of snowmen. Tiger did his mostly by himself (he asked for a little help making a Santa hat, and he dictated the bunny - to eat the carrot nose). Kitty picked out her colors and what she wanted. Monkey just painted her dowel and was happy to just play with the bucket of buttons. Mine is on the end; I like how the felt top hat turned out. Now to go clean the kitchen and be responsible...

Gobble Gobble

I think I am going through a turkey phase. That, or I am just hungry. Either way, I thought these little finger puppets were adorable when I saw them here and had to make my own. I changed a couple of things though- I used googly eyes on mine, and hot glued the turkey body to the turkey feathers instead of sewing them. Now to decide- do I give them to the kids to ruin, I mean play, with before Thanksgiving, use them as decor around the house, or put them on one of those cute kids' thanksgiving tablescapes that I keep seeing. 

A Royal Thank You

 These are the thank you cards that I sent out after my daughter's Cinderella birthday party. Originally I was going to make the cards a little more elaborate (i.e. actually have a background, like grass and sky) but in the interest of getting them done quickly, instead of passing them out six months after the fact (yes, I have done that), I just wrote the girl's name in the top left corner and passed them out like that. The Cinderella clip tutorial is here, the castle tutorial is here.

This is what Cinderella looked like in Kitty's hair. It is a little on the big side, but I have noticed that is ok these days.

Halloween Countdown Calender (still a work-in-progress)

I know, October is long over. I am a slacker like that (I have been cleaning instead of crafting lately. That and the usual round of illnesses that seem to pop up this time of year). In case you were wondering- this is how far I made it on my Halloween Countdown. (Insert sheepish grin)

 I still need to attach hooks to my board to hang the ghosts and goblins from.

 I actually painted this board twice. It is still not my favorite, but I was ready to be done with it. 

For next year, I just need to make about 24 more things to hang. I am getting closer. And who knows, maybe after sitting in storage till then I will decide I like it better.

Turkey Time!

Like him? I finally made a Thanksgiving craft.
The tutorial can be found here. My local Wal-Mart was sold out of the 5 gallon paint sticks, so I ended up just using a regular sized one. It seemed to work out fine. Other than the paint stick, I had the rest of the supplies lying around the house. I was in one of those moods where I wanted to create something. Since my house has felt a little barren since I took all of the Halloween decorations down I thought a turkey would be a nice addition.

Pioneer Children (ate lot's of Halloween Candy)

 A few months ago, a friend called and asked if I would sew a pioneer dress for their daughter- they had just been to Nauvoo and she wanted to be a Pioneer Girl for Halloween.

She picked out the fabric, and I sewed the dress, apron, bonnet, and bloomers (Simplicity 3725). With some of the leftover fabric I made a little rag doll.

I didn't have a pattern for the doll- I just took one that Kitty had and copied it the best I could. The little pioneer was adorable at the Ward Trunk-or-Treat

Halloween (actually)!

I made a few costume modifications. You'll notice Charlie Brown got a haircut so he would look more bald-ish, and Snoopy got a nose. We tried to give Snoopy a black nose the first time, but the eyeliner we had for that one was really cheap and smeared too much to put on a baby.

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na BATMAN!

Every year it seems like I am rushing at the last minute to finish the Halloween costumes. This year, I swore, was going to be different. I was going to be finished well in advance so that I could enjoy the day at a nice leisurely pace. I need to stop swearing. This year I ended up being even further behind than usual (if possible). The drawback to finishing your kids' Halloween costumes as you are rushing out the door, is that it doesn't make for a very productive photo shoot. (The other drawback is that you forget things- like Catwoman's hood that was laying on the living room floor, instead of on her head for the Trunk-or-Treat). So please pardon the lack of professional photography- we were busy chasing superheros on Halloween. We also failed to get a family photo :(

Catwoman and Batman

Kitty as Catwoman, complete with Isis. I actually had most of her costume done ahead of time. She looks super cute with her Catwoman hood on as well. Batman's costume mostly materialized on Halloween day. The night before I whipped together his shirt, so by the time he left for school in the morning all he had to wear was a shirt and the mask which I made months ago. He added a different cape to wear to school, so while he was gone I sewed the pants, belt, gloves, boot covers, and cape. I actually have a hood for him, but he refuses to wear it. The black stocking cap was his idea.

Robin

Monkey made an adorable Robin. I had most of her costume made a week ago, and just had to make her cape and boots and mask. I couldn't find any more little kid gloves (the joys of living in an area where it is 87 degrees on Halloween night) so she went bare-fingered. Their trick-or-treat bags I was whipping out as we were running out the door.

 For this year's parental matching t-shirtness, we went as comic book pages. We thought they were fun, but I don't think many people noticed, or realized what they were. I was finishing them with only about 15 minutes to go before party time.

Hopefully I will be able to get better pictures when we go to get the family portrait done. Now I really need to clean my house. Let us just say that it looks like an explosion went off in a fabric store, and I need to go and sort through the rubble.

(a few more pics for you to enjoy)

It's the Great Pumpkin Chuck!

None of these are great pictures, we'll have to try for better ones tonight. I made the Sally dress (Simplicity 5695 view D)and bow and the Snoopy costume (McCall's Costumes 8938 view B with modification). For Linus and Charlie Brown we bought shirts from Target and my husband drew the lines on the red one with a fabric marker and cut out the zigzag on the yellow one from leftover fleece from Snoopy's costume which was then sewn on. I made Linus' blankie by squaring a yard of fabric and sewing them together, no batting, just two layers of cotton and then I embroidered the name "Linus" across it to hold it. We had to give Sally the layered clothes look for warmness.

Harry Potter Party

I was asked to make the cake for my friend's birthday party. We all dressed up and had a great time!

More Cinderella Decor

I like to look up other people's parties to get ideas. I then figure out the cheapest way I can imitate the ideas that I like. Want a tour?

The castle idea came from here. Don't look too closely at mine- I wasn't feeling very well the day I cut it out and didn't do the best job. I also never got around to adding the blue accents- it really was on my to do list, I just never made it that far. The Cinderella, Fairy Godmother, and mice paper crafts came from Disney here. I started the horses from there as well, but didn't finish them either. The cake platter original inspiration came from here. I took a dollar store plate and bowl and glued them together. Instead of the tutu ruffle I just did a bow. Time constraints once again were the culprit. The idea for the polly pocket cupcake doll on the cake came from here. 

I would show you the inspiration for the tablecloths, but apparently that site has gone private. The roses on the table? They are made with paper streamers (tutorial here). I was able to make two dozen roses for 50 cents (I bought a two pack of streamers at a dollar store and only used one roll).

 Walmart had the Cinderella party ware and stickers. That is also where I found the bubble wands.I just tied some ribbon to the top of them. I inserted plastic utensils into rings (also from the dollar store) for a little extra bling. The plastic "glass" slippers came from Amazon (here). 

 This Cinderella was a backup party activity. I had blue streamers to tape on her for a game of Pin the Dress on Cinderella. We ended up not having enough time to play that game, but it worked nicely as decor so it wasn't a loss. I just sketched a picture of Cinderella on a poster board (I googled coloring pages to find the image I liked), colored it, covered it in glitter, cut it out, and laminated it with contact paper.

 I decided that my house was going to be too small for all of the things that I wanted to accomplish so I moved part of the party outside. To add to the princess feel, I tied plastic tablecloths to the shade tent. You guessed it- they came from the dollar store too. I tied ribbon around the tablecloths. I brought out my son's train table and covered it with half a tablecloth for the activities. The other half of that tablecloth I wrapped around a box for a gift basket. For $5 in plastic tablecloths, I got shade and decor fit for a princess.

Here is a sneak peak at the chairs I had my husband build me for the party. I borrowed some of the little IKEA chairs from a friend, but needed more seating. Since I don't live close enough to IKEA to just run over and grab a few chairs, I designed some out of furring strips. I love those things. They turned out super cute, and very durable (I can sit on them), but they aren't quite finished yet. They were all assembled in time for the party, but still need to be sanded and stained and varnished. It might be a few months before they are fully completed.

Cinderella Party!

Kitty turned 4 recently. Since she is in the Princess stage of life and loves Cinderella, that is the theme we went with for her birthday party. I only had a couple of weeks to put this party together. There is much I would have liked to have done, but oh, well. Isn't that the way it always is?

For starters, the invitations:

I found a paper slipper pattern online here and had my sister change the colors in Photoshop to the blues and purples. They turned out perfectly. The invitations were printed on paper and turned into little scrolls (sorry, no close up of that, I was in a hurry to pass these out). The invitations read "Slip on over to my castle for a ball". I tried to find bouncy balls to put inside, but was unsuccessful with my time constraints, and so settled for creme pumpkins (which were also surprisingly hard to find). The rest of the invitation read: 

We've picked a date to celebrate

Our beautiful princess, ******* the Great

We can hardly wait, so save the date

There’s fun to be had at ********** Hall

So come one, come all to ********'s Ball

I painted this backdrop for my ballroom. Basically, it is a full sheet, folded in half and sewn up the sides. Then I turned some craft paint into spray paint (added water and stuck it in a spray bottle- old detangler spray bottles to be specific. Not perfect, but it worked). I did a rough painting of the castle, and stuck it on a PVC frame. The balloons at the bottom were suppose to resemble clouds.

This was me trying to get the little princesses to pose before the party.

This was my ballroom. Lots of streamers, a dot garland, and balloons. I debated taking down my Halloween decor but decided against it.

I was trying to come up with some Cinderella themed games to play. One of the ideas I came up with was a mouse hunt. I took Easter eggs, cut out some tape in the shape of shirts and hats, spray painted them brown, pulled off the tape, and added ears, eyes, whiskers, nose, and tail.

I filled them with Princess fruit snacks and hid them in the yard.

I shall post more later, but I have much cleaning to do still to make up for my two weeks of party preparations, so I shall leave you with the cake.

I covered a round cake with marshmallow fondant. I used some food spray to color it. The Cinderella on top is a polly pocket doll in a cupcake, skirt also out of the fondant. I added embellishments with buttercream frosting.