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.

No More Scary Monsters Here

 Ah, Pinterest- the source of (a lot) of my inspiration. When I saw the Monster repellent here I knew I needed a can. When I took the kids to the store, I realized I needed three cans. That is where my wonderful sister and her Photoshop came in handy as she quickly changed the color scheme for me so I could have three different cans of Monster Spray. I then made the mistake of turning each child loose with a can of spray and strict instructions not to spray each other. May I just tell you, I think I may have the freshest smelling living room on the planet right now. But no scary monsters.

Work in Progress:

Day 3- Mr. Jack-o-lantern. Not my favorite, but he will do for now.

There is a monster in my toilet

I promise, I really do clean in there.

 I guess just not often enough.

Actually, I gave that toilet a thorough scrubbing before I attached my monster. I cut my monster out of vinyl and just stuck him on there. Hopefully it doesn't scare the just-potty-trained munchkins too much. The inspiration for it came from this pin.

Work in Progress:

Day 2 of my countdown calendar (that I shall make someday).

Boo-tiful Bow Canvas

I admit, I wasn't able to wait until October 1st to start pulling out the Halloween decorations. I tried. Maybe next year (but I doubt it). Last night I pulled out all the Halloween clothes (yes, my children and I wear orange and black for a whole month. The husband still has some sense of decorum and is normal, but the rest of us enjoy the month to its fullest). With cute clothing, the girls need cute ribbons and bows. Cute ribbons and bows need a proper place to be displayed. Fortunately I recognized this a few months back and made this display. I took a 12x12 canvas that I had lying around (I don't remember why I originally purchased it. I am sure there was a reason), and painted it black. Then I modge podged a sheet of Halloween scrapbooking paper on it. Then I took ribbon and wrapped around in a random pattern (and secured them just to the back). Now I can keep the Halloween hair clips and bows separate from the rest (with plenty of room to grow).

Work in Progress:

I want to make a countdown calendar (inspiration from a friend, pattern here). How do you like my first attempt?

Vintage Aprons

For the Relief Society Broadcast, the kitchen (and decorating) crew decided that we should all match and be cute like that. I searched and searched for a free vintage apron pattern and finally found this one.

 Now this next part is purely for your amusement, because I don't like to model, but since a good friend was kind enough to give me some victory rolls in my hair:

and the full effect:

 from behind:

how many bobby pins it took to acheive the look (we are not going to mention the gallon of hair spray and the much ratting that needed to be done as well. What can I say- I have very thin fine hair):

 And the extra bonus- what the hair looked like after I managed to find all the bobby pins:

Now I shall go back to just photographing the cute little kids.