A Work In Progress

I have had this "Great Stuff" sitting idly on my garage shelf all summer.  It has been patiently waiting for me to find the exactly perfect containers for my fake cake cupcake project.  

Well, I found the perfect containers in Utah last month and finally got a couple minutes to get the project rolling!!!

I have never used this stuff before, but have always wanted to get my hands on it.  It is the kind of stuff you never, ever want your 8 year old son to get a hold of, but deep down inside you want to just spray it into the sky just like him.  It is usually used to seal cracks and gaps in your house around window and door jams before you put the molding on to finish up.  It is an insulator to keep drafts out and so on.

But in my house, it is used to create inedible food.  The nozzle just twists on, then you pull back only on the bottom part of the handle {attached to the nozzle you just screwed on}.

I filled each cup to just under the top rim.  I am sorry for the terrible pictures.  I tried to just snap a couple with my phone.  Ugh!  Anyway, I just went in a spiral motion around the edge of the cups and filled in the center here and there.

I was able to fill about 5 cups with one can and it just so happens that I had TWO cans!!!

OK, so left the stuff to dry while I worked on the phone all day...Came out into the garage a few hours later to grab a practice cupcake and ... 

They were HUGE!!!

What the???

OK, so don't fill to just below the rim.  I ended up using all my time cutting the foam down so I could have room to frost my cupcakes.  Hopefully tomorrow I will get some time to get that done.  I have never been so anxious to get cupcakes done in all my life.

Seriously.  I probably could have filled 20 cups, not just 10 ;-}  The other thing I noticed was they end up a little top heavy.  So, if I ever get these right and you ever want to make some yourself, throw a heavy washer in the bottom of the cup to give it some weight, will 'ya?

And just for kicks and giggles, here is another fabulous Minnesota sunrise.  The beautiful sky is the best part of being up and out driving kids around before even 6 AM.  It almost makes it worth it.  A gorgeous sunrise is definitely a great way to start the day of happy.

More on the fake cake cupcakes soon...

All The Little Monsters

 

Friday Emmalee had a fall party in her Kindergarten class.  Somehow {I am still trying to figure out how} I ended up the party coordinator.   I searched all over the internet for ideas and finally settled on a bit of a monster theme.  We weren't supposed to do a Halloween theme per-say, but the monsters were quite fitting for the party without being officially Halloween.  

I found this Don't Eat Pete game online and ended up using the monsters for my inspiration for the whole party.  They were just so cute. 

I first used the monsters to make cards to go with the game.

 {download HERE} 

These monsters are not all the same size, so I just cut them apart however worked best {start by cutting the blue guy out first}, then I cut blue cardstock to back them.  I unfortunately loaned the cards and board out, so I don't have them right here to measure, but I think the blue cards were cut to 3.5" x 4.25"?????

Basically, when I had the monsters cut out, I figured out who was the widest and who was the tallest monsters, then cut the cards 1/2" larger than those sizes.  That way all of the cards were the same size, 'mkay?  

 Since we were working with Kindergartners, I wanted to make it easier, or perhaps more random, which monster would be Pete.  How do you play???  Put one piece of candy on each monster on the card.  Have one child go out of the room while the others pick a card from the pile.  Everyone else at the table sees who "Pete" is, then they have the child from the hall come back into the room.  That child gets to eat all the candy on the card until he tries to eat the one on the monster named Pete.  When he/she goes to reach for that candy, the kids at the table yell out "Don't Eat Pete" and the child stops eating the candy.  His or her turn is over, the card is restocked with candy, a new child is picked to be the eater, and you begin again.  

The kids had so much fun with this!  I made some mini cards {download HERE} to give to the kids as party favors.  The file has them 4 to a sheet.  Just print them out in color on cardstock and cut them apart.  I put one card in a treat bag with two rolls of smarties to make sure the kids had all they needed to play.  Emmalee, of course, came home and forced everyone in the family to play it TWICE with her before we even got to dinner.  {Wait-a-second!  She was just trying to eat more candy!!! (dawn of understanding)}.   

Next was probably my favorite station of the party though.  We played Roll-A-Monster, cookie style!  Madison plays this game as a drawing game with the kids she babysits.  I thought it would be really fun to play it to decorate the cookies.  You can get the game board with complete instructions HERE  from HappyBrownHouse.

I made these labels to go with the food pieces {download HERE}.  I printed out that sheet, then cut the monsters apart making 2 3/4" squares.  I cut the blue cardstock into 3 1/4" squares and used a glue stick to glue a matching set of labels onto both sides of the cardstock square {making them two-sided}.  

Here is what my pile of monster parts looked like...

Here is what we used for each part:

1-eyes  Decorator eyes

 {available in the cake decorating sections of 

Walmart and all major craft stores}

2-nose  M&Ms

3-mouth  Gummy Worms

4-teeth  Candy Corn

5-arms  Rainbow Twizzlers 

{cut into 2-3" pieces}

6-feet  Sour Patch Kids

I think this activity was a HUGE hit with the kids AND the adults alike.

I also made smaller versions of this card as a favor...

It is downloadable HERE.  I printed it off in color, cut it apart, then put one in a treat bag with a dice {bought 10 in a box at The Dollar Tree}.  I am not big on giving lots of candy at parties so it was nice to have favors that were activities more than junk toys or more sugar :0}

Finally I made up some cards for a Minute-to-Win-It, Fall Party Edition.

I found several good ideas online, but these are the few we chose to do:

Leaf Blower- Using straws, see who can blow all their leaves to the other end of the table first.  This didn't go quite as slick as I was hoping.  I think it would be better to have a target drawn on your tablecloth and see who can blow scattered leaves all inside the "raking pile target" first.  A target would work better with this game.

We were working with Kindergartners.  You gotta' know how to roll :0}

Apple Stacker- Have five apples{or 10 and have two kids going at once} and give the kids a minute to see how many they can stack in the minute.  This was a really fun game.

It was pretty tricky, but the kids had so much fun trying.

Believe it or not, this cute little bunny stacked 5 all by herself!  Only one to do it too.  "Mom, I think you have an engineer in the making right there!"

The apples get pretty bruised by the end so don't plan on using them for anything else, or get wind-fall apples if you can so you aren't wasting perfectly good fruit ;0}

Pumpkin Sweep- Have two mini pumpkins and two brooms.  Let two kids race from one end of the room to the other sweeping the pumpkins from the starting line to the finish line.  It sounds easy, but have you ever tried to sweep a pumpkin???  Not so straight forward, is it?

Candy Toss- Each kid got a handful of small wrapped candies.  They all had a turn kneeling on a chair and shooting their candy into a bucket a couple of feet away.  When they have thrown all their candy they get to keep it all and put it in their treat bags.

Spill the Beans-I couldn't think of a good name for this.  I guess I should have called it Popping Corn or something.  Basically, cut a slit into the side of an empty tissue box.  Slide a belt or a ribbon through to make a belt to strap the tissue box to the child's waist.  Cut the top of the tissue box off { I would leave a ridge if you can} and then put 8 or so ping pong balls inside.  The child gets to jump and wiggle until they get all of the ping pong balls out of the box.  It's kinda like popcorn, right?  The kids love this one.  The only problem was I put it on their backside and they figured out how to jump just right to pop all of the ping pong balls out at once.  I think next time I would tie it to the front and leave just a ridge of the box top there so it is a little harder.  Super fun!

Fall for the Target-We placed two hula hoops on the floor.  In the center of the hula hoop was a small square of paper.  The original idea I saw was to have the kids stand on their chairs, hold fall leaves above their heads, one at a time, and drop them.  You were trying to hit that square of paper as your target.  Fall leaves never fall straight down, so I thought it sounded fun.  When we got to school, the mom helping with that activity thought it would not be good to teach the kids they could stand on chairs, so she had them stand at the hula hoop.  It was a little less effective, but still fun.

I do think it is funny our "Fall Party" that was not supposed to be "Halloween-y" started off with a costume parade, not that I mind.  What would Halloween be without a parade to show off the costumes???  

The one other thing I did for this activity was make name tags.  I stopped in at Micheals, Joanns, and even Archivers, a local scrapbook store that is simply fabulous, trying to find something to make the name tags cool.  I had a heck of a time.  The really lame thing about our marketing here in America is that by the time the actual holiday comes in a season, the stores no longer sell the supplies that go along with that holiday!!!

Talk about frustrating.  I didn't find hardly anything to help me with my name tags.  

Finally, I decided to make monsters to keep with the theme.  I took the original pictures from TheTeacherWife's game and made them into silhouette files {with slight changes out of laziness}.  I have those files HERE for you in my Monster Party folder on dropbox.  I have one file to cut the monsters.  I cut all of the monsters on one sheet out of 4 different colors of cardstock.  The black mouths and pupils are all in one file to be cut out of black vinyl.  You can change the cut setting for cardstock if you would rather cut out of paper and glue.  It just seemed easier to me to use vinyl and have them already sticky.  Just in case you don't know, I use my Silhouette blade on a 2 when I cut vinyl unless you have a lot of use on the blade that you are using.  Then I bump it up to a 3 and even sometimes a 4.  You don't want to start with that blade too high though, cause it can actually chip the blades if they are used at too high of a setting than recommended.  Then you would have to buy an all new blade.

I also have the colored iris' and spots {only for one monster, but I have enough for a couple if you want to put them on more}.  

I made 32 nametags and only needed a scrap of vinyl about 3x5" big for those colored eye parts, 12x6" for the black, and 12 x 6" for the whites of the eyes.  If you don't have a stash of vinyl like I do, you can stop by the sign shop in town or a local scrapbook store and see if they have scraps you can have or buy.

Anyway, I cut the monsters, layered the eyes and smile, and added the name tag.  Ever since seeing Ashley's post about using the sketch pens, I have been giving it a try.  I LOvE THeM!!!  You put a pen into the blade holder on your silhouette machine, then highlight through the silhouette program all the parts you want drawn.  You go to the cut menu {the little pair of scissors with dotted lines at the upper right hand side of the screen} and make sure all the writing parts of your font are highlighted to cut.  Make sure any other parts are NOT chosen to cut.  Here is what I do next...

Adhere your paper to the cutting mat and load it into the machine, double check that all the parts that are to be drawn are highlighted to cut, and all the cut parts are marked NO CUT for now.  Make sure you have the pen in the holder nice and tight, then go to the other cut menu, Third button over from the right that looks like a little cutting blade.  There is a box about half way down on the right side now that says Blade and below that says Sketch Pen.  Click on Sketch Pen, then click on cut.

WAHOO!  It is writing in pen for you!!!

  

***SOMETHING ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SKETCH PENS***

They do not fill in the font!

If you are imagining the fat old bold faced font all filled in for you, you are dreaming.  You can, however, purchase a "sketch font" from silhouette and have the font filled in with this cute sketchy look.

If you want the fill filled in completely, you are gonna have to print it first, with registration marks, then load it into the machine and cut with the blade to cut the actual card out.

How was all of that for spontaneous Silhouette babble???

Just to finish it up, when you are done with your sketch penning, DO NOT UNLOAD YOUR MEDIA!  Just take the sketch pen out, and put the blade back into the blade holder.  Go back to that cutting menu symbolized with a blade in the top right hand side, and click the marker back to BLADE.  You will also need to re-open the cutting menu that has the little scissors, select all of your sketched parts, and click NO CUT!!!  VERY IMPORTANT :0}  Otherwise all of your words will be cut out.  Not cool.

Select all of the card outlines, and switch them over to CUT.  Once you double check that everything is complete and correct, you just click on CUT once more {in that "blade" cut menu} and it will cut out your name tags or cards or whatever right where you have planned in your drawing.

I LOvE my Silhouette!!!

Anyway, that was a crazy little side road.  Let me know if you have any questions.  Maybe I will need to do a tutorial some time and show you pictures :0}  Not today.  I have to get cutting out more nativities.

I hope you enjoyed learning about All The Little Monsters from Emmalee's Fall Party.  Feel free to email or comment if you have any questions about that too!

Pennant Banner How-To

I am totally digging my new pennant banner in the craft room!  I finished it off and wanted to show you my version of how to make one.

For this particular pennant banner, I fell in love with the orange paisley fabric shown above.  I loved it so much, I decided a banner would be a great way to use just a snippet, without having to change my whole color scheme in my room.  I started out finding 5 or 6 coordinating fabrics to go with it, but by the time I landed my stack at the cutting counter I was staring at 12 different fabric bolts.  The more the merrier, right???

I purchased 1/4 yard of each fabric and ran home to get started.  

My first step was to straighten up the fabric edges.  I am terribly lazy and try to cut the fabric as quickly as possible.  These pennant banners are very forgiving, so you can get away with stacking up 4 fabrics {folded in half, so actually 8 layers of cotton fabric} and cutting them all at once.    

When it comes to the pennants, it is a fabulous idea to stack the fabric wrong-sides together.  Once you have your pennants cut out, they are already matched into pairs and ready to be stitched together!!!

I normally line up the 1/4 yard pieces on my cutting mat.  They are placed as best as possible so they line up along one horizontal line, and one vertical line, so a rough 90 degree angle.  When I do this it is very important to keep track of selvage edges that are not printed.  If you don't know what a selvage edge is, it is the bound edge of the fabric that runs the whole length of the fabric.  

Wikipedia shows this picture.  They define selvage as  "the self-finished edges of fabric. The selvages keep the fabric from unraveling or fraying."

When laying the fabric on the cutting mat, I generally pick a line I will cut on, then make sure that all pieces of fabric are just over that line.  That way when I cut the fabric, all the loose threads were cut off and nothing but a straight even edge remained for measuring.  

Up until this point, I only used my straight blade on my rotary cutter.

Once I had all four edges of the fabric stack cut into a perfect rectangle, I removed the straight blade and put on the scalloped blade.

It looks like this...

There are a couple different patterns of blades sold.  There is a wave blade, that is nice because you don't have to pay attention to which way your blade is turned.  With the scalloped blade I had, I always had to double check that I was holding the rotary cutter the right direction before cutting so that the scallop was facing the right direction.  You will see more what I mean in a minute.

In the center of my cutting mat there is a square that contains several different angles.  These angles are there to assist you with all of your cutting needs.  When I make my pennant banners, generally I like the width to be about 6" and the length to be just over 9".  None of these angles printed on the mat match that angle.  This is what I do....I lay my stack of fabric so that the right side is on or to the right of the 8" mark shown by the bottom brown pointer.  I place the edge of my ruler on this mark, then line my ruler up with the second point, or the upper brown marker, at about 4" 10 inches higher.  The brown pointers show my first cut.  

Without moving the fabric, I then place my ruler on the lower pink mark, or on the 2" mark, and then align it on the upper pink mark as well, on 6" 10 inches higher.  I cut again and then the first stack of pennants are ready to sew.  Please note that I always cut on the outside of the ruler.  That is a very helpful rule to follow, so if your cutting blade goes a little off course you do not cut into your piece.  If you end up off track, just start again and fix the mistakes!

OK, so this was my first piece.  Looks great!

Notice the scallop.  It scallops toward the inside of the triangle leaving cute, round scallops.  If you look at the scrap to the left in the picture, the edge is spiky.  The spiky is fun too, but I usually pick on look, scalloped OR spiky, and that is why it is important to watch what direction the scalloped blade is facing. 

My next move was to slide the fabric stack to the right until the bottom corner was at about the 9" mark.  Because I used the scalloped cutting blade I needed to leave some extra room.  I positioned my ruler on the 8" mark on the bottom edge, then made sure the upper end intersected the 4" mark at 10 inches up.  Sometimes, unless your fabric is cut 10" or shorter, you may have to lift the top edge of the fabric to peek under and see if the ruler is in the right spot.  Sometimes you can determine a mark higher on the cutting mat to mark by to make things easier on yourself.

When I cut my second pennant out, notice that I had a whole chunk of fabric stack left over.  

It was at this point that I turned it upside down...

Lined it up on the 8" mark, and cut another pennant out of the scrap.

I cut three pennants out of each piece of fabric, but I only cut out 9 pennant pieces, 2 cuts each.  That is the fabulousness of the fabric stack!  

Now, I mentioned that I layered the 12 fabrics into 3 stacks.  Before you do anything else, layer them all in the order you want them to appear for easier pennant assembly later.

I typically set my stitch length longer for the pennants.  I like to sew either a straight or a zig-zag stitch to bind the two layers together.  I started sewing on the top, right side of the pennant, sewed down to the point, put my needle down, then sewed back up the left side.  

Here is the other vital tidbit of information!  Do not pull the pennant out of the machine!  Leave your needle down...

lift the presser foot and insert the next pennant to be sewn.  

Sew that pennant down to the corner, put the needle down, lift the presser foot, pivot the pennant and put the foot back down.  Sew up the other side, put the needle down, lift the presser foot, then insert the next.  Repeat, repeat, repeat!  I am betting that you can get them all sewn together in a 1/2 hour or less {barring any interruptions}.

Since the pennants were layered in order before you started sewing, your fabulous string of pennants is in order and all ready to be sewn to a ribbon or bias tape!  I had a bag of 2" cream burlap just begging to be put to work.  That was what I sewed to the long string of pennants I had created.

Fabulous.  I can never make up my mind about how to hang the darn things, but I basically feel no room is complete without a pennant banner of some sort ;0)

I am thinking I need some of the corners higher...or maybe lower.  Or perhaps to the side...

Oh!  I can never make up my mind!  Prepare for constant moving in this room.

Don't throw those scraps away!  I have the perfect project for them too :0)

More on that later.

Holidays Around the World

{Source}

Our family has enjoyed a new holiday tradition the last couple years.  We call it Holidays Around the World.  The kids love it and Scott and I have found it very interesting.  We sit down with the family after Thanksgiving and pick four or so countries we would like to learn about.  We read up on how they celebrate Christmas and how their festivities originated.  

I found a great website that makes the preparations a breeze...  Santas.net  It has a list of countries from around the world and details on each locations holiday traditions.  Some entries include recipes.  Once we pick the countries we are going to learn about that year, I search for one or two traditional recipes from that country that I think we can stomach {there are many we cannot :0}

Here is our list for this year.  I have also included the recipes we are going to attempt ;0)  Now if you are from or familiar with one of these countries and we are way of the mark, don't laugh.  I am doing the best this uneducated American can do :0)

Africa-
Since Africa eats a traditional meal similar to our Christmas feast, I chose to make some other traditional African food.  YASSA- a "delicious West African lemon-vinegar chicken dish".  It sounds fun.  You eat it with your hands right out of the pot!  What kid wouldn't LOVE that! They don't traditionally eat a lot of dessert so I think we will have fruit salad with whipped cream-one of the few things I found mentioned.

Brazil-
I think we might try Coxinha - Brazilian Chicken Croquettes or Feijoada (Meat Stew), some Brazilian Rice (with black bean of course), and maybe Grilled Pineapple or Banana Frita (Fried Bananas).  If we had some extra $$$ I would take the family to the Brazilian Steakhouse in Scottsdale.

Canada-
Well, I couldn't find a recipe for "Boulettes or small meatballs" specifically, so I think I will make my own meatball recipe and serve with creamy potato balls and gravy of some sort.  They say that Canadians put gravy on everything-even fries.  That is how you tell an American from a Canadian, if they ask for gravy on their fries.  For dessert we will try this recipe I found for Nanaimo Bars .

Germany-
Because I lived in Germany for a few years as a kid, we do this country every year.  That is partially because I know how to cook the food, part because my kids love the food, and part because I love their traditions.  We make the advent wreath, put shoes out for Nikolaustag {Dec. 6th}, and must sing a song or two in German.  *note*we usually miss Dec. 6th, but whatever day we decide is our "German day" we put our shoes out and do the whole thing on that one day.  I will usually make sausage and cabbage in the crockpot.  Last year we made Zwiebelkuchen {Onion Pie}.  The kids didn't think they would like it, but they DID!  Eli also loves when we make kartoffelkloesse {Potato Dumplings}, except I take the easy way out and buy them in a box, then just boil them.  I found a great recipe for Lebkuchen  {kind of like gingerbread} on allrecipes that we may try this year.

We also try to teach our kids about the traditions of other groups, hoping it will awake an awareness and respect of other's beliefs.

We spend one night learning about Hanukkah.  I found some great printables on Activity Village, but Scholastic has the most awesome printables to make the Hanukkah lesson more like a learning event.  You can find all their resources HERE.  Hanukkah starts on December 20th this year and goes to my birthday!  December 28th.  We cheat a little.  We do the whole Hanukkah celebration in one night.  We don't have Potato Latkes, we have like fish sticks and tatertots :0)  But, the kids have fun and we get to have a peak at what Hanukkah is like.

We do the same kind of thing with Kwanzaa.  Scholastic has fabulous resources for learning about Kwanzaa too.  You can check those out HERE.

Each place celebrates by showering the kids with candy and toys.  We just buy a bag or two of candy, use it for our activity day, then pour the remaining candy in a bowl and use if for the next culture night.  It is really a fun tradition that we look forward to for months in advance.  Start small, like with one country.  You can be lazy and modify like I do, to make the tradition manageable.  Your kids will remember it all of their lives.

Getting ready for Twi-Night

I spent many an hour getting ready for our twilight party.  I lost track of how long it took to make 14 of these countdown block sets.  I did figure out that there were 840 pieces of paper that were distressed and modge podged.  It felt like it too :0)

 

Remember these?  They turned into these...

And this...

turned into this...

I absolutely loved this glass block.  Wanna' know how I did it?

Take a picture to the copy store and ask for a transparency.  This one cost me $1.  Cut it to the desired size, then insert into your container...

I put mine in this glass block, then filled with water and floated a wired red ribbon inside.  It also works in one of these...

A candle inside would also make a nice effect.  I first saw this technique inside soap dispensers.  You can print a message on transparency and slip it inside a clear soap dispenser.  It makes a nice neighbor gift at Christmas or for visiting teaching.  A new mom-you can never have enough soap when you are a new mom, right?

Next up, all my plate stands.  I started with this plate.  I think it is a pottery plate, covered in silver leafing.  This and all the following came from half-price Sat. at goodwill.  I got all plates and stands for less than $10 all together.  So that plate and this candle stick...

Add a little gorilla glue....and...

Then add cheesecake (recipe Here for the best cheesecake ever).  My husband, every time he bites into another piece, looks up at me and says, "You really made this yourself?"  Don't know if I am that bad of a cook on an average day or if this cheesecake is that good, but you should try it your self.  I make that exact recipe(plus a little more butter in the crust) in a 9x13 pan instead of a spring form pan.  Baked for an hour then left in the oven, unopened, all night.  Put it in the fridge in the morning.  Gets better and better, if you can believe it, when left in the fridge for a day or so. 

The other stand holding the cupcakes was made with this plate...

and this vase, upside down

...add gorilla glue...

This is one of my prizes from winning the gorilla glue giveaway-in case you forgot :0)

The stuff is really easy to use.  It does smell like perm and is slightly yellow.  I fixed that with photoshop, but if you are gluing glass, you will want to use a doily to cover that up.

These plates were glued to these candle sticks...

topped with fir garland I had twisted into a circle...

Threw a candle in the middle of each...

Dazzling!

Of course I had to make the party placecards over so they fit the theme!  Apples with black, red, and white ruffles.  I love using my ruffler.  Just had to say in case you forgot that too.

One of the last things I made was 14 of these bags.  I got the fabric from walmart $1.50/yd.  I debated about not having the extra work and just buying some from the dollar store, but 14 would = $14.00.  By sewing them it only cost me $6 and ended up, in my opinion, way cuter.  The bags were made by cutting a rectangle 30x15"  I cut all the edges with my pinking (zigzag) blade rotary cutter because my serger was broken, again, and that would keep the edges from fraying without me having to hem all the seams.  I added a strip of bias tape 3" down from the top.  I just sewed the top and bottom edge of the tape to the bag, then ran the ribbon through that.  The bottom of the bag was about 9", with a 1/2" seam allowance around the whole circle.  I found a bowl lid that was 10" and it worked perfectly.  I laid that down on the fabric(folded over so there were 4 layers) then just ran the rotary cutter around the lid to cut them out.

They worked well.  I finally found my bag in Madison's room after the party.  It was stuffed with all our party favors, plus her whole place setting and some.  Apparently she thinks it is hers.

  

Now, if you are looking for the paper items I came up with, like the Twingo card pieces and all that, you can check out my photobucket album.  If you go there you can download anything you want to use for your party :0) The actual Twingo card isn't a picture, so if you want that, email me and I will send it to you.  I have to say it was WAY fun to finally plan a party that was for MY friends!  You know, people old enough not to need bibs or help in the bathroom :0)  You should definatly try it!