While I'm on the Birthday Thing...

So Hubbs birthday landed squarely two days before Super Saturday.  Are you sick of hearing about Super Saturday???  I am.  Anyway, I was determined not to forget him so we took a day off of the crafting craziness and had a party.  An Angry Birds Party!!!  Daddy got two angry birds t-shirts for his birthday. 

Here is my favorite...

Cause Hottie Scottie is the Bomb!

OK, That's enough of that...

Today was another one of those, "I can let go and let my kids have fun...Everything doesn't have to be perfect   all the time..." moments.  I set a cooled pan of Reese's brownies before the young-ens, along with packages of sugar wafers, root beer barrels, and Little Debbie Brownies, and let them have at it. 

 The kids has so much fun.  They worked together and were very professional, like real cake decorators.  They sketched the arena first, then set out to create.

  The Sugar Wafer pillars kept falling over so they ended up gluing two together with chocolate frosting.  That was the trick.  

In fact, Dad had a hard time knocking the darn things over :0}

I may just put them in charge of all future birthday cakes and spend a little more time sitting down myself. 

p.s. we bought the angry bird figures on Amazon.com

One other thing we did that was kinda cool, we wrapped Dad's presents in black wrapping paper, then used the chalk pens we bought a while back to decorate.  I am sure you could do the same thing with kraft paper, but I don't think it would look as cool.  It was so fun we were fighting over the pens...like a flock of Angry Birds :0}  

Tea Party for Hello Kitty Star

I figure it is about time for me to get these pictures posted.  Emmalee had her 3rd birthday party last month, just before Super Saturday hit.  She wanted a Hello Kitty Tea Party since she and her little friends have started having Tea Parties every time they get together.  I should also mention that Emmalee has officially changed her name from Emmalee to Hello Kitty Star, thus the Hello Kitty Tea Party :0)  

We moved the couches out of the living room to give the tea party attendees enough room to get all around the smorgasbord of fun.  I wanted to decorate above the table, so Scott screwed together a couple of 10ft 2x4's like a ladder and attached them to the top of these two old doors.   

 I wrapped a little wire for more surface to attach to, but then went to town with tissue paper flowers and girly topiary balls, all pulled from the depths of my well used baby shower box. You can check out my earlier post to get more details about what all went up there.

For the table, I took my craft table, left the legs folded, and set it on top of two Rubbermaid totes.  That made it the perfect height for the little rugrats.  I made the tablecloth out of two pink sheets {purchased at half price Saturday and washed thoroughly :0}  I cut one to the size I wanted, then ruffled the bottom with strips of the remaining fabric.  After that I made little pink polka dot place mats, ruffled napkins, and the ruffle seat covers for our Bucket Chairs.

I made crowns for all the kids, then used the scraps to make the pennant banner for the wall.

If you missed it, I showed how I made the crowns HERE.  They really were easy, especially for how amazing they look when they are done.

Emmalee Hello Kitty Star was so very excited.  She just kept checking the table to ensure it was the picture of perfection.

We took a trip to Goodwill the weekend before the party to see what dinnerwear we could scrounge up.  We found the china plates there for $.49 and the cups for less than that.  To add a little charm, we dipped the cups in corn syrup and then in pink sugar crystals.  It was a big hit with our guests.  I found the pink and white striped paper straws on Etsy, but also saw them on Amazon.

Emmalee's twin :0)

The food was the fun part.  We probably should have called it a buffet instead of a tea party since there was no actual tea and all we did was eat, but oh well.

Here are some of the foods we served.  Madison made the Hello Kitty pizzas, Hello Kitty cake pops, mini frozen yogurt pies, and the heart shaped sugar cubes.  I made the cake balls, cake ball ice creams, marshmallow pops, cotton candy pops, spiral cookies, mini pigs in a blankets, and much much more.  We did cut cheese and watermelon with mini cookie cutters to make mini edible flowers.  There wasn't an empty belly in the whole house :0)

Most importantly, everyone got to pour their own tea {very weak lemonade-weak so the sugar cubes could be added without regret :0}  Now how much cooler can you get!  

I am thinking that every little girl felt like a princess.

After we opened presents, Hello Kitty Star took pictures with all of her friends.  We saw this picture frame photo op on Pinterest and had to give it a try.  

It really was so cute to see the kids all coming out of the frames.

Ummm, not everyone was a fan of the idea thought.  Poor Tori.  

The photo ops only went down hill for her :0}

Here is a photo of our waiters.  You know a tea party would never be a success if it werent' for the hired help  :0)

Madison felt like a dork, but I made her take this picture so you could see the candelabra we made from a goodwill find and a flower vase.  I glued them together, spray painted the whole thing pink, then put battery operated tea lights in the candle spots. 

With all the other crazy things going on, we went a little easy on the cake.  I made a strawberry cake with strawberry frosting, garnished with fresh strawberries, whipped cream, and Hello Kitty cake decals (the decals were eaten off before I could get a photo.  The cake stand was one that I made from a glass plate and  vase glued with Gorilla Glue epoxy, and surrounded by a tulle tutu. 

All in all, the perfect creative outlet for my crazy, overworked brain.  I love kids birthday parties.  You can go as crazy as you want and try out all those fun Pinterest ideas that have been saved for months.  

Hmmm...I wonder who's birthday is next. 

 I think it is mine.  

That isn't as fun.  

You can't really throw yourself a party, now can ya?

Fake-up Revisited

We had a birthday party to go to yesterday and needed a special gift for a special little girl.  I decided nothing would fit the situation better than play make-up, lovingly termed Fake-Up :0)

I copy-catted this idea last year from a blog post you can no longer access.  I made a batch for Emmers that has been well used and loved.  To revisit, I bought the make-up containers from the dollar store, dumped the make-up, then filled the given compartments with different colors of nail polish.  The face powder was done with acrylic paint.  Both the nail polish and the paint work the same and create fun and realistic fake-up.  Once poured, let them dry for about 2 days or longer, if needed.  You will probably want to put them outside or in the garage for that time because the fumes can be a little much.  As the polish or paint dries, it shrinks.  You may wish to re-fill and then dry again.  One thing to remember is that you cannot have your fake-up ready to use in a day, so plan ahead!!!  Once it's done, your darling princess can apply their fake-up over and over to their hearts content and you don't have to look at smears of blue and red all over their face.      

Now, I have long been wanting to make fake lipstick.  I was going to make the whole thing out of dowels, but  didn't have all the sizes of dowel needed.  That was when Madison brought me a tube of lipstick that she had never used and no longer wanted.  Then I realized that the sponge brushes I have shoved in every cranny of my craft room would work perfectly as the lipstick part.  

So there you have it.  I cut about 1 1/4" off the bottom of my 2" sponge brush, at an angle, and then sanded the edges curvy with a sanding sponge.

Painted red, they look just the same!!!!  I top coated it with polyurethane just to give it that luster like the real stuff has {modge podge works great as a top coat too}.  Just be sure to sand off the writing before painting or it will take several coats of paint to cover up the words.

As for the lipstick tubes, turn them so the make-up is as far up as possible, then wrap a paper towel around the goop.  A good cheep lipstick will simply pull out, no mushing or mess at all, leaving you with a practically clean lipstick container.

With the turn-y thing still up all the way, insert the dowel and push down.  You need to push a bit to get the dowel in there tight, but don't over do.  I did break one tube, but luckily I bought extras.  Yep, that lipstick is wood :0)

There you have it!  Lipstick for toddlers :0)  

*disclaimer*the wooden piece is not glued in.  However snugly it is inserted, it will come out if pulled.  Be sure not to give this to a child that might swallow the wooden piece.  Consider yourself warned :0)

Otherwise, your little darling will be thrilled to add this yummy tube of lipstick to her well-used bag of Fake-Up.  As for me, I am still gonna try this all made of dowels.  It just sounds fun to me.

Fashion Scarf How-To

Eli has never missed his big sister so much in his life.  With Madison gone at a church activity tonight, he had to fill in as my fashion model.  My sweet friend Mary came down to check on me today, bringing this fabulous scarf how-to with her.

It is so super easy.  All you need is a single yard of knit and the ability to ruffle.  I use a universal ruffler foot for my sewing machine-my only source for ruffles- but you can hand ruffle, then sew them to the knit scarf. There are thousands of ruffle tutorials out there, but you can email me for help if you can't find one you like.   

The first scarf  I made was 7" wide like in the picture, but I have since decided I like the scarves only 5"wide, and just as long as the piece of fabric was wide {45 in this case}.  It took 2 1/2 strips of knit, 3" wide, to ruffle the length of the scarf with where I had my ruffler set.  You may just want to cut 3 per ruffle to be on the safe side.  That means, you need 9 strips cut 3" wide, 3 for each of the 3 ruffles.

The ends have danglers, so with my ruffler foot, I ruffle just the strip alone for about 8".  Then I stop with the needle down in the project, insert the scarf underneath and continue ruffling, this time ruffling and sewing to the scarf at the same time.

I start with the center ruffle so I can eyeball placement without pinning anything or drawing lines {laZy}  Here is me starting the scarf fabric...

Here is what it looks like from the top.

After you have ruffled the whole scarf down the center, continue ruffling the dangler for the 8", then cut off.

Ruffle another dangler, then insert the scarf fabric along one edge.  I put my ruffle on about 1/2" from the edge.  Ruffle all the way down, leave a dangler, and cut off.  Finish by doing the same thing to the other side.  

If I lay the finished scarf down flat, it looks like this.  I cut the outside danglers just shorter than the center one, and cut them at an angle.

When you hang the scarf the knit curls and twists.  You would never guess it was just a straight piece of fabric.  Super sweet!

Super Sweet....like my boy Eli :0}

Doesn't this scarf bring out the shine in his eyes!?!

Here is Eli again, so gracefully showing the danglers at the bottom.  Don't you just love how they twist and turn :0)  What a good mom am I!