Minecraft Birthday Preparations

We're back to talking about birthday parties! This year, my little one wants a Minecraft themed party. Daddy introduced her to "the block game" when she was very small. Since then she's grown to love everything about it.

A Minecraft themed party in some ways is simple because everything in the game is block shaped. However, this type of party presents a challenge because there just isn't that much to be found in the way of themed party supplies. Fortunately for me, I have left over boxes from our recent move to Montana, a color printer, and access to the internet. Lots of creative people have made free printables featuring textures from the game, which allows me to turn ordinary Dollar Tree party favors:

Into Minecraft themed party favors:

Likewise, all it took was some scissors and glue to go from this plain cardboard box:

To these neat table decorations:

For invites, party banners, food placards, and bottle wraps, go here.

Well, I've got a little more in the ideas department here, but I don't want to give it all away at once. In the past, I'd do a GIANT birthday post with all my ideas and pictures shoved in there, but this year I want to do it differently. I'll post a few ideas at a time, and then when party day has come and gone, I will post overall pictures and then link you to the individual idea posts. I figure it'll make things a little less overwhelming in the end. As always if you want to see some Minecraft ideas that may or may not have made the cut, check out my Pinterest Party Ideas board.

Catch you later, friends!

A Nyan Cat Birthday

I promised you a while back I would tell you about my little one's party this past November. Well, today I'm going to share that with you.

Do you know Nyan cat? If you don't, check this out:

Well, there you have it. That's all it is. Not much to go on for a party, huh? Yet, this video consists of a cat, a pop-tart, stars, a rainbow, and an annoying-yet-catchy tune. This is the stuff my little one's dreams are made of, and so this is the theme she picked for her fifth birthday.

I started off with the cake. A Google search led me to this, which I set out to copy, sans the flowers. Not to brag, but I think I might have nailed it :).  My next idea was to expand on the Nyan cat theme by combining ideas for rainbow parties with ideas from kitty cat themed parties. This is what I came up with:

The large Nyan Cat was drawn on a grid-lined poster board (which helped immensely with the pixel look). The letters I cut out by hand from some colored cardstock. The blue star balloons, blue table covers, and streamers I purchased from our local Party City.

To create the rainbow ceiling decorations below, I purchased small diameter dowels, cut them to size and then glued streamers to them in ROYGBV order. The star dangles were purchased from Walmart.

The centerpieces I made myself. I couldn't find any satisfactory ones at the time, so I found a picture of Nyan cat online, printed it, cut it out, and attached it to a bamboo skewer. I then put that skewer in a small cup filled with quick-setting concrete, along with some curled pipe-cleaners. After the concrete was set, I tied some blue cellophane around the cup with some prismatic silver curling ribbon, and attached some silver star stickers to the side. That, along with some star confetti was the perfect decor for my tables.

For favors, I made kitty ears out of colored headbands and felt. The other thing I did was make a basket of kitties that were "free to a good home." They were made of cardstock and had different designs for the kids to take home and color. As an added bonus, they also had Pixy-Stix whiskers. I also bought a few random party favors to give out after the games. The winners of each game got a big treat bag filled with several prizes, while everyone else got to pick one toy from the prize box.

This year, I kept the games simple. We played "Pin the Rainbow on Nyan Cat," a variation of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey." We also did musical chairs to the Nyan Cat theme, but for the adults' sakes, I used the slightly less annoying piano cover :). Musical chairs was such a hit, the kids asked if they could play it twice. You can tell by the blurry, yet smiling faces below that everyone had a good time.

The food was simple and delicious. As with everything else, I stuck with either a rainbow or cat theme. The tent labels for the food I made with Microsoft Word. I printed out the labels and glued them to folded cardstock. For the rainbow fruit, I chose red apples, peaches, dried pineapple, green grapes, and blueberries with a lovely whipped fruit dip. To make the fruit dip, all you do is combine 8 oz. of softened cream cheese with 8 oz of Cool Whip and a 7 oz jar of marshmallow creme, and beat until fluffy. My daughter loves cheese, so I had a plate of colby-jack cubes that I called "mouse bait." Another idea I had was to use a cookie cutter to make fish-shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or "peanut butter and jellyfish" sandwiches. Since, you know, cats are crazy for fish. I also made a veggie and cracker tray with a buttermilk ranch cheese ball that I made to look like a ball of yarn with some cream cheese and a flat cake frosting tip. Of course, we also had pop-tarts in several flavors! However, I think my absolute favorite themed food from this party was the chocolate mice. You heard right, mice.

I got my idea from this pin. However, my little one doesn't eat cherries or almonds, so I needed something else that would work. What I found was Walgreen's Good & Delish Mini S'mores. Wanna make these? Gather mini s'mores, fudge stripe cookies, Hershey's kisses, and chocolate candy bark. Carefully melt the chocolate bark in the microwave ten seconds at a time. Spoon the melted bark into a piping bag with a small round tip (I don't know what number tip mine was, honestly). On a sheet of wax paper, start piping as many pairs of ears as you will need. While those are cooling, pipe some chocolate onto the bottom of the mini s'more, then attach it to the cookie. Then, pipe a small tail coming from the edge of the mini s'more. Once the ears have hardened, they can be carefully peeled from the wax paper. To attach the ears to the head, pipe a small amount of chocolate onto the Hershey's kiss, then stick the ears on. After that, pipe some chocolate onto the mini s'more, then attach the head to the body. You may have to hold the head in place for a second while the bark hardens. Repeat until you have the desired number of mice. Note that you might need to reheat the chocolate bark as you're working with it. This can be done by making sure the piping bag is sealed, and dipping it into a bowl of hot water (just uncomfortable to the touch, not boiling).

Well, there you have it, a Nyan Cat birthday party fit for a five-year old. As always, you can check out my Party Ideas board on Pinterest for more stuff to make your next party spectacular. See you next time!

Ikea Envy and the Cost of Things

So lately I've been having a bit of what I call "Ikea envy." It is a condition where, upon seeing the cool stuff you can do with Ikea products, you feel sad and a little jealous of people who are blessed to live near an Ikea. Have you seen all the fantastic "Ikea hacks" - the ones where people take a cheap piece of furniture, such as the RAST dresser ($34.99), and turn it into something that looks like a million bucks? Seriously, if you haven't seen them, take a minute and Google it. They're insanely clever, and right up my alley. Unfortunately for me, the closest Ikea is over eight hours away in Utah, and their shipping rates are exorbitant, so I'm stuck with a creative itch I can't scratch.

At any rate, the whole reason I have this creative itch is because I've been bitten by the design bug. I guess it's just living in a new space that has me wanting a change, or it could be that I've had the same old stuff for years now and I would like something new. A lot of the things I have, while not bad, where either inexpensive things bought in a hurry, or they were hand-me-downs given to us to fill a specific need we had at the time. Combine that with the fact that quite a few of my possessions got pretty beat up in this last move, and I'm feeling the need for something different.

That being said, I can't just go out and buy all new things because my husband and I are attempting to become debt-free in the next two or three years so we can begin saving for a down payment on the dream house we want to build. I have to make what I have last for now. However, it isn't just that. More and more I'm coming to realize that all those homes that I admire on Pinterest and in the magazines aren't furnished with particle board furniture from big box stores. The homes that dazzle me most are filled with family heirlooms, lucky flea market or yard sale finds, tirelessly sought for antiques and vintage pieces, and high-end quality stuff made by people who give a damn about their craft. That's what I want, and that kind of look takes time. If I try to rush it, I'm going to end up disappointed. So for now, I'm going to bide my time, and make due with what I have. So that means getting crafty.

**WARNING: SMALL RANT AHEAD**

I'm realizing lately that I am out of touch with how much things cost in general. The other day I hit up my local home improvement store for the things I need to spruce up my nightstands, and I suffered some serious sticker shock (say that five times fast) at the price of paint. It was the same at every store I checked. I also browsed my local craft store and did some internet searching for fabric, but by the time I was done, I was ready to cry. Who pays $99 a yard for fabric?! And I love me some Pottery Barn, but I think that $40-$60 might be a bit much for throw pillows. Now if you want the real kicker, Anthropologie has these nifty rough amethyst 4x6 inch picture frames for - wait for it - $548. A frame that holds a FOUR INCH BY SIX INCH picture. If you like these frames, I'm going to tell you a secret: buy the stuff you need to make this on Etsy, it will cost you about $30, maybe $40, depending on shipping. There. I just saved you $518. Seriously though, who is buying this stuff? It isn't me, or anyone I know. And listen, I know I'm a cheapskate, but I honestly DO NOT KNOW a single person who could afford to spend five hundred dollars on a tiny picture frame. The people I know have to do number crunching if they want to buy a decent sofa or a USED car, but that's the people I know, and granted, I don't know many. It just gets me how much things can cost, and what some places consider reasonable prices. Kind of like when Better Homes and Gardens does an article on small kitchens, and the kitchens they show are bigger than my living room. I've had a 10'x10' kitchen that also served as my dining room. It truly had only enough counter space to make a sandwich, yet I cooked meals and baked desserts for a family of three in it. Until BHG shows me a kitchen like that, I'm not inclined to give them much credibility. So when I see stuff advertised as affordable home decor, I bristle up a bit when they show things it would take my husband's whole paycheck to buy.

Anyway, I'm done rambling for now. I appreciate you putting up with my musings. I promise less rant, more awesomeness for the next post. See ya!

Quick Folding Table Updo

When I saw this idea on Pinterest, I did a headdesk. I can't believe how simple it is, and somehow I couldn't think of it myself.

I have an ugly old card table that was in dire need of this makeover. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I finally had the chance to do it. I was visiting a JoAnn fabric store with my mother, when I just happened to wander down their fall clearance isle. I wasn't even looking for one at the time, but I found a pretty vinyl tablecloth for 70% off, making the sale price about two dollars. I just love when things work out like that! That evening I went straight to work redoing my table top:

Yucky table!

Phase One: Remove Top

Phase Two: Remove Tablecloth from Package

PHASE THREE: ?

(Seriously, though, I don't know why I don't have any photos of me stapling the tablecloth on the tabletop, but that's what happened next.)

Phase Four: PROFIT!

It took me about an hour to complete this, and approximately forty-five minutes of that was me trying to find a screwdriver, staple gun, and staples at my parents' house. But now I have a pretty, new table! Thanks, Pinterest!

Why I Make my Child's Halloween Costumes

A couple of years ago, I started making my daughter's Halloween costumes. When she was one, I made a hat with antennae to go with her off-the-rack  ladybug costume. It got more compliments than the whole outfit. When she was two, I made her a flower costume. Last year, she went as her favorite feline, our cat Pixie. This year, I will be making a green crane costume for her. Making the little one's costumes has become something I look forward to, because it provides the unique challenge of bringing her wishes to life.

Three years ago when I started down this road, I imagined I would save money by doing it all myself. I quickly discovered this was not the case. Often, the cost of materials adds up quickly, especially if fake fur, feathers, or fabric is involved. Then there's the time-suck of making the costume. I tend to spend several hours drafting a plan for the costume, and even more time in the execution. In the end, it would often be simpler if I had just gone down to my local big box store and purchased a ready-made costume.

So why do I do it?

I love my child. Let me clarify: every mom has something she's good at, a unique way to express love to her

children. Some moms bake, some tell great stories, some leave notes in their children's lunch boxes. I happen to be decently creative in a way that allows me to make special costumes for my girl. When I say I hand make Halloween costumes because I love my child, I'm not taking an "I'm a better mom than you because I take the time to do this," stance. If anything, me doing this only glosses over the fact that in other areas, I'm actually a pretty crappy mom. I hope one day it balances out. Perhaps my daughter will look back through our scrapbooks and say, "Look at the time and effort Mom spent making sure that I got to be exactly what I wanted to be each year. You know, Mom might not have been perfect, but at least she cared." For now, pouring my heart into this is one of the best ways I have to show her I love her.

Her costumes are unique. When my girl comes to your door on Halloween night, she won't look like any other child you've seen. Even if she wanted to be a Disney princess or Batman or some other iconic character, her outfit will stand out because I customize it to her. However, it's unlikely that she'll want to be Cinderella or Wonder Woman, because she's wired a bit differently. If all her friends were dressing as Harry Potter characters, she'd want to be a snitch, or the painting of the Fat Lady, or maybe a blast-ended skrewt. Besides, my little one is oddly specific about how she wants her costumes to be. For example, I thought it would be nice if I took a little artistic leeway and gave her a yellow beak for this year's costume, but she matter-of-factly informed me that the crane's beak was grey, and that's exactly how she wants it to be. Last year, when she wanted to be our cat, that included having little pink pads on her hands and feet. When I make her costumes, she can be as detail-oriented and seek as much perfection as she wants, and that's okay, because she does get it honest, after all.

It's extremely satisfying for both my child AND me. I get an enormous sense of accomplishment when I finish a costume. It also makes me happy to see just how excited my little one gets during each stage of the creation. For her it's satisfying because she gets a say-so in the whole process, from concept to completion. As a four year-old, she has a lot of decisions made for her every day. This is something that's all her own, and it makes her very proud.

So that's it then. I encourage you to give it a try sometime. Even if you don't feel like you're the crafty type, there are plenty of fool-proof plans on the internet that can likely inspire you. (Check out my Halloween board on Pinterest for starters!) Watch out though; you might just get hooked!

Sleepy Posting

I'm drowsy blogging today, folks. I stayed up a whee bit too late while gaming last night, then got up a whee bit too early to take my little one to preschool. Bare with me.

A little while back I mentioned sprucing up my front porch, and today, I'm sharing the pics with you. This is what my porch looked like before:

Cute, but not a lot going on. There was only seating for two, and that seating kept blowing over in the wind. Behold, the after:

There's now comfortable seating for at least four, maybe more if people don't mind getting friendly.  Best of all, I now have more storage space, because all of the benches open up. The folding Adirondack chairs have been relocated to the fire pit so we can have a place to sit on bonfire nights. Magically, they've stopped falling over; I guess they didn't really want to be on the porch. I stole some ideas from Pinterest - namely, spray-painting over my old green pillows to match my new blue color scheme, and that little plant stand made from a tomato cage. I also made my own version of that adorable pillow from Etsy using burlap, acrylic paint, and plastic grocery bags as stuffing. See a closeup here:

Now my porch is all ready for lovely spring and summer days. That is, after I wash the pollen off everything!

Quiver

The quest to make my Halloween costume continues. I finished my hands and feet (which I'll talk about a little later), I found fabric for a tabard, and I'm on the hunt for the right color face makeup. At any rate, a little while ago, I showed you how I made my arrows. This week, I'll show you how I made my quiver. Hunters no longer use quivers or even arrows anymore in World of Warcraft; they just kind of fire magical ammo, I guess. However, I opted to make a quiver for a couple of reasons. One, sometimes I get nostalgic for the earlier days of WoW. Two, I felt it would add a little to my costume to make it more complete. The third and most important reason, I needed somewhere to put my keys and phone and whatnot while we're out and about trick-or-treating. So, without further adieu, I bring you "how to make a quiver."




I began with sheets of brown craft foam. Craft foam is inexpensive and pretty easy to work with, but it's limited in size and looks like, well, craft foam. Fortunately, Pinterest came to the rescue, and I found this craft foam armor tutorial which in turn led me to this video tutorial on making craft foam look like leather. The size issue I overcame with my clever quiver design, which required the pieces of foam to over lap and be laced together. I started by hammering out the lacing holes in the foam with my M'bellish hammer and hole punch. Then I proceeded with making the craft foam look like leather as per the instructions in the link above. In hindsight, I should have done the leather treatment then punched the holes, because heating the craft foam can cause it to shrink, and I ended up having to re-punch some of the holes because they no longer lined up. In the end it all worked out. When I was ready to put together my quiver, I used a natural-colored lace and a plastic craft needle. While masking tape held everything together, I laced a whip stitch around the top, and then crisscrossed down the sides like you would do with shoe laces.

Now I needed my quiver to have a sturdy bottom since I'm planning on using it to carry stuff, so I recycled an old oatmeal container that, conveniently enough, fit inside the quiver famously. I simply placed the oatmeal container on a piece of craft foam and traced around it. Then, I drew and cut out another circle about an inch larger around the outside of the original circle I made. After that, I cut from the edge of the foam to the inner circle at several spots to help me form the foam around the bottom of the oatmeal container. Just so no white would accidentally show through, I painted the bottom edges of the container brown. While the paint dried, I gave the foam the leather treatment. Then, I hot-glued the foam to the bottom of the container. Finally, I inserted the container into the bottom of the quiver and secured it with glue (although it fit tight enough that I doubt it would come out). I'm pretty pleased with how it looks, and I'm confident that it will hold my stuff just fine come trick-or-treating time.

The final thing I needed was a strap to make the quiver wearable. I measured how long I needed it to be, then I cut out the right amount of craft foam and gave it the leather treatment. This required two pieces, so I had to devise a clever way to disguise the seam. I thought that it would look cool and be appropriate to display fangs as hunting trophies on my strap, so that's what I did. The fangs are handmade from Sculpey and painted with acrylic paint. I hot-glued then hand stitched them onto the strap, so they look great and aren't going anywhere. I added two D-links to the quiver for attaching the strap, one on the bottom and one on the top. Using the hot glue and hand stitching method, I attached the top of the strap to the top D-link on the quiver. I then added a leash clip to the bottom end of the strap so I could put the quiver on and take it off without lifting it over my head and shoulders.(You can see in the picture to the left how I stitched both the trophy strip and the strap to the D-link.) And that's that. 

So what do you think? Here's a photo of the quiver holding the arrows. I feel it will complement my costume nicely. Well, guys, until next week, see you later!

Cookie Dough Yogurt

So I'm trying to convince myself to that I need to eat healthy again. I got pretty good at it a little while ago, but I let that slip by the wayside, and I gotta tell you, it's tough breaking bad habits. Anyway, I was browsing Pinterest (big surprise, right?) when I ran across this link for healthy, natural, cookie dough-flavored yogurt. I'm thinking "Nuh-uh, there's no way it tastes anything like cookie dough." However, my local Harris Teeter was running a meal deal that included Greek yogurt, so I thought that I might as well give it a try. It's very good! It actually tastes a good deal like peanut butter cookie dough. And it was so simple to make! You guys really have to try this stuff.

Blah Weather

Today after a dreary morning, it's finally sunny and nice outside. Gosh, I really wish we could have a few consistently sunny, warm days. I tell you, the rain and cold has got me feeling pretty blue, and the peeks of sunshine have been a cruel tease. I want to sip sweet tea on my front porch, dammit! Speaking of which, Pinterest has once again been a source of inspiration for me:

Someone pinned this cool, handmade pillow you can find on Etsy. I like the saying, and I'd like to do one of my own with a little different design on some burlap. If you order this pillow, you can customize it with your own colors and sayings too. Actually, the whole shop has some pretty awesome stuff. I'm going to make a pillow like this and pair it up with some of these outdoor pillows from Target:

I'm really feeling the turquoise right now, you know? It's so bright and happy. Anyway, that's it for now. I'll post some pics of my new porch furniture when I get it all done. Until then, tootles!

Potatoes and Tusks

Fierce!

This week is the week of deliveries. Yesterday, I got my troll tusks from the wonderful people at Medieval Collectibles. I'm getting pretty excited about my costume now. Aside from the makeup, I now have all the elements of the costume that I myself am not going to make. I'm also expecting my friendly neighborhood UPS guy to bring my patio storage bench that I ordered from Amazon. Hooray for more storage space!

This week we've been blessed with beautiful weather. I have to tell you, after the crazy winter we've had, I'm thankful for some calm spring-like days. All this has got me looking outside in anticipation of gardening. A few days ago, my little one and I started some tomatoes, tomatillos, sweet and hot peppers, and zucchini seeds indoors. I was curious how this would go because the tomato seeds were some I saved myself a couple of growing seasons ago, and the peppers and zucchini are close to 3 years old. I honestly didn't expect any of them to sprout, but sure enough, the tomatoes and zucchini are.

Yesterday, we headed outside to plant some Dutch iris bulbs in a little, neglected garden bed under our tree. I found that daffodils and grape hyacinth were previously planted there, so that was a pleasant surprise. The grape hyacinth seems to be making a run for it though, because I see blooms popping up in the grass up to ten feet away from the bed. I weeded, put down ant killer and fixed the rock ring around the bed. We also planted some zinnia seeds in my umbrella stand planter and began a potato tower. I have a lot of plans in store for my yard, and a lot of work ahead of me to get it done, but I'll be glad to be outside. Who knows, maybe I'll even get a tan this year.

Poppin' Tags and Fletchin' Arrows

"I'm gonna pop some tags, only got twenty dollars in my pocket..." If you haven't heard this song, you need to. This song has become my theme song. Check out the radio edit here:

Why have I made Macklemore's "Thrift Shop" my theme? On my last trip to South Carolina, the mom-in-law and I made a trip to our favorite thrift store, where I scored four over-sized tees for 99 cents each. I altered the first one to make a cinch tee. I also made a skirt, and from there, it kind of snowballed. I made another skirt, then I altered two shirts I already owned, then I made several repairs to torn clothing that had been sitting in my project bin for months. Since then, I've been opening up my Sewing and Fabric Projects board on Pinterest and saying to myself, "What can I do today?" I think refashioning thrift store finds might just be my new hobby.

Ultimately, that's not what I want to tell you about today. In my last post, I promised to tell you about a part of my Halloween costume that's also a Valentine's Day friendly project. I know Valentine's Day is over and this post is way overdue. I apologize for that; life got in the way and I had other things to attend to. On the bright side, if you like this idea, you have a whole year to get it ready before Valentine's rolls around again! As you know, my WoW toon Leah is a hunter, and so my project was making arrows!

I started out by researching various bow hunting supply sites and discovering the average length and thickness of arrows. I then selected dowels from the craft store that were approximately the right thickness and cut them down to size. Then I sawed the nock in the end of the shaft. To make the arrowhead, I simply carved a sharp point with my knife and then smoothed it out with sand paper. I wanted a primitive look, and I thought this would work better than making arrowheads for that purpose.

Next, I looked for a user-friendly tutorial that would help me make realistic fletching for my arrows. I came across an article on primitiveways.com called "Fletching by Hand" that ended up giving me all the information I needed. I didn't follow the instructions to the letter, well, because I never really do. I'm a maverick like that. Besides, all I wanted was the basic idea for making an arrow that looks functional. For my fletching, I picked up some natural colored duck feathers from the craft store, and I split them down the quills with a utility knife. I trimmed them up to the approximate size and shape I wanted, then I used a dab of super glue to help hold the feathers in place while I wrapped them with dental floss. I didn't have any natural sinew, but the dental floss looked enough like it to suffice, so that's what I used. As I wrapped, I dipped my fingers in craft glue and slid the dental floss through them so it would adhere nicely without unraveling. And that's really all there is to it! Check back in the near future for my adventures in quiver making!

Just a couple of things

This week's post will be a fairly short one because we have company. My father-in-law is visiting all the way from sunny San Diego. It's been almost two years since the last time we saw him, so my little one is having quite a nice time with Grandpa.

Most of last week was spent getting ready for company, and that included reorganizing the little one's room to give her more space and better access to her toys. We used to keep all her toys in two big plastic buckets, which was a nightmare. To find anything, she would have to dump everything in the buckets out on the floor. The solution was re-purposing three sets of black, rolling plastic carts with the clear drawers. I had been keeping my craft items in them, but that wasn't working out, so I relocated my crafts to the bookshelves in the hallway. Then I cleaned out the carts and gave them each a coat of brightly-colored spray paint, and then loaded them up with my daughter's toys. Now she can see what's in each drawer, and she has more floor space to play. I can also get into her closet without having to move buckets around too. With my little one's permission, her big buckets now hold my fabric stash and add some cheery color to my craft area.

I also finished up two craft projects that I had been meaning to do. The first was a tin sign that my mother gave me that said, "Laugh" on it. I love metal signs, but I'm not a big fan of the "Live, Laugh, Love" stuff, so I thought I'd give it a new identity. Now it sits on my front porch, and it looks like this:


The first time I saw a sign like this, I laughed my butt off. I decided that I needed one for my house at some point. I like people to be aware when they approach that I have a dog, but I don't feel the need to scare them, because my mutt is not mean. I felt humor would be the best way to counter this, and since I have a cat as well, this sign is perfect.

The other project was fairly simple; it was inspired by all the lovely wrapped vases that can be found on Pinterest these days. I love the rustic, yet elegant look that the twine gives the vase. My vase used to be a Tropicana orange juice jug, but with its awesome shape, I felt it deserved a better fate than being tossed in the recycling bin. So now it's holding pretty fresh flowers on my kitchen table. Not bad for some trash and some twine, huh?

Well, that's it for today. Next week, I'll once again be talking about my Halloween costume, but the subject matter will be somewhat fitting for Valentine's Day. I'll be showing you how to make your own arrows (for decorative purposes, of course)! Stay tuned!

As always, if you're looking for more good ideas you can always follow me on Pinterest.

An Argument for the Oxford Comma

People I know sometimes look to me for advice on grammar. "You were an English major," they say. While I remember grammar rules and can normally help, I don't consider myself any more qualified than anyone else to give advice, because my degree is actually for literature. Besides, if my time studying lit in college taught me anything, it's that the rules for writing are fluid at best. Some of the best writers of all time bent the grammar rules or even broke them entirely. This is not to say I believe grammar rules are unnecessary. I firmly believe there's a distinct difference between E.E. Cummings writing exclusively in lower case, Lewis Carroll writing "Jabberwocky," and the stuff that ends up on this site: The Best Responses to Misspellings on Facebook. The grammar rules we were taught in elementary school can prevent confusion and occasionally keep you from looking downright stupid. It's with this in mind that I bring you a most convincing argument for the Oxford comma:

Source.

The Oxford comma is considered optional, but you can see here that it does lend clarity to just who was invited to the party. In this case, leaving it out could cause some... ambiguity. Either way, using it or not is up to you (or your persnickety English teacher). I'll have you know though, if the Internet is to be believed, Hugh Jackman finds the Oxford comma sexy. I hope you enjoyed your little grammar lesson. If you'd like to see more grammar and literature related funnies, visit my Pinterest board: I'm an English Major

Fishy Fun Party

So, my little one just turned four, and I have to say, I'm pretty proud of how her party turned out. One day she was sitting on my lap while I was browsing Pinterest, and together we saw this awesome fish cake from Cupcakes Take the Cake. My little one loved this cake so much that right then and there she decided she wanted a fish-themed party. With the help of Pinterest and Oriental Trading, I was able to come up with some pretty nice stuff.

The cake ended up being super adorable. The mama fish was chocolate cake, the babies were yellow cake, and all of them were frosted with a homemade cream cheese frosting. One of these days, I'll learn how to frost without making a complete mess of the cake board, but eh, I don't think too many people noticed. There was one alteration I made to the original cupcake design, and that was to add a fruit slice for the tail. I was going to include fins by cutting a fruit slice in half, but alas, there really wasn't room on the the cupcakes. A word to the wise, if you end up doing this, you won't need NEARLY as many M&M's as I bought. I got three bags, and in hindsight, I probably could have gotten away with one.


A lot of the food was just a matter of creative labeling. For example: carrot sticks were crab legs, bell pepper sticks were calamari, cheese cut into triangles became shark's teeth, and regular old cucumber slices became sea cucumbers. Potato chips and Goldfish crackers were arranged next to each other with a sign that read, "Fish & Chips." PB and J sandwiches became starfish with the use of a handy, star-shaped cookie cutter. Cheese puffs in Dixie cups (turned into buckets by the addition of a pipe-cleaner handle) became "live bait."

Other foods took a little more effort. There was my little squid, relaxing in a tub of ranch veggie dip. He helped make the bell pepper calamari appear a little more convincing. It was super simple, all I had to do was sink a baby bell into the dip upside down, use some gel frosting to make a face, and slip in eight pepper sticks for the legs.

Next were submarine cakes. My daughter has a video called "The Big Submarine" from Little Mammoth Media (they make wonderful educational videos for kids, please take a minute to check them out). I bought it for her so that she could see what life was like for Daddy when he was at sea in the Navy. Little did I know that she would love that video so much. When she saw these, she nearly deafened me as she pointed at the screen and shouted, "MOMMY, CAN WE HAVE THOSE AT MY FISH PARTY?!!" These were made with chocolate filled Twinkies. Yes, we ate collector's items, and they were delicious.  All I did was use frosting to "glue" on the M&M windows, and insert trimmed-down bendy straws at one end. If you absolutely love this idea, but fear paying $500 a box for Twinkies, DO NOT FRET. Little Debbie makes Cloud Cakes. I've noticed they're a little harder to find in stores, but you won't spend your child's entire college fund to get them.

I also made oyster cookies. The hardest part of this was finding something to use as pearls. Luckily, my local Hobby Lobby had shiny, white Sixlets in the wedding section. After that, it was a matter of coloring some frosting, frosting the bottom of a Nilla Wafer, adding the Sixlet, and then topping it all with another Nilla Wafer. I don't even like Nilla Wafers or Sixlets, but these cookies were tasty. Something about the flavor combo made them really, really good.

Last, but not least, is the Rice Crispy treat sushi. This was as simple as making Rice Crispy treats, making them into patties, wrapping them with Fruit by the Foot, and topping them with a fish-shaped candy. I did have to use frosting to make the fish candy stick, but I consider this a success, because a lot of my family told me this would be the only sushi they'd ever eat. (My family isn't terribly adventurous when it comes to cuisine.)

Now, you may have noticed the cute little labels I made for the food. That wouldn't have been possible without my mom's Cricut machine. Well, it would have, but it would have taken ten times as long and been a lot more work. Actually, I made quite a few decorations with Mom's machine. I made seashells and starfish to scatter on the tables, as well as fish and seaweed to hang from the ceiling. Speaking of decorations, I thought the room looked fabulous:



Thank heavens for my parents, my MIL and SIL. I would never have gotten all this set up in time without them.

We also played several games the kids thoroughly enjoyed. For the first game, the kids got to go fishing for fish-shaped goody bags filled with bubbles, stickers, and necklaces. In the next game, the kids became the fish and had to catch gummy worms hanging from strings with their mouths. As is expected with young children, chaos and hilarity ensued.

When the party was all over, we sent everyone home with favors that I got from Oriental Trading. These little water-filled games were so cute, and my little one loved hers almost as much as she liked her presents.

All in all, I felt it was a big success. It was a lot of work and a little bit stressful, but my philosophy is that eventually, there will come a time when my baby will no longer think my ideas are all that great, and so I might as well go all out while I can. The little one has already informed me that she wants a kitty party next year, and so I will be keeping my eyes open for more good ideas. If you'd like to check out my Pinterest party board, you can do so here: http://pinterest.com/am_crittenden/party-ideas/. Happy party planning!