More Sugar Skulls

So you know how last week I said I wanted a whole house full of those skulls I painted? TA-DA!

I picked up three more skulls from Dollar Tree and had a ball. The purple one is probably my favorite. I really like these. Think I should do more?

Dia de los Muertos Skull

So I'm having a pumpkin carving party next month, and the theme is Day of the Dead. I've been scouring my favorite websites and local stores to find clever party supplies and decor. I thought I'd hit the jackpot when I found these online:

They are a set of Jewel Eye Skulls from the Los Muertos collection at World Market. Adorable, right? Well, I visited my local World Market to get a better look at these babies, and was disappointed to find that they're made of foam. From the looks of the picture I was expecting solid plastic, maybe ceramic if I was lucky, but nope, foam. Well, I wasn't about to pay $20 for something that would blow away if I turned my ceiling fan on too high. 

Luckily, my local Dollar Tree had these:

These are 6-inch, hollow plastic skulls. The one I bought had a little better paint job, but it was still your basic cheap, not scary. blow-molded plastic skull. But it was only a dollar, and I had a plan. You know me. I always think, "Why should I buy something when I can make it for less?" 

My next step was to purchase a 40-pack of 18mm acrylic jewels from Walmart for $2.50. I had all the paint I needed at home, including black and antique white acrylic paints, as well as a can of Rustoleum black primer for plastics and some Rustoleum spray-on clear enamel. I gave my Dollar Tree skull a good coat of primer:

Then I went to work on the details with a fine-tipped brush and my acrylic paint. Once that was dry, I sprayed on my enamel coat to make it shiny. Finally, using a hot glue gun, I added two purple rhinestones. Voila!

Isn't it wonderful? I didn't use quiet the same design as the World Market version, but I think I like this one better. I'm definitely going to make at least one more for my party. I love this one so much I kind of want a whole house full of them, and not just during Halloween, either!

Well, that's all for now. Happy crafting, folks!

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!

Superhero Costume Update

Happy belated Labor Day, everyone! I hope you all had a good time on your day off. I have some new photos I want to share with you. I've been working on my little one's Halloween costume. She wants to be a superhero this year, and she's designed it all herself (with a little help from Mom, of course).

So I recently finished her snazzy cape:

As you can see, it's quite flashy. Just the right amount of sparkle for my little one (i.e. A LOT). Anyway, I want to take a minute to brag about the neck of this cape. I used red double-fold bias tape to line the neck so it wouldn't be too itchy. Well, if you remember some of my pics of the quilted exercise mat I did, you know that sewing bias tape isn't my strong suit. However, I NAILED it this time. The neck lining is as smooth as can be! Between advice from my mom-in-law and this tutorial, I finally got a binding I can be proud of. And that was sewing on a curve too!

Beside the cape you see the costume's shiny belt. I love the gold star! I've also finished the mask, which is made from the same purple material as the belt. I don't have a picture of it yet, but I will soon. You may remember me stating that I was done with her tunic. Well... we had a little setback. I was done, until I had the kiddo try it on. It looked just awful. The superhero symbol on her chest was way too big; so much so that it went under her belt. The dress also hung on her like a potato sack. Definitely not the quality a superhero would expect, not by a long shot. So it's back to the sewing machine to fix my mistakes. I've got the tunic finished with the exception of the superhero symbol, and when that's done, I'll take some more pictures.

Currently I'm saving the daunting task of sewing the boots and gloves for last. I'm not confident in my ability to sew stretchy fabric just yet. Good thing it's only the beginning of September, right? TTFN, friends!

Ladybug Birthday Party

Continuing the theme of birthday party ideas, I'd like to share with you the first themed birthday party I ever did - my little one's Ladybug 3rd birthday party. Since my daughter was a baby, she has always loved ladybugs. This led my mom-in-law to start calling her ladybug, and it also inspired me to try this party.

As far as parties go, this one was pretty simple. The only party decor I made myself were the neon colored ladybugs. I ended up tracing, cutting, and coloring the dots on neon poster board to make about 50 ladybugs. I combined this with polka-dotted balloons from Walmart, and flower-shaped fan foldouts from Oriental Trading.

The food was standard party food: pizza, chips, fruit, etc. Instead of a cake, I did cupcakes which I decorated with ladybug and flower-shaped candies (the kind you get in the cake decorating isle.) I then arranged them to look like a field (in my mind, anyway.)

For favors, each kid got foil crowns and bubbles in ladybug bottles. The kids loved the bubbles, and even the adults got in on the fun. Between the bubbles and the balloons that I left on the floor for the kids to play with, I didn't even need any party games. It doesn't take much to entertain a toddler, apparently.

It doesn't take much to entertain teens, either.

Were I doing this party today, I probably would do a few things differently. I'd probably have made the flower ceiling hangers myself instead of buying them. I would have planned a couple of simple party games. I would have done more themed food. I would have used a piping tip to make the green frosting on the cupcakes look more like grass. I would have put more flowers and ladybugs on the cupcakes. In the end, however, those things are just for my satisfaction. My daughter had a blast at this party, and so did the other littles that came. 

It doesn't take much to make a kid's birthday special. Whatever party you want to do, just go for it. They'll love it!

How to Train Your Dragon Birthday Party

These ideas are from my nephew's party two birthdays ago, but I decided to share them with you now because How to Train Your Dragon 2 was released earlier this summer, and some of you might need some ideas! Note: I can't take credit for these ideas; they were all my mom-in-law's.

My sister-in-law claims to not have a crafty bone in her body, so when her son wanted a How to Train Your Dragon birthday party, she turned to her mom for help with the games. The movie focused on two things - how to fight dragons, and how to befriend dragons. With this in mind, my mom-in-law came up with two games.

The first game was a bean bag toss. My mom in law is quite good at painting, so she took the side of a refrigerator box and painted a three-headed dragon. After cutting out the dragon's mouths, she then sewed bean bags into the shape of fish. At the party, the kids did their best to feed the dragon by tossing the fish into his mouths.

As an added bonus, the dragon's mouths turned out to be a pretty good photo prop as well:

Now surely you're seeing those nifty shields and wondering what that's all about. My mom-in-law cut all those shields from cardboard, gave them a faux wood paint treatment, and gave them to the kids so they could defend themselves in the next game. The dragon, played by one of the adults, hurled fireballs made of red and yellow satin tied around balled up newspaper at the kids, and they had to use their shields not to get hit. We played this game several times.

 The kids really loved this one, and at the end, they all rushed the dangerous dragon to slay him!

As part of their training, our young vikings also tested their strength in tug of war. This was a game that was specifically requested by the birthday boy.

Then it was time to feast and have cake. My mom-in-law had a plan for that too. She made signs and came up with clever names to turn party food into HTTYD themed food. We had Dragon Egg grapes, Dragon Scale doritos, Dragon Wings chicken wings, and Dragon Teeth bugles.

The cake was also quite lovely because of a HTTYD edible cake decal my sister-in-law applied.

As favors, each child got a viking helmet, the shield mom-in-law made for them, and several HTTYD coloring pages that were found free on the internet. It was a great party!

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!

Halloween (Already!)

So here we are in the month of August, and I'm already in a fall frame of mind. I'm making Halloween costumes! My little one has decided to be a superhero, one of her own design. She showed me the colors, style, and even the superhero symbol she wanted for her costume, and I'm happy to oblige. So far, I've finished her top and belt, and I'm about 85% done with her mask. All that's left is the cape, gloves and boots.

This costume presents a challenge for me because I'm working with a sparkly, stretchy fabric (I don't know what it's called). I'm not exactly an experienced seamstress, so stretchy fabrics are tough! Wish me luck! I'll post some pics as soon as I find my stupid camera cord. :)

Until next time, friends!

Spring in Full Swing

We've had a nice warm streak here in Big Sky Country, so it's finally springtime for sure. Here are a few projects the little one and I have been working on:

That's a springy wreath my little one wanted to make for her room. We got the idea from Pinterest, naturally. See the tutorial here. We also made another wreath for the front door. No tutorial for this one, but it's similar to all those other yarn wreaths out there:

I've also done some new pictures in oil paints. The first one turned out nicely, even though it didn't end up looking like the inspiration picture at all. The second painting is one for my dad, which I will give him for Father's Day. It's of the battlefield at Antietam National Park in Maryland. It looks much more like its inspiration photo.

Yeah, the stone fence didn't work out at all. Happy accident!

For Easter, the little one and I made bunnies. They were simple, inexpensive, and quick. Tutorial here.

And last but not least is the veggie garden in process:

They're just about ready for the garden!

So that's it. Sorry for the long post, but it's been a while, and I wanted to show you what I've been up to. Have a great week, guys, and see you back here next time!

Simple Lamp Update

Hey, guys! It's been a while; life is going great here in our new home. I'm in the process of updating my little one's room; we're transitioning from baby furniture to stuff that I'm hoping she can use into her teen years. Today I started with her lamp. It started out like this:

That is a basic Better Homes and Gardens accent lamp I bought from Walmart a few years back. I new I wanted to make something bright and fun for the little one, so she helped me pick out a fun, light-blue colored spray paint. We chose the Valspar Paint + Primer in One Exotic Sea color in a glossy finish. I taped off all the working parts and sprayed the lamp base in several light coats. While that was drying, I decided to spruce up the plain shade by punching some sparkly, silver stars out of Tulip iron-on transfer sheets and carefully ironing them (low-setting!) to the lampshade. I wasn't sure if the iron-ons would work because of the plastic lining in the shade, but it turned out great, and I didn't melt the shade! Check out the finished product:

Now my girl has a fabulous new lamp to match her sparkly personality!

That's all for today, my friends, but I'm hoping to get back into my regular updates, so check back soon for more fun stuff!

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!