Lil' P's Birthday Party!

Just a couple of weeks ago, my little munchkin turned one! Holy cow... time flies so fast!  Now, anyone who knows me knows that I love birthdays, so of course I had to go all out for this one!


   First and foremost, I knew that I had to make her a special little outfit for her special day.  Without a doubt, making a tutu was the first thing on my mind (little baby tutus are sooo adorable!!!). I just used some leftover purple tulle from my halloween wreath and bought a spool (yes a spool! not a yard..haha- wasn't going to repeat my wreath mistake) and tied it around an elastic which I had fit to her waist. So simple and so freaking cute!
   Next was the shirt. I took just a simple white onesie and sewed some layered felt flowers onto it. Once again super simple and cute.
   To finish off the outfit, she just had to have a bow... she just wouldn't be quite the same lil' P without her bow! I had a couple of failed attempts before I was able to make this one.  It's what's called a "boutique bow", I think, made from two different ribbons.  The bottom layer is a plain purple ribbon, and the top layer is a pink sparkly ribbon. I really think it topped off her birthday ensemble quite well and everyone was just absolutely in love with her total outfit. I'll have to admit... I am quite proud of it myself!

But, of course I couldn't just stop there... afterall this whole birthday thing has got me feeling crafty! So I also made so hanging string pendants, a sparkly P door hanger, and a year of memories banner (didn't get a picture of that :( I blame my husband!).  All together with some balloons and streamers, I think I was able to create quite a cute party setup! Not bad for  my first little one's first birthday party! 

Now it just wouldn't be a birthday party without a cake right?! I got the idea for her cake months and months ago and was so excited to make it! Her cake was a big giant cupcake! Ya, you see that big cupcake set up among all those little cupcakes (closeup picture at the top of the blog), that was all hers! I even made my own frosting and it was so amazing! Get the recipe here.

Sadly, all good things have to come to an end.  I looked forward to her birthday for so long and worked on so many things to make it perfect, that I was kinda sad when it was all over, but at least I know I'll have plenty of more birthdays to come! It was all so much fun and I can't wait to do it again next year!

My beautiful cupcake all destroyed!!! But I wouldn't
have it any other way!

Glitter Ornaments!

Okay now that Halloween and Thanksgiving are over, I can finally get into the Christmas mood.  I guess I'm a little late to start thinking about Christmas since it's literally been all over the place since mid-October, but I really just can't get myself to do it before now (please people! one holiday at a time!). So to kick things off my sister and I made these super cute glitter ornaments.  Glitter, of course, is a staple in Christmas decorations and is so much fun, but it can leave your house looking like a disco ball exploded all over your living room! So what's so great about these glitter ornaments is that all the glitter is inside so there is no mess! (well there is still a little bit of glitter explosion when you're making them, but not bad really). They are also super easy to make and would be a great family activity that even the little ones can get in on. I'm sure I'll be making more of these next year with my little girl!


-So to start off, get yourself some clear ornaments. They can easily be found in any craft store around this time of year. Now pop the top off all of them.

Ha! There's my sister with the ornament that she dropped literally
2 seconds after I took this photo!

-Take your glitter adhesive and squirt just a little bit into the ornament.  I used Glitter It by Beacon Adhesives (also found at the craft store), but I've also heard that you could use floor wax. Now swirl it around to coat the entire inside of the ornament. Add more if needed. Avoid shaking it or else it can become frothy. Pour out the excess.

-Next, immediately pour glitter into the ornament.  I recommend using fine glitter because I think it looks best and covers the ornament more evenly, but play around to see what look you like best. To avoid a glitter explosion it's best to use a funnel of some sort.








-After you pour the in the glitter, swirl and shake the glitter around to coat the inside.  Do this fairly quickly so the glue doesn't dry out on you.


-Shake out any excess glitter and allow to dry for about 20 minutes or so. Pop the tops back in the ornaments and Voila, you have super cute ornaments!

Notice the missing one...ya, that's the one my sister dropped! Haha :)


Can wait to get these up on my tree!

Check out my cute Halloween Tulle Wreath!

   This is my second project of my creative Halloween kick, and don't you just love it... I sure do!  I've seen tulle wreaths as I've scoured around the internet before and I've always thought they were so cute.  Recently I saw a wreath that was all black with some orange flowers and a black bird.  I thought the idea was really great and just perfect for Halloween, but I also wanted to take my own spin on the wreath.  I love the color purple and since purple can be kinda 'witchy' I added it to the typical Halloween palette of black and orange to spice it up and give it some color.  I also made my wreath a little 'fluffier' than some of the ones I've seen.  I am so pleased with how it turned out and once again, it was pretty cheap! I'm pretty sure I'll be making one for Christmas soon as well!


So if you think you might like to make one as well, here is what I did:
-I bought some tulle just at the fabric store.  Sadly I did it the hard way and bought it by the yard being totally oblivious to the fact that I could buy it by the spool! Still works ok, just takes A LOT longer!
So if you're silly like me, or maybe if it's cheaper to buy by the yard and you have the time, you'll need roughly 4 yards of tulle (I bought my tulle for $1.49/yard at Joann's)

• I used 2 yards of black, and 1 yard each of purple and orange. If you buy by the spool, I think you'll need about 50-55 yards
• I cut the tulle into 10"x6" strips (this is where tulle by the spool comes in handy)
• I cut roughly 84 strips of black, 48 strips of orange, and 54 strips of purple (don't quote me, my math may be wrong)

-To make the wreath a little fluffier, I bought a wire wreath ring instead of the foam wreath ring which I've seen so many wreaths use, and did a double layer.

-I tied each strip using a slipknot and pulled the ends of the strips through the front to fluffify. Of course you can pattern the colors any way you like, but this is the pattern I used:

• for the outer ring: p, b, b, o, b, p, b, o, p, p, o, b, p, b, o, b, b, repeat
• for the inner ring: p, b, o, b, p, b, o, p, o, b, p, b, o, b, repeat   (p=purple, b=black, o=orange)

-I continued tying all the strips until I covered the entire ring.  You may use more or less strips depending on how loose or tight you want your knots together. I'd say mine were fairly tight.

To finish the wreath up I tied a cute orange bow on the front just to class it up a little, but with it being Halloween you could really get away with anything, just make it as cute, whimsical, or ghoully as you like!

Halloween fun!

   Yay! It's Halloween time! I absolutely love this time of year.  Even though I'm all grown up now and supposedly too old to trick-or-treat (boo!), Halloween has continued to be one of my favorite holidays.  I love it because of all the fun ways to decorate, from ghoulish and ghastly to fun and whimsy, and also because I love to dress up and see all the little kiddos in their costumes.  This year will be especially fun for me 'cause I now have a kiddo of my own that I get to dress up for her first Halloween! She even has two costumes: a duck and a bumblebee... I just couldn't resist!

   So for the past four years or so I've tried to increase my collection of Halloween decor so that I can one day have an awesome decked-out Halloween house.  I could spend hours in the Halloween aisle just looking at all the fun things, but I usually only end up with a few new items due to our budget (that's it... next year I'm making a Halloween fund!!).  This year, however, our budget was especially tight so instead I thought I'd try my hand at creating some things of my own using inexpensive materials and stuff that I already owned.  I searched around for inspiration and found a couple of fun things to make and I'm really excited and proud of the cute new additions to my Halloween collection this year.

   

   So these guys here were my first project. I got the inspiration for this idea while scanning through Pinterest (my new favorite website!)  When I first saw them I immediately fell in love and wanted to make them for my own (here's the link to the original).  They were super easy to make and at least for me, nearly free!

So here's what I did:

-I took an old 1x4 baseboard that we just had lying around in the garage and cut it up into 4 pieces (not sure of the sizes, just whatever looked good).  The original used 2x4's.

-Then I grabbed some cheap craft paint at Joann's (I think I spent a total of $1.50).  Sure, the paint was cheap and it took a couple of coats, but for the price I wasn't complaining!  I handpainted each of the characters.

-For the mummy, I only painted a small black strip and yellow eyes and just covered the rest with some tan scraps of fabric.  To create the distressed look I simply ripped the fabric into strips instead of cutting it. Then I hot-glued the strips to the back using just a dab of glue on each end.

-For the base, I used a 2x4 that I again just had lying around, and painted it black.  I then used some small wood letters that I found at Michaels ($3.00 for a package of letters) to spell out trick-or-treat. I painted those orange and then glued them onto the front.

-To assemble the whole thing together I drilled some screws up from the bottom of the base into the characters.  You may be able to just use some glue, but I wanted to make sure they were really secure.

-Viola! My super cute Halloween sign that now sits proudly on my front porch.  So easy to make, and because of some random stuff I just had lying around, it only cost me $4.50!

   I've never really been a super crafty person, but I enjoyed doing these things so much that it has kinda jumpstarted me into some creative kick.  Now I'm planning on doing crafts more often, hence my new blog.  I also thought of how much fun it would be to do a new craft for each holiday, especially now that I have a little one, it seems like such a great mother-daughter thing to do.  So here's to hoping that this is just the first of many things to come!

-p.s. I don't have pictures of the creative process 'cause I decided to blog about them after I had already made them.  Next time I'll be sure to post photos with the instructions!