Frozen Birthday

My sweet Clarissa turned five last month and picked Frozen for the theme of her birthday. 

I was surprised when I went out to gather supplies for our little party that "Frozen" stuff is actually really hard to find. Luckily, her only real request was that there would be an Olaf piñata.  I knew I could make that and then mix in other items to fit the theme. 

She was thrilled with her Olaf piñata. I used the same method that I used to make Kate's Minnie Mouse Piñata, HERE. Sorry, I didn't take pictures of the process. 

The head was separate from the body (It does not hold candy).  I attached it with hot glue and then tied it to the body using string and a giant needle. I built up the mouth by layering pieces of cardboard cut into the shape. The nose is made from orange felt, and attached with hot glue. There is a great tutorial for that HERE. The rest of the details were cut from card-stock and attached with craft glue. 

For these kids it was the hit of the night!

I kept the decorations super simple with white pom-poms, a few clearance snowflakes from the party store, and white paper doilies.

Of course, I also whipped up a quick banner for the fireplace in Shilouette Studio. I know I say this all the time, but this program is FREE to download and easy to use. You don't have to own a Shilouette to download and use it.  

I also made her a crown, which she loved but only wore for a few minutes, plus pictures. 

The Cake! I ended up really loving this cake. Unfortunately, I forgot something. Do you see it?

I forgot to add Olaf's buttons! Oh well. Honestly, this little guy was a bit of a nightmare. The basic construction was fine. I followed this tutorial by Pucky Cakes, HERE. This was my first time using modeling chocolate, and all those little details kept melting in my hot hands. Arrrggghhh...It took three hours to make him. 

My favorite part of the cake was the snowflakes. They were made using royal icing and Sugar Gems. I got the sugar gems at Walmart in the baking department. I'm pretty sure I paid less than $2 for the bottle. 

I simply piped the snowflakes onto a cookie sheet that was covered in parchment paper. Then I sprinkled the Sugar Gem on top, while the frosting is still wet. *They need to dry for at least 24 hours* After that, they will slide right off the parchment paper. But be careful, they are very delicate! I would recommend making at least double the number you want. I broke several snowflakes in the process of transferring them to the cake. I printed off a couple sheets of snowflake images to place under my parchment paper as a guide, but actually liked my freehand snowflakes more. 

Here is my royal icing recipe:

3 egg whites

1 pound of powdered sugar

1/2- tsp cream of tartar

Beat until stiff, keep covered as it dries fast.

I used some reserved royal icing to glue the snowflakes onto the cake. 

It was a fun night with family, where Clarissa was cherished and spoiled. I'm glad we could make her feel special for at least one day this year.

For me, the intense game of Freeze Dance was the highlight of the party.

Silhouette Black Friday Sale

I love a good deal and I love black friday sales, so I was obviously excited to share this sale with you. If you have been wanting a Silhouette, NOW is the time to buy it. This is the biggest sale they have ever had. 

ALL YOU HAVE TO DO GO HERE and USE CODE: PARTYPLACE

Here are some Details:

BUNDLE #1:

 A Silhouette CAMEO

AND a Silhouette Portrait 

two $25 download cards 

$299.99

BUNDLE #2:

A Silhouette CAMEO 

Silhouette Studio® Designer Edition Software 

a dust cover

 a $25 download card

 a hook, a scraper, a spatula, and a pick-me-up tool 

$229.99

BUNDLE #3:

A Silhouette Portrait

 Silhouette StudioDesigner Edition Software

 a dust cover

 a $25 download card

 a hook, a scraper, a spatula, and a pick-me-up tool

 $129.99

I don't think I can tell you enough how much I love my Silhouette machine. It's my absolute favorite crafting tool.

I'm really excited to make more of these great tags, now that they recently released adhesive backed card stock. For more ideas on what you can make go HERE.

Have a great Holiday Weekend!

Halloween attire 2013

Most of the family decided to go with a Wreck It Ralph theme. It was optional to participate, but those that did, LOVED it. The girls planned, talked and plotted every spare moment for weeks about how we would accomplish every detail of the costumes. Best of all, Clair continues to only refer to everyone by their character names. She calls Jared- Ralph or "the kind, bad guy", Lydia- Candlehead, Jeff- Felix or "the good guy", and herself - "the Glitch."  

 Jefferson made the cutest Fix-It-Felix.  His costume was by far the easiest. I got the hat on Amazon, and the patches from A Little Crafty. We had the pants and shirt, thrifted the boots, and I made the belt with notions from JoAnn's. I lucked out and found the wooden hammer at an estate sale a week ago. All it needed was a couple coats of gold paint.

Clarissa started the theme when she wanted to be Vanellope Von Schweets. I was hoping to find some of her costume pre-made, but no luck, I had to make everything. I used pink shoelaces from Walmart for the strings in her hoodie and embroidery floss for the stitching. I painted white microfiber tights with craft paint, placing cardboard inside them and taping off the stripes with painters tape. For her licorice hair tie, I wrapped a fabric trim (Walmart) around wire. For the sprinkles in her hair, I colored adhesive name tags. Then, using a hole puncher I cut the circles, removed the backing and stuck them to her hair. The peppermints were glued to velcro and stuck in her hair. Warning! use as little of the velcro as possible, it really sticks to the hair and can hurt when pulling it out.

I think the Candlehead hat, was my favorite project this year. I used some old mouse ears from Disneyland as the base. I simply ripped off the ears and painted it brown. I used felt for the rest of the construction. To make the whipped swirl on top, I loosely rolled a piece of felt with wire in the middle, securing the ends with glue. With the wire in the middle it was easy to manipulate the felt into the perfect swirl. The candle is also rolled-up felt with embroidery floss wrapped around it. I made the skirt, thrifted the jacket (lucky find), and had the shirt and tights. 

My husband was such a good sport to dress up with the kids. Finding his overalls was a nightmare. Apparently overalls are hard to find around Halloween. I went to probably 20 thrift stores, with no luck. Finally, I found a large pair of stretchy brown pants and knew I had to transform them into overalls. I made up the bib, sewed the decorative stitching on both the bib and pants, and added the overall buckles. In the end I was very happy with the results. Even if the fabric for the bib doesn't match perfectly, I think they look better than blue jean overalls would have looked. I thrifted his orange shirt: it originally had a collar, which I cut off. 

Of course no theme would be complete without a trunk to match it, right?

And here are our other costumes:

Kate is really into cats right now, so dressing as a black cat was a no brainer. The key to this costume was a black feather boa I got at JoAnn's for a few dollars. I constructed her tail by wrapping the black boa around a long wire and attached it to a felt belt. Here is the trick, the belt had two pieces of supporting wire sandwiched between two pieces of felt in the back.  I used my glue gun for all of this, no sewing. I made arm bands and leg warmers out of a fuzzy knit fabric (JoAnn's). I also glued extra boa to the wrist of the arm bands and around my felt cat ears. 

My oldest decided he was too cool to dress up this year and I kept telling him he wouldn't get any candy. That is how we came up with this costume at the last minute. He loved it. It's probably not politically correct, but was meant in fun. 

Happy Halloween!

Jefferson turns 1!

My baby turned ONE last week. I really can't believe it. How did this happen so fast?

With the crazy schedules we are on and just trying to get through each day, his birthday totally snuck up on me. I wasn't able to throw a big party, but we did have a fun evening with our family to celebrate. 

1st Birthday stats. I wish these were popular when my other kids turned 1. I reused my chalkboard from THIS post.

1st year picture garland. 

Minutes before the party started, I handed my sister a stack of photos, paper, and some ribbon. I asked her to come up with something, anything, before people arrived. I love what she did. She found some upholstery tacks and tacked the pictures to the ribbon after matting them with the paper. 

I made a simple cake that matched the fabric for his "birthday outfit."

My favorite part of the 1st birthday is the Cake Smash. Since Jefferson is my last, I wanted to get super cheesy with it and made him a cake smash outfit. My husband was a good sport, despite a few comments about how it looked more like a baby Chip and Dales outfit. Ha, he may have been right!

We were all hoping for a repeat of my daughter Kate, who ate her whole cake and made quite a mess.  

Unfortunately, he got distracted by those darn polka dots and wasn't interested in the cake.  

Eventually, he got tired of all the pressure and told us what he thought of the cake smash.  

I'm just glad he's healthy, happy, mine and my last. 

Happy Birthday Jefferson!

Summer PJ's {Kids Clothes Week}

If you sew for your kids, you probably already know this week is Kids Clothes Week. It's a challenge to spend at least an hour a day on sewing for your kids before the next season. It's such a great motivator to get things done, especially when you follow what everyone else is making. I wish I had time to make some amazing outfits, but for now, I'm thrilled to just get summer PJ's done.

Pretty soon my girls aren't going to be able to wear their long flannel pj's anymore. Summer nights can be brutal in our old, tall house, even with central air. They would be good with a giant, old t-shirt, but I like to have at least one cute pair of pj's for them.

As usual they were matching. I made all the pants, repurposed one of my old T's for Lydia and simply embellished the tanks for the other two. I know my limits.

They waited patiently all week to finally wear them to bed.

In addition to the pj's I also refashion some shorts for Jefferson and a skirt for Clair. Sorry no pictures. If you want to see what other mom's are making you can check out the blog HERE, or the flicker group HERE or search the hashtag #kidsclothesweek.

Library Reading Nook {a HGTV Home Fabric review}

When I was asked to review the new line of HGTV Home Fabrics from JoAnn's, I couldn't say yes fast enough. As soon as I saw the fun bold print they sent me, I knew what I was going to do with it. 

It's a project I've had on my bucket list for years, and was thrilled to finally get it done. 

I have a real library in my house. It is charming but TINY. Like seven feet by seven feet, you probably have a closet bigger than my library, tiny.

Despite being tiny, it has a 10ft ceiling with shelves running the whole way up. It may be full of old books, that no one wants to read, but it's still one of my favorite things about my house. 

Sandwiched between to bookcases on one of the walls is a bench, that has been begging for a cushion and some pillows. 

So I conquered my fear of pipping and zippers and finally gave this space the justice it deserves. 

This fabric turned out to be perfect for the space for two big reasons. One, it's super durable. I'm pretty sure it can handle all five of my kids. Second, It combines the neutral colors I have in the rest of my house with a fun pop of color, so the kids are drawn to it. 

In fact the kids can't get enough of it.  

Once I put in the cushion and pillows I knew we needed something on the wall. Since a frame would be in the way, I went with vinyl and this fun saying. I don't think kids can hear their loved enough. 

A big thanks to HGTV and JoAnn's for helping me get this done. You have to check out all the gorgeous prints and patterns they released.

Right now through May 4th, all HGTV fabrics are 50% off AND you can also use the following coupon with your purchase, for extra savings.

a Matchy Match Easter

I got away with another year of matching dresses for Easter.

I wasn't planning on it, but fell in love with this rainbow seersucker. The next thing I knew I was buying five yards of it.

Lydia's dress was a nightmare. I have a hard time drafting my own sleeve patterns so I decided to use a vintage pattern. The pattern had the cutest pictures on the front, but didn't sew up anything like the pictures. I think it will be the last time I use a vintage pattern. I had to unpick, recut and resew it several times to get the fit I wanted.

Kate's dress started out as Clairs, but became Kate's when I realized the bodice fit her better than Clair. This may be one of the only benefits of sewing for more than one girl.

Clair's dress was my favorite and by far the easiest to make. She loved the way it twirled.

They loved being different but still matching.

I wanted so badly to make ties for the boys but simply didn't have time. I barely got the dresses done, sewing a zipper in late the night before.

I'm sure we look super cheesy to many, but I can't help myself. I blame my mom.

I'm linking to Girl Inspired and Here