All The Dresses

I like to start brainstorming for All Hallow's Eve early because if I am going to whip up an outfit it's going to take some time.  Clover has already decided that she was going to be Merida this year.  So I decided that I wanted to dress up too.  So I will be playing the part of Elinor, Merida's mother.  I found some ideas from various websites.  One of them is a quick overview of the costume.   I found a few websites that would make the dress but the prices where way out of the price range I would pay to wear it for one night.  So did some more internet searching and found a pattern that I felt came pretty close to what I was looking for.

bottom right corner?

 
I was pretty excited when I got the pattern in the mail.  Clover asked me what it was so I explained that it has instructions to tell me how to make these dresses.  Her eyes grew three sizes and she exclaimed

"Wait?!?  You mean YOU CAN MAKE DRESSES?"

Even though she has seen me make several things she never thought I could make dresses since we bought them.  The dress up ones usually came in the mail because I found some killer deals online.  It took her awhile to form her mind around the fact that I could whip up costumes.

I'm not sure this is a good thing.

A master list has been created.  She has been asking me to whip up every dress she sees.  We watched Enchanted for the first time this week and every dress Gisele was in, she now wants.  I told her that we should probably make a list since the list keeps growing.  So she sat down this morning and wrote one out for me.

Her cursive writing.

The top one is "the white dress, the blue dress and the pink dress that Gisele has"  and the second line is "A Belle dress that is NOT scratchy".  Followed up with "A witches dress like the ones that Winny, Mary, or Sarah wears".  She asked me when we were going to go fabric shopping and get started on all of her dresses.  I had to stall her by telling her we had to find patterns and that takes awhile.

I need a team of mice and birds to help me get sewing all the dresses.  Anyone know where I can find some sewing furry woodland creatures?  Singing is optional.

It's Dangerous To Go Alone...Take This

Hubby's 33rd birthday came through here with a force.  Or maybe that was a Triforce.  bad-dum-tish!  We picked a theme three days before the party.  Then it was go time!  I had one day to run errands, a day to clean and a morning to pull it all together.

We went with a classic Zelda theme.  It's funny when you tell adults that you are going with a themed party.  At first they sort of look at you sideways like they are way to cool for some party with a kids theme.  Then about three minutes later they are sitting with you helping you brainstorming.  It happens every year and five minutes after they get here they are sporting a pirate hat or whatever theme we went with that year.

So once the theme was picked there was an intensive internet search for things that were doable in my three day period.  I also had to pick aspects from the video game that could be translated into party fodder.  For the entry way Hubby had the great idea to cover the door in something black to make it look like you were entering through a door from the game.  So that is what we did.  It turned out so cute but for some reason I forgot to take a picture.  Here are a few pictures I did manage to take.

Zelda map cake.  Sort of.  

 
Hubby likes yellow cake with chocolate frosting or else I would have used the tan color for the map but he wanted chocolate.  He loves it baked in a glass pan.  I think it's because that's how his aunt made it.  He's the birthday boy so he got exactly what he wanted.  I did add a box of pudding to the mix and it was sooooo yummy!  The design cane from snack or die.  

I printed out pictures from a quote website and hung them around.  This one was on the bathroom door.

I whipped this up the morning of with some clipart and some printable shrinky dink paper.  I used my last sheet!  I love this stuff.  I did run into a small problem where I didn't punch out the hole big enough.  I used the small hole punch and it wasn't large enough after it shrunk and there is no way you can make that hole bigger after you shrink it.  

My cute and very simple hats! 

The hats came from The Night Garden blog.  They are as simple as she makes it look!  One square and one seam!  Sixteen hats and two prototypes where completed in two Phineas and Ferb episodes and one Sesame Street.  So about two hours.

It felt great to be surrounded by great friends.  I will admit that I didn't think that everyone I invited was going to be able to make but at one point we had way more people here than we had seats for them.  Yeah, I felt kinda bad about that.

All together the party was a big hit.  

Trinkets and Other Pretties

Crafting time comes in spurts with me.  Hubby was out of town for a night last week and I found myself with a few hours of time with nothing planned.  I posted a pic of the aftermath of what my counter looked like.  I am happy to report that it has all been cleaned up and balance and harmony has been restored.

It all started with a trip to the hardware store that morning.  I love LOVE love going to the hardware store!  I love the faces and the quizzical looks I get when I ask employees about stuff and they have NOOO idea what I am talking about.  For example:

Me:  Excuse me...Do these washers have lead in them?  The package would say right?

Nice Employee:  Yes they would be clearly labeled.  Those are zinc coated.  They do not have lead.  Uhhh what are you using it for?  (Here is where they want to impart some of their hardware knowledge on me)

Me:  I'm going to make a necklace out of it.

Nice Employee:  (Nodding head)  Okay then...

And then they usually walk off because they have no idea what I am talking about and probably think I am crazy.  It happens a lot.  I'm used to it.

Duct Tape is awesome!

I found that my cricut cuts rectangles out with holes in the corner that is perfect for making little book pendants!  

Just add a cover and a jump ring!

Tada!  Cute right?  I love this one!  

That was kind of a surprise craft.  One of those ones that just comes to mind and the Heavens sing type of a moment.  

Here are the books stacked.  

I had originally went to the store to buy washers for necklaces because I wanted to make something a long the lines of these.  

"Mother" in different languages.  Looks fuzzy in the picture though.  

This one was made with a Pirates of the Caribbean themed scrapbook paper. It has the Pirate code of Captain Jack on it.  I loved the last one which was IX.  Ye shall wear clean underbritches.

I had made some more washer necklaces but I had made them with paper I had printed on my inkjet printer and heartbreak followed because the ink ran.  I wasn't a fan of how the others turned out.  Like I say for every cool craft I do there are 5 in the garage no one sees.  

I also worked on perfecting my Tree of Life pendents that I saw on Craftster.

This one was the one I made for my Mom with some Turquoise that they had picked up for me a few years ago when they went through Arizona.  

Overall I think it was a great use of my free evening which spurred three days of crafting off and on.  

The Cricut Came Out

The other day I found myself without internet.  Hubby had to demo some gear and needed a piece of our home network.  Somehow before he left the router went down and we were left with no Internets!  I remained calm and knew we would survive.  I didn't realize how productive I would end up being without my computer distracting me.  My Cricut came out and I actually made time to get crafty.  Getting crafty while Clover is awake can be tricky but if I wait until the end of the day after she goes to bed I'm usually to tapped to work on anything.  It felt good to get to some of the projects I had on my list to finish.

A while ago I had seen some art on website that I was interested in.  They where silhouettes of the Disney Princesses on canvas.  They were simple but pretty and twenty bucks a pop plus shipping.  If I wanted all four I would have shelled out about a hundred bucks for art to put on my daughter's wall.  So I told myself I could do the same thing but cheaper.  On one of our craft store trips I found some canvas on sale.  Since it wasn't on top of my craft list they sat in the corner for awhile.  I wanted to finish them in time for Chlover's birthday but that didn't happen.  Since the internet was out I didn't have any excuse not to work on them.  I borrowed my friend's princess cartridges to cut out the princesses.  The original plan for the canvases kind of morphed over time.  They went from silhouette boards to quote boards.

Tiana

I paraphrased this one a bit so it would fit on the board.  

I love that scene from the movie!

Belle

"I want adventure in the great wide somewhere"

Cinderella

"Have faith in your dreams and someday your rainbow will come smiling through"

  
The longest part of this project was glueing all the words done.  Letters done with the Plantin School cartridge.  The fourth board I painted with the same pink as the Tiana board but I used it as a picture board.  I put some of our character pictures from Disneyland on it.  Or at least the ones that the printer would let me print before it started eating all of my paper.

I also was able to whip up a dance bag for our Dino loving pal!

 
The dinos are from my Create a Critter cartridge.  I cut the letters and shapes out on contact paper and then use that as a stencil.  Next time I will pick another color than black.  Even though I used white as a base first I still had a hard time trying to get the colors to pop out.

The Cricut has since been put back in it's special spot but I did find another cartridge I liked so it may be coming back out from hiding.  

T Minus Twenty Minutes.

Clover is settled into her pre-bed ritual.  She has an episode of Fresh Beats on so I have twenty three minutes to kick out a blog post.  It seriously does not seem like it is enough time considering we got a lot accomplished today.

Starting off the day, I logged in and noticed all the chatter on Facebook about making Gummies.  I was curious.  I have only dabbled in candy making myself.  Usually around Christmas time.  So I reached out to my online bff (google) to see if they had any answers for me.  Turns out that it's actually kind of easy.  Or at least this recipe is.  I made a double batch of the recipe over at Skip to My Lou.

Two ingredients and water.

A baby shower mold, an ice tray from Ikea and some Christmas Jello molds that I had in the cupboard. 

Cook.

Try to accomplish anything with a 3 year old under you sticking her fingers in everything.  Note to self:  buy her a hairnet!

They were very tasty!  Baby shower gummies.

I think these were my favorite of the batch.  From the Ikea ice tray.  Lightly dusted with cornstarch so they wont stick together.

So while on a roll with my creative crafty self, I decided to work on some ribbon dolls hair clips.  I followed the tutorial over at Life on the Ridge and made a Tinkerbell and and Ariel. 

Clover was not all that enthused about me taking a picture of HER Tinkerbell.  I had to bribe her with a fudge bar (which I was already going to give to her but she doesn't have to know that).  I also had to take about thirty pics to get a half decent one.  

This one I took in my hair.  I didn't notice the tiny glue spot on the tail until I looked at the picture later.  But in all honesty I am to lazy to take another picture and upload it.  

Rounding out the night I made Chili for dinner and Cornbread using this recipe from Epicurious.  I made a double batch of this recipe too.  Clover and Hubs will eat on it for awhile.  Turns out my mom didn't want any because I put real corn in the cornbread.  I always thought it made it taste better.  

Well, there is my twenty three minutes my dears.  I still have to get dinner put away and hop in Clover's room for some stories and bedtime.  Looks like I managed to get everything in there with minimal run on sentences.   Yay.  Go me!

Checkin Off the List

We went out yesterday to run some errands and my poor Clover got a heat rash.  So today we thought we got out early enough to beat the heat.  No luck.  Still hot.  Clover's heat rash returned.  So for the rest of the day we have been held up inside.  So what to do for the rest of the day?  We got in the kitchen and made a double batch of some Kool-Aid Playdough.  So we can scratch that off of the Summer List.  

Mix together dry ingredients.

(It is helpful if you have a Red Head Cutie helping you)

Add Kool-Aid (we used lemon lime) to the water and add.

Cook on medium heat until mostly cooked.

When cooled to the touch, knead until smooth.

(Thanks to the Hubs who brought me a treat) 

Thanks to Tee who took pictures of us kneading and playing.

Then we hung out outside while the boys worked on some outdoors projects.  While outside I started the grill up to make grilled pizzas and once again managed to catch the grill on fire.  Yes they are supposed to be on fire...but when you turn off the gas there shouldn't still be a flame gently kissing the trees above.  It has managed to catch on fire at least once a year.  To the point where baking soda is in the cupboard is not for baking.  So with the grill cleaned off it was time to make dinner.  We had grilled pizza made with home made pizza dough from a totally awesome recipe here.  

Nice way to kick off the three day weekend.  Minus the heat rash issues and the grill catching on fire.    

Summer!

We worked on our Summer board today.  I took lots of inspiration from some of the other boards floating around on the internets.

I did the letters and the circles on the cricut.  I left some room on the bottle just in case we come up with some other ideas.  Do you see the secret message?

On another note, I am trying to come to terms with how much I don't like my handwriting.  I could type everything our or cut out the other letters on the cricut but that would take to much time.  Overall I think I am happy with the results.  Can't wait until we can start checking some of them off!      

She Wants It All (Crafty Post)

I'm so excited!  I finished Clover's stage today.  It's a little High School Musical themed.

 
Clover has been doing this thing lately where she throws all the stuff off her bed and uses it as a stage.  That was giving me the heebee-jeebees because her no sock wearin feet were jumping all over her nice and clean sheets.  Ick.  So then my friend mentions that maybe we would pull our crafty brainpower and fix her up a stage.  Good idea!

So we started brainstorming and made a trip to Lowe's and meandered through the isles.  But then the paranoid Mommy brain kicked in and I started worrying about pesticides in wood and sanding and then I would have to finish it with some sort of stain.  Also, she would be on it bare foot so it would have to be smooth.  So I decided to do some more research and parked the idea in the back of my head.

Fast forward to the Ikea trip we took last weekend.  The trip in which we not only got lost WITH the nav but also took a donut detour.  Good times.  So I am in Ikea in total sensory overload.  My brain just starts moving while I am there.  I always come home with tons of things that were not on my list.  Like a stage.

It's really a Coffee Table (linked here).  Or the top of it actually.  Clover doesn't do well with steps.  She has fallen off the front one more than a few times and is hesitant.  So I needed something that wasn't too high.  I was originally going to go with some 4x4's but the height of the top of the coffee table was only like 2 inches so she can run on and off of it fairly easily.  She has actually been on it all day today.

The legs and the middle part are still in my garage.  I can figure out something else for them later.  And if this one doesn't last I have the middle part to replace it.  I'm not sure what the finish is called but it wipes off any dirt and scuff marks sooo easy.  It's the same stuff that is on our office desks and Clover has colored all over those and back and it just wipes off with a baby wipe.  It's actually really sturdy.  Daddy was dancing on it today as well.  It went in plain white yesterday.  We added some embellishments today.

It says "You want the world...nothing less, all the glam & the press"  and the bottom part says "I want it all"  Along with some stars.  The letters are two inch letters cut out of hot pink vinyl in the Mickey Font on my cricut.  I use my circut for so many crafts other than scrapbooking.

The quotes comes from High School Musical 3.  Which is one of Clover's favorite movies.  It came on one time on the Disney Channel on day while it was raining and the TV was on in the background.  She watched it and was hooked.  I know it's a weird movie for a three year old to be into but Alice n Wonderland with Depp was on her favorites of all time list too.

Anyways, Sharpay is one of her favorite characters and she loves the song "I want it all" so I went with the lyric from that.  Putting on the letters was a bit tricky only because Clover had chocolate cake after dinner and was sugared up and wanted to play horsey while Mommy added the letters to her stage.

Note to self...Don't try to do things while child is sugared up.    

Keeping Track

December 6 – Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?

That would require me to keep track of the things that I have made.  I started to at www.cutebyjuju.com .  If I had it in my mind that I was going to blog about it I tried to take as many pictures as possible.  Then The Great Mac Crash of 2010 (it's been a long year) hit and I lost all of my information.  I was fortunate enough that it came back on long enough for me to make a few hurried back ups.  I just haven't gotten back up and running on the craft site yet.

I consider myself pretty crafty.  I am all over the place.  I love to knit.  My favorite by far is to knit baby blankets.  I know that somewhere one of my blankies is keeping a lil one warm and that gives me the warm fuzzies.

I have started the biggest project I have ever worked on.  It started out as a lap blanket for the Hubs but has so far turned out to be quite large.  By the time it is completed it will be an 8-bit Link (Zelda) bedspread.  I have already went through more than a few skeins of acrylic yarn.  I like acrylic.  *Gasp*  All of the hardcore knitters just kicked me out of the club.  But it's easily washable and it softens up when you add fabric softener.

I think that the last thing that I finished was Clover's bear beanie.  It was a knit beanie with crochet ears.  I worked on it in the car on our last road trip.  I used brown yarn with a brown bucle.  I have a washer necklace on the list of things to make and completing the large bedspread is on the list too but I am pretty sure it wont be complete til Valentine's Day at the least.