Magic Set

We had a birthday party in January and since I’m starting to get the swing of homeschooling I thought I might try and make her present. This little girl loves to do magic so why not a magic set….. ummm and the kicker a real magic hat.  I bought the hat at a party store it was $7.99 but I bet you could find cheaper, but make sure it feels like cloth and not the plastic ones. The hat was a little big which worked out. I put a strip of felt inside and measured it as the inside circumference. Next I made a measure of the circle of the inside of the hat and cut out two circles and sewed them together so that all the edges are finished. Then I took a rectangle and sewed it to the original felt piece to be the sides of the inside of the hat. I left this extra long so that in the bottom of the hat the fabric overlaps. I then sewed the finished circle onto the sides but only 3/4 of the way around which then leaves a gap about 4 inches for little hands to pull and put inside the hat without anybody noticing. At the end I fabritacked the felt inside rim to the hat and we had a magic hat. Sadly I didn’t take more pictures. My great buddy who often helps with oparenting my kids did much of the sewing while I ran interference for the kids. If these steps are not understandable I can definitely draw some pictures, just let me know. The ony part that kind of stinks is that you wouldn’t be able to hide anything too big without noticing.
I also made a reversible cape, which is super simple… I had made like 20 for my daughters Super Hero party so that was pretty easy. I cut a rod for window blinds and then sanded the edges and I painted the middle almost to the ends purple. I let it dry overnight and then I used painters tape to make clean lines and painted the ends pink, like a black and white magic wand. We also added a pair of white gloves from the dollar section at target. Then final piece is printing out some easy magic tricks on some cardstock and you’ve got a great present. My daughter almost didn’t want to give it away. Oh yeah we also left the rabit eraser in the magic hat compartment.

Superhero Birthday Party

Since we began to homeschool I haven’t done any crafts… it kind of hurts on the inside but we’re still figuring out our rhythm and I love my little girl too much to do a shody job. However, we can never go small on a birthday. My dad always had big over the top celebrations for my brother and I and our friends so I try to follow in suit… Here I present our Superhero party – my favorite party we’ve ever had.

I made each kid a cape and mask. I went through lots of cape choices, but in the end I settled on making my own pattern that fit two across the width of the fabric I had. I used this picture to help. I cut out two shapes of that one in black and one in blue or purple (depending on if it was a boy or a girl) and just sewed around the edge with right sides in. I left a 7 inch gap at the bottom of the cape and then turned inside out. I pushed the frayed edges in and just topstitched the bottom edge. I sewed on velcro and we were good to go. I used wonder under to make stars with their initials on it but I didn’t top stitch at all – I just ironed it on. I used lining that I got at Jomar for $1 – $1.50 a yard. It was awesome. We had 22 little kids though so I still probably spent $30 for the fabric. For C’s cape I did the same but in pink satin and a cool sparkly silver fabric and I made it reversible. I should have topstitched her’s but she was the last cape I made and I was all done with capes by then! I also made her little wrist guard things and a mask that was really hard to make and pretty messed up, but she didn’t care. Let me know if you want the directions to either. We had a little photoshoot so here are some of the pictures.

Then I found this great website Create your own comic – It’s by Marvel ( I was a huge X-men fan growing up) and you can make your own comics with their characters. I then took the .jpg into photoshop and added c’s pictures from her photoshoot and we printed it out and framed it at the party. This would be a great present for your child if you had the patience you could make a whole comic book. Here’s ours.

The party was just after lunch so we just had horrible snacky food. I just made cupcakes and then used the same trick as the rockstar birthday. I made regular sugar cookies and added some cocoa to some. I just used tube icing to make the faces.
Here are some more pictures.
The reason this party was pretty enjoyable for me, usually I’m running around like a chicken without a head. We set up the party to be superhero training. There were six stations and the kids could go to them if they wanted or they could just play around. I got lots of ideas and inspiration from the following websites. Please check them all out. By the way I found most of them through Pinterest… if you have not already checked it out you definitely should!
Elegant Affairs
Designergirl 007
Our cups runneth over
One Charming Party
Create my Event
Dear Blog
We had 6 stations set up. And the certificate had the matching pictures so they ccould go up to my mom when they finished and get a sticker on their certificate. I got the certificate from Elegant Affairs which is an awesome website. The first station was monkey flying. We have this super monkey that you can fling with his arms, there was a water control station where they used waterguns to shoot ping pongs off of golf tees, there was running where I just set up cones for them to run around, light saving where they went through a tunnel set up to retrieve some glow sticks, there was building jumping which is just boxes covered in wrapping paper (it helped that we just moved a month before), and the final station was mind control where they had to guess how many m&ms in a bottle and the winner got to keep the bottle.And here are some pictures of us doing the stations.

Oh, I forgot to say that I made wrist bands for each kid. I just glued velcro onto rectangles of matching felt. As they came into the house they had to make their wristbands before they could get their cape and mask. Oh I also had two older boys that helped out with the light saving station and the water control station – they were a big help!

Then they all “graduated” from Superhero training. So we were going on our first mission. Here is a picture of them with their superhero listening ears (sorry I feel I should cover up or blur the faces of kids that don’t belong to me). Their mission was to find “Herbie” he is a kind alien who ate all the candy that was for the party and we have to find him quickly or he’s going to get sick. Luckily his superpower is that he leaves a picture of himself when ever he leaves that spot.

I would just tape the pictures around the house so that they would find the picture of Herbie in the toilet inside the dishwaser and then they would know to go to the toilet next. It definitely helps when you’re planning to write the place you are going to hide the picture on the back. It was a little crazy to have all those kids running through the house and at one point the little birthday girl got ran over and wasn’t a happy camper, but it got better when we took Herbie outside and decided to do some superhero medical work on him. I couldn’t have them thinking it was okay to beat up a little alien so I said that we need to get the candy out of Herbie and he’s not human so anyway we can do it won’t hurt him, and then they lined up and we hit the pinata.

Herbie got hit off of his string and still wouldn’t open. I guess I can’t complain about the clearance from Target $6.99 – and by the way I saw him again at Target last week and he was $14.99 I couldn’t believe it! Oh one more thing I found these absolutely adorable printouts through pinterest. These are so cute I want to put them everywhere, but we just settled for the goodie bags. We also had a little section set up where they could take pictures. We still had lots of cardboard from moving.

Weight Watcher

My mother-in-law helped me lose about 12 pounds by helping me track my points for a couple of days. Apparently 12-15 points worth of almonds a day isn’t helpful to losing weight. For Mother’s day I made her a little holder for her new points plus calculator. You can have the calculator subttract points through out the day from your total but she likes pencil and paper and just uses it to calculate individual item’s points. So I made her this little holder. If you would like to make it – leave a comment and I can tell you the measurements.

I actually made it from C’s old navy skirt that doesn’t fit anymore so that’s why there is a cute bow on it – it was on the skirt and I just left it on. I cut two pieces of cardboard in that rounded rectangle shape and then put the two pieces of fabric on top and traced out a pattern, I knew that with the pad and then calculator it would be thick so I left extra for the fold which turned into the pen holder.
I then cut out two pieces of thin elastic and put it inbetween the rightsides of the two ouside pieces of fabric. I also put in a little strip for the closing. You’ll see in the last picture. I then sewed around three sides and then inside outed it. Then I put in the cardboard and topstiched all the way around, this was the most difficult part. I’m sorry I didn’t take pictures through out but I was afraid it wouldn’t even work.

The calculator closes even with the elastic inside it, which is nice since then you don’t have to take it out of the holder.

I then closed it up and sewed on a little snap… I would definitely do velcro next time.

Baseball game

I have such girly girls it is often hard for me to think of things for boys… in the past I’ve made monster foam pieces and I made a tushie truck taker and car cozy – and this CHristmas I made a couple, including a personalized rubix cube. But I really don’t have much expereince. K had a boy’s birthday party and we had gotten some cool car crafts at JoAnn’s but I wanted to add a little extra. So here it is. A personalized baseball game.

The game is played by following the rules of baseball, but the two players each roll the dice and then you add up the two numbers to see what happens on each “pitch”. Here is a whole write up about it from a school district in Washington. I just shrunk the rules and numbers and putt it in the metal tin(after I laminated it) and then also printed out a field. I put the boys picture on the magnets with two different team hats and added two dice in and a dry erase marker on the outside for keeping score and track of outs. Hopefully he plays.

Fairy pegs

Our “cousin” is turning 7 and well we just wanted to make her something fun and I knew that she liked Tinker bell, we bought her a little tinker bell make up kit (because my girls love make up and I wanted to spread the joy) and well we wanted to add a little bit extra. So here is our fairy holder playmat and fairies.

I printed out this picture of the “major” fairies… no vidia because she’s mean. But there is Fawn, Rosetta, Silvermist, TInkerbell, and Iridessa. It would have been nice if I lined them up under their picture. I just used a thin sharpie for their faces and tried copying the outfits with cheap felt and hot glue.
The hair was a little bit tricy and I wish I took pictures along the way but it was late. elow is a picture of tinkerbell’s bun, it’s my favorite. Pretty much I’d cover the top and sides and the back in two or three different pieces.

I try to involve the girls as much as I can to instill a love of making presents instead of buying everything.. .but sometimes it comes back to haunt me. K said they look weird with no arms… really they need arms???  Well I found this amazing woman who makes lots of peg dolls, really beautiful artistic ones and some even with arms.. I can’t find the link to her blog, but I will – the small object also has amazing peg dolls that I like to droll over.  So my husband got out the itty bitty drill bit and went to town on the bamboo skewers. I sanded them down, and they were all different sizes but I just went with it.

The arms move and everything. You drill a hole through each arm and the body and put a wire through to hold it. I tried to make it cute and curly, but I definitely should have had a larger gauge wire. To make the wings I just drew in sharpie on my laminator sheet and put some glue sick over it and glitter – honestly I just prayed that my stupidity wouldn’t ruin my laminator which I love… and thankfully it didn’t – totally works, just don’t use too much!

And here the ladies are individually. Even though Tinkerbell is probably my least favorite of the fairies, I think she came out the best out of them all… it’s all about the face and hair.

And here is the holder. I made it really quickly with felt and just sewed up the bottom for the holder spot and then sewed the green on and then after that I shamelessly just hot glued the other stuff on. Thankfully the birthday girl liked it!

It all rolls up with velcro – hot glued onto a ribbon.

Craft Fail and a win

My oldest daughter started kindergarten this year, and it was bitter sweet for me. I’m so excited she’s growing up, but it is a little unnerving letting her go and begin to spend so much time with other influences. In walks an adorable freckled girl who is shy, sweet, and oh so kind. She and K became quick friends. They have such similar personalities, look (except coloring), little sisters and a need to adhere to the rules. It has been such a blessing to have her be K’s best little friend at school. Sadly we are moving back home this summer and they will part so we knew we had to make her something fabulous for her birthday. I wanted to make little dolls of the two friends that actually had their photos on the dolls that way our little friend would always have a K doll to cuddle with even after we are gone… but there’s a reason that people don’t make dolls like that.
Here are some examples of what I was hoping to achieve but didn’t suceed in..It’s Me doll and  Miss my Mommy Dolls and there are those with the whole body printed on a pillow like the Daddy Dolls.
I tried to take the girls and make them plush and as you can see it was a complete plush failure! So I turned to the queen of doll making Hillary Lang. She has an amazing blog and website that you can get lost in. Please check them out.
I bought the Kit, Chloe, and Louise pattern ($15) and follow the directions. It was easy even for someone like me who only had one doll making experience.
So here are the pictures that say a thousand words. Also on Hillary Langs website she sells one pattern as a Make-a-long story which gave me the idea to take the dolls to the girls school and give them a little photoshoot – I can’t say how amazing their teachers are and I can’t believe I forgot to take a picture of the dolls and the teachers – doh!!!!  I printed out the pictures on my ink jet, laminated them, and then glued them into a blank board book from Oriental Trading. Each doll has a back pack with toothpick pencils inside that K made. I also made them their Kindergarten folders with real homework inside. I hope you like it.

These folders were my favorite part!

Enchanted forest and fairies

I’m not a blogger, but for some reason I feel the need to post lately. This is a project the girls and I did in January when we were out of school for what seemed like weeks. We were inspired by a Constructive playthings toy.
Unfortunately this adorable toy came with a $90 price tag. We had some left over foam board from our halloween projects for Horton Hears a Who (you can see below).

So the girls and I ventured off to make our own. The pieces of foam board are 2 for a $1 at the Dollar tree which made this whole thing cost under $4 with the fairies. I’m not really sure quite how to describe our creative process so here are lots of pictures and a couple of words.

I just drew a cartoony tree shape and went from there. I used a pond shaped piece for the bottom and a curvy oval for the cross piece. I actually traced them on paper so if you want a copy I can scan them all in and send them to you. To stand up the pieces I traced around the bottom and used the blade to carve out slits. I used hot glue which filled in all the space where I made the holes too big. It was alot of trial an error, but all together only took 40 minutes. The next part was hard – do I do it myself and have it look nice or let them decorate it. So I went in the middle. They did most of the begining steps and then I watercolored on top of it. Oh and we put a swing in. I made two holes with a compass end and put hemp through it to a foam board rectangle.

My oldest wanted to have her try at making shapes out of the foam board so she made this doghose for the fairy land. You can also see all of the “graffiti” over the forest. Luckily the watercolor covered most of it up and both of the girls painted with me.

Surprisingly watercolor looked great on the foam board, but if you don’t paint on bothsides it warps. The tree that we painted both sides of stayed straight but the other one warped in toward the side with the paint. We also made these little fairies. They sell these little clothes pins at Michaels and we used our coupon to buy them. Yay… less than $2. We decorated a whole bunch. The petal wings were the idea of my 3 year old, and she made the one by herself. Sometimes I forget that they teach me as much as I teach them.

We just wrapped them in fabric, used sharpies for features and hotglued on yarn for hair. Take note – too much hair and they fall over.