Link's Hero's Tunic

Halloween is rolling through again. In our house it is your right to choose and be granted any costume that you wish. Luckily for me, Teddy chose a simple classic, and it came together in no time!

I used the Burda 9510 pattern for the tunic and it was as easy as can be. I'm loving the realistic look that resulted from using green linen instead of the Halloween staple polar fleece! I winged the hat with the left over fabric by measuring the circumference of Ted's head and dividing that in half. Then cutting out a long triangle on the fold.

A quick trip to the basement yielded a pair of my daughter's outgrown brown boots. I thought about adding a folded cuff and buckle for authenticity, but my faux leather did not match the boot leather at all. The boots look great as is and really make the outfit.

I simply painted over my the Nerf shield that my son already had with Martha Stewart craft paints. Wow, I really love those! They have worked perfectly for all kinds of uses! I just eyeballed it from a picture online and tried to use the features of the Nerf shield where I could. Not a perfect match.... but good enough for Teddy. The sword is also a Nerf sword.

And to top the outfit off and really sell it, I made a bunch of pleather accessories. Because pleather is basically a knit fabric coated by plastic, I made sure to stabilize it. For the belt, I sewed it to webbing. For the shield/sword/quiver belt, I simply sewed it to some wide ribbon that I had on hand. I just picked up a few buckles and eyeballed it. I did pick up another pattern to make the little pouch and gauntlets. I used my trusty Crop-O-Dile to punch holes in the belts as well as to add gromets to the gauntlets. I picked up some leather lace to finish that project off.

A couple of accessories go a long way in selling the outfit and making a little kid blissfully happy. I picked up a couple of these little bottles with cork tops from Hobby Lobby. The one pictured was empty; but we filled the other one with the juice from a glow stick! It looks really great as a potion. I also added a wooden sling-shot that can be tucked in the belt.

The under layer was purchased from Walmart. It is simply a cream thermal tee-shirt and some thick cream tights. If you are making this outfit for a uber-fan, you might want to pick up at least two pairs of tights and maybe an extra under shirt. Teddy lives in this outfit and the 1st set of tights are stained like crazy!

Happy Halloween!!

Bee My Valentine!

Time to make Valentine's! Every year I throw Jane a Valentine party for her and her friends and am so busy getting that ready, that I neglect to help her make make Valentines for her and end up using store bought ones. Fine if that is your thing, you'll get no judgment from me! But nothing is sweeter than a handmade Valentine. So this year I remembered to included making Valentine's in the party prep. I showed Jane a bunch of options and she chose the Lollipop Flowers that were featured in Scrapbooks Ect. Magazine.  We decided that no kid Valentine is complete without a cheesy pun, so we decided to add the cute little flying bee and the sentiment "Bee My Valentine". They are inexpensive as all get out and cute as can bee!

To make your own bouquet of 24 lollipop flowers you'll first need to gather your supplies. I used my February issue of Scrapbooks Ect., One 12x12 sheet of Meadow Green Core'dinations cardstock, two 12x12 sheets of Doodlebug Designs paper that has bees on it (each sheet has 18 bees on it), Crop-A-Dile (or other hole punch), scissors, wire bending tool, white marker, 3" scallop punch, floral wire, hot glue gun and glue, 10 sheets of tissue paper (I used 3 sheets each of red and pink and 4 sheets of hot pink). And don't forget your bag of Dum-Dums! In my bag there were more than 24 suckers of red/pink/purple suckers.

So you just stack up your tissue paper the way you want it. I put my reds on the bottom, hot pink in the middle, and light pink on top. And then you punch it with your scallop punch. I don't know if mine was a little dull...or if cutting tissue paper is just difficult, but it caught in one place every time. So I had to kind of tear the paper out in that one spot and then push the blade back out to the starting position. Not a big deal...but made it a little tedious. I would suggest cutting all your scallops then moving on. Then you use the small hole punch to punch a hole in the center of your scallop. To get to the center, I had to bend my scallop in half and just kind of nip it with the hole punch. No big deal. You just want the hole to be just as big or slightly bigger than the stick..so the petals don't just fall off! Then make cut out a leaf and use it to trace 24 leafs and cut them all out. Have your child sign their name on the back and then they or you can write the sentiment on the front. Or the magazine has them printed...but I didn't figure that out!

Then you need to cut out all the little bees from your scrapbook paper, cut 24 3 inch lengths of floral wire, and use the larger hole punch to punch a hole in your leaf. I wrapped the wire around a screwdriver a few times to give it a curl and then pierced it through the leaf and then bent the end and hot glued it with a tiny dab of glue. I bent the other end and hot glued it to the bee. Then ease it onto your stick and voila!

I think for 24 Valentine's it cost about $6

I

I think Jane's classmates are going to love receiving these!

And some buzzzzz for the upgraded Blogger! Wow...the changes they have made really are making a huge difference on the ease of blogging for me! Thanks!!

A Very Seussy 2nd Birthday

Teddy turned two!! So to celebrate we threw a Dr. Seuss/Cat in the Hat party! It was so fun and so cute!! And Dr. Seuss is so beloved that there are endless products and resources out there; so this party came together in a cinch!
I had to quickly take down my Christmas decor and put up party decor, but it offered last minute inspiration to change my containers and balls to the party colors instead of just taking them down all together. I already had the blue and red out from Christmas, I just had to grab the black from the basement where my box of master bedroom decor still lies waiting for me to finish decorating our bedroom since moving! The cute Cat in the Hat is a Build-a-Bear Jane built with her Papa maybe 2 or 3 years ago.
Here is the food area. We served Green Eggs and Ham of course. In the lunch bags were a juice box or can of soda, ham sandwich, chips, and a napkin. I learned the lunch bag trick from the fantastic Loralee Lewis. She runs NoFussFabulous.com to sell her amazing graphics. On the side we served deviled eggs with the filling died green. They were so cute! Also pictured are Oreo truffles dipped in blue and red melting chocolate with Happy Birthday toppers. These are my go to dessert because you can decorate them to go with any theme! You can also see a few of the pom poms that hung about. Thanks mom for doing the tedious job of fluffing them out. She said she would rather be cleaning my kitchen than puffing pom poms!
And here is what started it all! When I saw this post by Anj I fell in love with the idea and just had to have it for myself! I even decided that buying cupcakes from Costco like she did was a good idea...but was horrified a few days before the party (with everything that still had to be done due to procrastination) that Costco no longer does cupcakes! So I ordered them from Harmons and am not as happy with the results because they spray the frosting color and as you can see...it makes a mess on the whole cupcake! But the hats turned out great and they were super easy! Thanks for the idea and technique Anj...it is a party trick I have up my sleeve now (and if you are reading this, I would love to know where I can get the stands that you use for your parties!) If you look to the left of the photo and peer through the plastic lid, you can see the green eggs!
Because of the young age of the guest of honor, the only "activity" we had was watching an episode of "The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That!" Had I looked on the website before just now, I would have seen that they have super cute coloring pages I could have printed off and included in the favor bag! You can also see one of the many pennant banners that I had strung around the house. I got the printable file from Dimpleprints; it included sooo many items like several pennants, cupcake toppers, favor tags, invitations, thank you notes, food labels, juice box wrappers, and on and on! And then I had them printed at BYU's printing press. My brother-in-law just happens to work there, so I had him give me a quote, then I called everywhere else, and his price blew everywhere else out of the water, and I didn't get any sort of family discount. So...if you live in the area and need color printing done, that is the place to go!
Here is big sis Jane in her party outfit. This photo doesn't do it justice! What you don't see is the really cute ribbons that are also on the tutu, the black and white striped tights or the Cat in the Hat Converse shoes, or a smile! We'll have to get dressed again and have a separate photo shoot and try again! The birthday boy was also wearing a One Fish, Two Fish tee from Target and his own pair of Converse.
And here he is opening some presents! Can you see the birthday chair he is sitting on? Another inspiration from Anj! She is amazing!
And here is another amazing woman. It is my best friend Jocelyn and her cutie Brock (the only kiddo to keep his hat on the whole party)! She is the best gift wrapper in the world and on the day she showed up with ...
this! Isn't it amazing!
I didn't want Teddy to open it! I went ahead and let him because I get to see her art work everyday on my window cornice boards. One day I'll blog about them when I can get a good photo (it is hard because of the light coming behind the window). They are amazing!!
One last look at that beauty!
HaPpY bIrThDaY tEdDy!! You are a handful to be sure...but you bring such joy to our lives!
A few things about Teddy:

His favorite things are: his blanket, apples and other fruit, soup, bodily noises, watching shows, bathtime and Daddy!

Teddy hates: dip of any sort, mittens, but most of all Teddy HATES sharing!

Teddy is good at: throwing balls, driving his cozy coupe car, cuddling, and getting his way.

Linking to:

Discovery Gateway Children's Museum

Whoa...credit to the ladies who blog week in and week out (or daily) and never tire of it or persevere even though tired! A few weeks of steady posts from me and I was burnt out for months! My last post was about my daughter's first lost baby tooth. Since then she has lost the matching tooth and they are both almost grown back in! Well...in my time away from my computer I have been very busy. But on a nice slow summer day we took a family break and visted the local children's museum. Both of my kids had so much fun...but I was really surprised to see how much Jane was able to co-operate with the other big kids in the imaginary city to build a building and deliver mail and stuff like that. Since she was an only child for so long, she usually is good to just play on her own. So I was really pleased to see that developement in her.

My husband has been having fun editing photos and here is a great one. We were torn between naming it "A One, A Two, A One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six?" and "Xyloclones".

And here is Teddy playing in the awesome ball structure. My kids could and do play here for hours. In this particular section, a vaccuum sucks the balls up into the tubes and they go up and around and down into the ball depository. But there are all sorts of different ways to get your balls into the tubes and it provides for endless fun.

Jane gets ready for the Tooth Fairy

Jane lost her first tooth today. It has been loose for more than a week now. She has been ultra protective of it and refusing to bite food or even brush it. We were at my dad's house for a bbq and I said to Jane that if she let somebody pull it out today, that I would take her to Build-a-Bear tomorrow. She was sitting on her uncle Jason's lap. She asked him if I was cheating her and he said, "nope." So she opened her mouth and let him pull it out!! I couldn't believe it. A lot of crying ensued...but not because it hurt. She doesn't want to grow up and she doesn't want to loose her baby teeth. But she cheered up about an hour later and was excited to write the Tooth Fairy a note and get to bed.


Here is her new and improved Tooth Fairy Pillow. You might have seen the first one I made here. Or the inspiration and pattern for it here. I wasn't happy with the crazed look on the first one or it's skirt...so I tried again. This fairy sports a real tutu, improved expression and pocket on the back for a note for the Tooth Fairy and spot for the pack of gum and what not that she chooses to leave.

Gnome Town Terrariums

Ever since I first saw Amalie, I have been in love with gnomes. Here, there and everywhere you can find them making themselves at home in my house and in my garden. So, to be nice, I thought I would create a little natural habitat for them and then like a curator for a zoo, I captured them with a glass lid! It's ok...they all went in happily. They love to be observed!!

For Mother's Day, I asked for terrarium supplies which included containers, soil, gravel, carbon, and plants. Martha has a great tutorial here.

Here is Gneil sitting on a log.

And here is Gnoah taking a dirt nap. He is using rocks for a pillow! Silly gnome!

I have to confess that this is the second planting for these terrariums. I had put way to much water the first time...and the plants drowned. The hardest part is finding flowering plants that are short enough to fit my containers. But they are doing much better now! I love looking at them...they are such a charming addition to my home!

Porch Chairs Refresher

One day I thought..."Hey, these chairs are kind of blah." We have had them since we got married 9 years ago. I have always thought that they were indestructible.

But on closer inspection...I noticed that they were getting rusty. So...even more reason to clean them up and give them a fresh coat of paint.

I have spray painted a lot of things in my time...but these were tough! All the holes! All the angles! The clean up from the over-spray took as long as the spray painting did! (I used Krylon Cherry Red and I loved the ease of the nozzle, but the over-spray seemed ridiculous! I sprayed in my garage with a large tarp under and behind the project, and there was red dust from corner to corner of my garage. It didn't stick, so I just had to sweep it up...but it was messy!)

I love the results! The red chairs look fresh and summery! To entice neighbors to come over and stay awhile, I whipped up some outdoor pillows. I used one yard of Waverly's Sun and Shade fabric and at 40% off of $17.00 per yard, I wanted to use ever inch of it, and I did, selvage and all!

I used the little leftovers of the fabric for some rosettes. I added some burlap alongside the blue fabric to stretch my leftovers and to incorporate the burlap ties (I didn't have enough of the blue fabric to make ties...and in the windy city of Herriman, you need to tie your pillows to your chairs). I hot glued to rosettes and some red buttons to tie the whole look together. So cute!




I thought while I was at it, I would add a rug. I couldn't find anything that I liked that went with my color scheme, so I decided to make my own after being inspired by Jen's runner. I bought 4 cheapo rugs from Target and laid them out on the floor and taped them together with duct tape. Then I carefully flipped it over and hot glued ribbon on the seams. It is pretty sturdy... I have picked it up and shook it out a few times and it has been blown back into a crumpled heap by the aforementioned winds.
My porch definitely needed a makeover when competing with the stairs that have these beauties growing on them! (my first successful containers!)

Linking up my Red, White, and blue porch to: