More party prep

Isn't A talented?!  I helped, but she got the hats made, then came over and finished embellishing them.  I have a big tin of buttons and a bag of feathers, A had made sme fabric flowers.  Everything came together beautifully, I think.

 Here's Eliz's hat, I'm going to hot glue it onto a headband, and put clips for the others.  I let her pick which one would be hers, then added stuff until it seemed finished.

I took Eliz and we made the multiple rounds to as many Godowill stores as we could.  Check out the white rabbit figure!! I was estatic that I found it.  The tea party is going to be in a meadow behind our neighbor's house, so I'm going to place the white rabbits stratigically, and have the guests follow the white rabbit to the party.  We picked the bright colored Afgans as tableclothes, and tried to find some fun bright colored pieces for the table decor.

 Love Goodwill for teapots, teacups, and saucers!

We've had so much fun preparing for this, I know the party is going to be awesome!

Hat making with Adriane

A came over and showed me how to make Mini Top Hats for the party.  I let Eliz pick out a couple of Fat Quarters to use.  We got two or three kind of done before she had to go, so, alas, she'll have to come again.  We tried to watch some Firefly, but the kids were around to much for it.  Maybe next time?

The invites!

I will admit, I had an obnoxiously good time making these.  Eliz and I got this idea from Pinterest, of course!  Since we didn't have to mail any of the invites, half of them could be handed out at church, and the other half I knew we would be seeing in the next couple of days, we went with kind of large boxes.  Remeber the things I made?  Well, you only saw half of them, and I was in too a big hurry to get them finished and delivered to take pictures before I did the next step.  The next step was to wrap each item in fuzzy yarn with a  'Pull Me' tag on the very end.

Then I made orgiami boxes from heavy weight scrapbook paper.  I got a big package of paper using a coupon at Jo-Ann's.

I printed the invites myself, since nothing looked the way we wanted it to.  I cut them so one piece was shorter than the other.

 I had fun picking quotes to use with them, I won't lie.  Of all the DIY I did for this party, the printing the invites was the most stressful and time consuming.  I'm getting a headache remembering it!

 But I love, love, love how these turned out!  I made sure the colors for the invites were all different and when I put the invites in the boxes, I again made sure they were different colors.  You can see them, kind of, in the next picture in the top of the boxes.

Pretty little boxes all in a row

And tied with a ribbon.

 

My mother's toaster oven hates me

I told my Mom my plans to makes things for Eliz's invites, and she gave me a large box of polymer clay & tools.  She also gave me a toaster oven, so the polymer clay wouldn't stink up my oven, or permeate it with toxic fumes.  So, here are my polymer clay figures, all Alice in Wonderland inspired, of course.

 AND, here they are after 45 seconds - not kidding, 45 seconds! - in my Mom's toaster oven.

I tried a second time at a lower temperature, and it happened again!  Something is wrong with the thermometer.  So, I'll be using my oven.  And I'll probably have to wait a few days until I'm not so angry before I can do it.  I'm an emotional artist.  I can't wait that long, we've only got 3 weeks until the party.  Luckily, I sent unofficial email invitations a week ago, and these are the official invites.

Prep for Eliz's Party

When Eliz started talking about her birthday a couple of months ago, I promised her that if the contract was ratified, she could have a birthday party.  Seeing as how I'm a planner, I asked her what was most important to her to have at her 8th birthday party.  She requested 3 things:

1. Sleepover 

2. Tea Party

3. Gifts

 

She also named people she wanted to come, but I told her the guest list could wait. We have been talking about it every now and then, and I have been asking her different questions about food, games and decorations.  She said she wanted bright colors, which makes sense, she's not often drawn to soft pastels.  I pulled up some pins on Pinterest of Mad Hatter Parties, and some pins of regular tea parties, and she was gaga for the Mad Hatter Theme. 

The contract was ratified last week, (jump for joy-I did) which means I had a couple of weeks before I could start buying when we started planning, so Eliz and I searched Pinterest & Google looking for ideas for her party. We made a pin board just for it, and I let her pick the cover; it's the little thigns.  We found that niether of us liked the party in a box stuff.  We also watched as many Alice in Wonderland movies as we could, as research.  Her decided favorite is the new one with Johnny Depp.  I made these little teacups from polymer clay to test my skills.  I discovered a few things, like, fingerprints don't come off once cooked, and white can turn brown from dirty hands.  In a few days I'll be making some, ah, well, things out of polymer clay to use with her invites.  I can tell I'm going to have a blast getting ready for the party.  I hope the it's as much fun!

The first Christmas project of the season

Apple Cinnimon Ornaments.

Start with 1/2 cup applesauce, and 1/2 to 2/3 cup Cinnamon, mix together.  The correct consistency is very gooey playdoh, it will be very tacky, but it shouldn't be sticky.  You may want to do your mixing outside, the Cinnamon gets overwhelming fast!

 You can roll it out if you have a plastic or metal pin, or just use your fingers.  Then use cookie cutters to cut your dough into shapes.

 Lay them on paper plates or the wrong side of a cardboard box, in our case, a cereal box.  Use a pencil to make holes in the ornaments, then let them dry for about a week.

 I put it in the garage to dry to keep safe from curious people.  Bry-D couldn't figure out why it seemed so Christmas-y in there.

Why does the 6 year old take such good candid shots of me, while most other times I have adouble chin or something in my teeth?

A beautiful Day!

I have every window in the house open. & it smells wonderful in here. Went to a friend's house this morning, we played outside, and ate lots of Easter candy. On my way there I saw two Yard Sale signs. Told Chel, so we went together. @ the first yard sale I found some dinosaur tattoos in the free box, Chel found a shirt for Eliz, and then a plush Superman that looked brand new for $.50. Made her little guy's day. Eliz found a small dinosaur; there were lots of toys and kids stuff, just nothing I was really interested in. We went to sale #2-much more my kind of thing. Had a great vintage red bike, I didn't dare test to see if it still worked-if it did, I would have had to buy it. Lots of great glass decanters and bottles. A vintage mirror that would look great in the hallway to our room. Had to get Lex home, and I didn't have any $$ with me. Chel offered to loan me, but I wasn't sure what I wanted. Went back with a $20. Bike was gone, so was the mirror. I ended up with a bunch of glass containers. Some soda bottles, canning jars and then a few that are just fun. They are _very_ dirty, so I'll soak them then vinegar them.

The other day I posted a link to a video for a song called art. I love both the song and the video, and was inspired to make some watercolor pictures. But we don't have any watercolors. I didn't feel like going to the store just for watercolor paints, so we made them. It's really easy, probably the only thing that's not a staple item is glycerin. I knew I had some, so Eliz and I a good time mixing the ingredients.

Then we put it into an egg carton. I realised a little late we had too much in each compartment-it's only supposed to take overnight for them to dry-it'll be a couple days, I'm sure.Also realised too late that I'd put to much purple food coloring in one of them-it's dried into a plum color.

Basic colors, but the mixture is hard to stir

Finished product. The top row is where Eliz tried to make black. I can't tell if it's black or very dark green or very dark purple. The other dark purple leaked into the first blue, so we ended up with a very pretty blue-violet.