Ballerina Birthday

Happy 4th birthday to my sweet little, lady Olivia. As you can see we had a ballerina themed birthday this year.  Olivia loves to dance and the color pink so I felt this was the perfect party to create for her.  The beautiful picture of Olivia was taken by Provosto Photography, She is a military wife and knows how to use natural light to make a picture come to life.  Thank you Amber for these memories!!

I went small on the treats this year, as we are living in a new location with not as many friends to attend the celebration.  The cake was a double chocolate cake with pink butter cream and home made fondant flowers.  http://www.howdoesshe.com/easy-marshmallow-fondant-you-can-do-it/#  here is the link on how to make Fondant, super easy!!

Ballerina dress cupcakes

I used a small heart cutter for the top of the dress. I used fondant but suggest you use modeling chocolate as it is a stiffer medium. Butter cream was used to design the tutu part Wilton tip # 104.  Cake was a vanilla cake with fresh strawberries.

Marshmallow ballerina slippers

I have a bow chocolate mold that I first filled and allowed to set.  Then insert the stick into the top of a big marshmallow.  Melt pink melting chocolate (make sure to add a little veggie oil to thin out), dip the sides set down on wax paper to harden. (tip I throw them into the fridge)  Put left over pink chocolate into a sandwich bag.  Cut the tip off the bag and pipe the strings onto the front of the slipper.  Add a little chocolate to the stick and place bow onto the chocolate.



 

Welcome to our party set up: You will see a lot of pink :)  The banners where made with my silhouette cutter which I just love when it comes to making things for parties!! The flowers where designed by my wonderful mother-in-law.

Party Favors: I made Tutu's for each little lady that came to the party and also had a friend make hair bows.  Instead of goodie bags I did goodie jars filled with candy. 

Oh course every party must have a party game: We played pin the tutu on the ballerina

Then we had an art time where the girls made ballerina hand dresses and the boys created a hand pirate.  I used my cutter to cut out the leotard and then glued it on so the girls only had to go the hand prints.  It was a very fun and super cute project. 

I am blessed to have my little lady but cannot believe she is already four.  My prayer is for her to have a great year of learning and adventures!!

 

Tea Party for a Princess

      Every little princess should have a tea party, may it be big or small.  I am six months pregnant and have been quite ill for the majority of the time.  I have felt so guilty about not being able to do much with my three year old I felt we needed to have a little tea party for her to meet a couple of the girls around us.  She was in seventh heaven while I was making all the little treats and when the girls all came in their pretty dresses.  It warmed my heart to see her love every moment and I cannot wait to build more memories as the years go by.

  


















    We had tea sandwhiches, fruit, and veggies.  Then Mini cupcakes and rice treats, along with Lemon tea and Lemonade.  The theme was flowers and butterflies with tons of pink.  Each girl got to paint a butterfly picture frame which was so much fun to see their creative side. 
I am so blessed to be a mom of a great little girl and cannot wait for more smiles and tea parties!!

Art is the theme part 2

I have found its hard to have a birthday party with a ton of small children during the present time. Therefore I try to have a grand little party favor for each child that is given right after presents are opened.   This year being an art theme I found disposable paint buckets to hold all the favor goodies.

I then got most of the filler things at the dollar store or the dollar section at Target.  To add our own personal touches we created shaped crayons, Kool-aid play dough, and moon sand. 

Shaped Crayons:
crayons
hammer
silicone mold

I found that if you only put two colors in a mold at a time you have a much better looking shaped crayon.  My little lady put all the colors together and most of them looked like black and brown stars.

Step one:  peel all the crayons and separate by color.

Step two:  Brake up the crayons into tiny pieces.  We used a piece of plywood and wax paper for pounding on and an hammer. 

Step three:  Put broken crayons into the silicone mold spots.  Turn on oven to 350 degrees.   Place mold onto a cookie sheet and put into the oven for five minutes.  Check if all the molds are melted then they are done.  Place onto counter and allow to cool completely.  Pop out of the molds and they are ready to be used.

 

Kool-aid play dough

 

1 cup flour                                 2 tbsp cream of tartar

1/2 cup salt                                2 tbsp oil

1 packet of kool-aid mix           1 cup water

 

Combine the dry ingredients into a stockpot.  Add the oil and water slowly.  Stir until well combined.  Turn on stove to medium heat and stir until the mixture turns into stiff dough.  Put onto wax paper and knead until cool.  Time for playing!! To store put into a zip lock and squeeze out all the air.  Will last for a couple weeks.

Moon Sand:

 

6 cups colored play sand

2 cups cornstarch

1/2 cup glitter (optional)

1 1/2 cups of water

 

Mix sand and cornstarch until smooth.  Slowly add water and stir slowly.  You will want the consistency of stiff wet beach sand. Store in airtight container.

Warning VERY messy!!!

 

 



Rice Garden

My little girl is growing up so fast and wants to do everything that Mommy does.  So I bought her a Kitchen so she could bake when I bake. Her Nana got her a vacuum to help mommy clean the house. Now I have a garden and she wants to dig in it and pull up all the plants.  Therefore we made a fun little colorful rice garden.

Things needed:
25 lbs of long gran rice
1 bottle of rubbing alcohol
3-4 different colors of food coloring
Gallon Zip lock bags
something to  lay rice on to dry (cookie sheets with edges)
Wooden spoon
Plastic tub with Lid
Sand toys

How to make:

One color = Zip lock bag (double bag) fill with 8 cups of rice, 18 drops of food color, and 3 tablespoons of alcohol  (I had to make two of these bags of the same color to fill my tub)
Zip close both bags and shake until all the rice is covered with the coloring.
Spread out colored rice onto cookie sheet and allow to sit out in the sun to dry. After 15 minutes use the spoon to stir so the bottom rice is allowed to dry.
Pour colored rice into the play tub and add toys to play!!

Old to New

DO you have furniture that needs a face lift??  I did big time and I just had no money to buy new stuff and I felt stuck until a friend started to give her furniture a face lift.  She would share her finished produces on face book and I said to myself I can do that!!  My first project was a desk, chair, and book shelf for the guest room. Then I worked on my dresser but only painted the drawers.  Moving to the kitchen I re-did a hutch with a material back ground.  My daughter's room has been the last room I have worked on, in fact her dresser has just been finished.  I hope you find some inspiration in these projects I have done.  I loved every moment in working on them.

Of course I painted the desk: bottom cream and the top a green.  I found a glass shop in town that made the top for me so that I could add pictures underneath.  The handles I found on eBay.

Guest room desk



The desk chair was an old chair handed down and I painted and recovered.  I have fallen in love with the material I found for this chair.

 

My dresser happened on accident, I had first found the handles on eBay. Then I found this blue that I loved.  I was planning on doing the whole dresser in the blue but once the drawers where done I realized it would be way to much and stopped at that point.  It took a few days of looking at the finished produce before I feel in love with it. 


Master room dresser
 

My kitchen hutch is one of my most favorite pieces.  I painted it the same green I did the desk and chair.  But I found a piece of material for the backing that helped give it the character that I wanted.  To add material to anything you only need Mod Podge paste and Mod Podge finishing spray.  I was not told about the finishing spray and I used Mod Podge paste on many things such as the hutch and it stuck to my wall and that did not turn out good.  With the spray it will take away the stickiness of the paste.  I got the knobs at Lowes.


Kitchen Hutch
 

Now to the dresser in my little girl's room.  I used many different things to create this look.  I painted the main body a fancy pink.  The top two drawers I covered with a fun material and the rest of the drawers I used chalk board paint.  I thought it would be fun to write on the drawers so I went with the paint.  Now with using Chalk board paint you will need to put many coats on.  With each coat you need to use a very thin sanding paper and sand each layer.  Once you have finished take chalk and coat the top to prepare it for writing on, and if you do not prepare the surface then wiping off the words will not be easy.  The knobs came from Hobby Lobby.

Lit' girls dresser

 

Supplies needed to redo your furniture

 

The piece you want to redo :)

Sand paper

Primer (Zinsser 123)

Paint (latex)

Protecting (water based Polyurethane)

Of course if you are wanting to add a little character with material you will need:

Material

Mod Podge Paste

Mod Podge finishing spray

 



 

Fun Storage/seating for a little kids room

Ms. Olivia's room is coming right along and the newest addition would be the animal storage and seating I have added.  These where sooooooo soooooo easy to make.
I have them set-up under her window like a bench. As you can see we put the animals in to look like a little jail, which Olivia loves!

What you will need to create these:
Crates
Foam for the seat                                    
Material
Plywood
A hot glue gun



Step one:  Buy all the materials: Buy the crates first and measure the top of the inside ledge. Then go to a store like Lowe's and find a piece of plywood.  Have them cut the wood into the measurements you need to fit the inside ledge of the crate.  Then go to the craft store and buy the foam and material, plus hot glue supplies.
Step two: Cut foam to the same size of the plywood.  Then using the hot glue gun attach the foam to the plywood.
Step three:  Measure and cut materiel.  You want to make sure that the material fits all the way around the seat.  You are going to glue the materiel down on the underneath side of the plywood.  Glue all the sides of the materiel onto the plywood, while doing this make sure you are pulling the materiel tight so it fits snug over the seat.
Step Four:  Put any toys inside the crate and place the seat on top.  And enjoy!!