Halloween 2011

Madie wanted to be Princess Aurora this year for Halloween. So we went to Joann and got some pink sparkly satin for her dress. I was inspired by this post at Crafterhours. Madie then decided that she needed a Prince Phillip to go with her costume so daddy got the part. Once that was decided, Zach kept asking me what I was going to be and we settled on Maleficent (since there was a witch costume in my mom's closet already).

Prince Phillip's hat was made using two sheets of felt and the cape is from a shirt from the dollar store. I would have liked the cape to be a few inches wider, but it was slim pickings when I went. I used this template for the Maleficent headpiece. I cut four pieces out of black knit, sewed two together and stuffed each with batting then glued them to a headband. The staff is a piece of pvc pipe wrapped in black electrical tape. The ball is a plastic ornament that I coated the inside with green food coloring mixed with some Mod Podge. Right before our party last night I broke a glow stick, cut it open and poured it into the ornament. I covered the opening with a little piece of plastic wrap secured with a pony holder and then wrapped the electrical tape around it to attach it to the pvc pipe. I also added a crow from the dollar store to the top of the ornament using E6000 glue. I am so pleased with how it turned out. It looked awesome when it was glowing and since the ornament is just tapped to the pipe I can take it off and add a new glow stick for tomorrow night.

Happy Halloween!

Animal Ears Headbands

You can now get the templates for these animals here and if you would rather purchase them already made you can do so here (with a few new additions)!

So a couple of weeks ago I showed you the wedding dress-up that I made for my niece for Christmas. Her little sister is not so much into dressing up...at least not with the fancy dresses. She usually plays the part of the kitty cat or the butterfly. So I decided to add to her dress up wardrobe with these animal headbands.

From left to right and top to bottom: bunny, giraffe, bee, fox, monkey, jaguar, pig, mouse, lion, cow, sheep & elephant. Some of the ears might seem really low on the headband (monkey, pig & elephant), but once they are on a head the placement makes more sense and looks really cute.

Here are the backs of some of them.
Cow -

 Jaguar -

 Fox -

Some of the ears are one piece that wraps around the headband, like the pig.

On some of them the front and the back are two separate pieces that overlap on the underside of the headband, like the monkey. See that line down the middle?

 Some are just glued to the tops of the headbands, like the jaguar.

Most of them have pipe cleaners in the middle so that the ears can bend and to help with stability.
And what's a post about animal headbands without a little model action? The pig is one of my favorites (Madie's too). I'll definitely be making a second pig headband so that one can stay at our house.

You can now get the templates for these animals here and if you would rather purchase them already made you can do so here (with a few new additions)!

Scrapbooking the cheating way

So remember when I told you about a calendar I found? Remember? Probably not, here is where I talked about it. Basically it is a calendar that is scrapbook page layouts. It is meant for kids so the quality isn't the greatest. The pages are kind of thin so areas that are white you can see through to the calendar on the back side. But I was able to scrapbook 2 years of our lives in just a few hours. I worked on it after Madie went to bed (not for more than 3 hours at a time) for a couple of nights one week.
Here is one of the finished pages. All I really had to do was add some pictures and some journaling. But I decided to take it one step further. I added a few embellishments to each page.

Here you can see the hat and eyes I added to the snowman.

The buttons and ribbon atop the printed tag.

And a snowflake in the corner of the picture.

It was so easy and so fast. I think I'll keep doing this in the future. Here are a few other pages I really liked.

The Halloween one is my favorite. I love the googly eyes on the pumpkins! Heads up...I'll be sharing another great way of scrapbooking that might also include a giveaway! ;)

Etched glass temple block

Etched glass projects are a little difficult to photograph. Here is the best shot I got of my etched glass temple block. I just got a clear glass block from Home Depot for around $5, cut the Mesa temple out onto vinyl using my Silhouette and then added the etching cream. I left it on for 20 minutes instead of the 5 recommended on the bottle. I read reviews on other blogs and the general consensus was to leave it on for 20-30 minutes. It looks really pretty with a candle lit behind it or just near a window where the light can shine through it. I also made one as a wedding present for my sister-in-law.

Fall/Halloween Mantel...a little late

So time slipped away from me again. I've been busy working on a felt quiet book, a Princess Aurora costume (along with Prince Phillip for daddy and Maleficent for myself), and more Christmas gifts. Like promised, here is my fall/Halloween mantel.

How about a few close ups?

The pumpkin is a can painted orange with gold shimmer Mod Podge over the top and a green sparkly pipe cleaner for the vine. The two smaller ones on the other side of the mantel also have a cork for the stem but I ran out so the big pumpkin is stem-less. The mummy is a can painted white with strips of cheese cloth wrapped around and secured in a few places with hot glue. I added some large googly eyes and dabbed a few areas with distress ink (not that you can really see that in this picture, but in real life it looks good). Then there is also a coffee filter pumpkin that I made last year.

One more?

I loved this the second I saw it on Pinterest! I couldn't believe people actually took the time to hot glue on each individual eye. There was no way I was going to do that. So I came up with a better way...Mod Podge! I love Mod Podge (seriously, I own 7 or 8 different kinds). I painted my frame black. Let that dry then painted on a small area of Mod Podge and stuck the eyes on. I worked in 2 inch sections so that it wouldn't dry before I got the eyes on. It went so fast this way. Seriously, less than 30 minutes including painting and waiting for paint to dry! I added a cute ribbon and a picture from Halloween of last year. I love it! 

If you want any more details of how I made any of my decorations, just ask. I'd be happy to share!

Dress Up - Bride

Christmas is approaching. This year I am on the ball...so far...we'll see how long it lasts! Most of my in-laws are taken care of so now I've started working on my side of the family. 

I made this cute bride dress up for my niece. The skirt flares out at the bottom more than what shows in this picture. I made the bodice peasant style so that she can easily get it on and off by herself. I also made a veil to go with it, much like the one in this post.

I did make the denim Tinkerbell backpack like I talked about in my last post (over a month ago...yikes!). I'll try to remember to get pictures of it this week. Also, on deck for this week *hopefully* - my fall/halloween mantel (including an easy way to make the super popular googly eye frame like seen here), an etched glass project & how I managed to scrapbook 2 years of my family's life in just a few days.

If you want more details on how I made the dress let me know, I'd be happy to share.