DIY Teen Birthday Party

Without really meaning to, I  made Gloria a diy  (do it yourself) themed party for her and her friends.

Meaning, everything her and her friends did at the party they did themselves.  Does that make sense?

Let me get to the details…

They started with a flag bunting craft.  We cut out triangles with thick, white, denim  fabric, beforehand.  The girls were given permanent markers to write messages or draw pictures on the flags for Gloria. Then they could use a little dropper with what was supposed to rubbing alcohol to make the colors blur a bit.   I didn’t have rubbing alcohol on hand so we used nail polish remover and it worked the same.  The girls stayed occupied doing this for a long time.  I am going to sew the flags together so Gloria can hang it in her room.  I found the idea on pinterest (of course) but it is orginally found here.

Then the girls got to make their own pizza’s.  I had made the dough beforehand, and put the sauce, cheese and all the different toppings in different bowls. The girls rolled out their own dough and put whatever they wanted on their pizza’s.  I just had to pop it in the oven for them!Super easy, for me at least,  plus they really seemed to enjoy it!.  There was a lot of giggling.

The only set back was some of them had to wait a bit to get their pizza, since I could only fit 3 on a baking pan at a time.  

They finished off  with decorating the cake.

To be honest, I kind of ran out of time, and didn’t get to finish decorating the cake.  Weeks before I had thought of doing a graffiti type cake like my friend Denna did with her daughter but since I had no way of getting edible markers I had given up on the idea…  but that is the idea I came back to a few minutes before the party, as  stared at the white, boring cake.  I ended up making some “paint” colors.  I mixed gel food coloring with a little bit of water, corn syrup, and cherry extract (a random combination I came up with after a quick google search}. I wish I had had the time to play with the “paint” a bit more to get the right consistency but I  didn’t, so the colors ended up being a little runny and didn’t paint as thick as I would have liked.  The girls didn’t seem to care though.  They started painting dots but ended up just splattering the whole thing with the different colors.  Turned out pretty cute!

So that was my first time planning a teen girl birthday party, it was pretty fun!  The birthday girl was happy, and that’s what mattered most!

DIY – Fall Paper Bunting and Pinwheels

 

 

 

On my recent trip to San Diego I didn’t have a lot of $ to spend but I had a lot of extra time and I found myself drawn into Michael’s.   All that sweet craft staff was calling my name!  So I splurged, a little.  On this…

yes 2 sheets of scrapbook paper and some denim patterned duck tape (that was on sale for 30% off ).  I learned this summer that patterned duct tape is “in” these days, and since then I’ve been wanting to get some of my own.  It’s funny how something so small and simple can bring such joy.   A few days later I got to work.  I started with this fall/thanksgiving banner.  Cut out flags. Stamp on letters.  Cut strips of duck tape to stick the flags onto string.  Easy.

Then made a mini one to add some color to my picture frame.Really simple and easy to make.

Then I made some pinwheels to add to my fall table decorations.  On a side note, my older children were freaked out that I had bought a “halloween” pumpkin.  They were very confused as pumpkins here are a symbol of the darkness that takes place on halloween.  I simply explained that it is a vegetable that can be used for decoration and later for pies, and that we wouldn’t do anything “crazy” like carve it.  Interesting how christians in different cultures see things so differently.

I finished off the rest of the paper making a few pinwheels.  I found a tutorial here.  I hot glued mine together though (surprise, surprise).  

 

So those were my quick little fall crafts.  Well, they would have been quick if I hadn’t been interrupted 20 times by little people…  ha ha.  That’s life with kids!

My House and thoughts on design….

I love creating, making things with my hands, designing something old to look like new.

It brings me great joy!

A few years ago I realized I could put all those loves into use as I decorated and designed things for my home.

I want my home to be place that reflects my family, make outsiders feel welcome, and can be a creative outlet for all of us.

A couple of years ago I stumbled upon a blog that totally changed my view of how I set up my home.  The house I saw was so unlike any home I had ever seen before.  Ashley Anne’s house is not only beautiful but it displays her love for her family, and her desire to create.    I was inspired.  From then on I decided to let go of what I thought my house was supposed to look like and just be me.  Little by little I have worked on things here and there with what I had on hand to make my home a special place for my family.  I spent a very small amount of money, using second-hand furniture, spray pain, craft stuff I already had and a few little globos (market) treasures to bring life and color inside.  The job will probably never be complete, and I am more than ok with that.  My fried Claudine asked me a few months ago if she could take pictures of the main floor of my house.  I was pretty surprised.  I think most people must think my decorating is so weird.  Nothing is off-limits to me… yogurt containers, a log from my yard, car tires( in my dining room brought in after these photos were taken), anything can be beautiful if you want it too!   I try not to let myself to get too distracted by the projects I want to do.  My time with my kids is short.  At the end of the day what matters most is not the look, but how we as family live life together.

Decorating is a hobby for me. It is fun but not the most important.

I try not to spend too much time on it.  It’s what’s on the inside, between the walls and thrifted items, that really counts.

So those are my thoughts on decorating and design.  Oh and for the record my house is NEVER this clean!Please check out my friend Claudine’s blog.  You can see her post of the photos on her blog here.  She is a fantastic photographer, and is super creative.  (You can google translate her blog into English, that’s what I do)

DIY: Small Storage Containers

I can not throw away any type of plastic.  I feel too guilty.  It must come from all those years of school learning the 3  very important R’s (reduce, re-use, recycle).  So that said, I have a rather large stack of yogurt and cottage cheese containers under my sink.  I was looking for something to fill these small spaces on my old ikea shelf.  The containers fit perfect.   Next step was making them look cute.  I used some wood patterned foam sheets I found awhile back at a craft store here in town.  I just knew they would come in handy for something.  I cut them to size, then glued them onto the containers.  Did you know that Mexican’s love glue guns?  Yep they do.  They use them for everything…. hemming pants, hanging pictures, you name it.  Glue guns save lives around these parts.  Including mine.  No wonder I fit in here.  Anyways… then I worked on adding a little of life to them.  I played around with some of my favorite scrapbook paper, doilies, and some letters I had printed off.  Last step was to paint the lids with chalkboard paint.  The containers are perfect for storing anything little, that you usually can’t find a spot for. Mine hold marbles, little army men, Nerf bullets, extra game pieces, and I can’t remember what else at this moment.  The labels written with chalk make it easy to remember what’s in each.  Cute small storage containers.  Done.

DIY – Window Doily Decorations

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted a DIY project.  So… I wanted to beautify my boring window.  I used some doily’s from a previous failed project.  Don’t ask.  Lets just say that not everything from pinterest works like it should.  Any who,  I cut up the doily pieces and  then rearranged them on my table.  Then I sewed the ends together.  I added a little loop and button to hang them up nice and pretty.  Then I ironed them

I hung them up…

but they needed more color so I added mismatched colored buttons.  Then I smiled.

The END

Lego Star Wars Party

I thought I would share some pics from Kayden’s 5th birthday party in case any other Mom’s need some ideas for a Lego star wars party.  I found tons of ideas on pinterest, but this what we ended up doing…

I like to keep kids parties short, sweet, and full of things to do so that the kids don’t get into any trouble.  We started off with lunch, which was pizza that we ordered in.  Kids are so easy to please.  Saul had the idea of drawing lego faces on the balloons.Then we headed outside to play some games.  First it was a Lego hunt.  We hid Lego men and blocks all around the yard, and had the kids search for them.  Really easy game, and the kids had lot of fun.  Then we pulled out our big box of Lego and gave the kids 20 minutes to build the highest tower.  I was planning on giving prizes out, but could see that because of the competitive nature of the bunch of 4, 5 and 6 year old boys,  it was going to be a big problem.  Instead we declared the winners and then moved on to the next activity.  They didn’t seem to miss the fact that they didn’t win “something”.  Last game was a Lego relay, where the kids split into 2 teams and took turns carrying pieces of Lego on spoons.  We then moved on to the piñata.  Too bad my diy Lego piñata got so beat up.  We did rescue the head, and it’s now in the kids room.  To finish up the party we had some cupcakes and ice cream,  just in time for the kids parents to return. I didn’t have a cupcake stand so we quickly cut a 5 out of card board and covered it with red streamers.  I saw the star wars cup cake topper’s on my friend Denna’s blog (check out her son’s lego star wars party) but she got the printout from here.  It was, in my opinion, the perfect party.  Not too long, enough activities to keep everyone happy, but not enough time for the kids to start fighting!  You can see a few diy Lego ideas here for the invitations, favors and piñata.  Hope our party, can be a help to some one else!

DIY: Lego Invitations,Treats and Piñata

Back in April we celebrated Kayden’s 5th birthday.  He insisted in a Lego Star Wars theme.  Yes, that’s right.  Not just Lego, but Lego  Star Wars… good grief.  Thankfully, I am usually up for a challenge, especially when it involves parties and decorating.  I was able to find a ton of ideas on pinterest, so it ended up being ok.  I just love how easy the internet makes it to share info and ideas… especially important things like Lego inspiration.  I wanted to share a few things I did, so that it could hopefully help other Moms who get stuck blessed with the same situation as me.

First came the Lego invites.  I made up a quick template then traced and cut out the heads on foam sheets.  I let Kayden draw some of the faces, but Saul did most of them.  I downloaded a free Lego font (I can’t remember from where) and used it for the party info.  The I just glued it onto black cardstock paper Super quick, easy and cute.

For party favors, I made giant Lego heads out of marshmallows.  I bought 2 sizes of marshmallows, huge and regular size.  I melted the candy coating in the microwave and then add in some shortening (or mateca in spanish) to thin it out a bit.  Then I added yellow color that is especially made for candy coating.  I used a lot.  I cut the smaller marshmallows in half and stuck them on the big marshmallows with a little of the coating.  Then I dipped the whole thing in the yellow coating.  I then stuck them on the tops of bottles to dry.  Last step was to draw on the faces with melted chocolate.  I stuck them in a bag with a few other treats and tied on a little mini Lego coloring book that I found and printed off for free here.  

My most favorite diy from the part was the piñata make over.  It happened kind of by accident.  We went to the store to pick out a piñata.  There is usually a huge selection to choose from the candy stores here, as you probably know piñatas are a pretty big thing here in Mexico.  He picked superman.  Or so  I thought.  When we got home we realized it looked  a lot more like superwoman.  Oops.  But like I said, I like a challenge so I decided to make superwoman into a Lego Luke Skywalker.  I ripped off all the paper that was covering the base form.  Then I cut a hole for the candy.   The kids helped me stuff it with goodies.  Then we taped him (her? lol) up.  Then I started to recover it with, first, office paper and then tissue paper.  I started out using white glue but it was too messy, and the paper stuck to the tissue paper so… I ended up using my trusty glue gun. Sigh.  I love glue guns!  For the most part, it was pretty easy.  It took about an hour and I did right before the party started.  The light saber was made with a toilet paper roll and paper towel roll taped together, then recovered with tissue paper.  The final details were made with permanent marker.  Not bad, right?  To bad he was beat up with a baseball bat couple of hours laterSo those were some diy details of our Lego Star Wars party.  Hopefully it will be helpful to some one.  Later I’ll show some pics of the actual party!

DIY – frame with hanging photos

My walls are concrete.  That is a problem when you want to hang up a picture.  You can’t just quickly put in a little nail….. no you have to drill a screw in.  Not so simple, and not so great if you change your mind about where you want it.  That said, I have been forced to find some creative solutions to hang up my pictures.  I started with this…  It was in my house when we moved in.  Don’t you just love the brown sky and matching brown ship?  Gag.

I had no problem taking apart the frame and ripping out the painted fabric.  I ironed the fabric I had chosen to replace it.  It was a little too bold for me so I covered it with a sheer fabric to tone it down a bit.  I trimmed the edges.I wrapped the fabric around the  inside frame.
Then I tightened the fabric and nailed it into place on the outside.  A stapler would have been a lot easier and faster but Saul’s’ was buried somewhere in his truck and I didn’t want to waste time looking for it.  I also added a string to hang photos on.  Then I popped the inner frame back into the outer frame.The final touch was adding a bit of scrap doily that I hot glued to a  little chalkboard that I had broken the frame of and was hoping to find a use for.  So glad I saved it.  Then I just shoved it into the corner.  It was a really easy and quick project.  I like that I can change the pictures easily when I want..  I just love being able to transform something so ugly into something beautiful!

DIY: TOMS Patch

So I have wanted a pair of TOMS for a while.  Not only are they super cute, but every time you buy a pair, another pair is donated to a child in need.  Who wouldn’t wanted to support something like that?  I have pretty poor access to any store right now, not to mention it’s not in the missionary budget , so I have accepted the fact I will probably not own a pair… unless they show up in globos.  I did happen to find a pair there for my daughter last week.  They were a little worn with holes in the toes, but I immediately remembered this post from one of my favorite blogs.  I decided they were worth the 10 pesos (about 75 cents)  and I patched them up like Ashley did.

First I made a little pattern by tracing the shoe.  I decided to use denim because it matches with almost anything and is pretty durable.

Then I cut them out.

I added some little ruffles by cutting little strips and sewing them on.  To make ruffle, scrunch up fabric as you are sewing.  If that makes sense.

Then I glued on the patch.

Pretty cute for recycled TOMS.

At least one of us gets to stay in  fashion, hee hee.

DIY – Framed Photo Collage

 

I thought I would share a little project I did recently… I was asked to do “something” with a bunch of old photos.  I had seen this idea on pinterest and decided to make my own giant photo collage.  I bought the frame at globos for 20 pesos, and spray painted it red.  I won’t go into all the details, as you can read them in the original post, but here is a quick run down.  Measure the sides to figure out the size of photo you need for it to fit.  I had a hard time with that part and ended up cutting it wrong.  Opps.  I made it work though.  Then cut down all the pics to the same size, and arrange them onto the cardboard.  Stick them on cardboard with double-sided tape.  Then paint on a layer of modpodge… or 2.  I only had enough for one coat and it worked out fine.  I finished it off with a blue border that I made with painting tape.  Then I painted some chipboard letters and hot glued them into place.  Thought I would share the idea, since it’s always nice to have new ways to display pictures.  For those of you who have been here, this is now hanging in the dorm building.