3rd Dino Party Done!

The dino party is done and it was a success.

The decorating consisted of leaves, vines and even some flowers. I hand cut most and then used my Cricut for others. The store bought decorations that I used where picked up on clearance at Target. I love to score decorations for a dollar or less.

On Pintrest I noticed all the dino eggs and could not resist making them. I am so glad my sister came to help me make the goody bag...dino eggs. Here is a little something I learned: flour paper mache takes a long time to dry. I only had a few days to make the eggs so we used Modge Podge. While this may be an expensive avenue, the drying time between coats is 20 minutes. We could not have made 20 if we where waiting hours for things to dry. We used brown and tan tissue paper as the final layer to give them a uniform finish.

Amazon was my dino headquarters. I found dino masks, bubbles, stamps, temporary tattoos, small figures and piñata. I also ordered a silicone dinosaur mold. I was really worried that the mold would not arrive in time. The mold came all the way from China. I used our favorite brand of dipping chocolate and made some candies we all loved.

Here are some pictures of the party.

The goodie bag EGGS. They where a huge hit.

Paper towel roll tree. Made two of these.

Cricut cut dinos for the cake.

Palm trees.

Looking at the room.

Christmas gifts

I am working on a couple of items for my daughter's Christmas. I have painted the "fridge" for my daughter's doll. My next step is to make food to fill it. I found a really good site with food printables. Paper Minis has pritables for doll house size and 18" doll size. The scale for AG dolls is 1:3.  

I have a Muffy pie cabinet I found at goodwill which will make a good pantry. 

I am trying to be as frugal as I can and looking everywhere for ideas. So, look what I found today at Tom Thumb:

 I found the same brand of appetizer forks alone. I had them in my cart and then I came across the whole set. I recently purchased square plates for our household. I just LOVE these little ones. I can't wait to give these to my daughter for her dolls. Oh, and it was about $5.00 so my wallet is happy too.

I have been so busy, but I do have more I want to share. The dino party was a huge sucess, keep an eye out for that update.

Thanks for coming by.

Yadi

3rd Birthday Party Time

I have stated before how much I love birthday parties. Well, in a couple of weeks my little guy turns 3. I went back and forth between a Mickey party or a dinosaur party. I asked him again last week and he said dinosaur. So the theme is set!! (Yes, I did have to send out invites on short notice. His birthday snuck up on me.)

Of course my first stop is ALWAYS Pintrest. I loved the parties where they used their plants from all over the house to decorate one room. Too bad for me I have a black thumb. Plants just DIE around me. What this leaves me with is making my own plants.

I picked up packaging paper at the dollar store and made vines to hang. (You just scrunch and twist.) Thanks for my stash of scrapbook paper, I have leaves. I used a Cricut to cut some of the leaves and then just free handed others. I made large leaves and small leaves. I also made flowers. If you google prehistoric flowers, there are some really pretty ones.

I have made a couple of trees for the table. My local dollar tree had some 2 oz Mod Podge. I picked up a couple. This allows me to do small projects without having to open my big 16 oz bottle.

Inspiration hit this morning and I made the door decoration. I also sketched a dino on a poster board. I will paint it later or maybe tomorrow when all the kids are in school.

I can't wait to finish up the decorations. I just have to wait out Halloween. 

Here are some pictures of my progress. Keep an eye out for an update on the party.

 

 Thanks for stopping by! 

Hand Made Christmas

I have never been very confident in my ability to do anything well enough to have a hand made Christmas. I am a beginner at sewing, amateur jewelry maker and amateur crafter.

Since my daughter is American Girl obsessed, as I have said in previous posts, I am going to make some of her gifts. I found a little cabinet at goodwill which I think will make a perfect little fridge. I will be crafting items to go inside of it. I am also thinking of adding images to the insides of the doors that reflect the inside of a fridge. I am not sure where I will find the images, but I will have to look around.

I also found a little pantry at goodwill; it already contained two pies. I am going to paint this as well since I think it would look weird to leave it white when I am painting the little "fridge" black.

My local Tuesday Morning happened to have some 18 inch dolls. They also had a cute table and chairs set for $20. I was so excited. I know she is going to love these. I am making some little seat cushions and a table cloth.

My 8 year old son is into video games and I really can't think of ANYTHING to get him or make him. I really limit how much he can play video games during the week.


I guess I will be looking around on Pintrest for any ideas for my boys. If you see anything...let me know!!

The "fridge" I found. Needs some paint.

Needs some paint on the inside too and maybe some "fridge" images.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Since I have a couple of face painting jobs coming up I have been practicing as much as possible.

I am so lucky to have such great kids. They sit really still for me and are very patient.

Of course, the easiest place to practice is the inside of my left arm. I practice not just to get faster at my images but to also learn the paint consistency.

Butterfly Hole Punch Has Broken

I have loved my butterfly hole punch. I have a box full of beautiful butterflies I have punched from magazines. Now that I won't be using my hole punch again, I guess it's time to do something with all my butterflies.

I was at a thrift store last week and found a couple of cooling racks. I am going to make some butterfly mobiles. These have always been my plans for the butterflies, but I always put other projects first.
In honor of my broken hole punch, I am going to make one.

I didn't realize how much loosing my hole punch would bum me out. I receive various magazines and I always automatically look at the color combinations I could use my butterfly punch on. Now I flip through my magazines and think "what if."

So if you have an extra butterfly hole punch...or if it is sitting in a drawer somewhere gathering dust...I would LOVE to have it.

Face Painting Supplies

I am not a professional face painter. I have been painting on my children for a while now and even paint on other people's children periodically. I have an upcoming birthday party I am "working." I am really looking forward to this job.

I did a post in the past about just jumping in and painting you children's faces without any fear. In that post, I talked about the paints I picked up at WalMart that got me started. I have moved on a little more into the world of face painting but still do not consider myself a professional. I did want to share with you some of the things I have learned about face paints so that those of you who are on their journeys like myself can share in what I have learned.

The cheap kits sold at Halloween are fun because, if you get them on clearance, they are very inexpensive. I do not like the grease paints. They are sticky, get soft the longer you hold them and are a real pain to get off. Use a little cold cream to help remove the color stain. Halloween kits can also come with the dry paint that requires a little water to activate. Water based colors go on easy. These cheap paints can also stain some: cold cream.

As I have progressed to painting more faces and wanting to do more styles, I found myself expanding my paint supplies. The next face paint brand I purchased was Snazaroo. Snazaroo paints are easy to work with, they come off with a baby wipe and the color pallet was nice. The kit I purchased really let me try out the paints without committing to large quantities.When I received my kit in the mail, one of the colors was broken. Then while putting it away and taking it out, another color popped out of it's place and eventually broke was well.

I began to research buying professional paints. Boy, is that overwhelming. Because I had a prime membership, I stayed with Amazon to buy my paints. I picked up a Fazmataz rainbow split-cake similar to this. (Primary colors not neon.) I found that the color was not very bold on this brand. I used this at the field day for my son and found the colors faded bad. I now use this as my background to some designs.

I read that many professionals use Wolfe brand paints so I purchased a large (45g) orange, brown and red. I LOVE them. Wolfe is bright, easy to paint with and requires only a little to get good coverage. I bought Tag in black and white because they where a little less expensive. Tag is great as well. I know that eventually I will purchase all my primary colors as well as pink and purple in Wolfe or Diamond FX (which gets great reviews), but this will require a major investment.

I hope I didn't babble to much. This post has not been sponsored by any brand or is this post anybody's opinion except my own.

I would love to hear what your favorite paints are or maybe what your favorite split-cake is. I am still learning. I will be the first to always say I am not a professional, but always a student.

I used my rainbow split-cake and my new Wolfe orange.

 

The split-cake makes a quick background.