WillowBean: birthdays

Showing posts with label birthdays. Show all posts

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Peace and Mustaches.

I'd like to introduce you to our newest obsession:

The Mustache on a Stick

As you can see, they are quite hilarious.

They are also ridiculously easy to make and supersuper cheap.

Like I-made-fifty-for-three-bucks cheap.

Yeah, I told you.

Why would one ever need to make 50 mustaches on sticks, you say?

Well, because when this little almost-three year old was asked what she would like to give out as favors for her birthday party,

she answered quite confidently with

"Mustaches."

I mean, obviously.

What was I thinking?

Every little girl I know of wants to give people mustaches as party favors.

Duh.

As weird of a request as it was, my only option as a good momma was to oblige this sweet girl.

Yes, Willow gave herself an atrocious haircut. All her beautiful curls are gone. My husband has been calling her Travis...

And I'm SO glad I did.

She knows what she's talking about.

These things are awesome.

It makes the perfect accessory, no?

I highly suggest you make some.

Tonight.

They are fun for the whole family.

And when you do make them, I want pictures.

Seriously.

Send me mustache pictures.

Here's what you need:

Black felt

(I bought 1/4 yd of 72" wide felt at JoAnn's for $1.40

and I could probably make 50 more from my leftover felt)

Scissors

Hot glue gun

Wooden sticks

(I found these in the wooden craft section at JoAnn's for .99 a package)

Here's what you do:

Start cutting out some 'staches!

To make sure mine were even, I cut out a rectangle of felt, folded it in half, and cut one 'side' of the mustache.

Then just unfold to see the real deal.

Make a bunch of different kinds if you feel so inclined.

After all the mustaches are cut out and your glue gun is warmed up,

place a little dab of hot glue halfway between the middle and the edge of the mustache.

(So the stick is not right in front of your mouth when you hold up the 'stache)

Plop down your wooden stick.

There you go.

You now have a mustache on a stick.

Get crazy.

If you're doing it right, chances are your baby will look at you like this:

In other birthday party preparation news, here's Willow's party crown.

I have to say, I am in love with it.

I want one.

And that says 'Sassy', not 'Assy'... that wouldn't be very appropriate for a 3 year-old.

This was also super easy to make.

I was inspired by these crowns.

Believe it or not, I just dug into my stash of scrapbook paper and doodads.

And then I stuck a few fake flowers, buttons and some pretty sweet butterflies I found at Target on it.

This girl deserves a crown:

Ok, that's about all.

I'll show you how to make the Happy Birthday banner next.

I have to go wrap presents and stuff.

And clean.

Yeah, I should probably clean or do the laundry or something.

In the meantime, Peace and Mustaches.

:{)

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Patterns from Books, Starbucks, and Unstoppable Children.

I usually don't sew from patterns all that often,

but it seems like lately I've been doing a lot of that.

And I kind of like it.

I feel like a learn a whole lot when I use a pattern.

Well, maybe not patterns so much as books.

I've been making things from patterns out of books.

Make sense?

Like these Quick Change Trousers for Baby Cash from AMH's book, Handmade Beginnings.

And this:

It's the Clutch Handbag with Fabric Flower from Amy Butler's In Stitches.

I am a fan.

I've had her book for over 2 years and it's the first thing I've made.

It was fun.

And it was a birthday gift for my friend Chelsea.

There was a surprise birthday party.

I wasn't even the one who planned it and I was stressed out all week.

I had to avoid her for fear of blowing it.

But, she was completely surprised and had no idea, which was awesome.

It's got a nifty little divider and everything:

...and I added some hand-stitching around the edges.

You know, because I'm addicted to hand-stitching lately.

Sorry about no Lazy Sunday Giveaway this week.

My bad.

BUT- there will be one next week.

Promise.

I was not a fan of last week.

It was one of those that wasn't good, but I honestly couldn't tell you what went bad.

Nothing went my way.

Just blah.

I'm SO glad it's over.

That's a lie.

Here's at least one thing that went wrong:

I treated myself to a box of TAZO chai tea when grocery shopping so I could make fantastic Starbucks-esque frappuccinos whenever I wanted.

And then Willow dumped it all down the sink the next day.

So that sucked.

*I don't like ordering my fave drink from Starbucks because it goes a little something like this, "Could I please have a venti chai creme frappuccino with extra chai, add coffee, no whip cream and no cinnamon?"<----------BARF. Could I be any more needy and annoying?

Hence the box so I can make them at home.

Well, could have made them at home if Willow hadn't dumped out the box.

I'm sure many of you people are thinking

"Why doesn't she just put a child lock on the fridge? She sure could avoid a lot of mishaps."

Yeah, well, we have.

And Willow has broken all 4 of them.

FOUR.

We've tried to keep her out of the kitchen completely with baby gates.

She climbed over the gate in .0000082 seconds.

So then we stacked one gate on top of the other so she couldn't climb over and get in.

That kind of sucked because nobody could get in the kitchen, really, without undoing the gate extravaganza.

Until, that is, Willow slammed the top gate over and over until it popped out of the doorway, thus giving her clearance to climb the bottom gate, enter the kitchen, and raid the refrigerator.

There's no stopping her.

She's a monster.

So, for all you curious minds out there, there you go.

We try.

Oh, do we try...