Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Dinosaur Party

Ashton recently turned 5 (!) and we decided to have a full-on, friends over birthday party for him. His choice of theme wasn't a big surprise, since he's been into dinos for the past few months now. I used my Cricut to make his invitations
 Since I'm too cheap to buy a specific Cricut cartridge for every project, I combined different shapes (ovals, apostrophes...) to create the dinosaur shape.




And although I imagine up beautifully fabulous birthday cakes, I severely lack the skills to execute them, so this year I kept it really simple:








Two stacked round cakes (I don't have 2 spring forms the same size...) with some dino fossils 'buried' under Oreo crumbs, and dino shaped sprinkles adorning the sides.



My sister found some t-Rex skeleton sand toys, and made a jell-o dinosaur when we were at her place, so I snagged the moulds and made another one for the party.



Ashton's shirt was specially made for the occasion (with freezer paper stencilling cut out with the Cricut - again combining shapes to make the dino) new dino slippers, and a pith helmet to complete the 'look' The guests were also each given a pith helmet when they arrived.


I created a 'dinosaur dig' activity using play sand, white glue, and dollar store dino figures.


If I were to do it again, I'd play around more with the glue to water ratio. The outside dried rock-hard, so I had to break open each brick and the kids dug around inside where the sand was softer.  They had a blast though!




Can't believe my boy is 5! He had lots of fun with his buddies!

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Yarn Works

Oooo...it's been awhile!! Between teething and regular nutty mom stuff, I haven't managed to get a post up in, like, forever! But I'm back!! And hoping to post more regularly, I promise!

So a lot of my crafting time lately has been taken up by crocheting and knitting. I've been making hats for gifts,

Sock Monkey, owl and bunny
Very hungry caterpillar


















and for Olivia,

Little Sisters Dress (Ravelry link) Love how this turned out!!



















and this Knitted Convertible Cardigan, a vintage pattern done up in mohair.


I also found some adorable Owl skirties on Pintrest, so I HAD to try my hand at making one for Olivia, and it turned out ADORABLE!!! (maybe even deserving of a pattern? who's up for one?)



One of our local schools was having a Mom 2 Mom sale, so I also whipped up a few for that, as well as some hats.  Here's an example of the skirtie and a few of the hats I had there:



Unfortunately I didn't sell much, so I've also started up a facebook page to see if I can sell them better online.

Introducing Baby Purls!!