Pinterest - Button wrapping decoration

What a crazy month February is. Not only for all the birthdays in my family... but there are so many friend birthdays as well. February is great month!

So, I thought I'd share my latest wrapping I did for one of my daughter's friends. I saw the idea of using a button on Pinterest - and any excuse to use a button is a good one. I love it and will now be wrapping gifts this way.


Well, as I was uploading it - I realize that you can't really see the button. Oops. I also used some felt flowers (obviously since they are obscuring the view of the cute pink button) that were left over from my daughter's birthday. I also used the wrapping paper that I had left over from her party. This paper from Hobby Lobby is awesome. It's not the only place I'll be going to for wrapping paper. The quality is awesome, there are grids on the back to make cutting easier and you get a ton on one roll! I used it to cover the tables, made pennants from it for decorations, and of course wrap her presents!


I also used the button to wrap a few presents for a customer. You can see the buttons a tad better here.

Still loving Pinterest!

Pinterest - Toilet Paper Rolls for Starters

This week's idea from Pinterest is the genius idea of using toilet paper rolls for your seed starts!

I have been anxious to start my garden. And while it's cold, wet and windy right now, I've been dreaming all about my summer garden. So when I found out that I could be starting the plants indoors (I was trying to be patient - I'm notorious for starting them too soon and not being able to put them outside at the right time), I jumped on it!

I found this site that tells me the best time to start plants in my area. It was just the cheat sheet I needed.

Of course, because I was trying to be patient and not plant too soon... I was not prepared and didn't have all the seeds I wanted. One of my recent favorite things to do is thumb through the seed catalogs - but I haven't placed an order. I guess I'll be supporting a local nursery this week to go buy my seeds.

The toilet paper rolls (and the one paper towel roll - which is not as thick**) that I used worked great and were easy to make. I'm excited to see what happens. I put them in a plastic tray that I saved from my kid's Lego Advent calendar. I knew it would come in handy for something!

** Important update - do not use paper towel rolls. Not all rolls are created equal. They fall apart when wet. Always learning, we are.

Chocolate Mushroom Tutorial

I have tons of pictures to share of my daughter's 6th birthday - and tutorials on how I did them. The first I'm going to share is the chocolate mushrooms we had on top of the cupcakes. Not only were they super cute - they were pretty tasty too.

Unfortunately, I have to admit that I didn't do this 100% myself. I was helped by Chocorooms. Found here (Seattle area) at Diaso.

Once you have the mushroom cookies - it's super easy!

Materials:

Chocorooms
Red Sugar Crystals (or whatever color you want your mushrooms)
White Chocolate Chips

Step 1 - Melt some white chocolate chips - I did this in the microwave in a glass microwave safe bowl (Pyrex!). I did it for about 30 seconds, stirred it, and then another 20 or so.

Step 2 - quickly dip the mushroom into the melted chocolate to cover the cap (top of the mushroom). Do not swirl it around - dip it and pull it out. Otherwise, the chocolate mushroom will start melting.

Step 3 - Push the mushroom, cap side down, into the sugar crystals and leave it there until it hardens (a minute or two).

Step 4 - Put into a bowl or something and stick in the fridge to speed up the hardening process.

That's it! I noticed that Diaso also had little cones - so I am hoping to do this at Christmas for little trees.

Alice in Wonderland party a success!

It's almost a week past the party and I'm slowly starting to feel normal again. Wow - that was a big event. We had a morning party and and evening party and while I wouldn't change anything about them, I was wiped out!

But I was pleased with how both turned out... and more importantly, my daughter had a great time (it was supposed to be about her after all).

Today, I'm just sharing a few photos... I'll share how I did a lot of it on future posts.

Tea Cup planters

Decorations, pinata and hats waiting to be decorated

Decorations and table set up for making hats for the Mad Hatter Tea Party

Decorated hats

Tea party table setting

This was probably my first party where the food was not the center of the celebration. I didn't spend a lot of time on it. I was more concerned about the activities for the kids... and of course, the decorations - which happens to be my favorite party.

I'll post more pictures soon... including the flamingo croquet. I'm still going through all the pictures!

Pinterest - See Through Storage Bag

This past weekend was the EtsyRAIN Craft Swap and Gift Exchange. For the gift exchange, I decided to make something that any one could use since most of my costumes and such are geared toward kids... and I know plenty of EtsyRAINers without kids. I had seen these really window bags on Pinerest back when I first started (it hasn't been that long... maybe a month or so).

Of course, because I'm horrible at following directions, I kind of made up the process myself. And I lined mine so that there weren't any exposed edges. I'm sure doing that was more time consuming but I really love the extra finish that it gives to hide the seams.

And the bag empty didn't seem like enough. So I added a little cashmere bunny with big floppy ears. Had a great time and I think the gift was well received (it went to a gal who is expecting - yay!).

Alice in Wonderland party - the cards

Yet another project for the Alice in Wonderland party. When I give my kids parties - I don't like to spend a lot of money - but I want them to feel like it's an extravagant party. I do this by making a lot of the decorations myself and customizing the activities.

The activities at this party will be decorating a hat for the Mad Hatter's Tea party, tea cup planters and flamingo crochet. Today I tackled the cards for the flamingo crochet.

These were made with some colored paper, a deck of large cards (found at the dollar store a while back), some electrical tape (I used black because it's what I had - but would have preferred white), and some floral wire.


I was going to make red feet to weight them down (just a rock or something wrapped in red fabric) and I may still do it depending on the amount of time I have. But I think these will work just fine as they are.

Mug Rug Swap

Lately I've been participating in various swaps on Swap-bot. My latest swap was for a mug rug - a coaster large enough to include your cup of tea and a small pastry. I had a few other friends joining the swap and I thought it would be a fun opportunity to get back into doing a little quilting - quite literally.

Yesterday I delivered my rug mug as my partner in the swap was someone I knew - Heidi from Haute Goat Cashmere. Because I knew her, I had a little fun with it.

First, the reject. I live this one well enough. I used one of the charm squares that I got in a previous charm square swap, paired it with one of my own scraps... and then decided to make the focus on the quilting. I love the back side. I even did real binding. But alas, it was too small for a mug rug at about 4 x 6.

So the morning that I was going to see Heidi, I tried again. This time I decided to make it a little fun and whimsical. I've been working on my daughter's Alice in Wonderland party and decided to use the same inspiration for the mug rug. I appliqued a clock on it and embroidered an appropriate quote :) I wanted it to be loose and a little crazy, although I think it may have gone too far as I feel like it looks a little beginner-ish. But whatever. It is only my second rug.

I also included a little pocket on the back in case she's traveling with it as she has to take her own tea. She does a lot of waiting around for her daughter so I thought there might be a chance that it would get some use away from home.

Had I had time (the deadline was today I believe) - I might have tried another one. But with all that I have going on right now, I had to be happy with this one... and I think I am. I hope she enjoys it too.