Luck of the Irish

This weekend I did some crazy St. Patrick's Day crafting, in the attempt to force spring to come to this winter tundra that is my home. In all fairness, we've had hardly any snow this year, but considering its March and still freezing cold, I've really had enough with winter. Anyhoo, in honor of the green holiday I made a rag wreath and two (wait for it, wait for it...) buntings! My friends, who shall remain nameless, have been totally dogging me for being obsessed with buntings, but you know what? I am obsessed with buntings cause they are frakking sweet. So there. Here's the first one, which I pseudo copied from a pin I pinned on Pinterest (that's a lot of pin). I cut one inch strips of green cardstock and stapled them together to form a shamrock.



Then I further destroyed my paperback copy of Harry Potter and made some hearts for each side of the shamrock.



I used a tiny hole punch and punched holes in the tops of the hearts and shamrock, then threaded some jute cording through the holes to hang.





For my second bunting, I cut shamrocks out of stiffened felt, adhered them to more HP book pages, added some buttons, and stapled each flag to thicker jute cording.





Finally, for the wreath (which I also copied from Pinterest) I cut 1" by 6" fabric strips and tied a million of them onto a metal coat hanger which I formed into a circle and taped together with duct tape. All the cutting and tying took for flipping ever, but I like the end result.





I've also been on a scrapbook frenzy lately and was able to rock out four different layouts on Saturday morning while the littles watched tv and Husband slept in.








Yes, that is really him...he was signing wine bottles at our local grocery store. He wasn't allowed to take pictures but he made an exception for Lil and my friends' littles. Too funny! These layouts were mostly made with Studio Calico's Daydream Believer kit. I know you wont believe it, but I made something else this weekend, too. Unfortunately I finished it after dark so you'll have to wait until next time to see pics!

Valentine's Day

This weekend was round two for Valentine's Day crafts. I made two buntings, a billion-button heart, and a birdhouse. Because what's Valentine's Day without a birdhouse?

The first bunting I made from felt, double fold quilt binding, fabric and Heat and Bond.



I cut the felt into triangles, cut out some fabric hearts, ironed the Heat and Bond to the hearts, and then ironed the hearts to the felt. Next, I ironed the Heat and Bond to the inside of the quilt binding, arranged the felt triangles, and ironed the whole length of the binding to adhere. Easy.







The second bunting was even easier. I had a Harry Potter paperback that I had cut for a Christmas present, so I took out five whole book pages, cut the bottoms into a flag, used my craft knife to cut out heart shapes, adhered patterned paper and some glitter stickers, and stapled the flags to some ribbon.







For the birdhouse, I bought a plain unfinished wood bird house from the craft store. I painted it, added some glitter to the paint for some shine, and added embellishments.





Finally, I made a billion-button heart by gluing buttons in a heart shape to patterned cardstock. Quick, cute, and easy.

Big Old Carnival Circus Party

This past summer, Maya turned two and I, being crazy, decided to throw an over the top carnival circus themed birthday party complete with animal cupcakes, games, a candy table and multiple buntings. The fact that I even know what a bunting is just further confirms my craziness. Don't worry, by the end of this post you'll know what a bunting is too, so you can share in my craziness. I designed, printed, mailed, sewed, decorated, baked, ordered, assembled, inflated, planned, and frosted for months and was finally ready. The guests arrived and about 15 minutes later so did the thunderstorm. We were packed like sardines in our decked out Florida room, watching the skies turn black and hoping like hell that we weren't going to lose power or that the bounce house wasn't going to blow to Oz. A few hours later, after my house was covered in a sticky candy coating, things mellowed out a bit and the kids were able to bounce for awhile. It was fine, but not the Martha Stewartesque soiree I was envisioning, cause I'm pretty sure it never rains on Martha's parade. Anyway, for this party I made:





Paper pinwheels with directions found Here. I stuck them in green floral foam that I shoved into metal buckets from Target's dollar aisle.



Two big buntings that required no sewing. Until I get my sewing machine you'll see lots of crafts that don't require sewing. Shocking, I know. I ordered the fabric from etsy, made a cardboard flag template, cut them out with pinking shears, laid them out on this double sided quilting binding and then used Heat and Bond to adhere the flags to the binding. Voila!


Another bunting shot.



A candy table. Complete with wooden circus animals and super buttery, salty, greasy popcorn. I ordered lots of the candy from Oriental Trading Co. cause their prices are the bomb. I used a bunch of different clear plastic and glass containers, and again busted out the green floral foam to help make the lollipops stand up.


Candy table close up.



I cheated on the cake, but you'll see later that I made up for it with the cupcakes. I ordered a plain white frosted Costco cake and decorated with a smaller bunting made with fabric, baker's twine and wooden dowels.


The birthday girl with her cake.



See why I cheated on the cake? I saw these cupcakes in this cookbook and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make them. I've made a cupcake from that book before, and it was super cute but super time consuming. The day before the party I was feeling pretty good about the prep, so I decided to whip them up really quick. Well, they weren't quick, but luckily my mom had taken the girls for the day so I spent a few, um, like 5, hours making them. I changed the poodle design into a polar bear. It was pretty much an accident due to the fact that my first poodle looked nothing like a poodle.And I'm not sure poodles frequent the circus all that frequently. Just sayin'


Polar Bear


Lion


Monkey


Elephant


Clown. The clowns' heads are stuck in the cupcake with pretzel sticks. Do not, I repeat, do not stick the heads in the cupcakes until just before the party. The pretzels got all soggy from being in the moist delicious cupcakes and the clowns had leaning heads all day. Sucked.


Maya liked the cupcakes.

When all was said and done the party was fine, thunderstorm and all. This marks the second year in a row that my Indian Summer baby's birthday party has been thwarted by crap weather. I totally love that all the prep and work got over shadowed by mother nature--again. Totally. Next year, I'll go all low key and then it will be perfect weather, I just know it. Or maybe by then I'll convince Husband to move to Maui where its always 75 and sunny.


The girls. Before the storm.