Cutest Party Invitations - E.V.E.R.!

If I do say so myself...over the past few years, I've done some pretty cute birthday party invitations for Elizabeth and Alex as evidenced below:

Elizabeth's 1st Birthday:

Alex's 1st Birthday (where I learned so much more on Photoshop):

E's 2nd Birthday (was a book of pictures of her throughout the year...) E's 3rd Birthday (definition of over-the-top, the entire Candyland party was actually), which I blogged about here: http://wvu-mama.blogspot.com/2009/01/birthday-party-preparations.html. E's 4th birthday was my first attempt at a pop-up card. I blogged about that as well as her Sesame Street themed event here: http://wvu-mama.blogspot.com/2010/01/happy-sesame-birthday.html. Her 5th birthday were pretty awesome, too...I love Dr. Seuss and blogged about the invites and party here: http://wvu-mama.blogspot.com/2011/01/elizabeths-dr-seuss-5th-birthday-party.html.

For some time now, I've known that I was going with the "A Very Hungry CATErpillar" theme for her her first birthday. (The kid loves to eat!) To be honest, I bought some of the party supplies back in May...so this has been a long time coming. The invites alone, I think are worth doing this party theme! Here's what I've done and what it took to get there (work in Photoshop excluded):

First, I started with a spool of brown satin ribbon 1/4" thick. Cut the ribbon into 3" long pieces and heat sealed the edges (that's what the matches are for.) I then hot glued matching brown 'fuzz balls' on the edge of one end of the ribbon. You need 2 ribbons with balls for the antennae for each invitation.

Next, you glue (craft glue works just fine) the ribbon onto the back of the caterpillar's face. When you glue them down on the back side, make sure the fuzz ball is on top of the ribbon so when the antennae flop down on the face of the caterpillar, they will be on the correct side. (You don't have to be exact with this as this entire invitation is very forgiving for those of you, like me, who don't really like to measure anything...)

Then, I started assembling. I did a red brad on the part with the face (you'll overlap one circle with the next). When you are lining up the circles to make the holes for the brads, make sure you overlap enough that the hole and subsequent brad aren't too close to the edge. Based on how I did the circles in Photoshop, after the red brad for the face, I alternated a dark and a lighter green (coming as close as I could to matching the edge -- and yes, that involved special ordering brads from my favorite local scrapbook store!)

The brad work well as the finished product then can be wiggly and inch along, just like a caterpillar. It also allows the flexibility in the invitation for all of the panels to fold around (think like a fan when folding) so that the invite fits well into an envelope to be popped into the mail...

Here's the final product all unfolded (click on any of the images to make them larger):

Awesome Craft Project

With a little help from her Mama, Elizabeth made the coolest craft ever! Seriously. Even Daddy thought they were cool -- and that's saying something because he's put up with me making a whole bunch of randomness over the last 10+ years...

What Mama did:

• Create the stencil on Freezer Paper using the Cricut Machine
• Note: To do this, you'll want to put the freezer paper on the cutting mat with the matte side of the paper down. When designing/cutting, you'll want to flip the image so that it prints backwards. I used the Sesame Street font for the stencil.
  
• Then iron the pre-washed shirt on the hottest setting (no steam)
• Then iron the stencil with the waxy-side down onto the shirt
• Put a couple of layers of paper towels between the front and the back of the t-shirts/onesie to prevent bleeding from the front to the back
• Organized the fabric paint in ice cube trays and set out the paint brushes (because I'm THAT anal-retentive)

What Elizabeth did:

• An awesome job painting her shirt, Alex's shirt, and Cate's onesie -- just used fabric paint...completely her designs
  
• Directing Mama to make the L's in "Elizabeth" and "Alex" into light sabers...
• Helped peel off the stencil after the paint was just dry to the touch

We think they are pretty awesome - you be the judge (double click on the image to make it larger, if you'd like):


Yes, that's a "flying WV" on the tail end of the H. Let's Goooooo Mountaineers!

Cake Carrier

I have been eying some retro cake carriers on eBay for some time now. When I make a cake for my office or whatever, I don't have a good means for transporting it.

Quite often the kinds that I have liked on eBay the most have been going for $30 + S&H. Not that I've been opposed to the amount, just figured I could find a score of my own by frequenting an antique-type shops that we have a few of in Wheeling.

I was mentioning my quest for a vintage cake carrier to Mom when I was home a couple of weekends ago. She suggested we go into her basement to look for one that might have been Buddy's (my grandmother, Daddy's mom) or Aunt Maple's (my great aunt, Daddy's aunt.)

SCORE! It needed some TLC, but I was in business!

Daddy doesn't remember this, so we're guessing that it was Aunt Maple's.

Here's what I started out with (after it was washed and I took a Brillo pad to it):


I liked the retro chef with his wood-stoked grill, so I wanted to preserve it as best as I could. (From this picture you can see how yucky the inside of the carrier was.)

Finding a paint that wasn't a blindingly bright yellow was nearly impossible (most likely because I have the patience of a gnat and wanted the instant gratification...wasn't willing to shop all over the place for spray paint.) Anyway, I ended up going with an almond color that had a satin finish.

I wanted the bottom and the carrier part to be black to match the knobs and the chef.

Here's the finished product! I love it...and can't wait to make a yummy cake that I need to transport somewhere! (The top is for either a cake server or cookies, I guess.)

Hopefully this will make for more pleasant thoughts of my Great Aunt Maple than the couple of memories that I have. I'm sure she was a fine lady and all, but about all I can remember of her is visiting her in a nursing home when I was maybe grade school age...and random "old people" that I didn't know that would try to grab my hand and thought I was there to see them. In my head, it seems that we went to visit with her every weekend, but I'm sure Mom and Daddy will correct me upon reading this. Quite traumatic for a small child.

Elizabeth's Easter Party

So it's another party at Elizabeth's daycare tomorrow. Lots of the parents in Elizabeth's class do some kind of treat for the kids to take home, in addition to making or bringing what we've signed up to bring. Mainly it's junk...more crap that we don't need in our house -- certainly not in Elizabeth's stash of over-flowing toys. So, I try to do things that are more on the consumable side.

I think these little carrots turned out pretty cute. They were really easy to make, too!

I used disposable cake decorating bags. Filled each with some of the chick whole wheat cheddar cheese crackers (Target's knock-off of Goldfish...figured the chicks were more Eastery). Then I cut sheets of green tissue paper into squares. Stuffed the tops of the carrots with the tissue and tied them off with green curling ribbon. I cut out egg-shaped tags and wrote "Happy Easter ♥ Elizabeth" on each of those. Elizabeth colored the backs of the tags and put spring stickers on most of them (she got bored, I put stickers on the ones she didn't.)

For some reason on party sign-up days, Reid is the one that does the signing up. No complaints, though, as he signs me up for cookies. Elizabeth & I typically make the cookies and decorate them together -- a process that usually takes a couple of evenings to complete. Not so much today and it was a one day project - and E wasn't in much of a mood to do anything other than eat cookie dough. (She ate enough cookie dough that Reid told her that he belly was as big as Alex's - and it nearly was!)

I think these turned out pretty cute, too!

By the way, the jelly beans are yummy! They are Sweet Tart jelly beans! (I don't like jelly beans, so was pleased that these are ones I can munch on!)

Funny little ditty on E from this evening. While taking the first batch of cookies out of the oven, I burned the heck out of my thumb. Burned it badly enough that I had to keep ice on it for several hours to keep it from throbbing. When I was getting her ready for her bath I was asking her to please cooperate with me since my thumb was really hurting. About that time Reid came into the bathroom and was able to actually do the bathing duty, which saved my thumb being in warm water (thankyouverymuch, Sweetness!)

Reid asked Elizabeth, "Are you going to cooperate with Mommy, Elizabeth?"

Elizabeth replied, "Nope."

I know, I know...she's only 3. She doesn't know what cooperate means. It was still pretty funny to us, though!

Thankful Thursday

I'm thankful for/to/about:

• Cards that make me giggle - like our Anniversary card from Anne, Sean, & Alex. Touché!
• My scrapbook space - it is shaping up, but I haven't yet gotten it to the point where I'm able to scrapbook...soon, I hope!
• Erin letting me crash at her place on Tuesday evening...and the yummy Thai noodles lettuce wraps! I am so about stealing that recipe!!!
• Catching up on missed TV shows on http://www.surfthechannel.com/ (thanks, EJ (assist from JP) for the hook-up!!!)
• The best hugs from Elizabeth when we picked her up from daycare today! "Mommy & Daddy you came and picked me up!"
• TV in my kitchen...
• In-laws that come to visit - and fix things!
• Clothes chute that help me stay on top of the laundry (who would have ever guessed that one?)
• EBay finds - I just got confirmation that my newest cookbook has been shipped - Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Cookbook (illustrations by Andy Warhol) - oooh...ahhhh....

Check out my newly acquired mad skills

I'm going to toot a bit loudly here, so consider yourself warned...

Check out my newly acquired "mad" Photo Shop skills (to heck with my nephew, he knows he is cute...look at meeeeee - and what I have created, besides a monster!):

The Ultimate How To Guide & Sox Gear (what not to wear)

I've been telling myself for a while now that I want to learn how to knit. I get that I could ask my Aunt Cathy...or my Aunt Sarah to teach me this, but it seems that when I am "home" with the Mortons, we are too busy BSing to stop long enough for me to learn how to knit. Anyway, I stumbled upon this website that is a how to for nearly everything: http://www.quamut.com/. There are pictures with the knitting instructions, but there is all sorts of other good stuff on this site like how to sell you home (something I'll be doing more research on in the coming months), recipes, how to wrap a gift, how to organize your home, information on baseball (if you don't know the basics to MLB stats)...and it's in Wiki format, so if you can contribute your knowledge, all the better. Pretty cool!!!

Now, if you are wanting a sweater wrapped up (Quamut has instructions on wrapping, too) for Christmas next year, I strongly recommend you tell someone to purchase the sweater for you rather than wait for me to learn how to knit one for you...maybe someday though...

I am still "mad to" mlb.com's shop. I don't think I will ever order anything from them again, I recommend you steer clear of them as well if you are interested in actually possessing anything for your favorite MLB team. (Go Sox!) Despite placing an order for items (hats and shirts) of Boston Red Sox goodies for Christmas at least 3 weeks prior to when I needed them, I have still not received the shirt for Mom and the WS hat for Daddy. (When a box arrived at my house two weeks ago, I was all aflutter thinking their stuff had finally arrived. Alas, it was a shirt I ordered for myself, at the same time as their orders and Reid's hat and Anne's Manny shirt that arrived in time for Christmas - barely...anyway, I got my shirt that I ordered for myself so that I could save a sum total of $5 and get free S&H.) MLB's online shop sucks out loud - purchase elsewhere!!!