Satin Flower Hair Bows

Is she the sweetest thing in the world, or what? :)
And she makes a great bow model!

The other day I did some crafts with some friends, and these satin flowers were one of the crafts.
I have seen and admired them before, but this was the first time I had made them.  I wish I had done it sooner!  They are pretty, and super simple!

It takes a small amount of satin fabric to make one bow.  Cut 5-8 rough circles, big to small, so that you can ultimately stack them. 

Run the entire edge of each circle through a flame.  Suggestion: hold the edge above the flame.  It is hotter than in the flame, and keeps the satin from burning, or getting scorch marks. 

Here is what they look like with pretty melted edges. 

Stack the circles to make the flower:

Stitch a few times through the center of all the circles to hold them together.  I sewed a button into the middle, but you could also hot glue beads or whatever embellishment you want into the middle. 

I hot glued a clip onto the back of one to use on my older girls. 

I made a few other flowers into headbands with ribbon and elastic for my baby. 

And here's another shot of ultimate cuteness!

I saw someone make these into pins, which they put onto a colorful scarf.  They looked AMAZING that way too! 

So run and get yourself some satin, and make a bunch of pretty flowers!

Monster Valentines

Happy Valentines Day!

I had the fun of making Valentines with my daughter for the first time to hand out to her Kindergarten class!
I had so many ideas for her (she wanted candy with it of course) - and somehow we decided on these monsters.

The inspiration actually came from a Halloween post at The Fickle Pickle - where they have these eyeballs you can print out...

We taped them on to chocolate kisses, and put a few into plastic bags.

I made these pictures and sayings in word - "I only have eyes for you, Valentine!", and printed them onto cardstock so that they could be folded over and stapled to the top of the plastic bag.

My daughter had a great time coloring the monsters and writing her friend's names.  It was so sweet how thoughtful she was.  She made some monsters look like ninjas for the boys who liked ninjas, and some look like cats for the girls who liked cats, and some were her friend's favorite colors.  It was a great project for her, and she can't wait to hand them out!

An ART Birthday Party

My little sweetie just turned 6 years old!

We had a small party at home, with a few friends, and lots of color and art projects...

I designed an invitation on the computer.  Each was a simple 1/2 page, folded in half and cut into the shape of a paint palette.  

Below is the progression of how I made it, and above is a picture of the cover, which I let my little 6 year old paint with water colors before we mailed it out.  

I wasn't kidding when I said everything was colorful!  

My daughter and I decorated the wall by the craft table with a colorful paper collage. 

The bright tablecloth was the background for construction paper place mats and a paint chip table runner.  Paint chips were used liberally in our party - because they are colorful and FREE!!!

We made little easel place cards for each guest out of popsicle sticks and paint chips.  The popsicle sticks are hot glued together, and my daughter wrote her friend's names before we glued those on.

The first thing the kids did when they arrived was decorate their goodie bags -- we had stickers, stencils, crayons, and colored pencils available for them to use.

One of the things we put in their goodie bags were these little notebooks.  Surprise, surprise - paint chip covers :)  Check out my inspiration here.  I have access to a machine that does the spiral binding, but you could use rubber cement glue to make a notepad - like I did here.  

We also made paint chip bookmarks.  I cut these down from larger paint chips, glued two together back to back so there was color on both sides, punched a hole and tied a string through it.  The kids decorated these with stickers too.

The highlight was, of course, decorating cupcakes.  I made frosting in 5 different colors, and let them each decorate a few (1 to eat and 2 to take home) with a ton of different toppings.  

We also ate colorful goldfish and these jello cups that I made by layering a bunch of different colors/flavors of jello.  The opaque layers have cool whip in them.  Word to the wise: start this project a day or two in advance of the party.  You have to wait for each layer to set before pouring on the next, and waiting takes a while ;)

We did play pin the paint on the palette - even though I thought it might be a bit too young for them.  My daughter really wanted to though.  Sure enough, they were all really smart, and felt for the top edge, and one after the other stuck their paint splatter on top of everyone elses :)  At least it was fun to make everyone dizzy first!

I got some ADORABLE pictures at our little photo booth.  I cut circles out of paint chips, and sewed them together in strips for the background.
The mustaches were left over from the Pirate Party LAST year!!  The beret is two pieces of felt hot glued with cardstock in between to hold it straight.  The sticks are chopsticks.
And the gold frame I had around from something else.
The little chalkboard is made from an old picture frame also - with chalkboard paint on the glass.
I'm so glad we took these!  The kids had fun rotating through the props, and I sent a few pictures home to each child along with our thank you notes.

We ended the party playing with playdough on the floor (at this point, the table was seriously messy!).
They played until their parent's came, and they also took some colorful playdough home in their goodie bags.  Here is my recipe for perfect playdough - just add tons of food coloring!

We had such a great time doing art projects and playing with a few friends.  Not pictured here, we painted little accordion books with watercolors, which they also took home.  

I have to give a big shout out to my friend Vanessa - who threw an art party for her daughter last year.  I borrowed liberally from her ideas - so creative!

I also have a "Birthdays" Pinterest Board with some other great ideas.  

All in all, I think it was a success!!

Happy Birthday Sweetheart.