Party Hats

I love making fun party hats for special occasions, especially first birthdays. They are really easy to make and look so cute in pictures. Many of our friends are turning one soon so I decided to make a few today and figured I might as well take pictures in case any of you want to try your hand at making one. I was making two and mixed up which one I was taking pictures of so sorry for the fabric switch in the middle. These hats were both for girls, but you can make these for boy too, just use more masculine colors and trim.

Supply list:

• Pre-made party hats (or you can make your own with paper, tape, and elastic. I just happened to have these one hand so I figured I would use them and save myself a few steps)
• Enough fabric to cover the hat
• Spray Adhesive
• Coordinating trim
• A really light weight stuffed animal or finger puppet
• A glue gun
• Tape
• Extra paper and glitter are optional for decoration
• A needle and thread First, snip the top off of the party hat and save it to put on top of the stuffed animal
  Next, carefully tear open the party hat
  
  Remove the elastic if you're using sheer fabric like I did so you can cover the white side of the hat and the pattern won't show through. Save the elastic for later.
  

  Roughly cut out the fabric using the hat for a template and leave extra fabric on all of the edges. Do the same for the tiny hat for the stuffed animal.
  

  Coat the wring side of the fabric with spray adhesive (I recommend doing this outside because it's sticky and messy). Lay the white side of the party hat on the fabric and smooth the bubbles out. Then clip the corners and fold the fabric over and press it down. Do the same for the mini hat for the stuffed animal.
  

  If you want to decorate the hat with a number give the hat a minute to set while you cut a number out of cardstock. I just free-handed this, but you can print out a number and trace it if you need to.
  

  To coat the number with glitter use a paintbrush or a finger to coat the number with Elmer's glue.
  

  Sprinkle glitter over the number and press it down a little, then wait for it to dry a little.
  

  You a hot glue gun to add trim around the bottom of the party hat
  

  I cut a pom pom from the trim and glued it to the top of the mini party hat for the stuffed animal too.
  

  Use the glue gun to glue the party hat back together.
  

  Now place the stuffed animal of finger puppet in the top of the party hat and use a glue gun to put the part hat back together. I slipped an extra piece of paper in between the party hat and stuffed animal so that I didn't get glue on the stuffed animal and I pulled it out after the glue dried.
  

  Now glue gun the glitter number on the front of the hat. I've also decorated hats using alphabet stickers to spell out the child's name instead of the glitter number.
  

  Thread a needle and stick it through both sides of the mini party hat
  

  Then tie the party hat on the stuffed animal or finger puppet
  

  Tape the elastic strap back on the hat
  

  And walla, a cute party hat for the birthday boy or girl!
  
  

  
  

  
  
  

He is so cute, C-U-T-E!

Creed hates to sit or lay down; he would rather be standing ALL DAY LONG. Because we'll be moving to an apartment in less than a year, we didn't want a lot of large baby gear that would wouldn't use for long and then we would have to get rid of or figure out how to store. A great idea, but not so practical when I want to get something done and Creed wants me to help him stand. We are in great need of something that Creed can stand in like an excersaucer or jump-up-Johnnie or walker (did you notice that they just started making those again?). I was just about to give in and pick something up, but Creed just started standing if you put him next to something that he can hold on to and it won't be long before he's pulling himself up to standing. Look how proud he is to himself!

And do any of you out there have suggestions of mellow songs for a lullaby mix for Creed. It's so hard to find things that aren't lame. I think that most of the CD is just going to be music that I love that's calm enough for him to chill to. I need your help and I'm willing to share the song list when I'm done!

These are a few of my favorite things today

Larry is always picking up random new things at the grocery store to try and these Chex snack packs are winners. They are so good! I really like the strawberry yogurt, but I LOVE the chocolate carmel and they are only 100 calories each! Keri told me that Hobby Lobby has their Christmas decorations out so I had to check them out when I was returning something there today. They had these tiny heart garlands that match my Valentine's Day decorations so I had to pick one up to make an even smaller garland to decorate the fairy door in our house this Valentine's Day so they match.

My friend Elisa sent me this soap that she made and it is amazing. She totally surprised me sending me a package out of the blue and It's still sitting on my kitchen table because it smells so good. Back in the days when my mom owned a shop we used to sell handmade soap that was so wonderful and smelled so good, and I thought I would buy the same kind of soap when I had a house, but I haven't seen any soap that good since then until now! Thank you so much Elisa!
Another great discovery were these awesome letters (just imagine how cool they'll look hanging on a colorful wall instead of my ugly berber carpet). Ok, so I'm a little obsessed with typography and monograms. There's an antique store in Powell that has their shop name in gold letters like this behind the counter and I totally coveted them. I bought some silver leafing wax because I'm not a huge fan of gold, but it's already growing on me and I think they'll stay gold. They're each about a foot tall. Where should I hang them?

And last, but not least, I love this little baseball bum!

A Day at the Fair

What better way for Alex to have a true Ohio experience than to go to the Ohio State Fair on a nice humid day? Larry and I did our best to enjoy our last Ohio State Fair. We began by introducing Creed and Alex to the annual tradition of sculpting a lifesize cow made out of butter.

Creed didn't think much of the butter cow

But he sure thought a lot of Alex. This is the face that he made everytime she looked at him.

Which is similar to the face that Larry made when he was introduced to the beef sundae.

And I think I was making the same face at the bottom of this slide because Larry and I raced, and even though I started out far behind, I totally beat him in the end!

And although I didn't catch it, I'm pretty sure it's the face Alex made when she received this . . .

Yes folks, Alex won an award for being the NUMBER ONE PIG ROOTER at the pig races!

We saw lots of other animals at the fair, like real cows, rabbits, horses, sheep, goats, llamas . . .

And of course Ben had to check out the chickens

A Friday Full of Good Things

Ok, so my friend Nikki introduced me to Northstar Cafe so a week ago I suggested it when my friends Megan and Jill were picking a place to meet for lunch on Friday. Friday morning arrives and Larry calls me from the hospital and asks me if Creed and I want to meet him for breakfast with a bunch of the residents and they're going to this cool place . . . Northstar. I've never had breakfast there, but I love their lunch menu so I figured why not make it twice in one day? Breakfast was delicious (I ordered sweet potato hash and Larry ordered ricotta pancakes) and lunch was awesome too. I love getting together with my old coworkers. Even though I would never trade staying at home with Creed, I do miss work a little bit and I miss adult interaction during the day! Here's Creed with Megan.

By that time Creed was on his third outfit have spit-up all over the clothes he wore at breakfast and then had a blow out during lunch. Can you believe that our friends are willing to hold him after that?

I made it home in time for the arrival of Ben, Larry's best friend from medical school who is like a member of the family. He was in Cincinnati for a conference and then drove up to see us. So here's Creed meeting Uncle Ben (who we refer to as our other son). They're even making the same face!

Ben's wife Alex flew in Friday night and all of us (Steph, Larry, Creed, and Ben) decided to wear name tags in case she forgot who were are.

So on the way from the airport, Larry was teasing me for eating twice that day at Northstar, and then he told them what we had and they said, "That actually sounds really good . . ." So here was are at Northstar for the THIRD time that day! (and yes, Creed is in outfit number four. You don't want to know!)

Northstar has two locations on High Street, one in the Short North, and one in Clintonville, and they have really fresh, fun food. Once upon a time neither of the locations had a sign and you had to know someone who knew about it, or come across it on your own, but now they have signs, but they are pretty discreet so you still have to know what you're looking for. Doesn't this Kuma Bowl with curry chicken look pretty?

I also made everyone stop at Goodale Park nearby because look how huge and amazing and gorgeous the lilies are in the pond! This picture doesn't really do them justice. Check them out if you're in the neighborhood.

Top it all off with getting a package from my friend Elisa and finishing Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer and it was a day full of good things (but more about those two later).

The reality of life around here

This is what I look like approximately 1 million times a day! Take a closer look in case you missed it

And did you notice that it was in my hair too? How does that happen? Oh, and take my word for it, that was a mild one. I spared you from seeing the worst. I was so optimistic that after Creed's doctor quadrupled his reflux medication life would be getting so much better around here. I had visions of long naps that would give me some free-time before 11 p.m. and laundry that smelled fresh for more than three minutes. Ya, not so much! We will be visiting another doctor tomorrow, but I'm not feeling too much hope for our poor little guy.

I did have a chance to experiment with glitter today though. I picked up two types, an extra-fine red glitter and a course muted pink glitter that looks a little like antique glass glitter. The extra fine glitter was a lot easier to work with, but harder to clean up. I just tried it on the simplest doors possible because I didn't know how it would turn out. What do you think? To glitter or not to glitter?

Think crafty thoughts

So I know that I've mentioned it before, but I have this goal every year to try a new thing for every year that I've been alive, and since my birthday is approaching at the end of the month, I've been reviewing my list for the year to make sure that I reach 26 new things.

Last month I taught a lesson in church on lifelong learning and I had everyone list things that they would like to learn and then I asked what efforts they were making to actually learn new things. My list consisted of some boring things like learning to budget and organize my home and a lot of crafty things like learning to screen print, and paint with acrylics. After spending so much time setting up shop on etsy.com I can't help but want to learn so many crafty things, and at the top of my list is needle felting. Just after I had Creed, I was watching Martha Stewart and saw this tutorial with Jenny Docherty, and I was in awe. I'd never even heard on needle felting. Jenny has an etsy shop and a web site where you can check out more of her work, but here are a few pictures from her blog.

And speaking of shops on etsy that sell adorable needle felted items, check out Lauren Alane's shop of needle felted birds. I bet after seeing Ralph and his friends, you're going to want to learn to needle felt too! Isn't he adorable?

There must be some stores around town that sell roving and other needle felting supplies, but I haven't found any of them yet. There are plenty of places to buy them online, but I'd like to have some human contact that I can ask questions if I run into trouble and I'd like to be able to browse and see things in person. Does anyone else ever hesitate to buy things online or am I becoming an old lady?

Now if only Creed would start regularly napping so I could have some time to craft and write. I probably shouldn't pick up anything new until I work on some of the projects I have waiting for me, like the fabric set aside for aprons or the covers for the quiet book pages I made, or the onsies that I want to tackle for Creed, or the blank canvases I have laying around, or the fabric for that tree quilt that I told you that I wanted to make, or the glass pebbles to make magnets, and the fairy doors ready and waiting to be painted . . .

I did finish a fairy door today that I'm absolutely in love with.

Doesn't it look cute in Creed's room? I think if it doesn't sell quickly I'm going to be tempted to pull it out of the shop to keep it for myself.

I know this entry is wandering, but as long as I'm talking about etsy, I want to share a few more shop that I love. Betz White is the queen of felting old sweaters and creating amazing things from them (another thing I'd like to try). I love these cupcake pincushions!

She also has her own web site and blog and she was on Martha Stewart doing a tutorial on how to make her teacup pin cushions, which you can see here. I can't wait for her book with felting projects to come to stores soon!

I'm also in love with every single thing BeeBee Mod makes! Don't you think every baby should have a cute onsie like this?

And a hoodie like this!

And speaking of baby clothes, Quilt Baby has some incredibly fun onsies too (and don't miss all of her modern baby bedding). I especially heart this giraffe onesie!

And if you wanted to have the best dressed baby, you would also need some shoes from DiddleDumpling. If I had a girl I would alreaady own these sweet birdie shoes!

There's so much more on Etsy, that I'd like to spotlight, but I will have to save it for another time. For now I'll leave you with a totally different shop from the rest that I've shown you, Kezzaroo. She specializes in making tiny 3 inch felt figures of characters from tv and movies and they are hilarious! You'll have to look through her sold items if you have a chance, but here are a couple for your viewing pleasure. Who doesn't need a Little Chuck Norris?

Or Nacho Libre?

Or Larry's favorite, Mr. T

Or my favorite, Hulk Hogan, singer of our friend Ben's favorite ballad, "I used to tear my shirt, but then you tore my heart!"