DIY No-Sew Birthday Bunting

Norah turned one on March 19. That following weekend we had her big birthday bash. Many of her family and friends turned out for the occasion and I did most of the decorating DIY style (exception: tablecloths, balloons, birthday hat) because I love when our parties are unique.

The theme of the party, as you may remember from the invitation, was "Under the Sea/Octopus" with hot pink, purple and blue as accent colors.

I saw a tutorial for no-sew bunting and knew this was right up my alley. You can check out all the details at The Eclectic Owl, but this is the basic idea:

1. Cut out triangles as the base of the bunting.
2. Cut circles to house each letter - make sure they fit inside the triangles!
3. Choose your favorite font - in my case I used Sailor since that was one of the fonts I used on the invitations - and print letters large enough so they will sit perfectly inside the circles you just cut in Step 2.
4. Trace the letters onto the felt and cut out.
5. Glue the letters onto the circles and then circles onto the triangles.
6. Attach each completed letter/circle/triangle set to the ribbon you will use to hang the bunting.
7. Let dry for about 10 minutes and hang.

A close up of one of the letters

Pretty simple, huh?

I was running behind schedule and I didn't do the glueing until 10 minutes before people arrived, but the no-sew technique made it quick and easy.

If you are interested in sewing a more durable bunting that you can re-use, try this tutorial at Penny Carnival.

Happy (no) sewing!

Birthday Party Invites - Under the Sea

Now that everyone has safely received their invitation, I thought I'd share it with the world.

So how did I put this monster together? Well, each one took about an hour start to finish. First, I traced and cut out the octopus pattern. After all the octopi were cut, I glued one on top of the other in reverse. This creates the eight legged look.

I ordered the card stock from Cards and Pockets because I couldn't find anything that inexpensive in my local stores. Since it's two pieces, I had to mount the blue card onto the pink one. Before I did that, I printed directly onto the blue card using my home printer.

Of course, I did not have any good fonts on my computer so I did a quick internet search for "free sailing fonts" and found these.

Once the cards were printed and glued together, I attached an octopus to each. Then I went back and attached googly eyes for a fun effect. At that point, it felt like it was still missing something. I stared at it and wondered what I could do to punch it up. Then I remembered I had a bag of foam board sea creatures that I purchased from A.C. Moore. The pack came with these little starfish that were just perfect for a bow on the octopus' head.

While everything was drying, I addressed the envelopes and then stuffed them.

NOTE: If you make this invitation for yourself, take it to the post office. The foam board I used made the invitation too thick to be processed as regular mail and needed extra postage. ($0.66 if you're wondering!)

Stay tuned next week as I leak some other ideas I have for Norah's birthday bash!

Holiday Craft: Daycare Provider Gift

It's that time of year again, and now with Norah, gift giving has entered a whole new level. I've found myself needing to buy gifts for people we've never had to worry about before. The most important new people on our list being Norah's daycare providers.

These three women take care of Norah every day and make it possible for us to go to work and not worry (at least not that much) about her. In my opinion, this calls for a special gift.

But what to get? There are about nine other kids in Norah's class, so I wanted to try and be original. I've heard from other teacher friends that the most gifted items are lotions and candles. Scratch those off the list.

Off to Pinterest I went, and ended up finding something perfect. A recipe for peppermint hot cocoa mix. Slightly unique and once they are finished with it they can recycle the jar and be left without any junk.

Ingredients:
1 cup powdered milk
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup miniature chocolate chips
1/2 cup crushed peppermint candy

Directions:
Layer powdered milk, cocoa powder, sugar, salt, chocolate chips, and peppermint candy.

Notes:
The site I got this recipe from said to use a 1 quart container and it would fit nicely. As you can see below, I used a 1 quart container and had some room at the top, so you might want to go a bit smaller. Otherwise, just stuff some tissue paper at the top so the pretty layers don't get messed up.

Recipe Source

Thanksgiving Project - Baby Turkeys

I had a lot of feathers and such lying around from last week's turkey project, so I decided to put it all to good use and send out some Thanksgiving cards to the grandparents. I really loved this turkey craft idea, but I just sent hand prints last month in the form of Halloween spiders. So in the interest of not being repetitive, I did this instead:

First Homework Project

Last week I picked Norah up from daycare, and not only did her teacher have a big bag of dirty diapers for me to launder, but she also handed me a poster board sized turkey. Yikes! Naturally, the first thing I did was run to pinterest. I found a good amount of crafts, but man, this turkey was BIG!