Happy Thanksgiving!

We are thankful for way too many things to list today.

Our cups are overflowing.

I'm so happy I could burst.

Which will match nicely with the top button of my pants around 7 pm tonight.

DIY Fall Felt Tree Play Board

I'd been seeing all these awesome felt Christmas trees on Pinterest 

and it hit me that we could (and probably will) do something similar for all the seasons.

I don't have many fall decorations, I adore trees and

 I knew Peanut would like this so it's a win for everyone.

I took a yard of felt and held it up next to Peanut, took note of how high he could reach and cut the felt off there.  I couldn't find chalk anywhere so I sketched on the fabric with yellow highlighter.

I don't suggest it.  :)  It was hard to see and I kept drawing it over so in the end I just sort of ended cutting branches as I went.

The beauty of felt (and hot glue) is that you can do these in pieces if you need to, or you can add on if you want.  I had to do the tree in two pieces but you barely notice.

Of course, it can be as simple or as intricate as you want.  

After you have the base of the tree cut, position it on your large felt panel and hot glue it down.

I suggest starting from the bottom and working your way up and doing so by starting at the trunk and working your way to the tip of you branches, smoothing as you go.

This prevents wrinkles in your felt.

I glued a nice little knot hole over the seem in the middle.

If you can, try to time the project during a visit from your family so you can have everyone help cut your fall leaves out.

I printed a maple leaf template off the internet and drew a second smaller leaf.

My in-laws and niece cut out leaves in a variety of fall colors.

Ta da!

A fall felt play panel that is also a pretty decoration and will keep the Peanut busy while I get something truly worth while done... like read a book or pin more projects or eat chocolate.



He thinks it's especially hilarious when he tries to put a bunch up
and half of them go falling to the floor.

Only these fall leaves make a much nicer pile on the living room floor.



When fall is over you could roll it up and pack it away for next year
or you could set it aside and cut out some leaves in lovely greens and yellows for spring!

Shoot, you could even do snowflakes for winter and don't even get me started on other things like acorns, birds, owls, bats, spiders, webs, swings, blossoms.... oh the possibilities are endless for a variety of holidays and situations!

Peanut's 2nd Birthday!

A few weeks have gone by and I still feel like this picture 

is an accurate portrayal of Peanut's 2nd Birthday.

It pretty much flew by in one big happy blur.

We did a Halloween costume party (which I will continue until he one day decides he wants a birthday that has nothing to do with Halloween) with an emphasis on monsters.

With the help of my craft slaves (thank you mom, dad and B) we created a "Monster Adoption Center" with  felt monster plushies, each unique and complete with adoption papers to be filled out by our guests!  Kids decorated gift bags to take their monster's home in.

And then monster Peanut chased Pirate Daniel through the backyard and into the house.

Can you see Pirate Daniel screaming?

We had a kids table set up with the awesome mummy juice boxes that my mom and dad created.

Actually, they did everything except for the cupcakes and the pulled pork.

So before you all start asking how I do it all, I'd like to put it on record that I don't.

And then Monster Peanut chased Pirate Daniel down the hall and back out into the backyard.

Mom put together a nice display of both creepy and cute treats.

Everything tasted amazing but some people were a little freaked out by the eyeballs and spiders.

I attempted to take a picture of the two of them together which was such a joke.

Boys!  Boys!  Pay attention!

This was a fluke but it totally made me laugh when I was sorting pictures.



The top right shows the adult food buffet but lets be honest, the kids always eat the adult food and vice versa.  B made some super fantastic pulled pork.

The dessert table was stocked with these unique and handcrafted monster cupcakes as well as suckers and cookies!  You know I love a good dessert table.



My favorite part by far is getting to see all the kids in their costumes!

Super Jake up top is in a homemade costume which I am super impressed with.



Baby Conner!  Remember my great-nephew that was born super early?

This is the same child, can you believe it?!



Time for cake which thankfully no one ate because seriously, how toxic does that frosting look?

Next year he either gets a homemade one or a large cupcake.

Then Evan had to jump on B's lap and practice for his birthday the following week.



Pirate Daniel and Peanut apparently found some treasure, dragged it to the other end of the backyard and dug in.

I see you two!!



This is soooo Peanut.

In the midst of everything, with all these kids clamoring to open his presents and see whats in the next box, Peanut is going to sit and very leisurely browse this book.

Love that kid.



Finally the big surprise.

Peanut's First Bike!!!

We got him a push bike and his little face lit up when he saw it.
He's still just a tad too small for it but he'll be perfect for it soon enough.

I don't know who was more excited... Peanut or daddy.



I don't have many pictures of me in them but I feel like this particular monster lantern shows exactly how I felt after the party.

Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes, for joining in the party and for loving our Peanut so much.  It was a blast.

But seriously, don't ask me about next years party until at least September, OK?

Monster Cupcakes

You know how I feel about dessert tables
and I couldn't very well have a Monster Party without Monster Cupcakes!



I baked off 3 different types of cupcakes
and whipped up a bunch of buttercream frosting,
colored it with Wilton food coloring
and covered them in frosting.



My friend Kelly immediately started in on the decorating.

Before she came over I collected a bunch of candy as well as Wilton's candy eyes that my mom got from Michaels and I got from Target.

We had some pictures for inspiration as a jumping off point.



The monsters were bright and colorful and super fun to decorate.

I think the kids (and the adults) loved them.



We used things like marshmallows, sour strips, black frosting,
dum dums, m&ms, peach rings, chewy lifesavers, jelly fruit slices
and good 'n fruity candies for all the faces.



Some scissors, frosting and a lot of creativity and we had a whole mess of monsters!



I think these are most of them... every single one of them different of course.

Happy Halloween!

We've been practicing levitation all week to get this picture.

I kept telling B and Peanut "It's Leviooosa not Leviosar"

I swear, they were going to poke someone's eye out.

Anyway, our little monster is now 2 years old!  

~sigh~

It certainly feels like two around here.  Ha!

I bought balloons at 10:30 pm last night (in a fairly busy Party City, I might add)

so that they were all around the room downstairs and over the train table we set up last night.

We've had the train table for a while, compliments of my friend Kelly, but had never gotten around to laying down the tracks.

He was sooo excited this morning!

Talking up a storm about all his fun stuff.

2 years old, I can hardly believe it.

I vaguely remember that new baby smell.
He has so much personality and he's just so much fun,
I'm loving this age despite the streaks of crazy stubborn independence :)

Happy Birthday Peanut!

I hope everyone has a great Halloween and all you East Coasters are safe and sound!

Wingardium Leviosa... Wingardium Leviosa...Wingardium Leviosa

Adopt a Moster!

We had a great time at Peanut's 2nd birthday party and I'll be sorting through the 200 pictures I took (half of which are blurs of children running by) to show you the party.
The MONSTER CUPCAKES turned out great as well.

It wasn't enough that the party is a Halloween costume party.

We decided that we were going to run a monster theme through the party as well.

I'll be totally honest with you.

We decided this year's theme before Peanut's first birthday party.

I think originally I was looking at Ugly Dolls and decided I could make them myself.

You see, this picture was taken August 12, 2011.

2011.

We were going to do monsters for his first birthday so I started drawing out some monster shapes.

My dad cut out all the monster shapes on various pieces of felt I purchased.

The day after he finished cutting them all out, my mom suggested that we do pumpkins instead.

It was going to be faster to sew a bunch of pumpkins for Peanut's Pumpkin Patch

and let the kids take one home as a favor so we went with that idea.

Meanwhile, I got this one monster's face finished and packed it all away.

My mom reminded me that I would have the entire year to finish the monsters!

A whole year to work on this project so that I wouldn't be rushed.

And then life happened.

And then it was 3 weeks until the party and I procrastinated some more.

And then it was 2 weeks before the party.

Even though my mom reminded me weekly for months.

And then we spent 2 weeks feverishly sewing up monsters.

I did all the faces and mom helped me stitch and stuff.

The result was 22 completely individual monsters!

To be completely honest I had a lot of fun doing these.

I tend to get hung up on the details and I could have worked on these forever.

The hand stitching around the edge was a bit tedious at first because you can only do so many in a sitting but my mom was powering right through them.

I got these awesome Monster Adoption Certificates on Etsy (Here) so all the kids could pick out there new monster and fill out their certificate.

I've been told that some of them are taking their adoption very seriously.

One little girl was overheard whispering to her monster that she'll be taking good care of him.

Of course, one little boy was seen using his monster to play zombie and eat the other stuffed animals.

I hope his monster is carnivorous.... and well stitched.

We displayed the monsters on a table for the kids to pick from.

So here are the details.

We used felt from the fabric store (not the crafters felt you buy in squares) and after buying some for super cheap from Joann's, I'm realizing my original stuff is much softer.

Anyhow, I used a standard size piece of paper and folded it in half (going either direction) to draw half a monster with the fold in the middle.  Remember doing hearts like that in school?

It's a monster so it doesn't really have to be symmetrical but I like them that way. 

I cut the paper monster out and my dad used it as a template on the felt.

You can draw it directly onto the felt, just make sure you turn them so the marked part will be sewed onto the inside.

He cut 2 pieces of felt at a time to make sure that the front and back were even.

I then started to make the faces.  For the eyes I traced a water bottle cap and gift tag for different sizes, hot glued them on, leaving a space of no glue in the center so I could sew on a black button.

The mouths are sewn with embroidery floss (same as the button) and the teeth were made from the scrap pieces left when cutting out circles.  Some of the monsters have additional felt pieces like a mustache or lone eyebrow that are adhered with hot glue.

The possibilities are endless!  Just think about all the cute things you could do!

They were sealed up by hand stitching them along the edge with a running stitch, that looks like dashes, or a whip stitch that loops around the edge.  They are stuffed with basic polyester stuffing.

It went pretty smoothly.

I found that the dark material needs to have a light background for the face as the black doesn't stand out and that some extremities are hard to stuff without the aid of a chopstick. 

I think you have to do these things to learn the easiest way.

 I will definitely be doing more of these types of projects.

I'm thinking maybe some Christmas plushies next.

Stay tuned for a post on Monster cupcakes and more on the party!

All my parties start like this

This was Saturday afternoon.

Peanuts 2nd birthday party is Sunday.

I'm like the tasmanian devil of party preparations.

Today we did cupcakes.

My friend Kelly came by and we created a bunch of monster cupcakes (each one different, might I add)
for Peanut's Monster Mash Costume Party.

It's a nice way to tweak the Halloween theme just a tad.

We had a lot of fun making these.

I'm so glad I had the help because I always hit this creativity block about halfway through these things.

This was a week ago.

More makings of monsters.

I love these monsters, I can't wait to show you the finished products....

and give you a little tour of his party!

B & I also can't wait to give him his birthday present.

I'm getting super excited, I'll be back with pictures soon!