Birthday Tutorials Part 2

Ruffle Streamers:

Tutorial

I ended up making two of these, one with white and baby blue (above) and one with yellow and pink. I didn't end up using them because the day of the party got kind of hectic but these are sooo cute!

Eco-friendly favor bags:

I was looking for bags/a container that I didn't have to spend money on and I came up with these;

I used this tutorial on fusing plastic bags. 

But basically I got 3 plastic bags, fused them together, and trimmed the gross edges off. Then I cut them in half and each half I folded, and sewed up the bottom and side to make a bag! I filled them up with candy,

printed out thank you tabs and clipped them on with mini wood clothespins from Wal-Mart.

 I recycled  a lot of bags and even though no one seemed to notice/care, atleast I was being ecofriendly right?

Bottle Name Sign;

This one is pretty self explanatory. First you're going to need a bottle for each letter in the name you want to spell. Next fill up a sink/tub/container with hot water and for each two cups of water add about 2 tablespoons of baking soda (I just guestimated). This will remove the label. Let sit for 15-30 minutes and then one by one peel off the labels. There's going to be some residue left over but all you need to do is scrub a little with those green things or even a rag will do. It comes right off. Let bottles drip dry upside down, preferably overnight to make sure they dry thoroughly. 

Set up a spray painting station outside. I didn't have a drop cloth so I used a cut open trash bag.

And get to spray painting! I kind of stuck my finger in the bottle and held them up a little so I could get the whole thing. When you're done, make sure you set them on a flat surface and spray a little on the bottle opening before you're done. Then chose a color for the letters and carefully paint them on. It can be a little difficult since the surface is curved so beware!

Stick some flowers in and there you have it!

One more thing!

I made my wendy dress out of this:

It originally had ugly long sleeves but I shortened them. I didn't know what else to do and then decided how appropriate to add a peter pan collar?! Tutorial I used.

It didn't turn out perfect but I think it definitely added an extra somethin'.

Here are some other cute sites for birthday party inspiration:

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Birthday Tutorials Part 1

Wings, Teepee, and Chocolate Sprinkly Rods!

2 Wire Hangers

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1 Pair of White Panty Hose

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Fairy Wings

For Eliza's Birthday I made her a Teepee. I got the tutorial from Rachel at Smile and Wave.

I did mine a bit different. I got about 3 1/2 yards of two different fabrics.

 The measurements I used (which are by no means perfect, use at your own risk):

Panels (5 total): 4" x 64" x 64" x 30"

Small Front Panel (1): 5" x 15" x 13" x 13"

Door Panels (2): 8" x 19" x 52" x 54"

You can see in the picture below that I cut a length of fabric 1.5" wide by 52" long to use as binding for the front door panels.

I bought 6 1" x 2" x 6' from Lowes, about $1.50 each (estimate).

I also used 15" of 1/4" elastic and then two rolls of ribbon (you definitely use all of it).

Oh and I bought rope from Lowes (only a couple dollars), it happened to be pink and white to match the teepee too!

Eliza loves it, she's at the age where she's really getting into hide and seek so it works out perfectly!

And before I take off, one last thing. These are one of my favorite treats and they turned out to be a lot easier than I expected!

So first off I used 2 packages Snyder Pretzel Rods and 2 packages Ghirardelli White Chocolate Chips (the better the quality, the easier to melt).

Then I bought this tub of sprinkles from Wal-Mart (I used pretty much all of it)

And a package of butterfingers

Next I set up my make shift double boiler- Pyrex boil + Pan + 1 inch of boiling water.

When you start melting the chocolate, you want to be careful not to get steam in it and make sure you keep stirring. White chocolate can be difficult sometimes so proceed with caution. Once melted I scooped it all up into this measuring cup to make it easier to cover the pretzels.

There's kind of a trick to evenly coating the pretzel. If you get too much, it'll start to drip so what I did was kind of spin the pretzel rod as I slowly pulled it out of the chocolate. I had a pile of sprinkles on a paper towel which turned out really convenient. When the sprinkles had spread out too much I just had to pick up the corners of the paper towel and I had a perfect little pile again!

Then you just roll the pretzel stick in the sprinkles and there you have it!

I also used Butterfingers to dip them in, you can get quite creative with these and use mini chocolate chips, crushed Oreos, or whatever you like really!

When they are evenly coated with sprinkles you have a couple of options to store them. Lay them out on wax paper, a paper towel or paper plate. Or if you're lucky like me and you happen to have a ice cube tray specially designed for water bottles than you can just stick them right side up in there!

This was the first time anyone had ever used this but hey, it sure did come in handy! When you are finished, pop those suckers in the fridge for about 15 minutes so they can harden and you're done. These were a big hit, they're the perfect combo of sweet and salty.

More tutorials coming soon! Eco-Friendly Goody Bags, Ruffle Streamers and Bottle Name Sign!

Eliza's First Birthday!

We set up:

It's suppose to be a pirate flag, get it?

This is the ridiculous Tinkerbell cake that my mom made.

5 cakes + 6 things of icing = best 1st birthday cake ever

Then everbody arrived and we opened presents (before Eliza got too tired)

And by we I mean Brandon and I

Then we blew out the candle on her gigantic cake.

And Eliza had her first birthday cake.

The rest of the night was spent visiting and I set up a photobooth. I was very pleased with the results;

 Sorry for the uber long post, alot happened I mean it was a pretty big event. It was so hard to filter through all the awesome pictures. It all turned out great though. Well hope ya'll had a good weekend!

Tutorials coming soon!

Romper, Jumpsuit, Pansuit

Whatever you'd like to call them! They're really in right now and here are a few that I'm totally diggin'.

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Sneak Peak

of Eliza's Birthday! I've been working non-stop to get stuff together for Saturday and let me tell you, after Saturday I'm going to have tons of tutorials on all the cool stuff I've been making. Here's a little preview- theme is Tinkerbell/Neverland:

I can't for the life of me choose and stick to one layout! I just feel like they're not right for my blog? If that makes sense... but I really like this one. Not too much but cute. It may be around for a while, we'll see.