It's Just Sew Sew...

The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind......It all started 2 months ago when my Mother-in-law, said "did you know that while we are at Disney in September the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party will be going on?" I didn't know that, I hadn't ever heard of it, what was Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, and how much more was it going to cost me, because as Claire Dunphy (from the hit TV show Modern Family) put it while Disney is the "happiest place on earth, it's also home to the most expensive churro on earth." 2 months ago I hadn't heard of Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, today I am an expert on MNSSHP (the first thing I learned was the abbreviation!)

We decided all the Disney Bloggers out there had to know what they were talking about. Since we couldn't really find anything bad about MNSSHP on any blog, and most of them said if you can do it, then go. Why not do it, right? I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I agreed to this.

MNSSHP is a special ticketed event from 7pm-12am at The Magic Kingdom Park. A day pass will not get you into the park after 7pm, they actually make people without wristbands leave the park at 7. There are special shows, lots of character interaction with characters that are not "out and about" at the parks typically. There is a villain show followed by a mix-n-mingle, a couple different character dance parties, a special parade lead by the headless horseman, a special "HalloWishes" fireworks show, Disney Characters are dressed in costumes, all but one ride (jungle cruise) are open, and the lines are, (from what I've read) fifteen minutes or less wait time without a fast pass. The wait time in itself makes it worth it. To top the cake, kids and adults can dress up and trick-or-treat throughout the park where I found out today (opening day of MNSSHP for 2012) that they have 215 TONS of candy to distribute this year, that's 430,000 POUNDS of candy, OH MY!

And sew it begins. Being a crafty person, a store bought costume just won't do especially if you plan on wearing it more than one time. As my Mother-in-law and I started planning out this evening of fun we decided (since I had a tinker bell dress for my daughter already) that we would do a Peter Pan group. My Father-in-law will be George Darling, Mother-in-law Mary Darling, I will be Wendy, my husband Mr. Smee, my son Peter Pan, and my daughter Tinker Bell. From this I decided it was time to bite the bullet and break out my sewing machine I have had for 4 years now and see what I could do with it, with no classes or training what-so-ever! Oh, and only 3 weeks to get it all done!

The only thing I ever made with my sewing machine was a taggie blanket for a baby, and I still have yet to finish that! So when I pulled out my machine 2 weeks ago it took me an hour to figure out how to wind the bobbin and thread the needle! I should have known then to just quit, take the easy way out and get the really expensive (and cheaply made) costumes, but where is the fun in that? I bought all the material for the Peter costume first including the hat, tunic, belt, knife sheath, and shoes. Better to start there than on the Wendy dress which included a pattern (I had never even looked at a pattern before)
I tackled the shoes first, figuring if I messed them up they weren't that imperative to the costume anyways.  I looked for tutorials on the internet on the shoes and there weren't any good ones. So I got out some newspaper and drew what I thought would be half of the shoe, taped (duh, use pins next time) my "pattern" to the felt and with a sweaty brow made my first cut. I followed this with a newspaper pattern for a pointed hat from an online tutorial by Ashley at www.makeit-loveit.com and made my own alterations along the way. Oh my, I was really doing this.  I knew I needed my son to be able to wear shoes under the "Peter" shoes so I had to make a slipcover for his sneakers. I pinned the pieces together around his sneakers, spent that hour threading the needle, and put in my first stitch, and I haven't stopped since. In 2 weeks I have made Peter's tunic, shoes, hat, knife sheath, belt, a Smee hat, cut off and hemmed Smee's pants, a Tinker Bell dress (I know I already had one but my daughter wanted her own homemade costume,) 2 reversible Trick-or-Treat bags for the kids to use, and a Wendy dress with the help of an amazing friend who could have easily done it for me, but instead wanted to let me learn. Thanks Dolly I will take all your knowledge with me as I step forth into the world of sewing, and I will probably call you up with a question or 2! Here are the Peter shoes I made first. I hope to have a blog up with tutorials on the different costumes I made so other people can experience the feeling of complete satisfaction when you take a limp piece of material and create something that makes your kids eyes light up when they see it. Until I have the tutorials up (after our Disney trip) all I have is a few pictures! I hope you find time in your life to sew something, to take nothing and piece it together and make something. It may be fabric, it may be a family, whatever it is be proud of your masterpiece!

Peter Pan Tunic and Hat

Belt with Knife Sheath

This is the first real thing I have ever sewn before (and completed) I am thrilled with how they turned out!

The belt was sold by the yard at JoAnn Fabrics and I put a snap on to keep it in place

The Hat tutorial was found online at www.makeit-loveit.com the knife sheath I used the shape of the knife to make my pattern.

Tinker Bell Dress I made my own pattern for it and so can you stay tuned!

Cakes are My Masterpieces

Renoir, Van Gogh, Monet, artists whose work is admired by all, inspiring to some, and appreciated by most.  I don't know much about art in the painting, or sculpting sense. I didn't study art history but I appreciate good art. My art is the cakes I make. I love the sense of creating something from nothing. I love the freedom cake decorating allows me to use to come up with an idea from someone else's vision, or using my own vision to create my masterpiece.  That's what a cake truly is, a masterpiece. A cake usually take me about 8-9 (and sometimes even more) hours to complete depending on the intricacy of the details. Since I love details, I usually add an extra hour, or 2 or 3 on to my cakes to complete the details I see in my mind.  From mixing ingredients, and baking, to cooling, mixing frosting, and then decorating, a process emerges, and a masterpiece takes shape.

Anyone who says a baker isn't an artist doesn't know what goes into a beautiful cake. There is blood, sweat, and tears, and then more sweat and maybe more tears. The sweat when you are turning your pan upside down and fretting that only half the cake will fall out of the pan. This then leads way to the tears you cry when that happens knowing you either have to start all over, or become an engineer in the next few hours to figure out how to keep the cake together. The anger you have at yourself when you have just finished perfecting the "smooth" finish on a cake only to reach for the next decorating bag and swipe your hand over the frosted cake! Then more tears because the 45 minutes you just spent was for nothing as you have to "re-do" the smoothing. Then there are those times that even with a perfect vision in your head of what you want, you get a "bad icing" kind of night, (they are not a myth,) and the vision you have suddenly changes because your icing won't do what you wanted it to do!

It's time consuming, frustrating, exhausting, exhilarating, and a whole lot of fun! Art is in the eye of the beholder, whether it's a Michelangelo, a Van Gogh, a Renoir, or one of Andrea's Custom Confections, each in their own way is a masterpiece. Here are some of my masterpieces. Enjoy your day and go create your own masterpiece!

 

Cookie Monster 2 Year Old Birthday Party

Hi again, thanks for coming back! This post is prompted by an e-mail I received from a birthday blogger at www.thebirthdayblog.net who is featuring my post about Kerrick's Cars party on her site on March 12th. Wow, that is exciting for me! It's cool to have someone appreciate your ideas enough to want to share them with others. I had told her about the Cookie Monster and ladybug parties I have also had and said I would work on new posts for those to send to her. So here is the Cookie Monster Party I threw for Krisalyn's 2nd Birthday.

I made the invitations, I folded blue card stock in half and then cut out a circle but didn't cut all the way so the fold was still on the top. This made a circle that opened on the fold.  I typed the inside of the invitation onto brown card stock and cut out a circle the same way around the words. I glued the brown circle inside the blue one. I glued large googly eyes on the outside top of the circle, and cut out a black mouth from card stock and glued that on. And thus you have Cookie Monster with a cookie in his mouth! 

I decided to make a Tutu for Krisalyn to wear.  From the tutu stemmed a shirt, and pigtail holders to match. For the shirt I cut out a Cookie Monster shaped head from blue fabric, and painted with fabric paint a black mouth, and glued on with fabric glue 2 large googly eyes. My great neighbor did the actual sewing, I haven't gotten into my sewing machine yet, but plan too in the near future when time allows! Here is the complete outfit.

When I decided on the Cookie Monster theme I wasn't aware that finding just C. Monster decorations was going to be so hard. I found lots of decor out there with other characters on it, but I wanted just Cookie.  I started with blue and white for the table coverings, cups and napkins. Then I searched Etsy, and found a few die cut decorations. However, they are expensive when you buy them there, how I wished at that point that I had a machine to cut out my own.  I found the cheapest ones I could and purchased those. For other decorations I bought a package of blue paper in different hues. I then looked for coloring pages online and printed out the coloring pages with C. Monster onto the blue paper.  I cut out the C. Monsters and glued googly eyes onto them.  They came out super cute and were inexpensive, and easy to make.  I made a Happy 2nd Birthday Krisalyn Banner, and a chocolate chip cookie banner. I hung the cookie banner across the mantle, and put wooden alphabet blocks we had on the mantle with Krisalyn spelled out with the blocks, then placed piles of the blocks around for extra decor.  On the front door as guests were coming in I had a 123 Sesame Street sign that I got on Etsy. As you know every episode of Sesame Street is brought to you by a letter and a number.  On the inside of the door I had 2 signs for when people were leaving that said Today's party was brought to you by the Letter K (for Krisalyn) and the number 2 since she was turning 2. Again just coloring pages printed onto colored paper. I splurged and bought one big C Monster balloon a few latex blue and white ones, and then the dollar store had white and blue mylar star balloons. Here are the decorations!

These decorations were the printable coloring pages! Cut them out and add goggly eyes!

The activities for the kids I came up with were to paint cookies, and make C. Monster puppets on popsicle sticks. I had come across the painting idea in one of my cookie cookbooks and had thought what a cool birthday party activity. Each kid got one C Monster shaped cookie and another shape to paint. The kids had fun doing them.  I had the cookies frosted with a  white glaze that is great for painting on, and used food coloring for the paint. I think next time I would water it down though as when the kids ate the cookies their mouths turned all sorts of weird colors! The C Monster puppets were just a C Monster head shape cut out of blue card stock that I drew the black mouth shape onto, and blue and black tissue paper strips that the kids crumpled up and glued onto the appropriate area of the blue head. I had the heads glued onto the sticks already with each kids name written on the backs of the sticks. I had the tissue paper strips and 2 googly eyes along with the popsicle stick in ziploc bags for each child ready to go.  We also played pin the chocolate chip on the cookie game. I got a brown round tablecloth and taped it to the wall, we drew a circle into the middle of it and whoever got it closest to the circle won. By the end it looked like a huge chocolate chip cookie! Here is that fun!

My husband would say you can never have too many cookies, and since the party was from 2-4 I knew  I didn't have to serve a meal. So we went with just cookies, and cake pops! I wanted cookies for the different characters on the show. I found a C. Monster cookbook that had a couple of good options, but I added more.  Here are the different kinds of cookies I came up with. My Mother-in-law made the signs for each type of cookie using stickers and markers! We also had blue punch, and blue popcorn too! Instead of a cake, you guessed it, we had a giant cookie cake. I freehanded a C. Monster onto the cake and used the Wilton tip #233 to make him look furry, gave him big globs of white frosting eyes, and black goggly spots!

I love making red velvet cookies, these are made with a cake mix, butter, 2 eggs,  and white chocolate chips!

This one was in the cookbook.

I got this recipe a long time ago for K-bars and thought they matched our K-girls theme nicely!

My husband's favorite cookie is the spritz cookie, so I tinted the dough blue for Grover!

These cute nest cookies were in a cookie book I had and I thought they were perfect for Big Bird's nest!

These carrot cake cookies were in the cookbook, but I added The Count's name to them.

Just Blue Hawaiian Punch, lime sherbet and ginger ale

I happened to be walking into Michael's one day and noticed some blue plastic sand buckets and sand toys that were on clearance! I snagged all I could find! I knew I would use these for the favors. I painted acrylic paint C. Monster faces onto them. Each kid's name was painted on the back of the sand bucket.  I filled them with mostly things from the dollar store, and anything blue I could find, Sesame Street coloring books, great pinwheels that were 3 for a dollar, a blue airhead, a blue old fashioned candy stick, a blue pixie stick, Rice Krispy Treats, blue glow bracelets, and Welch's fruit snacks (cause they are in blue packaging.) Each kid also got a sand toy (.60 each) It was a really fun favor for me to make and I think the kids liked them a lot!

I have been to parties before where kids didn't really want to wear party hats, but I think a bunch of munchkins sitting around a table with corny hats on is adorable! I took a package from Party City of different colored hats, and realized that they all corresponded to a character on Sesame Street.  If I could have found all blue I would have gotten them. Realizing the correspondence got me painting them to look like those characters. I used left over googly eyes for them.  Can I just say the kids wore these for most of the party and some kids even left with them still on.  They LOVED them!

I knew this post would be a long one, I just had so many fun ideas for this party! Thanks for sticking with me through it! A SUPER BIG thanks to my Mother-in-law who helped me with the last minute details the night before and helped decorate the house. I hope if you were thinking about a Cookie Monster party, that this inspired you! If you want any of the recipes for any of the cookies leave a comment and I will get it to you! Have a fun filled day!