A girl for a week

My baby nephew was born on Dec. 23rd with an infection. So, he's been in Primary Children's hospital. We got to baby sit my niece while his mom and dad were in the hospital with him. Aside from the emotions of a girl, I had fun having a girl for a week!

I love cute hair flowers, but I never get the chance to make them because I have 3 boys. So, I got the chance to make a few!

I tried a few different techniques. All of these flowers were made by simply taking a strip of fabric about 2" wide by 18" long. I started by tieing a knot at the end... the not becomes the center of the flower. Then, you kind of just fold and twist while you hot glue. I'm sure there is some awesome blog out there with a tutorial on these flowers... I was too lazy to try to figure out how to take pictures while my hands were making the flowers. This pink flower was made by taking the same strip of fabric. Instead of twisting and hot gluing, I folded it in half the long way. Then I simply took a needle and thread and sewed along the non-folded edge. I gathered as a sewed. Then I sewed a button in the middle. This flower was made by taking a piece of fabric about 1.5" wide x 18" long. I simply tore the fabric to give it the shappy chic look. I then used a needle and thread to do a gathering stitch along the edge. I repeated with a piece of fabric 1" x 18" and then sewed the smaller one on top of the larger one. And sewed a button in the middle. I think they turned out pretty cute and it was fun to make some flowers out of fabric.... Next up... singed flowers.

Some of these flowers were made specifically to take pictures of this cute little girl....

I had fun trying out some photo techniques and fun editing in Iphoto and Photoshop elements. Now, I can't wait to go meet my new little nephew!!!

Perler Bead Fun Fusion Party

Do you remember Perler Beads from when you were a kid? I remember when I worked in a day care just out of highschool that we made these all the time. Well, my 5 year old really loves them right now! His birthday was today and we thought it would be fun to have a Perler Bead party! I don't usually go all out on birthdays... I'd rather pay for them to go somewhere so that I don't have to do very much work. But I felt the need to have a little fun with this because, well.... it's not Star Wars, Batman, Harry Potter.... you get the idea. For the invitations, we used patterned paper and made a frame on it. Then used glue dots to adhere a perler bead design on the front. For Decor, we hung perler beads from a jute line across the light fixtures... it turned out so cute, I don't want to take it down! We had a fun game of "pin the mouth on the octopus." We printed out a large Perler Bead template from their webite and used that for the game. We printed out another picture for a birthday sign. And even though I hate cake decorating, I made him a cake that looks like Perler Beads on the template. And with the extra batter, we were able to make a few cupcakes which we decorated with... Perler Beads! At the end of the day, I have to say, it was fun to be a little creative and think outside the box for his party! - Anisa