Kids Reunion Shirts

Here are some pictures of my latest project.  My husband's family is getting together for a few days next month and we wanted to try to get some cute pictures of the kids...in matching shirts.

Hey, if your name is Crabtree, you may as well have some fun with it.

We got everyone's sizes and I numbered the shirts in chronological order.  We'll line them all up according to age and (hopefully) get some cute shots.

The little girl shirts with the cute edging and small puff to the sleeves are my favorite.

Fourteen shirts in all.  

I used heat transfer vinyl in black, red, green and brown.  Love that stuff, it is really easy to use and looks sharp.  I made a practice shirt and washed it a couple of times to see how it held up.  So far, it's looking great and still brand new.

Trying to decide if I should add a small "2011" below the name on the front of each shirt.  Or should I just leave it be?  Opinions?

Sucker Birthday Gift

Recently attended my friend's 40th birthday BBQ.  She didn't want a full on birthday party and there was a "no gift" request.  I saw this idea on Pinterest, and decided to make it for her.  It could be put out on the table at the BBQ and the kids could have a sucker....perfect.

I bought a bag of Dum Dum suckers, stuck them in a cut piece of Styrofoam.  I made a box out of a single sheet of scrapbook paper using THIS tutorial.  Printed a little birthday note and taped it all together.  

Not for everyone, you have to have a bit of a sense of humor and not mind the work "sucks".  Some people do, which I understand.  Not my favorite word either, but I'm a sucker for a pun.....sorry about that.  See, they just come out, I can't help it.

Mario Party: Invitations

Here's a quick photo I took of Scotty's Mario party invitations.  My amazingly talented, friend, Jamie started teaching me how to play around with Photoshop.  A whole world of possibilities has been opened up to me....and I don't even really know how to do that much on it.  The best part is you design your image, upload it to Costco's photo center, and get them printed there for .13 cents a piece.  I spent less than $2.00 on invitations, including tax.  These were 4x6 prints.  Love Photoshop, love Costco photo center, LOVE Jamie....and I even love Mario, because it made my kid happy on his birthday.

Mario Party: The (cup)Cake

Here he is!  A Mario pixel rendition (cup)Cake!  As soon as I saw this picture HERE, I knew that is what we were doing for the birthday cake.  

Pretty close, right?  And a nod to the original Mario.  Very important.

Mario cake with some friends.

I used some frosting on the bottom of a few of the cupcakes to keep them in place so I could tilt the board up a bit.  The best part about this whole thing is I didn't have to slice and serve.  The table was low enough for the kids to reach and I stood by just in case anyone needed any help.  Mini cupcakes were great too, so they could have one of each color without loading up on sugar.  What other images can I make out of cupcakes....the possibilities!

Mario Party: The Prep

 My oldest is obsessed with Mario Bros. video games.  For the birthday party, we decided to do the Mario theme all the way.  

I made a banner out of cardstock with my Silhouette.  The prizes for the games were fake gold coins to the left. I bought a big bag of them at a party store.  I took 3 yogurt tubs, covered them in green paper, and made some "piranha plants", cutting out construction paper shapes and fusing them together with glue stick.  Very 2nd grade.  The plants are taped to a green straw and the tubs filled with candy for the goody bags.  The picture to the right is a Mario print that my son loves.  The table is my kids' toy organizer with a red sheet draped over the top.

My plants kind of look like this, right?

Games:  We played "Smash the Yoshi Eggs".  Found a great tutorial for filling egg shells HERE.  I blew out the eggs, filled them with glitter and Mario clipart, and sealed the hole with tissue paper.  Sharpie markers to decorate circles on the outside and they were done.

Everyone got to throw and egg at Bowser, the bad guy in the Mario game.  Most of the eggs were filled with green glitter and if you smashed it, you received one gold coin.  If you were lucky, and got a gold glitter egg, you received two gold coins.

Gold glitter egg explosion!  Two gold coins for you!

We also played "Musical Mario".  I found a lot of different Mario clip art, printed out the images, and taped them to the floor.  We have some of the Mario video game music on CD and played it while the kids danced around.  When the music stopped, everyone found a picture to stand on.  I would call out a picture and whoever was standing on it won a gold coin.

To involve my birthday boy in the preparations, I had him glue Mario clipart images onto Bingo boards.  We played Mario Bingo for gold coins, it was a hit.  I'll try to get a picture of the Bingo cards on here soon.

Mario mustaches everywhere!  Vinyl ones on the party cups.

And on faces.

Passing out the mustaches.  It was nice having a few extras as kids would take them on and off and they would lose their stickiness.  No problem, here's another one.

Party favor "1 Up" bags.  Everyone had their name on the back of their bags and they would put their gold coin winnings in them throughout the party.  Candy and some extra mustaches topped it all off.  

They are pretty cute, I must admit.  My son cut out the green tops and white circles (I traced them on the paper for him).  He did a great job with the party prep.

Not pictured:  So busy with hosting the party, I didn't get my camera out for every activity.  We also played "Smash the Goomba", which was a brown balloon with a face drawn on it.  Before we blew them up, we put a gold coin in each balloon.  The kids sat on them to pop them and retreived their gold coin.  A little too scary for some kids, don't blame them...it was loud!

Here's what a Goomba looks like.  I did a brown balloon with white vinyl eyes and drew the eyebrows and mouth with teeth on with a black Sharpie marker.  Wish I would have taken a picture, but they are all smashed now, sorry!

Still to come:  The Mario cake (you noticed it was missing, right?) and invitations.  It was a lot of fun and a lot of work.  I'm ready to get out of Mario mode and move onto some other projects.  My son just wants to play his new Mario game.

IKEA Hack: Lego LACK table

My oldest turned 7 last week and I have been wanting to make this Lego table for him for a quite a while.  Saw this idea HERE and decided to make it for a birthday present.  I had an IKEA LACK table that I didn't really have a place for anymore, so that was free.  I ordered 4 green Lego sheets from Lego.com and my husband and I glued them on the table with contact cement.  Those babies are never coming off!  The trick is to use some Legos to hold the four sheets together while you glue, thus ensuring proper Lego alignment from sheet to sheet.  He loves it and has already increased his Lego playtime.

We surprised him with the table by making a Lego cake and birthday message and left it out in the living room for him to discover the morning of his birthday.  Thinking now I need to make some kind of bin or drawer that will fit underneath for all of the Legos...hmmm.

Family Birthday Bash

Mom:  Hey, buddy.  We are having your cousins over for a family birthday dinner.  We are having cake at your birthday party later in the week.  We can do a different dessert for the family...pie, ice cream sundaes, cookies...what do you want? (aka Mom has made 4 cakes this month already, can I PLEASE have a break?)

Scott:  No, I want a cake.

Mom:  (sigh)  Ok.  What kind of cake do you want?

Scott:  I want a swimming pool cake!

Mom: (picturing everyone with blue food coloring all over their faces and tongues) No, let's think of something else.

Scott:  How about a cake in the shape of a fish?

Mom:  Ok, I think we can do that.....

Scott:  No, Mom!  I know what I want!  An AMERICAN flag cake!

Mom:  (thinking this would be easy).  Sold!  No more ideas!  We are decided!

 Mom runs out of the room before he can change his mind again.

And it was easy.  I didn't even take the cake out of the pan.  Two colors of frosting, plus the original white...stripes and a star tip for the flag's stars.  Done!  Took longer to cool the cake than decorate it.  Thank you, child.  And we are still wondering where the sudden burst of patriotism came from.  

Don't question, just roll with it.  Go USA.

T-Ball Party Cake

T-ball party tonight.  Barbeque, swimming, and trophies.  I signed up to bring a cake and, since we are the Giants, went with the team logo.  I was inspired by THIS cake, but put my own twist on it.  I used Candy Melts for the orange logo and it worked really well until I stuck the cake back in the fridge.  It started to crack!  I tried fixing it, but at the point I already had piped the black border around it.  Oh well, I don't think the 5 and 6 year olds will give me a hard time about it.

Happy that the season is over, just because it means less scheduled obligations on our agenda.  Next year, is the real deal baseball....we'll see if he wants to sign up in the spring.

Computer Savvy

Self teaching on my computer programs lately.  Here is a design for some kids family reunion T-shirts.

Candy bar wrappers, favors for a yellow/gray wedding.

Loving the projects where I get to try new things on my computer, although it takes me quite a while to figure out how to do some things.  I really need to take a class...wish someone would offer one around here!

Book Review: Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George

Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Cute book, a retelling of the 12 dancing princesses.  I like this author, one of my favorites of this genre after Shannon Hale.  The final conflict and climax was a bit rushed and could have had some more depth, but it's a cute story and would be great for older elementary to tween years.



View all my reviews

Ribbon Cake

Made a cake for book club hosting the other night.  Wanted to make this one, but my cream cheese frosting was way too soft despite my efforts to stiffen it.  Must use buttercream if you want to make frosting flowers, just no other way around it.  I'll make that one for another occasion.

The ribbons are really easy and I will definitely do them again.  Inspiration HERE.  Is it me or am I making A LOT of cakes lately?  Tis' the season of parties.

Summer Eatin'

Last month, we received fava beans in our Farm Fresh delivered produce.  Our first time trying these, so I looked up a recipe for grilling.

Fresh fruit salad

Grilled veggies

Burgers and some good weather....one happy, well fed family this night.

The grilled fava beans were yummy....unfortunately, I was the only one who thought so.  My boys (including husband) just aren't veggie people.  I am determined to convert everyone if it's the last thing I do.

This month, in our farmer's basket we received fresh peppermint, radishes, carrots, and cherries (my fav).  amongst other things.  Excited to see what I can do with everything.

A Trip to Paris....yes please!

When I was in college, I decided to sign up for a Paris study abroad program.  I was just starting to get my paperwork together and was approved to go with the small group of students when my then boyfriend proposed to me.  Tough decision with lots of boring details as to why, but ultimately decided to marry then boyfriend and forgo the trip to Paris.  Doug has always felt a little bad I think about me missing my Paris experience and has promised me repeatedly to take me there someday.

Jordan at "Oh Happy Day" is having a trip for two to Paris giveaway.  What is better than your husband promising to take you to Paris someday?  Not having to pay for said trip.  Sign me up.  You can sign up HERE.