Forest Party

I just recently looked through my past posts and realized that I didn't blog about Arizona's birthday or Bulldozer's! Shame on me! They both deserve their own posts so here is Arizona's. (Since her birthday came first.)

I am big on themed birthdays. We have a pretty spacious house so we host the birthdays here and I'm a frugal momma so I make most of the decorations and treats. Well Arizona requested a "forest" themed party. I have to admit....this stumped me. A forest party? She was very clear that she wanted no fairies, no magical mushrooms, just a forest. How on earth was I going to pull that off!?

I pondered and fretted over this for a few weeks until I finally just pulled everything together.

I used scrapbook paper in different greens and browns to make paper lanterns and lined them along the entryway and the hallway. They looked cool.

Instead of a full blown birthday cake, I asked my awesome friend Natalie to make owl shaped cake pops.

Finally, I used my Christmas tree pretzel molds to make her forest. We made about three dozen of these and she was pretty excited about it.

Carole

Cutsie Hair Bow Holders

So my most recent project came as a result of my desire to save a little money. I was online searching for cutsie holders for my daughters' hair bows. Of my 5 children, 3 are girls so we have drawers full of bows that always seem to get bunched,  folded, scrunched, and molded until they are almost unrecognizable. So I started my search only to be disappointed when I saw the price tag. Some of these things were being sold for $40.00 and that didn't include shipping and handling. Ummm...no thank you. After seeing some of these bow holders I decided that I could pull this off and make some of my own.

I took my daughters shopping for fabric with me. Well I took 2 of them. (My stepdaughter, nicknames Arizona, lives 1800 miles away so she only visits twice a year.) Sugar (my 9 year old) picked out her own fabric, girly skulls behind a pattern of pink and black. Ballerina (my 6 week old) was too busy snoozing in my wrap to be bothered with any shopping questions so I chose her fabric for her.

In addition to the fabric, I picked up two rolls of grosgrain ribbon (one hot pink and one black) and two cork boards.

I bought a full yard of each fabric but ended up only needed 1/2 a yard so I'm thinking I'm going to save the other 1/2 for something fabulous in the future.

So I used my trusty staple gun to staple the fabric around the cork board like so...

After that I used the grosgrain ribbon to make a weaving pattern across the board then promptly stapled the ribbon securely to the back of the board.
Now I realize that this seems like a crud, fast way to make a bow holder but they did turn out beautiful.

Then I added what bows I could find laying around and TA DA!!

Sugar's Girly Skull Holder

Ballerina's Girly Glittery Holder

Not to shabby for a quick afternoon craft! I didn't make a bow holder for Arizona for two reasons: 1 - she isn't here but twice a year, and 2 - she rarely wears bows and when she does, she wears Sugar's.