Pink Hippo Birthday - Help Needed

So I am in need of some serious help. This little beauty is going to be a 1-year old in about 5 months.

We call her our "Little Hippo" (I realize that it sounds a little rude to refer to my daughter's chubbiness but it's too cute!!) so with that little nickname in mind, we are throwing her a Pink Hippo birthday party.

This is where I need help. I have searched high and low for pink hippo ideas and have bookmarked a couple of pinky things but I'm actually stumped. Does anyone have any cool DIY ideas or links that they can help me with?! I would love and appreciate it!!

Stay Awesome!!

Korker Bow

Just a warning...I've never attempted korker bows before. This is my first time.

 I wrapped the ribbon around the dowel rods and baked them at 275 degrees for 25 minutes. I was so excited to see how they were going to turn out! It was hard to wait the 25 minutes.

After they cooled, I cute them down to about 2.5 inch long pieces and stacked them in a colorful pattern then I used some yarn to tie them in the center. I used my trusty hot glue gun to glue down some pieces then glued it to the headband.

It turned out wonderful and my Ballerina looked so patriotic!

6 Months

Guess who is officially 6 months old!!

This girl right here!!!

I can hardly believe that six months ago (2 days after Christmas to be exact) I was given the gift that is Ballerina. She brightens the whole family's day!

DIY Tutu and Matching Onesie!

So my mother has been buying Ballerina a ton of tutus with matching bows and onesies. I know she's spending a fortune so I decided to help her budget a bit and make my own. I went to Walmart (the place of torture and doom with bargaining prices strategically placed) bought a pack of plain white onesies, found some iron-ons that were too cute to pass up, and used some tulle and ribbon I had on hand.

I love the way it turned out. Ballerina was snoozing when I finished so I couldn't put it on her and then before she woke, a friend of mine stopped by and ended up falling in love with the whole thing. She bought it for her baby girl Zara for $25. Seriously! She gave me $25 for an outfit that honestly couldn't have cost me more than about $4 to make. I wasn't complaining but Wow! And now, I need to make another one for Ballerina. haha!

**I entered this little craft in Polka Dots on Parade: Wow Me Wednesday #11,Tatertots & Jello, and Smilemonsters So excited!! **

Carole

Beauty in the Rush

This is the final week of school for my kids. Yay! No more rushing out the door at 8 am!! Now that I have that out of my system, in my rush this morning I was delayed by this.

I'm told it is called a night lily. It blooms only at night and lives for a few days. (Bugs are very attracted to it.) Isn't it beautiful? I just wanted to post about the little bit of beauty in my morning rush.
Oh and there was this little bit of this beauty this morning too.

Couldn't you just squish those cheeks!?!?! My little Ballerina.

Cow Rattle

So I am obsessed with socks. I love to wear crazy colored socks all the time because my idea is that no matter how crappy my day is, I can always think about how my socks don't match anything else that I'm wearing and it makes me smile. It's like my dirty little secret. :) So anyways, that being said I always buy new socks so I've decided to start recycling my older ones.

Last year, my mother (knowing my obsession with socks) bought me some bizarre socks with animals on them. Well, although they were cute, they were too narrow for my big old feet so I decided to try recycling them.

I took the cow sock (Yes. I actually said COW SOCK.) and I cut it off about half way. I added a plastic Easter egg with beads (taped securely) and put it in the toe of the sock, added the rest of the sock as stuffing, and sewed it shut, added little ribbons to the top for flare.

And TA-DA!!! Ballerina has a cute cow rattle!!

**This was placed on Social Saltuation: Saturday Social **

Carole

A little lovey for little miss Ballerina

So I got bored today and made another little thing for Ballerina.

I used some leftover scraps of fabric that I had from Ballerina's bow board and decided to put it to use. My daughter decided she wanted to try her hand at sewing so I gave her some scraps to do one for herself.

She did pretty good but she has a heavy foot and got a little carried away on the stitching. But overall, not bad for a nine-year old. Unfortunately, Cupcake wouldn't let me take a picture of it. (I think she was nervous)
Here is the final product from me.

The main difference between this one and the last one is that I didn't include the rattle so this one is just a little stuffed lovey for her to snuggle.

Carole

First time sewing...

So I've been lacking in my blogging lately. I blame my five kids, my chaotic Spring Break, and my busy school schedule. It's not a great excuse, I agree but it's an excuse nontheless. With that out of the way...onto the crafting blog.

So I did manage to get a tiny bit crafty recently.  Ballerina is three month old now. And even though her interest in toys with noise has increased, her hand-eye coordination hasn't. So I figured that this was the perfect time to break out my new sewing machine and attempt to use it. I received it for my birthday in February but I've been too chicken to use it. 

I am a confessed lurker on several mommy-craft blogs. I love them....I'm addicted. Anyways, on one particular blog that I'm obsessed with (Samster Mommy @ blogspot) the supermom, Natasha made her infant daughter a homemade rattle using a t-shirt, ribbons, stuffing, and a plastic case with beads. It was genius. I think she called it a Sunshine Rattle and it is so super cute.

Well I decided that this would be the perfect thing for my little miss so I tried it. Only, I didn't have any yellow fabric and I had an excess of old black t-shirts and iron-on patches. I started by cutting two circles out of the t-shirt and ironed on my little patches for a splash of color against the black.

After that I placed and sewed on my ribbons. I figured the brighter the better. Now on Samster Mommy, she used a plastic rectangle case as the rattle in between her two circles, I didn't have one of these but I did have a ton of plastic eggs leftover from last Easter so I took one of those and put about 5 beads inside it and super-taped it. Then I sewed the two circles together with the patches facing each other so I could turn it inside out. (This is where I forgot to put the ribbons on the inside of the circle so it would eventually be on the outside when I turned it inside out and ended up needing to start over. Oops!)

It turned out pretty good considering I didn't know what I was doing. I did end up with my final side being a little wonky. I had stuffed it beautifully and was ready to sew the last little bit when Ballerina suddenly demanded my undivided attention, forcing me to speed things up and making a wonky side.

Ballerina didn't seem to mind though. The rattle ended up being a big success and she loves the thing. I think I may end up making many more from leftover scraps.

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.