Survivor Birthday Party for Paige

Paige decided she wanted a Survivor themed birthday party.  This one took quite a bit of preparation before the party, but the girls had a really good time.  I even made a custom logo that we used on the invitations and also the tribe buffs.

Here's Paige at the start of the party - wearing her "buff" and holding our tiki man voting container (old formula can covered with paper mache and painted).

As the girls arrived, they drew their buffs (which determined which tribe they were on) and then they went to their tribe 'camp' and worked on their tribe flags, tribe name, and mascot.  We had two tribes - the green tribe became the Polka Dotted Panthers:

And the blue tribe was the Shaba-Laba-Ding-Dongs and their lovely mascot had a  cheetah front end and a zebra read end :-)

Then we got started on the challenges.  For the first challenge, each team designated a 'caller' who stood on their tribe mat and directed teams of two that were tied together at the wrist and blindfolded out into the yard to find bags of puzzle pieces.

They had to bring each bag back to the mat separately and the caller had to direct both sets of tribemates at the same time - by yelling at them which direction to go.

Once they retrieved all three bags full of puzzle pieces, they had to untie the bags that were knotted really well

and then assemble their puzzles...

After that was our very first Tribal Council, where the girls from the winning tribe all voted for who they thought did the best in the challenge.  There was no 'voting off the island' in Birthday Survivor :-)

The next challenge was the infamous food challenge.  The girls went head to head against the other tribe with mystery ingredients.  First girl to finish her portion and stick our her tongue showing an empty mouth earned a point for her tribe.

I figured I couldn't get away with anything too gross so it was all standard grocery-store fare: pimento stuffed olives, sauerkraut (pictured above), potted meat, baby food peas, and sardines.  We ended up with a tie, so the tiebreaker was Wasabi Peas - each person had to eat two and the tribe that finished first won.

The next challenge was an endurance competition.  Who can stand on one leg on a brick the longest?  After two minutes, they had to put their hands on top of their heads... after another two minutes they had to lift their non-standing leg out in front of them, etc.

The next challenge involved two balance beams with a large bucket of water at one end and two empty containers at the other end.

The girls had to walk across the beam and collect water through whatever means possible... mouth, hands, hair, buff...

and then return across the balance beam and deposit the water in their tribe's container.  Once they made it across the next tribemate went.  If someone fell off the beam in the middle, they had to start over.  First tribe to fill their container won.

There were a couple more challenges, including the typical Survivor auction, but not as many pictures were taken.  We headed inside where Paige had a Tiki Man cake:

Then we opened presents, the girls played for a little while, and then they camped out in a tent in the backyard.  A good time was had by all, but we all got very little sleep.  In the morning I made muffins and sent them on their way!

Happy 11th Birthday Paige!

Way past due overly long post about the boys' birthdays

Wow! It's been a while, eh?  Both boys' birthdays have passed  so just a quick updated on those.

Blake's was in May.  We just took him, Paige, and a few close friends to an indoor arcade/amusement type place.  They played lots of arcade games, but this ride was their favorite:

Then we just came back to the house for some Pac Man cake:

Then Dean's 3rd birthday in July.  We just invited some family friends over for the day.  I think Dean's favorite part was the blowers:

They jumped in a small bouncy house...

Played on the Slip-n-Slide....

and feasted on monster cake...

That's it for those sweet birthday boys!  Thanks for looking

Happy Easter

Just wanted to share some Easter pictures.  We had a nice one - kids enjoyed their baskets and we had a small egg hunt in the backyard.  Paige and Blake made another Bunny Cake, which turned out really cute!  Thanks for looking an Enjoy!

Last of the Halloween costumes

I kept hoping I would get some better pictures of Blake's and Dean's costumes.  Once we finally got everyone all dressed and ready to walk out the door for Trick or Treating I couldn't find my camera anywhere.  We ended up just getting a few bad pictures on Mark's cell phone.  Really bad quality, but all I've got.

Here we go... Erika and her friend were going to an Anime Convention on Halloween weekend - Oni-Con.  Erika changed her mind.  She had initially planned to be someone else, but then changed to Sailor V from the Sailor Moon series.  Here's the inspiration:

Her friend wanted to dress as Luna from the same series.  Here she is:

So we based Erika's costume on a cheerleader pattern.  The skirt is not quite right, but I definitely didn't want to go without a pattern for this one.  She ended up painting the glasses and the shoes to get the right colors.  Brittney's was just based on an a-line dress pattern.  I would have preferred something with a fuller skirt, but the girls picked out the pattern so I went with it.  It looks a little "Wilma Flinstone" to me, but they were happy and actually got stopped by several people at the convention - people asked to take their pictures.

Blake wanted to be Ezio from the Assassin's Creed 2 video game.  This was probably the most ambitious costume but actually came together fairly quickly.  The white tunic is a boy's dress shirt - I sewed the red fabric underneath and then cut through the shirt to make the stripes.  The gray is a small man's dress shirt.  The cape is made from some faux-suede and then red satin on the inside.  The shoulder piece is just craft foam (as is the belt medallion) and then the wrist and boot pieces are made some from faux-leather.  I was able to get a few closer pics of the pieces after the fact.

 And here's Blake:

I ended up running out of time (ugh!) so poor Dean got the "Sweats, Felt and Glue Gun Special".  I actually did scour the Halloween aisle at WalMart on the morning of and could not find a single boy toddler costume in his size.  Good thing, though, as he turned out to be an adorable puppy.

Everyone had a great time and all was a success!  I plan to start much earlier next year - maybe like in January!!  Happy Belated Halloween!

Lady Gaga is IN THE HOUSE!

Unfortunately, lots of sewing = very little blogging.  Lots to come in this next week as I finish up Halloween and a few other projects.

Other costumes are still in the works, but Paige needed hers before the Girl Scout Halloween party - it was early because we had it during our last regular troop meeting of the month.  Here she is in all her Gaga-glory:

Once she decided she wanted to be Lady Gaga for Halloween, we perused pictures of Lady Gaga fashion through the years.  Not wanting to deal with raw meat, go sans pants, or be overwhelmed by Kermit, Paige picked the 'Triangle Dress', but not strapless and a little more coverage down the legs...

I was working without a pattern, but it turned out pretty good.  I bought 2 yards of costume satin for $1.98/yard (50% off) and less than 1/2 yard of the sequin fabric.  Everything else I had on hand.  I made a quick tulle underskirt but it still didn't make it stand up enough, so there is flexible tubing along the side hems (to round the sides) and then angled coat hanger wires that run down the sides of the bodice in a casing and then angle out under the sides of the skirt.  Still not perfect, but good enough.  I reworked the skirt several times trying to get that nice flare without gathers, but it just didn't work out, so I ended up just gathering the circle skirt.  The back of the bodice has grommets down either side that we just laced up with ribbon.

 
She will actually get the most use out of her costume since she wore it at this party, will wear it at another event Saturday night, and then for Trick-or-Treating.

I can't figure out why this picture won't rotate, but here's the food I made for the party.  Deviled Eyeballs and Used Q-Tips (lollipop stick with mini marshmallows on the end, dipped in melted butterscotch chips). 

 

 I'm not quite ready to share the full picture of my costume, but it required just a little bit of sewing and some creative makeup.  Here's my feet at the end of the night: 

The girls all had a great time.  Here's a group shot... we had Athena, a cop, Old Grannies, Pirate, Punk Zombie, Annabeth Chase from Percy Jackson, Evil Queen, Graveyard Bride, and a Hot Dog!  Quite the motley crew.

In other craftiness, I made Paige a pencil case to match her new messenger bag.  I didn't have any more of the fabric from the cargo pants I used for her bag, so I just 'recycled' a pair of Blake's outgrown cargo shorts and accented it with the froggie fabric.  It zips at the top and has buttonholes to fit into her binder at the bottom. 

Blake joined choir this year and had his first performance last week.  We may still need to work on this rythm a little bit (chronically off-beat during clapping sequences) but he did great.  Center, bottom row... blond hair...

And lastly, I have some sad, sad news to report.  It is still unconfirmed, but Lady Gaga herself is believed to be dead after taking a bite from the poisoned apple of Evil Queen Grimhelda.  The apple was meant for Snow White, of course, but in a rare moment of opportunity, the Evil Queen realized Gaga herself would make a much more profoud victim (and Snow White wasn't at this party anyway).  The following picture could be disturbing to some... please use caution. 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Messenger Bag version 2.0

The week before school started, I made Paige this cute messenger bag (and matching pencil case) from a pair of Goodwill cargo pants and cute, cute owl fabric. Post with more pictures here and here.
It was cute - it was perfect for her first day of school. She was ready! See?

BUT (isn't there always a but?) when I made the bag I based my measurements on a small stack of folders, notebooks, and a small binder. Well.... after that first day of school she comes home with a HUGE zippered Trapper-Keeper type binder that's about 4 inches thick and way bigger than that stack I measured by. The binder fit in her messenger bag, but barely... there was NO room for a water bottle, pencil bag, or much of anything.

So... take 2. Back to Goodwill and I found a dark chocolate brown pair of cargo capris with cute cinch embellishment at the bottoms of the legs and grommets on the pockets. I was hesitant using capris (less fabric) but really liked it so went with it. Paige went with me to the fabric store to pick out the accent fabric. She chose a green frog and lizard print (no idea why!) - not what I would have picked, but it's HER bag so we went with it.

I also decided to orient the bag the other way... portrait instead of landscape. It's a lot roomer and I was able to add a few extras - like a water bottle holder on the outside (so condenstation from her cold bottle doesn't get any of her papers or stuff damp. The button pocket on the front flap was one from the outer side of the leg of the capris. Pic from the front:

Here's another view of the front showing the water bottle holder better. The legs of the capris could be cinched with an elastic cord. I was running out of fabric so had to piece the water bottle holder, but it's a really nice addition. It's roomy to hold either disposable water bottles or any of her reusable ones.

The other cinch cord went along the upper front of the inside. I don't think she ever really uses this one, but it's cute and can help hold in everything. The front flap pocket are the two angle pockets from the upper front of the pants - the zipper was cut out and those two sides sewn together. I used the accent fabric behind that flap pocket.

Here's her big binder inside the bag. There's still lots of room left for a lunch bag, pencil case, etc. What I forgot to get a picture of is the inside of the bag - along the front (under the cinch cord) are the pockets from the rear of the pants. The inside of the bag is lined with the accent fabric except for that front panel. It was the accent fabric on the ouside (behind the flap pocket) and cargo material on the inside with additional inside pockets.

Here's the front cinched up a little:

And one more view of the front showing the flap pocket - you can see stray papers down in there...

And finally, here's the back. This is the other outer leg pocket. I did end up running out of fabric from the cargo capris and did not have enough to do one side of the strap with it. I had to use the froggy fabric for both sides of the strap. Not ideal, but still cute.

However, NOW we're all aware that the pencil case no longer matches... so guess what the next project is?

I'm really happy with how this one turned out. It's a little bigger for her frame, but it was too big of a hassle for her to have to carry her lunch bag or anything else she needed separate as the binder literally filled the other messenger bag very snugly with room for nothing else.

So, now... what do I do with the owl one???

I've posted at the following linky parties! Go visit to see lots of bloggy craftiness :-)

THURSDAY

Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple, Tranformation Thursday at Shabby Chic Cottage, Show Off Your Stuff at Fireflies and Jellybeans, Get Your Craft On at Life as Lori, Party Time at PonyTails and FishScales, Fabric Fun at Cheap Chic Home, Strut Your Stuff with Somewhat Simple, Weekly Roundup at Seven Thirty Three, Make It Wear It at Train to Crazy, Cheap Thrills at Black Kat's Design

FRIDAY

Frugal Friday at the Shabby Nest, Feature Yourself at Fingerprints on the Fridge, Flaunt It Friday at Chic on a Shoestring, Look at Me at Fun to Craft, Frugalicious Friday at Finding Fabulous, Hodgepodge Friday at Hodgepodge Life, Friday Fun Finds at Kojo Designs, Simply Designing Link Party, Favorite Things Friday, Punkin See Productions Party, Fab Friday at Frugal & Fab Design, Finished for Friday at Lit and Laundry, I'm Lovin' It at TidyMom