Flower Clips/Headband Tutorials (not mine)

I feel totally guilty, because over a year ago my friend Jenny asked me to explain how to make hair clips with flowers for girls. It is super easy, unfortunately it is not super easy to take pictures of yourself doing it. I never found a willing photographer. Every time I made clips I felt guilty and googled how to hair clips, figuring someone would have made a tutorial way better than I ever could have, but never had success until tonight.
Hooray its not me, Here is how to make a clippie/lined barrette, if you want to put a flower omit the bow steps after page 3, step 11 and glue a daisy or some other flower on. You can also bust apart the daisy, buy rhinestones and glue that one where the center of the daisy was. If you are interested in this tutorial, and you don't think you will remember steps I would print it out/save it on your computer, these things seem to get deleted off the internet quickly. Seriously save it now.
To make the headband is super easy, I doubt you even need to sew. Take nylons/tights/pantyhose, in desired color, measure around the size of your daughter's head, giving yourself about a half an inch before you cut, for seam allowance. Glue or sew you nylons/tights/pantyhose in a circle so it makes a headband shape. Then take some ribbon, and loop it around the headband seam. Glue the ribbon ends around the headband seam on only on the back side so it creates a loop to slide your clips in. See the loop on the front, not glued on, perfect for sliding clips in. Does that make any sense, if not email me, leave me a comment something.If you live by a specialty lace shop or sewing shop you can also buy stretchy lace and make a headband from that instead of tights. I know where one is by my house, but be warned JoAnns does not sell stretchy lace.
Here are the clippies I made tonight.See how the clip opens, imagine sliding that on the loop on the headband.
There are a few more free tutorials but not much on this page.
My favorite is the bugs bows.
By the way, these tutorials are for personal use, meaning you can't sell what you are making based on their instructions.
By the way I have never sealed the ends of my ribbon.

Me

I don't know if this is a family blog post, or a me as a crafter post, so it ended up both places...sorry....it is slightly different.

You can't really tell from this picture, but yesterday morning, I spent a LOT of time, decorating for my son's birthday party. I used two packages of streamers, yellow and gray, in not a very large area. I didn't want to save any, so I used the entire packages of both. In the middle of things, my husband came out of "his office" (our bedroom) and sat on the recliner, watching me. He started to laugh under his breath. I said "what?" Smiling, he replied, "You don't ever do things half way do you?" My style is over the top, which explain the multitude of things on this blog, millions of blankets for my kids, home made toy/dolls, halloween costumes without patterns, cookies, cookies, and more cupcakes than anyone should make in a month, I have a tendency to be a little extreme/obsessive. (Oh lets not the forget the 20 page quietbook I hand embroidered, and finished in less than a month.) But that is why my husband is perfect for me, my over indulgence doesn't overwhelm him, he just stays in the background smiling. At the same time I'm not a perfectionist, I have no desire to be spent the time to be a professional baker, sew as well as a sweatshop worker, or be an award winner quilter. That is not me, I just want to have fun.

Fire Monster Truck

My newly turned four year old had two birthday parties. A family one with his uncle, which included just a few cupcakes and a fire truck or two. Turns out I don't like funfetti cake, I've been eating it for years, a decade maybe, and I just discovered this.

Then the Monster Fire Truck one, with his friends. That is what he called it. I am actually proud of this cake. I wasn't proud of his birthday cake last year, or my daughter's birthday cake. But this I'm proud of.

I think I need to take a cake decorating class, I had no idea what I was doing with that gray trim.

According to him, his middle name is "Fast Monster Truck" while his sister's middle name is "slow monster truck"

Perfect

Do you see my almost perfect mini 6" cake? I love it, its so flat, and perfect. True love, I don't know if I've ever been so proud of a cake before?! That might not be exactly true, that lemon cake last summer, was like my first born, and this mini cake is like a second born. There is enough love for all, my heart swells with joy for both. Our apartment has an almost new oven, its magical, I love it. When I buy a house, I want to replace the carpet first, and then the oven. I can never go back to a crappy oven again.

Primary

I must like the kids I teach in Primary (church classes for young children) a lot, because I made them two different types of sugar cookies! on Sunday. First I had already told them I would make them valentine's cookies.

Second, the lesson was about birthdays, more specifically Jesus's birthday, but it did discuss the importance of everyone's birthdays. So I HAD to make birthday cookies. Ice cream cones. I loved them so much! They tasted way better than the valentine's cookies even though they were the same batch. They made a great mid choir snack. (I didn't share.)

Valentine's Monsters

I made my kids a pair of monsters for Valentine's. My kids love them, I feel honored, because my daughter took her baby doll out of the doll stroller for the monster. I was surprised how quickly I was able to make these little guys. The blue one has curly loopy hair.

We made valentines

We made valentines in our house. I made valentine boxes for everyone, because well I'm silly and enjoy doing silly things. It took me three boxes until I finally figured out how to make them look good, so then I ripped the paper off the ugly ones and started all over. I used old kleenex boxes. The key with covering boxes, is using two pieces of scrapbook paper, that meet on the middle of the top of the box. Then folding the paper that over laps on the short ends of the box, and cutting so it doesn't bunch and then cutting a new square and covering up where the paper doesn't match up. I know that doesn't really make sense. But I feel like I'm my part to save other people time. I'm quite excited about a valentine's party for my son next year in preschool if you can't tell. My son is really into letters this year, so its fun for him to make valentines for everyone and put them in mailboxes. Plus I've been using scraps of paper and writing little phrases to put in my kids boxes, they will have fun pulling them out. Plus I always HAVE to make my husband a valentines/birthday card. My boxes make me happy, and I think I'll have to find space to save them for next year.

My son made valentines for his grandmas. I love them. He is getting so "advanced" in his artwork. It was totally his idea to make little heart people.

Plus here he is writing his name for store bought valentines. Yes, we hit all the angles in our house, homemade paper doily ones, and store bought super hero ones.

I love school platonic valentine parties. I can't wait for February 2011, and elementary school after that. As far as romantic lusted induced valentines day I couldn't care less. I never once had a "i love a boy" valentine until after I was married, and I have never had a traditional romantic valentines day since its my hubby's birthday, and I'm totally ok with continuing our tradition of breaking tradition. Not to mention my husband is hardly the romantic type, a personality trait that is perfect for me.

Cupcakes for their Daughter, my niece

We went to the party for my new(er) niece, and my son and I made really girly flouncy cupcakes for the big sister. She has been very interested in pink cupcakes because of the book Pinkalicious. (I've never read the book, or seen the cover until today.) I couldn't decided what decoration to use, so I did all three, I think it turned out for the best with all three. The L is not for my name and not for love, its for the niece who the party was for name. The cupcakes were a success, more than one niece loved them. Niece A. S. was very flowing with her complements of the pink cupcakes.

What picture do you like better? Its the exact same except for the color.

I guess I should have made Elizabeth Kann's Pink Velvet cupcakes.

January and February Cookies

When in doubt if I can get a free magazine I get it. So we had lots of cookie ideas of late. My son wanted to make smiley face cookies from the Family Circle Cover. Sure they don't look anything like the magazine, but my son loved them all the same. In fact we decorated them one night when my husband was at class and the baby was in bed. He said, "Yay, this is the best night ever."

Then I was afraid I might never get to making valentine's cookies, so we did half the batch circles and half the batch Valentines.

The little hand with hearts we got from Martha Stewart Magazine. I think our size dimensions turned out better than her magazine.

Turns out my husband likes sugar cookies with frosting on them, an enlightening revelation after five years of marriage.

Nothing special, but so good

These are my nothing special but SOOO good mint chocolate chip cookies. I mentioned forever ago. Just Nestle's recipe but with Andes Mint Chips. They were so taste good, I went to the store and bought two more bags of Andes Mint Chips in case they were a seasonal item. Plus I used my cookie dough scooper, and my air bake pans, so the cookies turned out delicious, perfect, on top and bottom, and in shape. They seemed so fancy and tasted divine.

The Last of 2009

I forgot, I made some more baby blankets. Imagine that. I love the material, so here they are. With the babies' names hidden as to remain unknown to the blogging world. They have such great material out right now.

I really love the embroidery I did on this purple blanket.