My Craft Room Chair

I saw a chair on Pinterest and have wanted to do something like it for almost a year now.  Here is the link to the chair that inspired my chair  http://roadkillrescue.net/2012/05/doily-design-chair/

Before

I couldn't find any lace that I liked enough (I can be very picky), so I used my Cricut to cut swirls (Accent Essentials cartridge), flowers (George Basic Shapes cartridge), and dots.  I taped the shapes down so they wouldn't move while I spray painted.

This is right after I spray painted.  I use Rustoleum or Valspar (Lowe's spray paint)

I wanted a little pink on the chair to match my craft room.  I dry brushed pink acrylic paint around the design.

I distressed the edges of the chair.  And sealed it with a gloss spray paint.  I only use Valspar clear spray paint for the sealer and I do 2 coats on the entire chair and 3 on the seat.

I only had permanent tape when I taped the shapes down so it was difficult getting all the tape residue off the chair, I would suggest using a repositioning tape instead.  Other then that the chair was done pretty quickly and it looks great in my craft room.

Alice In Wonderland

For my daughter's 9th party she wanted an Alice in Wonderland party.  She LOVES to plan parties and started been planning this in the summer.  Normally she decides the theme and a general idea of what she wants to do and I get to make it happen, but this time she had some very detailed requests. 

Invites

She couldn't pick just 1 thing to have on the invite so we did them all.  We used blue paper to represent Alice and I used my Cricut to cut out everything else - luckily I have the software that lets me make my own svg pictures so I was able to make a Cheshire Cat, watch, and Mad Hatter hat.  I used the Cricut Flower Shoppe cartridge for the Dandi-lion.

 

Decorations

I had so much fun getting the decorations together for this party!  She wanted to play croquet with the Queen so of course we had to have a room decorated for the Queen of Hearts!  

 This is how I made the big cards for the walls:

I cut a heart, an A, a 2 and a 3 out on my Cricut and traced them onto a poster board to make my patterns. 

 Once everything was traced I used a utility knife to cut them out - this gave me a stencil.

  Next I got to spray paint!!!

 
 

My finished product  :)

She also wanted to make a craft with the flowers and have a Mad Hatter tea party.  I ran out of time to make all the decorations for 2 separate rooms so we combined the rooms.  I decorated the walls with balloon flowers and some wide crept paper.  For the ceiling I hung purple (my daughter's favorite color) plastic table cloths, balloons and some paper lanterns that I had made.  I covered the table with purple plastic for the craft and black table clothes for the tea party.  All the chairs were covered with white and cream material and brightly colored ties.  For the tea party portion of the party I used glass candy jars as center pieces - this probably wasn't the best idea since I had planned on it being given out at the end of the party not snacked on throughout the entire night  :)




 





 

She also wanted the signs they have in the Disney cartoon version of Alice in Wonderland.  I used poster board, my Cricut to cut out the words, and ink pads to smudge the edges.

Game

She wanted to play croquet but with several girls coming we had to make it into a relay race.  First we had them climb down the rabbit hole.

My husband made 2 rabbit holes out of PVC pipe, rope, and sheets.

This is the PVC frame.  We tied  rope across the sides and top, then covered it with a sheet.

Next they had to play a short game of croquet.

 

And last they had to feed the Cheshire Cat.

My daughter wanted us to use heart shaped bean bags for this part of the game.

My adorable niece  :)

This is what the room looked like.

Crafts

She wanted each of her friends to get a small top hat to decorate.  I was able to sew 4 hats out of 1/2 yard of fabric and I used the plastic mesh to give it structure.  We kept it simple and had the girls pick a trim to put around their hat.

 

The birthday girl

My 10yr old daughter

We also made bracelets.  Again I used the plastic mesh, covered in gray yarn with 4 buttons sewn on.  The girls cut flowers out of felt and we cut button holes in the flowers so they could be attached to the bracelets.

Food

For the Mad Hatter's tea party she wanted each girl to have their own tea cup - my mom and sister helped me find enough for each girl to have one to keep.  She wasn't interested in small, tea party food instead we had pizza rolls, jello, bread sticks and hot cocoa (in the tea cups).

Our version of pizza rolls

For dessert we had ice cream in cookie bowls (I didn't get a picture of these) and cake.  She wanted a fun crazy cake so this is what I came up with.  Please don't look too closely this was my first time making and using marshmallow fondant (which is so much fun!  Now I try to find a reason to make a fun cake).

This party was so much fun!  But I couldn't have done it without my amazing friends and family.  I always get a little crazy on "party day" and so many of my friends and family just showed up to help.  My husband says they came to help him deal with me - either way I love to have them there.

My daughter was thrilled with how it all turned out 

and is currently planning next years party :)

Pirate Party!

For my 6yr old's birthday this year he wanted a surprise pirate party.  Yes you heard right - he planned his own surprise party.  In October he told me he wanted a surprise party and back then it was supposed to be a secret agent surprise party so I had been planning for months - working on the invites, games, food, decor...  The day I figured out the invite he came in and told me that he had changed his mind and now his surprise party had to be pirates.  I tried everything to convince him that the secret agent party would be so fun, but he wouldn't hear of it.  So I scratched everything and with 2 weeks till the surprise party started planning a pirate party.  I know I'm crazy.  I should have stuck with the secret agent party, but his face was so sweet and how he asked was so cute and his argument on why he needed it to be a pirate party was so convincing....  

we did the pirate party and had TONS of fun  :)

Invites

 I did the typical pirate party invites.  I printed them on plain white paper then soaked them in coffee and rubbed the coffee grounds on each one.  After they dried I burnt the edges, rolled them up and tied them with twine.  I love how they turned out.

Decor

  I tied balloons to yarn and hung them in the corners and across the windows.

I made a skull and cross-bones banner out of black burlap, acrylic paint and a skull stencil I cut out.

 

 I took his lantern, pirate ship, pirate sign, pirate flag, ship steering wheel, 

and treasure chest out of his room - it definitely helps that his room is pirate themed.

I also used my daughters parrot and some of our Halloween decorations and

put black over the table and all the chairs.

Food

We had hotdogs and french fries for lunch.  We made the hotdogs into pirate ships and called the french fries sea creatures.  One of the kids asked what we called the ketchup and another one answered with "blood".  I thought it was a little too gory, but all of them laughed and thought it was great so I went with it.

For dessert we had cupcakes with skulls and crossbones on them and cookie bowls with vanilla ice cream.  My little guy told everyone the cupcakes were the pirate island and the cookie bowl and ice cream were a pirate ship - he was very into the whole pirate theme  :)

For his family party I made a skull and cross-bone cake.  This was only my second time using marshmellow fondant - which is very fun but I still have not mastered it so don't look too closely.

Games

Of course all the kids hid so when my son walked in the front door they could all jump out and yell "SURPRISE!!!"  He didn't disappoint, he had one of the best surprised faces I've ever seen and completely played along with the whole surprise party.

I made the whole party a treasure hunt.  After we yelled "SURPRISE!!"  we gathered the kids together told them that when we moved into our house (we moved here about 6 months ago) we found a pirate map.  When we found it we decided to keep it for his birthday party.  We asked them all if they would help us find the treasure - they were all very excited to help.

My husband drew the map on plain white paper, then I soaked it in coffee and rubbed coffee grounds on it and burned the edges and a few spots in the middle of the map.  One little boy even asked if it was a really pirate treasure map :)

The map started out at our front door and said everyone had to have a pirate name to continue on the treasure hunt.  We wrote their names on white skulls and then safety pinned them to their shirts so we could call them by their pirate name for the entire party.  Most of the kids thought up their own names but I had this chart to help if they got stuck:

                    Name Chart

(pick 1 word from each column)

Long           John             Kidd

Black          Tooth             Billy

Hook           Leg               Joe

Captain       Skull             Jack

Big              Beard            Ned

Blue            Wreck            Willy

Patch          Boot             Gibbs

Evil             Patch             James

After they got their pirate name they had to learn to talk like a pirate and look like a pirate.  We taught them the following words and had them repeat them.  They all used some of the words through out the party.

Aaargh!  is what pirates say when they really don't know what to say, but is always said with a pirate sneer.

Ahoy  is hello, howdy, what's up....

Booty  is their treasure.

Bow the front of the ship or what a boy pirate does when they meet a pretty girl pirate.

Buccaneer a fancy word for "pirate"

Davy Jones's Locker the bottom of the ocean and home of the dead pirates.

Galley the ship's kitchen.

Jolly Roger is another name for the skull and crossbones.

Marooned to be left alone on a desert island.

Mutiny when the crew overthrows the captain of the ship.

Port one of the sides of the ship.

Stern the look the Captain will give you if you don't do what you are asked.

After they all learned how to talk like a pirate they had to dress like a pirate.  They each got a headband and an eyepatch so they would look like a pirate.

I cut black material into triangles and surged the edges, then I stenciled the skull and crossbones on them for the headbands.  The eye patches I bought at Zurchers.

The next stop on our map was to learn to fight sea creatures.  I had drawn several sea creatures (mermaid, crocodile, shark, and octopus) on poster board, cut them out then I hung them from the ceiling in our hallway.  The pirates shot them with nerf guns.  They loved this and came back to it after the party was over!

After fighting sea creatures the map said we needed to learn to eat like a pirate.

 

They all had to learn how to walk the plank in true pirate style. The treasure map said they had to prove they were pirate worthy to earn their "steel".  They decided to walk the plank several times, each time they had a new "pirate walk".

We kept all the swords in the treasure chest so it would be a surprise after they walked the plank.

 

I've made the pirate swords out of PVC pipe and water noodles before.  But since my son decided to change to a pirate theme in the middle of winter I couldn't find the water noodles so I ran to Home Depot to see what my options were.  I actually like this version of the sword better then the water noodles.

We cut the 1/2" PVC pipe to  21"  and put an end cap on 1 end.  

I used poster board to cut out the hand guard.  8" x 4" with rounded corners and 2 wholes that the PVC pipe will fit through.

I spray painted the handle and guard gold.

We used black pipe insulator for the blade.  It has a slit down 1 side of the foam so it can be easily put on the pipe and it fit more tightly around the PVC.  It also has adhesive down the slit to hold it closed and helped it stick to the PVC.  I cut the foam into 19" lengths.

My son was thrilled that they looked like real pirate swords with the black blade instead of the brightly colored blades that I have made in the past.

After they earned their swords they had to learn to use them.  We hung black balloons from the ceiling in an unfinished part of our basement and turned off the lights so there was the light coming from the window and the glow from where the treasure was.  We told them they had them fight their way to the treasure.  I was worried about them being to excited and hitting each other so we explained how important it was to protect your crew mates and to make sure they didn't get hurt.  This helped a ton!  We didn't have any over zealous swords  :)

This is what it looked like with the lights on.

The treasure was in the far corner of the room.  We spread plastic coins out and then put chocolate coins in bags for them to take.  We also put green glow sticks hidden around the treasure so it would glow.  I got the chocolate coins at Zurchers then found them (after the party) for quite a bit less at Winco.

The "thank you" gift was the headband, eye patch, sword and chocolate coins. 

Even our help got dressed up for the occasion  :)

After everyone had left my son told me it was the best party EVER and that he was glad I am his mom

he made my day :)