DIY- Minnie Mouse B-day decorations...

Did you all have a good weekend?

 Well, thankfully we did as well. It was not only a busy one, but it was very fun as we celebrated my niece, Katarina's 1st B-day. My SIL, Casandra, had a Minnie Mouse Bowtique Tea Party theme as the ideal theme for her 1st birthday party. She picked out her vision via Pinterest (we love Pinterest!), and I just helped her execute her plan. She is self declared as being "non-creative" but I have to say that motherhood and wanting to do everything possible for her first child is clearly waking up that creative side in her, and I'm so excited to see that bloom. It will be so much fun to work together.  So I will have pictures to share later this week of the party, but today I wanted to share some of the DIY decorations I came up with for the party and for Katarina.

Sweater Pillow and Hand warmers

Its hard not to come across a multitude of different blogs that have their own amazing DIY ideas, and I love them because its always fun and amazing to see the stuff some of these ladies come up with and share with their readers.  One of those blogs I follow is the eighteen25. I was introduced to them a few years back when I followed their idea for Christmas Card books that I now I make every year for our household. I follow them on Facebook as well, and a few weeks back they posted this cutest idea for a heart shaped sweater pillow for Valentines season. (click on the picture for link). The idea is to take any old cable knit sweater from your closet or a thrift store and you can make any pillow out of it. Soo cute, right?! I hadn't sewn anything in a while so it was a great chance to do something for Valentines...But as the idea swirled in my head along with planning Katarina's party, I took the idea a step farther and figured that I could "easily" convert this pillow into a Minnie Mouse pillow idea.  So Thank You ladies from eighteen25!



So following directions from eighteen25, this is what I did:
* I found a cable knit sweater at a goodwill store for $3.00 (washed it of course), and laid it out on the  floor inside out.
* Made a cardboard stencil of half a Mickey face and just turned it around to trace both sides of the face. (I had to modify my drawing as I went along to get the right look. It wasn't perfect, but it worked)
* I pinned the two sides of the sweater pieces together, cut it out and then machine sewed them together
* Turned it inside out and stuffed it.
* I hand stitched the top to close it up.

 

Then you take an 8x10 square of black felt and you pinch it in the middle and sew it in place. I added the little extra piece of hot pink felt for an added touch.

And within less than hour I had myself what looked like a "Minnie Mouse" pillow.

Cute, right??

Minnie Handwarmers:  I am not one to let good material to go to waste so as I sat and looked at the remaining parts of the cut up sweater I realized there was enough space on the arms to make little Minnie heads with a smaller Mickey head stencil I had printed up. But what to make them into? Hmmm...it has been really cold so I thought- hand warmers! Perfect!

So in the same fashion as the pillow, I actually hand stitched them, pulled them inside out, filled them with rice, and stitched them closed. I added little bows on them and voila...Minnie Mouse hand warmers!
You stick them in the microwave for 10-20 seconds and you can put them in your coat pocket to warm up your hands. 

So for $3 I made a big pillow for Katarina (which she loved btw) and 24 hand warmers for the guests at her party.

Not a bad deal for a DIY craft,
 and they made for a cute party favor.

Planning a party for me is always an excuse to get creative with my hands so here are a few other things I made to make Katarina's party theme come together:

Centerpieces-

 

These are the centerpieces I made for the party tables. The circles are foam circles (Target $ section) that I had previously used and painted yellow for Casandra's baby shower so I  re-purposed them by painting them hot pink (2-3 coats to cover up the yellow). Then I found these pretty boa's at the 99 cent store (Valentines section) that was long enough to count into 4 pieces and put them in the middle. 

Casandra had a friend make her some cute Minnie Mouse Cricut cut outs that I hot glued onto sticks and stood up in some painted foam bases (also from the Dollar tree) to complete the pieces. This is how the final centerpiece looked on the tables.






Candy table:

One of the things that Casandra really wanted was a small candy table for the kids so we made that happen with appropriately colored Valentine candy readily available around this time, so it made it pretty easy to fill up and decorate empty jars and vases I had around the house.

Chocolate Covered Pretzels:

But in addition to the candy, I had been wanting to make and decorate chocolate covered pretzels that my SIL, Adriana, had made for a baby shower. I couldn't find the pretzel sticks she used so I bought a barrel of thick pretzels from Costco and used those instead. And they came out really cute.

This was again another super easy DIY food craft, and it also took less than 1/2 hour to make about 50 pretzels. This could also be such a versatile food craft for any occasion just by changing up the chocolate color and/or the sprinkles or decorations you'd like to use. Target always has sprinkles in the dollar section, and I found these pink circle sprinkles that were perfect for this occasion.

Minnie Mouse Cake:

Katarina had a smaller little get together (she's a first child what I can say ;) the night before her main kiddie party and I attempted to make a Minnie Mouse cake.  I couldn't promise Serg and Cas that I'd be successful, but they were happy with what I came up with.  As you can see, I made 3 seperate cake cirlces and cut out the smaller ones to make the ears. I crumb coated the cake the night before and then re-frosted the cake to make it smooth the morning of. 

I added another felt bow and left it nice and simple.

Mom's touch:

Casandra added some great creative touches herself by making these cute chocolate Minnie Mouse cupcakes. A first time attempt for the new mom and they turned out fantastic! She added mini-Oreos for the ears and tiny fondant circles to get the look she wanted and they were a hit with the kids of course. 

They matched soo well next to the special homemade cake that my friend Sarah Salazar made for us. 

She did such a beautiful job on it just from a picture Casandra gave her from Pinterest.

 

One of Casandra's initial inspirations for the menu was a sandwich cutter in the shape of a Mickey head she already had for Katarina. She used that to make ham/cheese and peanut butter/jelly tea sandwiches for the kids in addition to the delicious gourmet sandwiches she made for the adults. What a great way to add that special touch to the overall theme. Again, another big hit with the kids and some of the parents too ;)

As you can see, this party had a lot of homemade touches and it honestly all came together really nicely to make it a magical 1st birthday party for our little Katarina.  She may not remember all of this right now, but she'll look back on these pictures to see just how much love was put in to make her day special. 

I hope you found a little inspiration and some easy ideas to try yourself for any future special occasions you might have.  I  hope you'll enjoy trying something new as much as I do. 

From my corner to yours...Thanks for stopping by!

Getting DIY Creative

So yesterday, I told you a little about my organizational missions, and today I want to show you know how in the midst of doing that, I found a chance to get creative and completed a dare to work on a DIY project at the same time.

So as I was on the mission of cleaning off my desk, I also realized that I needed a new desk organizer because this is what I had on my desk before the 'cleanse'. Sexy and cute, right?! Yeah, Not so much...

So where do you think I turned to?? …Yup, Pinterest - Love that place!! I searched for DIY Desk Organizers and I found a few samples of what others have done, and I picked this one out to try for myself and mixed in a little bit of this project  of tinting bottles with it.

Check out those highlighted blogs for details and further instructions but I took the information and tried to make it my own and modified it where I needed to.



I am also very big about using what I have around the house because 1.) I hate having to wait to go get what I need or 2.) I usually have something at home that will work just as well if not better.


So I did exactly that- I looked around and found a couple of salad dressing jars that look a lot like mason jars, a couple of empty Starbucks Frappuchino bottles, a vinegar/oil dispenser I wasn't using, and hot sauce bottle and a few other extra ones. I took Goo Begone to them and took off any attached labels and washed them out completely.

I followed the directions to tint my bottles and I started off with making some pink jars, then I made some light blue ones, and I figured since I was already at it I might as well make some green ones for my bathroom.

The next step was to take the colored bottles and oven bake them to make to bake in the color and and make them clear. I almost didn't believe it could be this easy, but it was!

 after 20 minutes or so @ 170 degrees.

 

While the jars were "cooking" I looked for a photo frame I could use as the base of my desk organizer, but instead I found the cover of a cookie tin that I used upside down. And since I didn't have any available fabric scraps for this project, I used some heavy card stock paper I had to line the bottom of it as shown.

 

 

My next step was to start adding some embellishments to the votive candle holders I wasn't tinting and the finished base. I found some twine that I hot glued around them and the tin base to give that similar rustic look from the sample I picked. 

After the jars were done, I let them cool off for a little bit and then continued to decorate them in a similar manner to complete the look I wanted which included adding some white twine to change it up.

Once I had them all decorated I hot glued them down to the base,
 filled them up with some supplies and placed it on my newly cleansed desk to use.

 Yay!

Then I took the extra bottles I had made, and put 2 of them on my bathroom as window decorations, and the 2 others are now my make up brush and cosmetic holders. They match my bathroom colors and add a nice touch!

What do you think?? Do you like these ideas?? 

Its different, totally easy to make, and it was pretty much FREE!!

The whole project took less than a couple of hours to make, and more importantly 

its all totally useful and a bit more stylish compared to what I used to have.

Would you make this for yourself? Are you inspired to try something like this?
I hope so.

Honestly, what I love about any of these ideas I see on Pinterest
is that you can always make it your own.
You just saw me take 2 simple ideas to make 1!

There are so many possibilities so there's no excuse not to try.

There is no perfection!

If this doesn't work for me in a few months, I can always try again.

From my corner to yours...wishing you some fun- find a project and get creative!

Thanks for stopping by!