Bean Bag Fish

I made these for my 2-year old's mermaid birthday party. My intention was to have them be a game - a fish-bag toss, but we didn't end up using them that way. Oh well, they turned out cute anyway.

They're super easy to make, too! Just cut out fish and fin shapes and raid your fabric scraps box. 

I used felt for the bodies and fabric scraps for the fins.

I also used ribbon and a little embroidery to liven them up! 

Overall, I think they turned out pretty cool.

Mending a purse lining

What really annoys me is when I buy something and then a month later it's broken. In this case, my purse's lining had separated in the main pocket, creating quite the unseamly hole (hehehe).

So naturally I had to fix it. The edges of the fabric were very frayed, so it didn't think it wise to just sew it closed. I used a couple layers of Stitch Witchery and a hot iron to seal the hole closed and reinforce the seam (I covered the purse fabric with a cloth diaper before ironing, since I didn't know how the fabric would react to direct heat... the process produced an interesting smell that stayed on my hands for quite some time.)

Then I slip stitched over the newly closed seam to create a more attractive finished seam.  Done and done!

St. Patrick's Day Hair-bow

Do you need a spot of green for Saint Patrick's Day? A great idea (you know, if you're under 10) is a little hair bow.

I got some lovely themed ribbon from Joann's for 50% off, and a St. Patrick's Day four-leaf clover lei from Michael's (for $0.59) - which I then harvested for the clover shapes (below).

(Consult any one of a million tutorials out on the internet for a how-to on bow making - you'll need a glue gun, hair-clips, ribbon and about 10 minutes. It's easy and fun!)

The end result is this - a lovely little hair-bow for my little girl.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Mermaid Birthday Party

For my daughter's 2nd birthday I decided to do a Mermaid/Ariel theme for her and she absolutely loved it.

I got most of my ideas from Pinterest. There were so many good ideas I couldn't use them all!

Here are the finished seaweed streamers I made. I used two different shades of green, white, and light blue. I stapled the streamer strips over a piece of string. And then I made the lovely construction paper fish to hang among-st the seaweed. It was an easy and fun project and the girls though they were super cool.

Here is the balloon octopus. I should have gotten a bigger bag of balloons because I ran out of red! Oh well, it was still a fun little decoration.

The spread - 

Swedish Fish -

I used melting candy and molds to make these seashells -

Swedish Fish Jello - I used the recipe at MarthaStewart.com but I wish that I had just used regular blue Jello - it would have tasted better. 

Dessert sushi!

Starfish calzones - I used pepperoni and turkey.

The cake! This was my first attempt at using fondant (which I made myself, which was super easy and fun!). I think it turned out well -

Treasure chest - what can I say, all our guests thought this was pretty sweet (you know, the ones under five) -

I also made bean bag fish to play with but I'll save those for another post.

Overall, the party went off without a hitch and my oldest keeps telling me that she wants to have a mermaid birthday, too.