Happy Birthday, Jessica…the Big 1-0

And now I can reveal why I haven’t had much crafty stuff to share the past week or so…I’ve been getting ready for Miss Jessica’s 10th birthday party. Screeech…what? There is no way that she is 10 years old. In fact, Steve kept telling her that we weren’t going to have a party after all so she would stay nine. She was on to that idea. She knew that wouldn’t stop her turning 10. Darn.

Warning…picture heavy post coming up…click on pictures to enlarge

Here’s the birthday girl this morning.

  

She’s wearing a necklace my friend made and sent to her for her birthday.

And this is the main reason I haven’t posted. I know I said I wasn’t much of a knitter, but when Jessica found this book in Michaels several weeks ago, she pleaded ever so prettily about my getting it. Of course I told her no, we weren’t there to get that in my mean mom voice.

Obviously, I knew I was going back without her to pick it up and to work on a project for either her birthday or Christmas, depending on if I could actually create a project. It is knitting after all and I’m not much of one.

So…I’ve spent several school hours working on the purple dress you see on the cover and I managed to finish on Friday.  Ta-da! Oh and a time or two I left a piece out and had to finagle a way to hide it so she wouldn’t notice.

 

I had one happy 10 year old when I came out with Jessica Anne wearing the dress. Yay, mom says with a fist pump. Guess maybe smaller projects are okay.

The theme of our party was Pirate, inspired by the tv show, Jake and the Never Land Pirates. Jess enjoys watching it in the morning before school.

 

Here is the cake table. Thanks so much to my friend, Susi, who graciously loaned us the candelabra, chest AND jewels to set the mood.

 

 

The girl pirate on the show is Izzy and we made these little bottles of pixie dust for the girls who attended. Izzy wears a pouch full of pixie dust to help the fellow pirates out on occasion.

 

The cake is my take of the idea shown on the Family Fun website here. Thanks to Susi’s kids for loaning us the mini figure pirates and cannon.

 

I knew the cake wouldn’t feed everyone, so we made some simple cupcakes, too .

A couple of more shots of the cake. It is reminiscent of Bucky, the ship in the Jake and the Never Land Pirates show. Jessica colored the sails and Amy added the Rolo candy for the Crow’s Nest. I personally liked the plank on the back end. LOL Anyone remember rootbeer candy? Or am I totally aging myself? We added some to the cake because they make great barrels. I ate one and was instantly transported back to when I was growing up.

 

Our pirate girl ready to par-tay. I found that shirt at the thrift store yesterday by a totally serendipitous fluke. The hat, too only we added the skull to it.

  

Some of the decor. I found some great pirate themed party supplies at Hobby Lobby and took full advantage of their 40% off coupons. The die cuts on the window are cut from my Cricut using Life’s a Party. My friend, Felicia graciously loaned me that cartridge. Thanks, sweetie! I need to take a picture of the front door where we had a map and the phrase pirate party.

 

Playing a game where you drop a penny into the water. At the bottom is a small bowl or shot glass that you are trying to get the penny into. The kids seemed to like it.

 

Birthday girl looking pretty happy.

 

We also played the same dice game that we played at Amy’s party and the Cookie game as well.  This  young man sure likes this game! He’s pretty good, too.

 

And after the party, Jessica had a great time putting together one of the gifts she received.

Oh and the cake…

Destroyed…but in the best way. Yay!

Whew, I’m pooped, but happy to have another party under the belt and a happy 10 year old.

Thanks for stopping by and reading this, if you even got this far!

Hope you had a fun weekend and are ready for a brand new week.

Little Holiday Elf and Kid Craftiness

Oh my gosh, I’m back again! Yes, I’ve been a busy little bee the past few weeks. This is another project that has helped those creative juices to flow. Jessica and I were in Michaels one day over the summer  looking for some crafty supplies for her. She had checked out a craft book from the Bookmobile that stopped by her school once a week during summer break, and she wanted to make some of the projects. While we were wandering around we saw a display for holiday projects and they had those “free take one” patterns. It stayed in my purse for a month or so I must admit. But, I did use it! Check it out…

Golly, it’s good when football season starts. I can get some projects done while watching the game(s). *Ü* I did have to do her hat a second time, truth be told. The first time my stitches were too loose and the hat came down to her collar, covering her whole head. Not a good look. And I couldn’t find the right sized  pom pom maker (that we used to make all those Angry Bird pom-poms), so I ended up using my fingers to make the pom-pom. Hopefully we can find a spot for her at holiday time. Here’s  the link if you would like the pattern for her.

And I have to share some of the things Jessica was inspired to make from the book she checked out. The flowers and embroidery floss are what we were shopping for that day in Michaels. Yes, I know I have a plethora of craft supplies, but sometimes even with all that, you need to look for that just right item.

 

These sweet little fairies are hanging over her head in bed. 

And this sweet fairy oversees us in the living room.  Aren’t they lovely? She did a great job!

This next project is the first one she worked on and she really impressed me! It’s a dancing doll (as best we can remember) I just took these pictures a few minutes ago.

 

Can you believe the amount of detail she put into this? I remember her working so patiently on the coloring. And the precision she managed with the cutting.  So impressive.

And I can’t neglect Amy…she wasn’t into the crafty projects this past summer,  but over the weekend she created a little vehicle with Lego pieces and conducted a scientific experiment with it. And she also took pictures of the vehicle. Not too shabby on her part! The black rod with the red end is spring loaded somehow and her experiment had to do with drag affecting the distance the vehicle traveled.

 

Gotta say I am proud of my girls.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Halloween Themed Birthday Card

Well, hello there! How have you been? Good I hope! Do you know where the last several weeks have gone? I seem to have blown right through them and November is right around the corner. It was not intentional to have seemingly disappeared, but I managed to, didn’t I?

I’ve been helping out at school.

Need I say more? LOL

Now that we are at the end of October and we just had our Trunk or Treat on Friday evening, the volunteer commitments should ease off a bit.  Jessica had her 9th birthday in amongst all this too!

She got this neat t-shirt from my friend, Kelly. It’s from Kohl’s and it came black and white with markers in a bag. You can color the shirt with the markers. You wash it and the colors wash out, so you can color it again. Very cool. I was so busy with the party, I didn’t get many photos, except her opening her gifts (lots of Barbie stuff). She had fun and that’s what matters most.

On Tuesdays both girls do an after school activity for an hour(at least until December when Jessica’s ends). That means I don’t have to pick them up until an hour later. I don’t know why, but I feel like I have so much more time on those days! And I’ve tried (not very successfully so far) to use that day for crafting. This past Tuesday, I had a ton of projects I wanted to work on. I had one card I had to make for a teacher at the school and once I was done with that, I was going to work on fun ideas for Halloween.

I only managed to finish the card for the teacher. Erggghhh! It’s been a frustrating process for me recently, this trying to make cards gig.

  

Here’s my version of this card. Only without the broom. Because I was running out of time! I did use the Cricut to make the shoes. I don’t have the Top Note die, but the Storybook cartridge has a very similar shape, so I used it and fiddle-futzed to get the shape similar. I ended up reducing the size of the same shape used on the shoes for the sentiment, which is computer generated. This particular teacher’s birthday is on Halloween, hence the theme of the card. I just put the card in her mailbox, so I don’t know if she liked it. She may be tired of getting birthday cards that are this type of theme. The edge punch is a Martha Stewart border punch.  I discovered that Archiver’s carries some twine now. This purple and white is on a card with a few other colors geared for Halloween. It’s put out by Doodlebug. So, I’ve joined the twine wagon, kind of.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you are having a good weekend. Happy Halloween!!

Jeanne

My Cute Alligator

Hi There!

Long time no see, right? I know...I've not been blogging and while still reading blogs, not always commenting. Nothing is wrong, just not doing much papercrafting these days. I figured I'd better pop in and say hey, just in case anyone was wondering.

Last night, Jessica's grade level did their musical play, A Froggy Day in Lindentown for the parents. It was adorable. It was about a bully and how the critters got the bully to stop being a bully. The songs were very sweet and the kids looked great. I took pictures and a few of them came out okay. I edited out the other kids pretty much.

Jessica had a speaking part and remembered her lines well. She also spoke very clearly so you could understand what she was saying. Yay! The kids were all different animals and the nurse for the school made each of them headbands to wear. They looked great. Anyway, it was fun to watch. Thanks for indulging my proud mama moment.

One of the reasons I've not been papercrafting is because I've started a few new counted cross stitch projects. I used to do a lot of cross stitching in years past, but I kind of dropped it after my mom passed away. She and I used to stitch together or we were planning our next projects together. It was hard to do after she was gone. But, as time has gone on I've done projects here and there (I recently made a birth record for Kathi's granddaughter) and I'm rediscovering how much I enjoy it. I think my mom would be happy to see me pick it up in earnest again (especially since I seem to have lost my mojo for crochet/knitting for the time being). 

So, anyway, Amy's teacher is going to have a baby over summer break and Jessica's teacher is going to get married and those events are ripe for fun stitching projects. I've been looking and looking for something to make for each of them and not having a whole lot of luck finding something I like. Well, I came upon my box of cross stitch patterns in our shed and went through them. Yay! I found projects I think would be great for these events. But, school's out next month! So, that means, if I want to get these done, I've got to stitch, stitch, stitch every spare minute I've got. And papercrafting has to take a back seat for the time being.

Here's what I've gotten done so far for Amy's teacher. It's called Recipe for a Happy Child.  I started this project last Thursday. And I found an 11 x 14 frame at the thrift store that I hope to use for it. That should give you an idea of the size of this one.  Most of the main stitching is done on the bottom half, which is what I'm working on now. Once I get that done, the words/lettering shouldn't take too long. And the project(s) I have in mind for Jessica's teacher aren't quite as large, so I'm hoping I haven't bitten off more than I can chew. I'm also waiting on another teacher to find out her "colors" so I know which will work best for her project. Wish me luck!

So, if you don't see me around much for the next month or so, I hope you'll be patient. I don't think that anyone would be all that interested in progress photos. If there's something I just have to share, I'll pop in and let you know.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you are having a good week!

Cinderella Ball

Thought you might like to see some pictures from the Cinderella Ball the 2nd graders had today. I was one of the parents who went in to help decorate the gym. I have to admit, the place looked really magical when it was all said and done. The music teacher bought lots of boxes of white light strands and we parents were able to use them to transform the gym. She also bought lots of sparkly foil snowflakes and streamer type things. She has a lighted arbor that was set up at the opening of the gym and each "couple" were announced as Prince and Princess and their first names. It was so adorable. They librarian for the school was Cinderella and the boyfriend of one of the 2nd grade teachers was her prince. They were announced after all the junior princes and princesses. In a lot of the pictures you can see that Jessica is trying to watch the lovely Cinderella. (so sweet).

There are a bunch of pictures because even though I KNOW the lighting is terrible, I cannot help myself from thinking I just might get a decent shot indoors at the school. I did the best I could with editing in PSE.

 A couple of shots of the gym

I didn't get a shot of the lit arbor they walked through, darn.

 Jess and her partner were announced

 Trying to sneak a peek at Cinderella

 Ready to dance and waiting for the music.

 A lovely couple indeed.

They look like they were having fun, too.

 Still trying to sneak a peek at Cinderella

 The second dance was a line dance.

 The kids did a great job.

I liked how I caught the twirling of Jessica's dress.

And at the end, the clock (gong) struck midnight. Cinderella and all the princesses ran off so as not to get caught by the final stroke. 

The Prince and young princes were perplexed.

Then we headed to the cafeteria and the princes and princesses were served Royal Sundaes.

So cute and a lot of fun!

It was a magical afternoon.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a lovely weekend.

(the kids were so happy with the Valentine's I made them...yay)