Book week costume dress up!

Having a big family has its pros and cons... 

Pro's - how much fun is it to pick a book character and dress up! 

Con's - 4 kids means 4 costumes and all of it was last minute...

If you want something done, give it to a crazy person (or busy person but who's got time for that!).

 Sooooo my boys choose :- 

Greg from Diary of a Whimpy Kid, 

Wally from Where's Wally, 

Tom from Beast Quest and 

Minion - ok that's a movie right? 

Greg was fun!!! I literally found white thermal leggings and tops and glued black ribbon on it. A bit of board for the cut out with stanly knife.

Wally was interesting... I had to use a cotton that didn't stretch and the hat is a beanie (eeek it's a Sydney swans hat under the hat). I just copied a t shirt pattern and drew around the hat.

Tom is by far my favorite costume, he is spot on to the book illustration. I may have unpicked a pair of his old skinny jeans with holes (most my boys jeans end up with holes) to use for the pattern. The top is just a pattern for a tshirt with a collar. 

Minion was the easiest, loving the googles!!!

  

All this effort was worth it for the excitement it gave my boys!!!

Family Christmas photo!!!

It was so hard to find awesome pics that I could copy from Pinterest and use for a Christmas photo, maybe it was just me but I liked the Christmas light idea so I tried it!.  Every year I like to have a screen saver on my computer and phone that shows me the fun spirit of Christmas. So here is my interpretation!!! 

I had so much fun making this photo!!! Two evil younger brothers tying up their older brothers.  I took it into office works and managed to get a very large print for $60 on tear proof and water proof paper.  I thought that was the best option since it is a picture that will come out mainly at Christmas and be put somewhere out of sight the rest of the year.  I am hoping to start a new tradition and do something like this every year!

My boys were into this a little to much! I used a 9 minute YouTube Photoshop tutorial to change the background, here is the original:-

Either way I love both pics, but it snowed here in August and I liked the reminder of where we lived for the background!

I have a good Nikon camera but these pics can be taken on any camera, phone included because I did take a picture with the boys iPod's so they had it for a screen saver and it was so easy to edit using apps! 

I brought a backdrop and lighting off eBay for less than $100 and have taken countless picture since! 

I haven't mastered the set up and it did take a bit of practice to get the lighting right but have taken heaps of gorgeous photos, so I am hoping I am doing something right!

Here are some other Christmas photos that were taken and edited on my phone! 

This one was used as an iron on transfere and printed onto their Christmas t-shirts! They loved it! I told them to look annoyed at me... I think they mastered

It!!! :) 

Photos taken for friends in my makeshift dodgy studio because I am no photographer :) 

Blowing glitter!

Santa sign post

I have had a lot of fun creating this little (or not so little) sign post to help give santa directions!!!

I went to our local bunnings and found a cheap plant stake and then grabbed 2 long planks of wood. Cost me $20 in total. 

Cut them with my saw, I have one of those fancy holder things that helps hold the saw and you can cut perfect angles with it. I made the wood panels odd lengths and enlisted some help for sanding and painting!

I used a stencil to write on the wood as I am not that cleaver!!! Even tries some

Embossing and it looked awesome. I did a call out on facebook to get suggestions on what to write! And Hence I went ahead and painted!  I had the hubby put screws in it to hold it together.

  I used just normal kids paint acrylics and then lackered it to seal it for all weather! 

CakesFun!

I have completed all the Wilton cake classes however do not love making cakes.  I did it because having 4 boys meant I needed to know how to make a cake or 2 or 6 per year and a week was not enough notice and I generally ended up making my own very terrible cakes so... now look what I can do!  I highly recommend the Wilton Cake Decorating courses!

Noahs Ben 10 Cake

Golf Clubs

 40th Birthday Cake

Apple Heads

It really works. For Halloween in Australia I thought I would have some fun with the kids, it turns out I love it more than the kids... 

These looked amazing! 

What you will need:-

Bucket

1 cup Table salt

1 cup Lemon juice

4 liters water

Large apples (they shink to approx a quarter of the size)

Dissolve salt in some hot water and add ingredients to bucket in cold water. I left the apples to soak for half the day but the internet said soak for at least 30 mins.

To dry them put you they need to be either places in the oven and keep oven on low setting for 24 hours. I kept the oven low enough that I could still touch the inside of the oven and just turned it on periodically and left it off at other times but I did this over 3 days. Or if done in summer you can just keep them in a warm area, I put them on our kitchen table in a vase and let the sun shine on them :) 

Note: if using oven, rotate often as the bottom stays damp if it's sitting on a tray hence why I finally thought to skewer them. I was also thinking they would look good with string through them and a knot at the bottom! 

Size comparison-

This is a great hot weather craft, we still need to draw on them and add beeds for eyes :) but so much fun to be had!!! 

Fun DIY Stubby Holders!

I was inspired my my hubby for this one lol ;) he was going away for a boys weekend and wanted a stubby holder with where's Scanners on them because they made the weekend around him and he still could not make it. 

The next week I was helping a friend put together bags for her hens night and almost begged her to let me do them! 

What you will need:-

Neoprene fabric (it's like wet suit material can be found at spotlight in aust.)

Tshirt Iron on transfer paper

And Printer!

Cut neoprene into rectangle shape 21 x 10.5 cms 

I used puff paint to write on the hubby's holders however I planned something a little classier for the friends Hens!!! 

To see if it worked I copied a pic onto tshirt transfere paper and then practiced on the off cuts. From this I learned that you only need to hold the iron on the transfere for a few seconds or less, too long and the fabrics on the neoprene would melt also. If you can see in the pic below one side was to hot and the other was just right. I used backing paper to iron it on which meant nothing was sticking to the iron.

Once I got it right I was ready to go! My friend had designed some amazing logo for her Hens! All I had to do was iron it onto the neoprene!!!

(I virtually used the tip of the iron and tried not to go off the transfere for fear of melting). 

Ok now for the tricky/fun part, sewing!!! This had to be done in 2 parts as it would be impossible to sew straight through. 

I set my machine on a zigzag stitch close together but very long so it would reach both sides and hold them together. 

Not so hard really, and looks impressive, I do wonder if a better sewing machine would make that easier?!! 

The finished product, don't they look amazing. It cost approx $2 per stubby holder plus tshirt iron on transfer paper. 

We also made lip balms, which are so easy once you know how, magnet buttons and a bag! 

A perfect pack for a brilliant night at Dracula's!!! 

Baby Shower for a Boy

The Baby Shower!

I had fun helping with a friends baby shower, I made the cake, and set up the photo booth, made the thank you gift! I helped out with a few games but I generally like to stay behind the scenes where I am comfortable.  Here is the cake I made, its all in the prep work and gnash is the perfect base!

The next thing I did was make moisturiser for the Thank You Gift.  These are made with all natural house hold products:- 

Almond Oil, Beeswax, Water, Vitamin E (capsules cut and squeezed) and Doterra Essential oils. I will do a full tutorial on these soon with some of the other skin products I use.

I brought the large lipbalm containers from a shop called Lotus Oils and used photo sticker paper for the labels.  I sometimes use Vinyl Paper which is amazing for labeling.  

The table was set up with baby clothing, it was hard in a function room not being able to attach anything to walls etc but the girls did a lovely job.  I even found blue drink for the table - below is a pic of what was left of Mr Duck but to make blue lemonade I added a bottle of blue Gatorade and it worked a treat!...  Looked good with the little bottles and straws.  

The Photo Booth.

Wish I had taken better pics of the set up however the camera was on the tripod... what can you do?  I know you are thinking phones are good these days but when you are running the booth, that didnt cross my mind and I didnt think I would be uploading them onto my blog... silly I know!

I found most the props at the local spotlight or reject shop however I did make the photo board out of card from a craft store.  Cut the center out with a Stanley knife, and paint with black board chalk paint.  Everyone was photographed with their messages on the board.  I did use the center as a welcome board.  All props were set up on a little table with a bucket to keep them neat.  Thats chalk in my mouth...  I only had 2 days to prepare for this baby shower however since then I have made a makeshift portable back drop out of conduit pipes (originally used to make a cubby for the kids) wish I had time for this but I was not aware that there would be no plain wall as a back drop. 

There was more I did for this shower however I am lacking with photos and progress reports but I hope this is of some help.

Games

Games were fun, I did not have much to do with them and they can be found on Pinterest or the internet.  Games included guessing what was in the nappies, how many days till she pops in the baby bottle with bubble gum, a bag full of items was taken around the room and everyone had to guess what baby items were in it.  And of course everyone was given 2 pegs and no body was allowed to say the word Baby or they lost a peg - wish we had time to get those mini dummies!

The games were easy, using pinterest there are a lot of choices.  One thing I find is that you have to allow the correct amount of time for a game ie: if game is going to take 3 mins per person you are going to have to find a way to do it without it eating all the time.