Prince Birthday Party

I can't believe it...my son is ONE! The year went by so fast. But it sure is fun to have a busy little toddler to play with.

For his first birthday I created a royal banquet in honor of our little prince! We had bbq chiken drumsticks, baked potatoes, green salad, rolls and fruit (I even bough sword toothpicks!)

My husband helped me out by making this amazing chandelier out of cardboard and silver spray paint.

I even used my grandma silver three tier candlesticks for accent pieces on the table.

The party favors were chocolate gold coins!

I had so much fun planning this party! Now I just have to figure out what the theme will be for next year!

Bam-Bam Costume

Good Morning to you all! I hope you weekend was long and fun. My sister-in-law got married this weekend so we had a wonderful weekend.

I wanted to share with you my son's Bam-Bam costume I made. It was really easy and quick.

It has a:

club

hat

shoes

skirt with shoulder strap & bone

You will need:

animal print fabric

brown fleece (leftover of daddys Barney costume)

thread
needle
sewing machine

batting

baseball cap

cardboard
safety pins

To make the club:

I drew a club pattern on paper and cut out two in the left over brown fleece. I sewed them together leaving a hole to turn it right side out. Then I stuffed it with batting; forming it the way I wanted it to look. Then I hand sewed the hole closed.

To make the hat:

Using a baseball cap that my son doesn't really wear I hand stitched on scrap pieces of the animal print and brown fleece.

To make the shoes:

I used an online pattern from Stardust Shoes. You can get your personal use only copy here.

To make the outfit:

I cut out a rectangle that went from my son's waist to his ankles. Sewed the short ends of the rectangle together making a tube. Sewed the top making a pocket for the elastic to go through. Added elastic and stitched it together. Zigzagged the bottom of the skirt.

I made the shoulder strap with leftover animal print material. Making a long skinny tube and attached it to the skirt using safety pins.

The bone is cut out of cardboard.

On Halloween we will dress our little baby in some warm pj's and his costume and show him off to our neighbors!

What are your children being for Halloween?

Glitter Glam Pumpkins

I am glad to be back here at Doodles and Doilies.

You can see my first post HERE.

Today I am going to show you how to make Glitter Glam Pumpkins

Funkins are carvable, fake pumpkins from the local craft store that generally come in Orange, Black, and off white.

Supplies

1 large Funkin- white

1 small Funkin- any color as it will be covered by black paint

Martha Stewart Glossy Black Craft Paint

Martha Stewart White Pearl Craft Paint

Fine Black Glitter

Fine White Glitter

1 pack Black Glitter Spiders

Foam Brushes

Mod Podge

Hot Glue/ Elmers Glue

Take the large white funkin and brush on the Pearl craft paint. Once it is dry, paint Mod Podge on the top and partially down the sides at different levels. Move quickly, and pour the white glitter on the Mod Podge. Tap off the excess glitter, and set Funkin aside to dry completely.

Take the small funkin and cover with the black paint. Because my funkin was orange, I had to do 3-4 coats. Allow paint to dry in between each coat. Take he Elmer's Glue and pipe glue into the funkin crevices at varying levels. Work quickly and pour on the black glitter, covering the glue. Tap off excess glitter and set aside to dry completely.

While the funkins are both drying, plug in your glue gun. Once it is heated, take a spider and fill with glue on the bottom. Quickly place it on the funkin, and hold it there until the glue has had time to set up.

Place as many or as few spiders as you desire.

Once the glue has hardened, your Glitter Glam Pumpkins are ready to display.

If you use coupons at your local craft store, this craft will cost you approximately $15.

Enjoy your Spooky Decor.

Fun & Cheap Halloween Wreath

Excited for my Dollar Store Halloween Decorations. My blog, Embracing Homemaking, is all about loving yourself and where you are. This includes being happy with my tiny Halloween decorating budget. Today I'm going to share my lovely $3 wreath.

Supplies:

Foam wreath $1
Black crepe paper streamer $1 (actually paired with one orange so 50 cents)
Orange ribbon $2
Spider with web $1
Super glue/6000 craft glue (on hand)

First I wrapped the black streamers around the wreath. Attach each end using super glue. Be sure to cover all of the wreath.



Next do the same with the orange ribbon, this time leaving space to view the black paper.







Next glue the spiderweb onto the wreath and hang.

Super glue in several places to secure and hang. Super easy! And even more awesome is that the spider in the middle glows in the dark.

Happy Halloween!
Michele

Monster Cake Balls

Hi Doodles & Doilies readers! I'm so excited to be here! Thanks to Erica for having me as a guest today!



I'm Andrea from My Cake Corner. I am blessed to be married to my awesome husband (and best friend) for 15 years now, and am equally blessed to have 3 wonderful kids that I absolutely adore who are 12, 9, and 6. I am a stay at home mom, and part of the week I watch my cutie pie baby nephew. Among other things, I love making cakes and other yummy goodies! And that's basically what my blog is right now, just showing and telling about cakes I've made for my kids, husband, family, the kids' teachers, and friends.



Today I'm going to be showing you some Little Monster Cake Balls that I made, and giving some basic instructions on how you can make them too. So, here we go...

...and here come the Monsters!

But don't worry, they're nice and cute (and yummy)! :)

These are just made using the basic cake ball recipe, then decorated various ways. To make the actual cake ball I just followed the recipe found on Bakerella's website [yay, Bakerella :) ], which you can find here. (You'll also find instructions and tips on coating them with the chocolate.)

For these cake balls I actually used some extra cake and icing I had leftover from making a cake for my brother-in-law. To decorate them I used candy corn and pumpkins from the Brach's Autumn Mix, candy eyeballs from Wilton (so cute), chocolate almond bark (or you could use candy melts), and buttercream icing tinted various colors with food coloring. I used toothpicks to make the mouths on my monsters.

yum...

After you get your cake and icing all smushed up to a good consistency you'll want to roll and shape the cake balls. Think about if you want all the monsters to be the same size or if you want some to be different sizes or a special shape. (After you shape them you'll want to put them in the fridge for a few hours or you can speed things up by putting them in the freezer.)

Now that they're ready you can let your imagination go and have fun decorating your monsters!

For the chocolate covered monsters you can either have everything ready (candy corn, eyes, etc) to try to adhere to your monster before the chocolate sets or you can use a little of the melted chocolate to stick everything onto the hardened chocolate. This time I did the latter, with a few exceptions. For the monster with brown feet I put the candy corn in before it was dipped in the chocolate, and for the one with the yellow feet I stuck them in immediately after dipping it in the chocolate before it had a chance to harden. The tall, gloppy, chocolate monster didn't get dipped, but instead I dripped the chocolate over it to give it... well... a drippy look. :) After I got the things stuck on I used a grass tip to pipe on any hair or fur.

Here is one of my family's favorites as it was made that had the chocolate covering on it.

Now if I were going to make these again I would add the mouths after I dipped them just before the chocolate was set instead of later in the decorating process, but if you forget or decide you want to add one later you shouldn't have a problem.

For the monsters covered in buttercream icing I used my grass tip again to get that furry look. When I started covering these monsters I picked the cake ball up and piped my icing around the bottom in a couple of rows first, then I set it down on the parchment paper to finish piping the rest of the fur on it. The only exceptions to that were the monsters with the long fur that goes all the way down. That was piped on from top to bottom in long strands. You'll want to try to have your eyes and other decorations ready to put on before your icing sets so they stick, but also so it doesn't crack or crumble your icing when you push them into it. Most of the candy corn I used whole, but for some monsters I experimented with cutting it depending on the look I wanted. Make sure you let your icing set well before you pick up or move your monsters (you may even want to put them in the fridge to help it set some). I found using a thin spatula to get under the monster and lift it up helped minimize damage from finger indentations, etc.

Here is one of my family's favorites as it was made that was covered using the buttercream icing. I used a toothpick to shape the mouth before I put the teeth on. The teeth, by the way, are tips of candy corn cut in half. :)

My son nicknamed this one Tricker-Treater Pumpkin Eater! :)

I would imagine these would work as cake pops too (I've not yet made any cake pops). You may just have to watch the size some since these tend to be a bit heavy, you'd want to make sure they stay on the stick. (You can also find instructions for cake pops on Bakerella's site here.)

All kinds of happy little monsters! :) Is that a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater?... I think it would be the one getting eaten though. :)

The top one above kind of reminded us of a turkey, the kids called the middle one Yoda, and then there's my nod to a cute two headed monster I used to watch on Sesame Street. :)

If you're like me, you may find it helpful to sketch out some monsters before you start to get an idea of what you want them to look like and to know what you'll need. It's by no means necessary though, some people work better being spontaneous. :)

To make our little pumpkin patch I used some crumbled cookies for dirt and some of the pumpkins from the Brach's mix. It made a great place for our monsters to hang out.

Some artificial fall leaves give it a nice touch too.

I had a lot of fun making these little monsters and thought they turned out really cute! We all had a good time eating them up too! :)

Thanks for hanging out with me here today! I'd love for you to stop by My Cake Corner and check out more of my creations!

Felt Dot Garland

Hello Doodles and Doilies readers! Thank you so much, Erica, for having me today. I am so excited to be here. My name is Sarah and you can find me at Creating Sarah. I started my blog earlier this year because I am a list maker. I realized I had lists and lists of things I wanted to do someday. (You should see my Projects to Do board on Pinterest...it's ridiculous!) I realized I was planning more than I was doing, so I started my blog so I would have a place to put the things I was finally doing. By no stretch of the imagination am I a professional, and I run with a lot of trial and error, but I sure have had a lot of fun and, best of all, I am really enjoying the friendships that are developing. I'd love to have you stop by and visit!

Right now, though, let me show you what I have brought today:

I have been trying this month to build up my Halloween decorations supply. I made a really fun and easy Felt Dot Garland, and it looks great, but it needed some spookifying.

Here's what I did:

I added some haunts to the garland.

Here's how I made them:

The first thing I did was find a circle cookie cutter and trace out 3 circles. Then I sketched out the faces that I wanted.

I'm going to focus just on the ghost for the sake of space. Hopefully, that will give you the basics enough to run with it, but if you need help or advice, please feel free to contact me!

Once you have your sketch/idea in mind, move on to some felt.

Trace out and cut 2 circles.

Using the sketch, cut out the features for the face.

This was the mouth for my ghost.

Please ignore my chipping nail polish. It was late at night and I really wanted to finish this. I figured it was better to have unfinished nails than an unfinished ghost. I hope you'll understand. =)

Now, using black embroidery thread and a running stitch, I sewed that mouth into place on one of the circles.

On the second circle, I drew the letters. BOO!

Then, with the black thread, I embroidered those letters.

Now, it is time to create the ghost.

I grabbed some purple ribbon to hang it with. Place it on one of the circles in the position you like and pin it (take a lesson from me, pin on the right side so you don't lose your pin).

I also grabbed a scrap of tulle, folded it up into a kind of a messy gather and pinned that in as well.

To sew the two pieces together, I used white thread and a running stitch again, being careful to keep my knots on the inside. I was also very careful to make sure that my thread caught the ribbon and tulle to hold it in place.

Before you close it up, stuff it just a little with some fiberfill...

which, by the way, was pretty much impossible for me to get a good picture of with my little camera. You get the idea, though, right?

Finish sewing it up and, *bing*, you're done.

He's kind of cute!

For a ghost.

The possibilities are endless. You can use any design you want!

Here's my jack o'lantern:

And the witch:

These could even work at Thanksgiving (how cute would a turkey be?) or Christmas (reindeer?)

What would you make?

Halloween Ornament Wreath

We are so excited to be here on Doodles and Doilies!

Halloween decor can be scary, spooky, silly, cute, or

classic. Today we would like to show you a very classic take on both Halloween colors, and decor!

I {Bonnie} have had my eye on one of these wreaths forever!! So, last year when all the Christmas {YES...I said Christmas} ornaments went on clearance, I snatched up what I needed to make this Halloween ornament wreath!!

Here is what you will need...

1 metal macrame' ring {I got mine at Hobby Lobby}

enough christmas ornaments to fit wire ring {I used a mixture of shiny black, flat black, shiny orange, flat orange, and glittered black}

your trusty glue gun and glue

duct tape

beautiful ribbon of your choice

The first thing you will do is to cut the metal ring...be VERY careful!! {I have a band-aid to prove it!} I used a hand saw to cut through it!

Next you will need to attach the tops of the ornaments to the glass ball with a little hot glue. This decreases the chance of the glass ball "falling" off the metal attached top. Gently pull the metal top off each one and put a little bit of hot glue in the top and gently put it back together.

Now is when you get to use that fabulous creativity you have! Simply start "threading" the ornaments onto the ring. There is no right or wrong way to do this.

I did not have a pattern that I was following, I just "eyeballed" what looked good to me!

When I was almost all the way around, I left myself just enough space to tape the wire closed! I used Gorilla Tape...it is a thinner version of the traditional silver duct tape.

Really...it doesn't have to be pretty, but it does need to secure the wreath closed!!

I added a beautiful, traditional, classic black and white gingham ribbon bow....

LOVE IT!!

We hope that you visit us on our blog, Uncommon!!

Bonnie