Moved!

Sorry about the slow communication, I've been hard at work. With a new site, a desk job, moving my family to a new home, summer activities, sewing commissions, matron of honor stuff, establishing two vegetable gardens and tons and tons of pics I need to edit to show my cool crafts. So join me at the link above and we'll head in that direction.
Thanks again for looking

Have a Brave Birthday Party

While browsing the internet for castles made of cardboard, I stumbled across this fantastic "Brave" birthday party over at Sweeten Your Day Events. A birthday party theme that any boy or girl would absolutely love.

Upon arrival, children were led by wisps across the lawn into the castle entrance. Each kid received Tartans, those plaid sashes, of different patterns for representing their chosen family clan. They played Scottish themed games such as Caber Toss, archery, and even a bean bag toss made of nylon and rocks. Their craft was to make a bear claw necklace which doubles as an awesome party favor.

I love the arrow tails in the cupcakes. You could take this a step further by adding some red gel or sprinkles in the center of each cupcake to make it look like a target. The food display table looked amazing with the wood stumps and movie prop background. The bear claw cookies look so yummy and I love the bubbling cauldron idea to serve drinks from. She includes a full list and recipes at the bottom of the post with all the delicious food they made.

Thank you Sweeten your Day Events for all the great ideas and sharing them with us. Make sure and visit their website for more pictures to all the games, themes and food they prepared.

It has been "Forever"

I have been so busy moving and doing birthday parties, that I haven't "crafted" since Christmas!
Ok, so, I did make a quick costume and doll in there (I will post pics as soon as I feel I can breathe again from all the unpacking). My computer just got hooked up yesterday, after being without for two whole weeks. I felt a bit cut off from the world, despite having 4G on my phone.

I am scouring the internet looking for ideas to make my new early 19th century kitchen more user friendly. I finally have a useable space for my 1942 "Porceliron Stainless" rolling table. I also have a massively deep linen closet that I'm afraid to put anything in. My new work space is still in boxes. My husband said that we moved as many boxes for sewing/fabric/costumes as for everything else in the house. That might be close to true.

In the mean time, check out my new blog LePetiteArbre.com We will be switching over soon. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles yet. But it sure looks fantastic. Thanks to the graphic design help of Sharon over at Martastudios.com.

Momo "Fuzzy Tree" Pattern

Since we are huge Sci-Fi fans in this family, I had to make this Momo softie from The Last Air-bender series for our daughter.  I searched for patterns online, however, what I found was not size accurate nor free cheap enough for me. I found this image online that served as my inspiration to help me create my pattern to his correct size. You can see by the final product that I used the conservative ears, but I'd highly recommend going all out for the larger pair.  It came together so easily for me and I hope it will for you too.
The pattern is available in my ETSY shop.

Create Spring Fairy Wands

I was given some 2008 Summerset LIFE Magazines from one of my crafty friends. Inside were pictures of these cool Spring wands. These wands have been in the back of my head to make for six months now. Our daughter has several birthdays to attend this and next month so I finally decided to make some. This would be a great craft to do with your kids. Our almost five year old daughter helped a great deal.

This craft falls under the "Fast and affordable gifts." It would go great with the wings tutorial I posted before. However, these wands were a bit more money. I'd say each wand cost me about ten dollars. And that is with a bunch of items I already had on hand. But, they turn out fabulous and unlike anything you could find in stores. Plus, they are ultra durable and won't break like the cheap wands.

Here's how to make them.
First, I went to my local thrift store and purchased a junky dining room chair. Making sure the Spindles were turned (decorative) and thin. I gently disassembled the back of the chair to remove the spindles without breaking them. You could also order the spindles off ebay. But, I had a day to do these crafts so I shopped local.

Next, I washed the spindles before painting them. I used two coats of a metallic paint. I chose metallic silver, gold and white, alternating colors on each spindle. My daughter, R, was really helpful in deciding what pattern they each needed to be. Then we glittered them with bright colors, red, blue and gold.


We then cut some purple beaded vine wire in about eight inch sections. I made sure I had four branches per wand. When I went back to the store to get more, I bought a longer wire but the branches were further apart. So, I just looped the wire to keep the beaded branches closer to the wand.

I then applied a bead of tacky glue around and on either side of the top of the wand to glue the wired beads. I had a spool of small gauge cotton coated wire that I used to wrap around the beaded wire tightly to the wand. Then tacky glue on top for good measure. We then used craft tacky glue and affixed rhinestones, sequence and beads.

The final touches; I tied one large bow and one small bow of sheer ribbon on opposite sides. This was to maximize coverage of the wire wrap job. I would also secure them with glue if giving to kids. I then glued a butterfly at the top. Any woodland animal or insect would work. I thought birds would be pretty too but we stuck with butterflies.

Post a photo on my facebook page if you make one of these Spring wands. I'd love to see what you come up with.

Avatar Apparel Toph

I saw these apparel looks on Pinterest and looked at the links, clothes out of my budget. So I painstakingly put this together out of things in my price range. Total cost $220.00. Let me know what you think.

Belt

Shoes

Tunic

Vest

Skirt

Leggings

Pom Clips

Headband

Cuffs

Night Furry Softie Tutorial

My kids love dragons. Don't we all? For Christmas this year I wanted to give my son a Night Furry. So, I went about looking for images to make my own and came across a free tutorial at Mostly Nerdy Crochet. I love free, and that also means less work for me to design something from scratch. It is a very simple pattern to follow and work with.

Of course, I did modify the pattern a bit. I moved the wings to the side rather than both coming out of the back like a dragonfly. I dragon rider has to sit somewhere. I also added the prosthetic tail fin, used vinyl for the toes and enlarged it by quite a bit. I added some extra spines like the one from the movie.

Next time, I'd make it much bigger. But this one is just the right snuggle size for an almost 3-year old boy.