Pinspired Hair Accessories Catch All

Charlie loves to accessorize.  She is super girly in her wardrobe choices, down to hair bows and jewelry.  I even found her wearing my wedding ring one morning while I was getting ready :)

All her clips and headbands were getting a bit out of control, so I turned to Pinterest. 

You will need:

An empty oatmeal container

Scrapbook paper

Double sided tape or hot glue

 Trim your paper to the size of the canister.  Adhere the paper.  Fill with stuff.  Easy as pie.

 And a few shots of the accessorizing girl in action.

Win Wanderlust Lovelies

 One of my favorite Etsy shops and blogs is Oh, Hello Friend.  I have several pieces from Danni's Etsy shop, and now she has a new shop with curiousities, antiques, supplies and more.

 Right now there is a $100 give away to the Wanderlust shop!

 But, I really want some of these things...

 So don't get your hopes up.

 Enter here
(all photos from the wanderlust shop)

Easter Eggs

Oh Pinterest, you self deluding, wonderful thing.  I saw these three egg pins, and foolishly thought to myself...I can do that...with a toddler...in an hour.  Riiiiight. 

Pinspiration #1

Baked "Hard Boiled" Eggs

Supplies:

Eggs

Muffin tin

Oven

Check!  So far Pinterest, we're on the same page.





 I baked the eggs for a half an hour at 350.  The house was filled with a cake-y scent, not the normal stink of hard boiled eggs.  However, they had greasy brown spots all over them.

 I immediately put the eggs in an ice bath, and took Charlie for a walk while they cooled.  She killed her first spider while we were out.  Nice.

 One of the eggs cracked in the process, so we sampled it.  Charlie was mildly impressed, I found it a tidge dry, whether because of the crack or the baking, I don't know.  Next time I'll try it at 325.

So, #1 was successful, on to the next!

Pinspiration #2
Kool Aid Egg Dying

Let's just put this out there - vinegar is my enemy.  The slightest whiff of it is enough to get my gag reflex working.  I see (and occasionally re-pin) the hundreds and hundreds of "spray vinegar in any direction of your home and it will be spotlessly clean in an instant" pins, but can't bring myself to do them without a hasmat suit.  So, Easter egg dying was an experiment in having fun while holding your breathe.

Enter, Kool Aid.  Dying eggs to a fruity light scent?  Yes!  Finally! 

Supplies:

The PAAS is not necessary, I just wanted egg cups to put the eggs in.  Probably could have used bowls, but whatevs.

So, add Kool Aid to 2/3 cups of water and stir.  Simple.  So far, I'm with ya, Pinterest.

I cheated and to pump up the colors added the coresponding PAAS color since I had it.  Also, there's no green Kool Aid (that I found at least) so I used lemon juice and water with the green tablet.

It smelled friggin amazing.  Like Skittles.  Mmmm.

 The colors were iffy.  The purple/blue was grayish, which is why there is only one.  I added some yellow to see if it would make a pretty blue green, but it was more like army green.  The yellow was fine, the red was more orange, and the orange was also orange.  But the real trouble was the streaking.

Not so pretty.

Leading us to...
Pinspiration #3

How hard could this be?  Take egg, add glue dots, dip in glitter.  Turns out, pretty darn.

Supplies:
Glitter
Glue dots
Eggs

So, glue dots don't really want to stick to eggs.  I waited until the eggs weren't so cold and finally got them to stick.  I made myself a little pattern and attempted to dip in glitter.  Huh.  There was like, zero glitter on my glue dot.

I dumped a ton more glitter into my dish and was moderately more successful.  Then I used a paint brush to clean off the glitter clinging to the non-glue dot parts of the egg.

Then Charlie woke up, so I decided it wasn't worth the mess to continue to do this to my funny looking eggs, so I started to clean up. 



That's when I knocked glitter over, down my white pants, on the chair and in the carpet.  And I realized that no mom of toddlers in her right mind should be attempting this.  Maybe when I have a sweet teenage girl to help me instead of an impatient non-napping toddler.  We'll see.

Bottom line, I'll bake my eggs in the future, but probably won't revisit the Kool-Aid, and the dots are years from being feasible.  Anyone else try these, more successfully?

Charlie's Birdie Birthday

We had a relatively small celebration of Charlie's first year last Sunday. The guest list was limited to immediate family and closest friends, and everyone (but my brothers - one sick and one hours away) was able to make it.

To keep Charlie chipper through the whole thing, I pushed all the "activities" to the start of the party, so if she crashed we wouldn't miss out on cake or presents or anything she is essential to.

After some time for eating we jumped into presents.

She loved the tissue...presents were less interesting.

Until she opened shoes, that is.

Then Pooh Bear...

And a book - she shook it to make sure it held up.

Matching aprons! Score!

More tissue. (PS - I made that headband, I forgot to put it in the decor post. Feathers, heavy paper and glue. Add in a touch of patience, and you have yourself a headband).

Following present time was cake time...Charlie was not so sure about this business. I opted for vegan cupcakes to protect us from discovering a food allergy during the party.

It's not often you see this face after presenting someone with a delicious treat.

She responded better when I fed it to her.

Kinda.

Enough already!

Ryan, Meghan and Laura hanging out in the post present mayhem.

After cake and presents we had no agenda, so football, games and food ruled the rest of the afternoon. Here, Papa and Mitsuki are wrestling a bit while Auntie Chie and Tim show Charlie how to hammer.

Snuggle time with Meghan - always one of Charlie's favorite activities.

And here is the girl herself, 4 hours after the party started, happily showing off her newest tooth.

Charlie did absolutely amazing, and seemed to love every minute. I love my big, happy girl.

(For those who care, her dress is Cherokee, $15, I got it on sale for $10.)

Made By Me Monday - a DIY Birthday Party

Charlie's first birthday is coming up, and we had a small party for her on Sunday with family and closest friends.  We were trying to keep the entire thing under $100, so that meant endless DIY projects for me.  (And some commissioning...thanks Meg for cupcaking, Dad for pizza and super glue provisions, Chie for Jordan Almonding).

I'll share party pictures later, but here are the decor shots (mostly taken after the fact, cause I was too busy leading up to the party to care about documentation.)

The theme was either "Birdie Birthday" or "Put a Bird on it", depending on whether or not you're a Portlandia fan :)

Here goes.  The front room.

I made endless amounts of paper pennants, using scrapbook paper I already had, relating to either birthdays or birds; yarn; and a paper cutter.  Simple, yes.  Time consuming, yes.  With the excess paper from the solid colored pennants I cut out little abstract bird shapes and perched them on every ledge I could find.  These items were through out every room , tying it all together. 

I put up a folding table and wrestled a giant disposable tablecloth onto it, strategically taping to keep the size under control.  This table held had table scatter (reusing the holes I punched out of the pennant garland paper); a rubber ducky; and a Jellybeans free download of two birds in a tree.  So far, I spent $3 for the table cloth.  Everything else I already had.
Streamers were placed here and there, since nothing says party like a little crepe paper, and bird toys that Charlie had were placed on every surface.

The entry way door and front window with pennants and bird. There was also streamers, a photo from Charlie's birth and 6 month photos, stuffed birds, and polka dot rubber duckys.

 

I hung paper lanterns leftover from a bridal shower from our chandelier, and to make it over the top, hung birdie stroller toys between them.

Chie had given me a book of beautiful postcards before Charlie was born, and I was able to find a bunch of bird ones to hang from our (overcrowded) bookcase.  I also added various pictures of Charlie, blocks spelling her name, and stacking blocks with bird images.  All stuff I already had, so our running total is still $3.

The table:

Here you can see the banner (held up by two birds, Disney style), artwork and duck.

I made some sugar cookies from a mix ($3, plus $2.50 for sprinkles - $5.50 total), but I forgot to take pictures before they started disappearing.  Most were birds, but I made "One" for a change of pace.

Chie brought me meringue cookies the week before and those were added to the mix, and Meghan made vegan cupcakes with strawberry jam frosting (yum).  I didn't want to introduce Charlie to new foods at her party, just in case, so vegan was a good route to go.  I made the cupcake toppers with a free download, though I did buy the circles, for about $5, bringing us up to $10.50.

Not pictured - we also served pizza and nachos, care of Papa, Mike's Hard Lemonade ($20), pretzel sticks ($2) with Jordan almonds (from Chie) on top (to look like eggs in a nest), pasta salad ($6), Caesar salad, ($10), lemonade and cucumber water ($4), plates and napkins ($7) bringing us to $59.50.
The family room:

 This room was done simply, with pennants and birdies on the fireplace and a banned I made for Tim's birthday over the window.  Little bird books and toys were here and there.

The kitchen and dining room:
I took these pictures the next day, so picture heaps of food, and pink polka dot table cloth and Settlers of Catan laid out of the table.

So, there were streamers that I already had, pink and green lanterns left over from a baby shower, the table cloth from the same baby shower, bunting and birds.

The high chair was in the living room for the party, but regardless:

It already had a bird on it, so I added tiny bunting to make it festive.

When everything was said and done, the entire party, including gifts, was at $100.  If you have questions on anything you see, let me know.  Also, sorry for the weird lay out, I haven't gotten used to the new blogger format yet.