Rock Star Body Glitter

It's no secret that girls love things that sparkle. My two girls would roll around nekkid in a pool filled with glitter if it meant that they would be sparkly! So, one of the the things that I included in the goodie bags at the Hannah Montana birthday party was body glitter.

Being the crafty soul that I am, I couldn't go out and purchase it for a party favor, I had to make it. It's surprisingly easy, so if you want to make your own, read on!

You'll need:

• very fine glitter (I purchased a multi pack for $3.99 at Michael's that had lots of colors for you indecisive types like me)
• empty bottles (I got mine at Joann's in a pack of 6 for $2.99)
• Aloe Vera Gel (mine came from Wal-Mart and was about $4)

I made about 14 or so bottles of glitter from one big bottle of aloe vera gel. That will vary depending on the size bottle you use. Each of the little packets of glitter that came in my multi pack made two bottles (I went heavy on the glitter; see above re: my girls and their love affair with glitter)

Here's what you do:

• Pour a little bit of glitter into the bottom of the empty jar.
• Put a couple of squirts of aloe vera gel into the bottle
• Repeat with glitter and aloe vera gel until you are close to the top, but the bottle isn't all the way full
• Put the cap on
• Shake well to mix (You can also use something long and skinny to stir if you'd want, but shaking mixed it really well for me)

I added labels to my bottles (I used Avery address labels for ink jet printers for my labels), but you could use stickers or rub on's, too.

Easy, isn't it? It lasts a long time when you've got it on, too. How do I know this, you ask? Yup, I slathered myself with the stuff. Somebody had to test it, right? Go forth and shimmer!

Hannah Montana Birthday Party Invitations

Taylor had two choices for her birthday party invitation this year: a concert ticket or a guitar. The concert ticket would have been easier for me to mass produce, so I wasn't surprised at all when she picked the guitar! So, I got out my craft stuff and got to work.

To make this invitation, I found a picture of a guitar I liked on the internet. I used that as a guide to free hand draw my shapes, but if that's out of your realm, print out several copies that are the right size (mine fit in a regular, legal envelope). Then, cut out one piece from each printout (like the body, the white accent piece, the neck, etc). You can then use those for your templates. I used 5 different pieces of paper for this guitar (one plain purple for the printed part, polka dot purple for the body and the top, white for the accent, tan for the neck and silver for the little squares). I cut out one piece for each guitar I needed and then used scrapbook adhesive to put everything together. The guitar strings I drew on with a felt tipped pen and a t-square.

To print on the invitations, I used the same technique I always do. I arrange the text so that I think it will fit in Word and print it out. I then hold the print out up to the light with the cut piece of invitation that I want to print on and see if it'll work. If it doesn't, I'll make adjustments and then re-print. If it works, I'll put a piece of removable adhesive on the printer paper on top of the text. Then, I put the invitation piece on the adhesive and run it through the printer as usual. There might be other ways to do this that I haven't thought of, but this way works well for me! I attached the printed part of the invitation to the embellished front of the invitation with a brad.

To glam it up a bit, I added some self-adhesive metal hearts and some rhinestones at the bottom and some purple rhinestones on the top part (where the strings would attach on a real guitar. I have no idea what that part is called!). I think they turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself, and the birthday girl LOVED them!

I'm Back!

I'd made a resolution to myself that I was going to post her at least 3 times a week. How well do you think that's working out for me? I got sucked into the birthday and back to school abyss, unfortunately. Taylor's birthday is always going to fall the first week of school it seems, which makes for a really stressful week for me!

This last week, I made not one, but two birthday cakes (one for the actual day, one for the party), made a handful of rock star microphones, made body glitter, cleaned my house from top to bottom and decorated. Add that to packing lunches, helping with homework and going through the mound of papers that come home from school the first week of school and I'm tired!

The good news is that I've got lots of new stuff to show you!

A couple of months ago I posed about a menu board I'd made for my kitchen using a tile, some adhesive vinyl and my Cricut machine. You can see that post here. Since I'm not one to just leave things be, especially when I get the craft bug, I made another one! Seriously, I will never be done tweaking my home decor stuff.

This one is even easier than the last. I found this super cute frame and loved it, so I decided that it would be perfect. It's a 5x7 frame. I found a piece of scrapbook paper that I loved and cut it to 5x7. In MS Word, I typed out the word "Menu" and the days of the week in a font I liked and printed it out on a piece of regular paper. Then, using removable adhesive (Hermafix Tabs work great for this!), I attached the scrapbook paper over the printed words and ran it through the printer again. Then I popped it into the frame. The glass works just like a white board, so you write on it with a dry erase marker and wipe off to clean.

Happy menu planning!

The Painted Crown

Taylor is a princess! She'd been wanting more things that were "princessey" (is that a word?) to decorate her room, so a crown above her bed seemed to be just the thing.

First, I went the route of those metal canopy things that the green checkered fabric (you can see it above) would hang from. Then I saw the price of those things in the children/home decor boutiques! My stars, those suckers are expensive! Seriously, I don't think I saw one cheaper than $300!

Above her headboard were the words "follow your dreams" that I cut out on my Cricut machine. It was cute, but the pink on her apple green walls became a shocking pink and I was never really happy with it. So, since the crown canopy thing was out, I decided to take down the vinyl letters and paint a crown.

(I'm going to take a break now and apologize for the photos. We've got a sunscreen on Taylor's window so it's always a bit dark since it faces North. It's screwed on, or I would have taken it off for the photos. Though they don't look it, her walls are a light green color. Continuing on...)

I love the way it turned out:



Want to make one yourself? You can! (Really, it just takes a bit of time). There are two ways to go about it. The first is to free-hand draw the crown on the wall.

You're freaking out now, aren't you?

That's what I did, but I totally get that not every one can do that. If you are one of those people, you'll need an overhead machine. I think that you can check those out from the library.

You'll trace the outline of the crown (or draw it for those of you artsy fartsy types) on the wall using chalk. Why chalk? Because if you mess up, it's really easy to remove it without a trace. Just make sure that you work from left to right if you are right handed, or from right to left if you are left handed, so you don't smudge what you drew.


Once you've got the chalk outline the way you like you can outline it with paint. I love those little paint sample cans that stores are offering now. You know, the tiny one's that let you try the paint on the wall before you buy it. Those little cans of paint are perfect for projects like this!

Don't worry if you can still see a bit of the chalk outline after you've outlined it with paint. Once the whole thing is done and dry, you can use a damp cloth to remove any chalk remnants.


As you're tracing the chalk outline with the paint, you should have something that looks like what is in the photos.

This is what it will look like when it's completely outlined with the paint:

Once you've got it outlined, fill it in!

If you are feeling particularly creative, you can use paint to give it dimension. How, you say? You'll need 2 colors - a light color and a dark color. You can use white and brown (or black), or you can use two different shades of the color you made the main crown in. Since my crown was pink, I used a light pink (it was almost white), and a mauve color.

The general rule of thumb is that if the sun was shining on it, you'll add the light color to the areas that the sun would touch. You'll add the darker color to areas where there would be a shadow.

Confused? You'll add the light color to the top parts, dark colors to the bottom.

You can see how I added the light and dark colors in the photo below.

Since it's a crown, and crowns should have jewels, I used a regular hot glue gun to attach rhinestones to the crown. I'm thinking now it needs more because you can never have too much bling, right? :)

I think I might add Taylor's name in the main section of the crown, too. What do you think?

Thanks for the love, Rookie!

Today is a sad day around our house. Hubby was waiting outside for a golf buddy to pick him up this morning and called for our 10 year old German Shepherd, Rookie. When Rookie didn't come (Rookie *always* comes), he went looking for him. Last night, our sweet dog laid down to sleep and then crossed the rainbow bridge and went to Heaven.

Rookie was such a funny guy! We got him just a couple of months before we got married and he was such a cute puppy. He was all ears and feet and we would crack up watching him walk because he was always tripping over those huge paws. Watching him learn to perk up his ears in the traditional Shepherd fashion was just as funny. They never seemed to work right.

He was a frustrating dog, too! As a puppy and a young dog, he destroyed many a thing in our house. Two lemon trees (he chewed on the trunks), a set of patio cushions (the stuffing looked like snow in our yard), an air conditioner (yes, our air conditioner. After the second time of him killing the a/c in the summer, it got a nice picket fence around it), carpet, numerous toys and tennis balls and our house fell prey to his chompers. Wait, you say. The house? Yes, the house. He'd find a corner that looked tasty, lay down and chow down. We had to use stucco patch to fix the holes!

He was a non-stop bundle of energy. In the house, he'd follow you where ever you went. He just didn't lay down. You could throw a tennis ball for hours and he'd never grow tired of chasing it. He loved swimming in the ditch. He loved the girls. And, he was Hubby's dog. Not too long ago, he was in the house and the girls were napping. Hubby left to go run an errand, and Rookie laid down in front of the garage door - so close that if Hubby were to come back in, the door would hit him. Never mind where I went in the house that day, he didn't follow me. There in front of the door Rookie stayed until Hubby came home. He was waiting for him.

Hubby and I called him the "Bird Man". For some reason, birds and he got along. I'd look out the back window and he'd be laying in the grass, surrounded by birds. They'd be all around him hanging out, and a couple would even sit on him. I wish I had a picture of him with his birds.

He was a good, sweet dog who was so loyal and who loved us to death. All he wanted in return was a couple of scratches, a hand to throw a tennis ball and to be loved. And we did.

Rookie, you were a great friend. We're really going to miss you.

Facelift!

No, not for me. Though, it's a possibility sometime in the future. The distant future. The really distant future. The really, really distant future. Let's leave it at that, mkay? :)

I liked the last template that I was using, and apparently lots of other bloggers like it, too! In my blog browsing I came across that particular template a lot. Free stuff is good because it's free, but it's bad because it's free, know what I mean? I'd been wanting to make some updates here, so when I came across the old template for the 364th time, I finally got motivated.

I've still got a free background (because, well, I'm cheap - err, frugal), from a super cute site that has some great tutorials for the technically un-savvy like moi. Check it out - linky on the way upper left corner. The new header and buttons I bought as a kit and then customized. So there you have it, a new, fabulous blog! You like?