Arrr, Matey!

The kids and I had a few hours that we needed to kill yesterday so we decided to play pirates.

Except we couldn't just play pirates. No, no. We had to make the stuff to dress up and play pirates with!

So I set my kids to coloring pieces of paper to make hats with. They're nothing special, the hats. They are the same style of hats that we used to make in elementary school out of newspaper. Turns out they make for pretty good make believe pirate hats, too. And since it's been about 15 years since I made my last newspaper hat, I used this tutorial for reference.

While the kids colored, I cut out and sewed eye patches. Because, well, everybody knows pirates have eye patches...or at least so says my 4 year old.

Since the project is very simple, I made two eye patches in under 30 minutes. You can, too!

How to Make a Pirate Eye Patch for Kids

Materials:
Fabric (fleece or felt are recommended*)
Thread
Needle (or sewing machine)
Yarn

*You can use any fabric for this project, but fleece and felt are recommended because you don't have to hem the edges after cutting them. If you use another fabric like cotton for this, then plan to use some fabric glue or a hem to keep the edges from fraying or have ragged edges on your final project.

Click on the picture to view larger version

(Okay, so my scanner isn't working right now so this is my attempt at making a graphic that will print to actual size. If it doesn't, let me know. I'll figure it out!)

Step 1) Using the template pictured above, cut the eye patch shape out of your fabric. Note: The dimensions of this patch are 2.5 inches wide by 2.75 inches tall.

Step 2) Measure 18-24 inches of yarn (measurement depends on the size of the head of the child being fitted) and burn the ends to prevent unraveling.

Step 3) Place the patch in the middle of the yarn being sure that the yarn is at the flat top portion of the fabric. Fold the top 1/4 inch of the patch  over the yarn along the fold line (see template above) and pin in place.

Step 4) Sew a hem where you pinned except make sure that you use a wide stitch so your needle also passes through the yarn as well as the layers of fabric. Sewing the patch to the yarn like this is optional, but will prevent the patch from sliding off of the yarn in the future.

I used a cross stitch to sew on our patches, but you could use a sewing machine with the zig zag setting, too. Do what makes you happy!

Step 5) Tie the patch on and go have some fun!

Arrr, Matey!!

Fun fact that I found out while making the eye patches: Fabric glue and fleece do not work together.Heed my warning, friends. It's just a big fat mess waiting to happen.

What have you been up to?

PARTY POSTING: Rainbow Cake!!

**Told you I'd be making up for lost posts. You get two today--one with a tutorial!!**

You know one of the things that I love about having kids?

Rainbow colored birthday cake.

Isn't it beautiful!?! I love rainbows and I love cake. So it just seemed like a good idea to put one together. I'm glad my daughter had the idea. Got to love the limitless imagination of a 4 year old. :) I was just happy to be able to fulfill the request.

The whole process was a little bit of extra time from a one-color cake and a whole lot of extra mixing, but all around pretty fun.

It looks so innocent in the vanilla frosting, doesn't it?

And it turned out...rainbow-ish. Yeah, yeah, it probably would have helped if I hadn't accidentally reversed the order of the colors when I poured the cake batter into the pans. Know what? It still tasted just as good as if the colors had been in order. So I'll take it!

Here's how: Rainbow Cake Tutorial

Step 1)  Buy a box of white cake mix, vanilla frosting, olive/vegetable oil, and eggs. Also purchase gel food coloring. Must be gel and not the liquid kind we're all used to. GEL, people. That is where the vivid color comes from. I found it at Fred Meyers (Kroger) in Alaska, you can probably find it at some other comparable grocery store where you are.

Step 2)  Preheat oven and prepare the cake batter as directed on the box. Don't forget to only use egg whites or else your white cake will turn out yellow. I don't know if using them would effect the final color of your rainbow cake, but I figure that it's best to start out with a blank slate and opted to make the traditional white.

Step 3)  Split the cake batter into 6 equal portions. You should now have 6 separate bowls of white cake batter.

Step 4) Add the food coloring and mix well. I found that I had to add a lot of red to make the batter not look pinkish while I didn't have to add much blue, purple, or yellow before the color looked right. Just add the food coloring until you have your desired  color.

Step 5)  TAKE THE TIME TO DO THIS STEP! Grease and line with parchment paper two 8 or 9 inch round pans.

I found that even when I followed the directions and let the cake cool completely, the bottoms were still stuck to the pans. Lucky for me, I was planning on icing the cake anyway but if I hadn't then I'd have been really pissed. Save yourself the pain in the ass. Just line the pans ahead of time.

Step 6)  Slowly pour one color of cake batter at a time into the center of the pans.

For a rainbow, use the following sequence:

Pan 1 - Red, orange, yellow

Pan 2 - Blue, green, purple

(For a cake like mine, reverse that order.)

Step 7)  Bake as directed on the box. Remove from the oven and let cool completely in the pans.

Step 8)  Once completely cool, invert Pan 2 onto a cake platter or plate. Spread frosting on top of the layer.

If the cake puffs up in the middle too much to lay flat on the plate, then you can trim the first 1/4 to 1/2 inch off of the top before inverting the pan.

Step 9)  Invert Pan 1 on top of the frosted first layer using the same method to level the cake as in Step 7.

Step 10)  Frost the cake starting from the middle on the top and working your way to the outsides.

Step 11)  Enjoy your creation!

My daughter cleaned her plate completely, but her brother left this behind:

Yes, those are crumbs on the floor. 

Yes, the dogs liked the rainbow cake, too.

And after all that, if you're still feeling fiesty then you can make cupcakes too!

I love how little bubbles of the other layers of color rose to the surface while the cupcakes were baking. I almost didn't want to cover them with frosting because I liked the effect so much. Then I remembered who I was baking these for...

I don't think the kids at daycare would appreciate the colors on top as much as the frosting so I went ahead and covered this up:

Original un-tweaked recipe can be found here: Omnomicon's Rainbow Cake.

Thomas the Train and Friends partied at my house

Back in May I was all "Let's make as much stuff for the party as we can!" Remember that? Weren't those good times?

Well I was soon brought back to reality from that when one of the kids came down with a sickness. I was busy cleaning up messes, wiping noses, and making a sicky feel better. And then I had to go back to work and face a mountain of stuff that needed to be completed before June 1.

So we went on down to the good old party store and bought plates, napkins, cups, a table cloth, balloons, and most of the stuff for the goody bags. There was no bunting. There were no "I'm the birthday kid!" badges. And the kids still had a whole lot of fun. So those things didn't matter to them as much as they did to me. Go figure.

But! I did manage to make a few things. So as promised, here are a few of the things I made for the kids' Thomas and Friends birthday party.

Ticket Invitation

As you can see, the invitations were shaped like jumbo sized train tickets. I printed them out to be 3 inches wide by 6 inches long. I was hoping to make them actual ticket size, but when I printed them that small the font size was almost unreadable. I think they still turned out really cool. Definitely something for the scrapbooks!

I got the idea from something similar that I saw for sale online when I was looking up games for the party. Since we were aiming to save money, no one had gotten sick yet, and I'm creative I decided to give the idea a shot before dropping any money on buying some.

Ticket invitation version 2: Not chosen

So I made two variations of the ticket invitation and let the kids pick which they wanted to give to their friends. Both kids picked version one. Can't argue with that.

Next I made some signs. My favorite was the big arrow that said "Party Over Here!"

Hey, I think there's a party...over there

I taped it underneath our street sign and called it good. We needed something to make our road stand out because the street sign is camouflaged by tree shrubs (one is pictured to the right of the signs). It seemed to work--no one had any trouble finding us!

I made another sign with our station name, but didn't get a picture before we took it down. Oops!

The party was supposed to be outside, but it rained all weekend so we had to have it inside instead. I had some pony beads set up on one side of the table, coloring books at the head of the table, and foam visors with stickers for the other side of the table. The kids still ran around in circles but it wasn't until after they made something first. Some of the kids worked, ran, worked some more, and ran some more. I have pictures, but don't want to post them because my kids aren't the only ones in them. Just trying to be courteous to the other parents. The main message of this paragraph is that crafts saved the day and my sanity. Crafts are the freaking best, aren't they?

We ate pizza, cake, and ice cream. Here is the cake:

Please, no one send this picture to Cake Wrecks, m'kay?

After I finished the sillouette part and it still looked like a train, I didn't want to mess it up. Not that anyone would have cared but me. Wouldn't that be some funny gossip to listen in on?

"And you should have seen that train wreck of a train cake she was serving at the party, Becky! It looked like she had her 2 year old ice that cake! Who cares that it was served to 2-5 year olds and was eaten in 10 minutes? Simply unbelievable!"

I know the parents that all came to our party and I don't think for a minute that any of them would say that, but isn't it fun to make fun of our insecurities this way? It's always easy to do after the fact. :)

The last fun thing that we did was get a disposable camera that had Thomas and Friends characters and sayings pre-printed on the photo paper. That way we took a picture of each kid, developed the pictures, and then had photos of the kids with Thomas and Friends characters on them to give away with "Thank You" written on the back. Those were a big hit. I recommend shelling out the extra $20 for that. Totally worth it.

So, yeah, we had fun and ate cake. The kids both got way too many presents. They're lucky kids to have so many people that care about them. Thanks to anybody who is reading that came.

Anyone have any good train party ideas?

It's been a crochet kind of weekend

I've been crocheting like a mad woman this weekend!

It all started early on Friday night when my husband rescued my F sized crochet hook from our evil couch. Overjoyed at our reunion, I got the bright idea to make a pair of amigurumi bunnies for the kids for Easter. One for the boy and one for the girl.

Considering my children are both under 4 years old, their toys generally get dirty pretty quickly. Because of that, white bunnies were out and I wasn't really too keen on the idea of making brown bunnies. So that led to the creation of our bright yellow Jelly Bean Bunnies! Come back on Monday evening when I will post a pattern for the Jelly Bean Bunnies.

By the end of naptime on Saturday I had made enough bunny body parts for two bunnies and by this morning, the Jelly Bean Bunnies were completely assembled. The kids are going to be so happy when they see them!

With that project out of the way, I was left with the rest of a perfectly good Sunday for crafting and other miscellaneous family fun.

So a little bit later on while the kids were napping (and their Dad stayed with them), I went to the craft store and bought some supplies to do the kid friendly batiking from That Artist Woman's blog. And after the kids got up from their nap, we completed stage one of the process. Now we wait until tomorrow after work and daycare when we will paint!

Next, I made a mushroom for myself. It's the first one that I've kept and I think it's my favorite so far. Purely by coincidence, but what a happy coincidence it is.

The last project of today was to put some more work into the crocheted mushroom bag. It's substantially bigger than any other mushroom that I have made to date. And I'm not going to stuff it so the shaping of the mushroom is a little bit less forgiving than what I'm used to. But it's taking shape. Slowly. At least it actually looks like a mushroom now instead of a hat. So that's a step in the right direction...

And that's what I have made in my free time this weekend. How about you?

What do you do when you have a sick kiddo?

Why, you stay home and decorate your boring DVD case with colorful hearts, of course!

Thank you, Katie Sokoler from Color Me Katie, for the fabulous idea! Anyone that needs a pick me up should head over to her blog and flickr photostream. This woman is the epitome of happiness and her work shows it. She has so many fantastic ideas and reminds us to stop and notice the colorful world around us.

Here is our rendition of her colorful hearts.

We started with this:

A boring white cabinet next to a boring white wall.

So I cut out some hearts for our poor, boring cabinet.

We wanted to make sure we only picked the best, most fun hearts of the bunch.

So I had my sick kiddo test them out.

Once we found the best and most fun of the hearts, we stuck them to the cabinet.

There. That's much better.