Totally unintentional…

I noticed as I was wrapping up the leftover pancakes tonight, that they graduated rather nicely…

I love serendipity.

If only…

If only I’d gotten home a few minutes sooner, I wouldn’t have missed out on this totally random, funky, yet really cool vintage tapestry purse:

I refreshed my eBay page 4 minutes too late. I even thought to myself, the day I added it to my watched items list, “How cool would it be if nobody bid on it, and I won it for 99 cents?” Ugh, I was SO close! That’ll teach me. DON’T LEAVE THE HOUSE WHEN AN AUCTION’S ABOUT TO END! Dur.

A Safari Birthday

My son just turned 3, and I threw a Safari-themed party for him. I wanted everything to still be sort of cute and baby-ish, as opposed to life-like (since he’s still a toddler, but not for long!), so his invitation had a cute giraffe and lion on it. I sent the invite by email, because I had created it in photoshop, but not the way you’re supposed to – I’m totally clueless – and so it wasn’t looking good in terms of being able to print out quality invitations. Oh well.

I tried to have “rustic”, non-fancy food, something you might actually be able to eat while on safari, so the menu consisted of:

trail mix
Chocolate Turtle Chex mix
watermelon & cantaloupe
white bean dip w/pita chips & bread
lemon chicken kabobs
Filipino BBQ pork kabobs
vegetable cous cous

The only activities I had were decorating your goody bag with stamps, playing with the puppet theater (that I got a few days previous at IKEA on sale for $1.99!), and hanging out in the safari canopy I made. It was a featured craft in the June/July issue of Family Fun magazine. But all the kids wanted to do was play at the playground, anyway, since we were at a park.

I never figured out exactly what to do about the cake. I originally planned to ask a friend of a friend who works at a Costco bakery if she would hook me up, because she and my friend would sometimes decorate cakes however they wanted, for their own parties. Costco doesn’t allow this, but they somehow were able to. So anyway, I never got around to asking her, and ended up making it myself. My first idea was to buy some cute animals I’d seen at Toys R Us, that were only $6.99 for 6, plus a nice tree. But the set includes a tiger, which aren’t native to Africa, and I’m really a stickler when it comes to details & authenticity. I also really wanted a giraffe and zebra on the cake, and I just never found the right set of animals. I wanted at least a giraffe, zebra, lion, and elephant, and they had to be cute & friendly looking, not too life-like. Since I’m no genius with the fondant or the frosting, my only option was to make paper animals with my Cricut machine. I did, however, want to try to at least put some frosting leaves on the sides of the cake. I borrowed a leaf tip from a friend, that she had just acquired from her grandmother. The decorating set was from the ’50’s! It’s the metal kind, where you put the frosting into a canister and push down to decorate. Needless to say, the tip didn’t fit properly in my plastic decorating bag, but I tried anyway – first at my friend’s house while picking it up, where it worked ok, and then the next night, after frosting the cake. Where it didn’t work ok! For some reason, the last bit of frosting I had dyed green and placed in the bag became so runny that it was impossible to work with. I did pipe on several leaves, hoping it would work, but it was such a disaster! Frosting was coming out of all sides of the hole, the decorating tip fell out of place, and the leaves just looked awful. So I said screw it! I wiped the leaves off as best I could, and made some paper grass with my Cricut.

I had no idea exactly how I was going to place everything, but I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. Besides my very crooked, mediocre cake. Oh, and I’m so glad I saw a cake on coolest-birthday-cakes.com that had 3D palm trees on it, made with cereal straws. Also very glad I was able to find them, after going to 4 different grocery stores. That was a genius idea, they work very well, and look quite realistic. They’re also yummy!

Happy birthday, baby!

The Brass Hussy

I have actually bought something from this Etsy shop myself, it was one of my first Etsy purchases. I love my earrings.

My Brass Hussy Earrings

Click on the photo to be taken to Grosgrain’s Brass Hussy giveaway:

The Brass Hussy

Blame the vampires.

So, I basically spent the entire month of March submerged in the “Twilight” world. I hadn’t read the book, despite reading about it on several blogs (crafty mommy blogs, mind you), nor did I see the movie when it came out. I was planning on reading the book at some point, but the library waiting list was outrageous.

THEN, my girlfriend invited me over to watch the DVD, and after a bit of wavering, wondering if I should be seeing the movie first, before reading the book, I decided to go ahead. Kristen Stewart’s acting bothered me a bit, but all in all, I thoroughly enjoyed it. So my girlfriend lent me her book, and I started it the next day. I ended up blowing through the entire series in 17 days. I’ve never read so much in my life. I stayed up MANY nights until 4, 5, 6, 7 AM. One morning I even went to bed at 8. Needless to say, I needed a rest when I was finally done. I needed to recover, both physically and mentally. I didn’t quite know what to do with myself, which I’ve learned is common among “Twilighters”. Even though, I guess technically, I AM a “Twimom”, I will NOT be calling myself that, thank you very much.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Such a pretty dress!

I love this dress… feminine, pretty, frilly, yet you can totally dress it down.

{click on photo for link}

A miniature sleepover

My eldest turned 10 last month. *sigh*

She said she didn’t want a party, because “no one has parties anymore”. ?? Which really ticked me off, because lately (well, actually, probably for the last few years!) all she wants is to be EXACTLY like her classmates. “Mom, can I have a —? So-and-so has one.” Or, “Mom, I want a sleepover. So-and-so AND so-and-so are having one!” And on, and on and on. I tried to explain that she should really be herself, that it really bothers me that she has to copy everyone. But a child wants what a child wants, and I’m ok with whatever – within reason.

So a little grudgingly, I acquiesced. But I wouldn’t let her get away without picking a theme. I have to have a theme. So we settled on “miniature”. She has this American Girl book, “Tiny Treats: Fun Foods to Make and Eat”, that has some really cute ideas and projects. That was one of the inspirations for the mini theme I got stuck in my head a long time ago, the other was this project on the DIY website: mini treasure chest.

I used a tag craft punch for the mini banner:

I decided this was the perfect time to try some mini burgers; I originally wanted the ones from Jack In The Box, because they looked so cute, and the commercial cracked me up. But we went with the ones from Burger King instead.

I made mini cupcakes for her to share with her class, as they are allowed to do that on their birthday, but sadly, forgot to photograph them. I saved some for each child that was going to be here during the sleepover, including my little ones, and this is the only photographic evidence left:

A very blurry close up:

One teeny, tiny cupcake would hardly suffice, so I was going to make a chocolate cake while the girls played, but we decided to go for an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. I had a $3 off coupon, which we get by email before everyone’s birthday, as part of their birthday club. I did want one of their tiny, round cakes, to go along with the theme, but they’re supposed to feed only 2-4. So that was out. Big sister chose cookie dough ice cream+chocolate cake.

The next morning:

Ach, the mini cardboard suitcase saga… these things are expensive, and not widely available. Only online, as far as I saw, and no one likes to sell them individually – maybe 2 or 3 vendors do. These are from Kate’s Paperie in New York.

I recently discovered we have a Japanese “dollar store”, in the Convoy/Kearny Mesa area, where everything is actually $1.69. Unless marked otherwise. So many cute things! It’s called Marukai, or Daiso Marukai. I was so happy they had lots of tiny things to choose from.

These bookmarks are from Target, on clearance:

I bought an envelope template ages ago, you can choose from 6 different tiny ones, all on one plastic sheet.

Now onto the next one!

The sexy librarian I’ve (sometimes) wanted to be…

Another beauty, another giveaway. I really want to try recreating clothing items I see that I love, but can’t afford… but I’d like to get this book first. After all, the author did work for Anthropologie. Who could be more perfect to learn from?

Look at these cutie patooties!

Oh my gosh, can you stand the adorableness of these? The girls and the skirts. I’m in love!

*Courtesy of Grosgrain Kathleen

Happy Valentine’s Day!

{image by janoid, click on photo}