Frozen Birthday Party

So recently my daughter celebrated her 5th birthday.  Needless to say, it was a frozen birthday party.  We knew the theme since last year.  So after we came back from our vacation, I started planning the party.  I searched the internet for ideas and found some good starting points to create our own frozen extravaganza.  Unfortunately, I didn't get very many pictures.  I still wanted to share our ideas though, in case someone reading was like me a month ago and desperately trying to come up with something original for their party.

So the biggest thing for our parties is the decorations.  We always set tables up in our garage for our guests who would rather stay out of the bustle of the house, or for the kids who want to play in the yard.  We decided that  the garage would be Anna's area.  The tables got either a pink or a blue tablecloth.  I bought some cheap snowflake ornaments at Michael's and hung them from the (opened) garage door.  Party City had some Frozen wall hangings for $6 that had a 5 foot poster of Anna, a 5 foot poster of Elsa, two small Anna and Elsa posters and a Happy Birthday banner.  We taped the Anna poster next to the door leading into the house, and taped up the Happy Birthday banner so that it was visible to our guests as they walked up. We placed a stuffed Olaf on one table and a stuffed Anna doll on the other table.  My husband wrapped my daughter's play house in white paper to make it an "ice palace."

I made this Happy Birthday banner on the computer.

Once you came into the house, Elsa took over.  The kitchen table and the dessert table both had a light blue tablecloth topped by a white tablecloth that was cut to look like icicles. I made a Happy Birthday banner that hung above our bay window.  We put the 5 foot Elsa poster over our sliding glass door.  I bought table decorations from Party City for the dessert table as well as a balloon bouquet.  Our dessert table sat in front of our 6 foot shelving unit, and I wanted something prettier than black bins for the background, so I bought a 62x42 Frozen poster from Walmart and put it over the shelves.

I made the kitchen table our snack center.  I put out bowls of snack foods with a Frozen theme.  I had baby carrots as Olaf noses, pretzel sticks as Olaf arms, Blue Jello cubes as Kristoff's ice, combined blue and pink M & M's as Anna's chocolates, another bowl of mini york peppermint patties as Elsa's chocolates, and a bowl of white sixlets as Marshmallow's snowballs.  I doubled these as treat bag snacks by telling the kids at the end of the party to fill their bags with whatever they wanted to take home.  We also made a frozen punch by filling a punch bowl half full with blue hawaiian punch, and the rest with Sprite.  We finished it off by scooping in vanilla ice cream on top.

Elsa crowns for the girls.

For the party favors, I made sparkly blue crowns for the girls and brown antlers for the boys.  I drew up a template for each in AutoCAD then cut them out of foam.  I punched a hole on each side and tied an 18 inch ribbon. Inside each treat bag, there was a rock candy wand and a few frozen tattoos. 

Antlers for the boys

 Finally, I made white, brown, orange, and black play doh and assembled them into Do You Want to Build a Snowman kits.  Here is the link for the white and orange play doh.  I mixed some fine white glitter into the white play doh to make it look more like snow.  To dye the play doh orange, I stuck my white play doh into a sandwich bag, then added food coloring.  I then closed the bag and squished the play doh around until the food coloring was completely absorbed.  It keeps your hands from getting all messy.  I used a chocolate play doh recipe for the brown play doh.  Here is the link to that recipe.  It smells like brownie batter, but don't eat it.  It won't hurt you, it just tastes awful.  I then dyed some of it black using the same technique I used for the orange play doh. 

I assembled my kits by buying small, round containers from Michael's in their wedding section.  I made one full container of white. I then split the other container into 3 compartments for the other playdoh; half brown, 1/4 black, and 1/4 orange.  These containers came with white labels that you can print at home, but I ran out of time.  I just stuck the containers in the treat bags, but you could easily put them into a sandwich bag and make a topper saying "Do you want to build a snowman?"

My daughter loved her party.  I had other ideas but I ran out of time.  Here are a few other things you may want to consider:

• I wanted to put a picture of Oaken's sauna on the door leading out to the garage.  It was 99 degrees that day.  

• I wanted more snowflakes especially on the windows.  You can buy a paper punch and then punch them out of vinyl shelf liner and stick them up. 
• We didn't do any games, but pin the nose on Olaf was popular at my daughter's school.
• You can also build snowmen out of marshmallows, pretzel sticks, fruit by the foot for the scarf, half of an orange mike and ike or a candy corn for the nose, and a miniature reese's peanut butter cup for the hat. I also used edible ink pens to make the face and buttons, but mini chocolate chips could probably be used.

Like I said, we had a great time at our Frozen birthday party.  I hope you can use these ideas to plan your own perfect party!

Light Switch Cover

My daughter is obsessed with Frozen.  We saw it the first week it was out, and she fell in love with Elsa right away.  We were about to move her to a new room, and she decided she wanted a frozen room.  Due to time constraints and other factors I wasn't able to do a large mural, so I tried to find other ways to make her a frozen room.

My daughter's favorite part of Frozen is Elsa.  She loves her look, dress, powers, and most importantly, her ice palace.  So I tried to focus on snowflakes in our decorating.  I am still not done, but we've managed to give her a great room.  I've made her some snowflake curtains and her Daddy found a great curtain rod that looks like Elsa's wind gusts.  I'm working on a small border of snowflakes on the wall above her bed, and this past weekend, I made her an Elsa light switch cover.

I'll start off saying that I was feeling torn on this project.  I decided to try mod podging a printed image instead of painting it.  I'm not always that great at painting people, and I wanted a good looking product.  I felt like I was cheating, but I am glad I did.  The project came out great, and of course, she loves it.

For this project you will need your decorative paper or image, Mod Podge, Scissors, an exacto knife, a light switch cover, and sandpaper. A hole punch and high gloss acrylic sealer are optional, but recommended.

You can do this with any printed image or decorative paper.  I found the image I liked and cropped it down to a rectangle that was a quarter inch larger than my light switch cover.  I printed it and cut it out leaving about 1/8 of an inch of white around the image to wrap around the back.


Next I took a plastic light switch cover and sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper.  You are just trying to rough up the surface so that the adhesive sticks.  I sanded it once horizontally and again vertically.  Don't forget the very edge of the back since you will be wrapping the paper back there.




I positioned my image over the light switch cover, getting it centered. You should not be able to see any of the white border.  Once I positioned it exactly as I wanted it, I flipped it over and marked where the cover and holes were located on the paper. I created an X in the center hole.  I also mark the corners from where the plate starts to curve up to the corner of the cover.  The image on the right shows how the back of your image should look when the cover is removed.  Using an exacto knife, cut along the X lines.  Do not cut along the rectangle. Cut out the holes as well, or use a hole punch. Also cut along the corner lines from the outside edge of the paper to where the mark starts. 

 Next comes the gluing.  I apply Mod Podge to the back of my image as well as the front of the light switch cover.  I laid the paper image side down, and position my light switch cover onto it by lining up the center holes that were marked earlier.  Turn the cover over and make sure there are no bubbles.  If there are any, gently smooth them out.  Turn your cover over and apply Modge Podge to the edges of the light switch cover and around the center hole.  Carefully wrap around your paper to the back.  The cuts I made to the corners allow me to wrap the image around easily without any bubbles or wrinkles. I then carefully push the triangles in the center hole through to the back and wrap them around.  Apply more Mod Podge over your edges to hold them down.  When I am done, the back of my plate looks like this.

 

Finally I seal my light switch cover.  I apply at least 3 coats of Mod Podge to the front of my cover.  I usually alternate between apply coats horizontally and vertically.  I do not know how to make this less streaky.  No matter what I have tried, it always gets that way. So to try and combat the streaks, I have been spraying a layer of high gloss acrylic sealer over the top.  I apply a few coats until the streaks are less noticeable. And with that, your cover is completed.  Let it cure for 24 hours before installing.  Be careful not to over tighten the screws or you will start to rip up the layer of sealer. 

Here are a few other covers that I have done.

I hope you find this tutorial helpful.  Have fun creating!

Butterfly Flower Pots

So yesterday was mother's day.  Nothing gets me more creative than being able to make something for people I care about, and I love having the kids make something fun for their grandmas.  I was going to have them make a stepping stone with their hand prints on them; however the kit that I bought was plain plaster, and plaster and I don't get along really well.  After messing that up, I decided to go a different route.  I started looking on Pinterest and found someone who used their child's footprints to make a butterfly.  Of course when I tried to click on the tutorial, it didn't work. It seemed simple enough, so we gave it a try.


We started with my daughter painting two terracotta pots a sky blue color.  She painted the terracotta base green.  It took two coats of craft paint.  Next we put the footprints on the pots.  My daughter's feet are bigger than I expected so they barely fit on the 6 inch pot I bought, but we made it work.  I marked the length of her foot on a paper plate, then divided that in thirds.  I put down a color of paint in each section, then spread it out with a brush until she was able to step into the painted area.  Then I positioned her foot on the pot and pressed it down.  The feet should be placed so the outside part of the foot is in the middle (left foot on the right, right foot on the left).  Since we were doing two pots, I had her step back into the paint and place it on the second pot before washing her foot.  Then we switched feet.  I then did my son's footprints the same way on the back side of each pot.


 I painted a simple butterfly body down the center of the two footprints.  I then painted a simple wing pattern around each footprint in black. I filled in the area between my wing and their footprint.  It made the footprint stand out.  My daughter then finger painted some clouds.




For the base, my daughter stuck her fingers in paint and left a few fingerprints in red and yellow.  On one base, she left a bunch in a row.  I then went through and painted ladybug patterns on the red dots and bee patterns on the yellow ones.  I tried to make the ones in a row look like a caterpillar.  Then I used several other shades of green to make the pot base look like grass.

I finished the project by sealing the pots and bases in 3 coats of polyacrylic.  I have never used it on this material or for this type of application before, so we'll see how it holds up.  So far it seems to be fine.  Finally I transplanted the flowering plants that my daughter picked out for her grandmothers into their pots.

Overall, this project came out really well.  The grandmothers were impressed, and hopefully this is a gift that they will enjoy for years to come.

Helpful Tips

So I have a few small things on my mind, but none are big enough for a whole post, so I thought I would just offer them up for anyone who is interested.

First, I can't drink regular milk but I love chocolate milk. I go through phases of wanting it and not having it for a while.  So instead of buying a big container of chocolate milk mix, I found a quick and easy chocolate milk recipe that uses things I always have around the house, and I can control what goes in it.  Basically, I put two tablespoons of sugar and one tablespoon of cocoa powder in a cup, then add just enough hot water to cover them.  I stir until the ingredients are dissolved, then fill the glass up with milk and stir.  Depending on what kind of cocoa you use, it tastes just as good, if not better, than the nesquik powder, and there's only 4 ingredients.  You can also add more or less sugar or cocoa powder to make it perfect for you.

If you have a little one, I recommend putting something on the wall next to the changing table for him or her to look at while getting changed.  We have a small painted bear laying on a moon next to ours, and my son loves it.  He laughs and talks to it which makes changing him a whole lot easier and it makes my day to see him so happy.  It doesn't have to be anything huge, even a mirror could make changing time so much more enjoyable.  You could also find something that you know your child enjoys, i.e. a cartoon character, print out a picture of it and tape it to the wall where your child can see it.  You can also change it periodically to keep him or her interested.

Everyone should keep chalk in their house.  It comes off most surfaces with just a little water and it usually doesn't leave a mark.  It sometimes won't come off flat paint, but it comes off semi gloss easily.  I use it a lot to transfer images onto different materials before painting, to mark where nail holes need to go when putting up picture frames, and to mark level lines. Plus if the kids mark up their toys, walls, or furniture with it, you can usually get it off.

 These are my little tips for today.  I hope you find at least one of them helpful! 

Removing a Wine Bottle Label

As promised, the next topic I want to cover is how to remove a wine bottle label.  This is the first step for me when I make one of my lamps.  I will not be saving the labels in this tutorial.


 My first job is to pick the bottle I want to use.  My favorite bottles are the ones I have collected from the Blumenhof winery near Washington, MO.  If you are ever in the area, I definitely recommend it.  I love the scenic location, and their blush wine is excellent.  I am not usually a wine drinker, but I do love this one.  On the weekends, they also have a food stand that serves delicious sandwiches, and they usually have a band playing.  It is one of my favorite places to collect bottles because they have such great lines and colors. I especially like their blue ones.






These are the two bottles that I am going to be using for future projects.  I will be making a peacock wine bottle lamp out of the blue one, and a nightlight for my son out of the clear one.

 

The easiest way to remove a wine bottle label is simply to soak it for as long as possible.  I fill my sink with the hottest water possible and some dish soap.  Next I put a little dish soap into the wine bottle and fill it with water so that it will sink.  You should soak them for a minimum of four hours, but I prefer to leave them in overnight.

 



 The next day, I empty the sink and remove the bottles. On some bottles, the label will already be floating in the water, but most need a little more work. I peel off as much of the label as I can. This picture shows how much I was able to peel off without any tools.





Then take a sponge with a non abrasive scrubbing surface on one side of it and scrub off whatever is left. This should remove everything, however if you have a stubborn spot, you can always use a glass scraper as a last resort.  The label removing process took me about 10 minutes for both bottles, and I was able to remove the rest of the label with only my sponge.  Once they are clean, I turn them upside down on a paper towel to dry.




The bottles are now ready for whatever project you want to start.  I  am going to cut the bottoms off of these bottles, and I will cover that process in the future.  I hope this helps you with your wine bottle crafts!

Bottle Lamps

I thought I would start a series based on one of my most unique artworks, my bottle lamps.  I recently sold one of my favorites, and now the new owner is asking for a duplicate.  I am also thinking about making a nightlight for my son's room, so I thought that I would share my process of preparing a bottle for each of the lamp types on which I will be working.

But first, you should probably know where the idea for these lamps comes from, and also get a sample of what they look like.  I first thought of making a wine bottle light after a trip to the winery with some friends.  This particular winery has the prettiest blue bottles, and one of our friends asked me what I could do with it.  So I started to wonder, what exactly could I do with one of these bottles?  I thought it would be interesting to turn them into more of a lampshade so that you could replace them as you wanted instead of being stuck forever with one particular bottle or image.  From this idea, I designed my own style of wine bottle lamps.  Here are some samples.




Butterfly Coi.  My very first lamp.  This was given as a gift to my mother-in-law.  It is based on a fish I saw on a trip to Las Vegas. This is a clear bottle that has been completely painted.  My first base design had a light bulb sticking up into the bottle. 

Tulips. Based on my favorite flowers to draw. This is my second base design.  I moved to a battery operated puck light that the bottle can sit on.  It makes cutting the bottom of the bottle unnecessary.

This bottle was a gift for my Grandma who loves Cardinals.

Celtic Knots.  This came from my love of Celtic knot artwork.  My husband's family has a very strong Irish connection, so I designed this bottle with them in mind.

 
Coral Reef.  Probably my most detailed work. It took me over 30 hours to get this one right, and then the bottle developed a crack.  I was so upset!











 The peacock. This is the one I need to duplicate. It was one of my first ideas even though it was one of my later bottles. It is still my favorite.

Sunflowers.  This was a special order from a family member.  Her kitchen is decorated in sunflowers, so I made a lamp to match.  This one was photographed without its base.













These are just some of the ones that I have done.  There are a few more on my Etsy site, which you can get to by clicking on my logo at the top of the page.  Now you see what they can look like.  Next time, I'll start showing you how to prepare the bottles to make them.  Stay tuned.... 

Jaundice

So today's topic is something that I have been wanting to share for a while, since I know the product that helped us is not widely known or used.  We had a few rough patches when my son was born.  First of all, he had a broken clavicle, which turned out to not be that big of a deal.  They started by keeping the sleeve of his shirt pinned down so he couldn't move his arm, but that didn't last for long.  It set very quickly and healed without much intervention from us, and now there is very little evidence that anything was wrong.

The second problem we faced was that he developed jaundice the night before we were to be discharged.  He had been in the room with me all of the previous day, so by the time the nurses caught it, his levels were already higher than they would like.  He was immediately put on a bilibed. 

Now for those who don't know what a bilibed is, it is a flat bed of UV lights that helps destroy the billiruben in a baby's blood since their body isn't capable of keeping up with it yet. To get an idea of what this looks like, see this link.  We were told to leave him in the bed as much as possible and to only take him out to feed him.  For any new mother, this is hard.  All you want to do in those first few days is cuddle your baby as much as possible, but for his health, I was willing to go along with it.

We had someone come in to arrange sending a bed home with us, and we had to set up a nurse to come to the house to take his blood since the doctor's office would not be open on Sunday.  We were supposed to be discharged at 11, but we had to wait for the bilibed to be delivered.  It didn't get there until 5.  On top of that, my son decided to have a cluster feeding day, which meant that he literally ate all day trying to stimulate my milk to come in, and that made putting him in the bed difficult.  I think he only spent a half hour in the thing while we were at the hospital.  Once we got home we set up the bed, but again, my son was wanting to constantly eat.  By his doctor's appointment the next morning, he had spent two hours total in the bed, and we were trying to figure out a way I could feed him while he was in it. They took his blood at the appointment only to discover his levels had gone up again.

Then our doctor gave us the best news.  It turns out there is another device that works the same as the bilibed, but is much smaller.  It is called the BiliBee and is the size of an i pad. It has a rechargeable battery pack, and it was small enough that we could slide it into his onsie.  To see this device, click this link.  Suddenly, I was able to feed him and hold him all I wanted without worrying about whether he was getting enough time in the bed.  The battery would last several hours, however I was usually sitting next to an outlet so we could leave it charging.  The cord could get in the way sometimes, but it was an improvement from our previous arrangement. We had the BiliBee on him constantly that night, and he never seemed to notice it.  He ate and slept without any disruption, and I was able to continue my bonding with him. On top of that, my milk finally came in. We couldn't have been happier.

The results were quickly noticeable.  By the next day, his skin looked much less yellow.  We had a nurse stop by the house to observe him and to take more blood for testing.  She had never seen the BiliBee before.  She agreed that it seemed like a much better device than the bed.  We got a call later in the day to tell us his levels  had started to go back down. By our Monday morning appointment, he was doing so well that the doctor didn't even take blood.  We returned the BiliBee, and my son has been fine ever since.

I want to tell this story because I would like other parents to know what options are available.  Our doctor only had the BiliBee because a representative had given the office one as a free trial.  We don't know if the company that delivered our original bed had the BiliBee as an option, but I wish I had asked what was available.  For us, this was such an improvement from the BiliBed that I would like it to be the first option available to all families.  It is so hard for new mothers to put their babies down, even when it is for their own good.  With this other device, you don't have to lose any of the bonding time with your baby. I wanted to tell any of my readers about it in case they ever find themselves in this situation, and hopefully as the device gets to be more widely known, it will be the first option available to parents instead of a lucky break.  Thanks for reading!

Introduction

I am brand new to this blogging thing, so I think I'll start by introducing myself and explaining why I want to start this blog. My name is Nikki Davis. I am a stay-at-home mom who loves to create. My road to arts and crafts has been a long one.  My grandmother started me sewing from the time I was 5.  I learned how to needlepoint and cross stitch from her.  Until college, this was the extent of my crafting.  I went to school hoping to one day be a computer animator.  Unfortunately, I chose both the wrong school and the wrong major to achieve this.  I don't regret anything though, since I love my life, but this is how I eventually came to major in art with an emphasis in drawing and printmaking.

Skip forward many years, and I now find myself loving anything crafty.  I am pretty good with a paint brush, which tends to be the basis of the  crafts I do now. I have two children, and they are usually the inspiration for my crafts. I also have my own Etsy store, which you can find by clicking on my logo on this page.  Since having my last child, I haven't had as much time as I would like for crafts, but I'm hoping that, as he gets older, I can start working again. 

So why do I want to start a blog?  I know that when I want to learn how to do a new project I always look to the web.  Most of the time, I find tutorials on someone else's blog. The same goes for some of my parenting questions. I have started to feel like maybe I should start giving  back and share some of my own knowledge and experiences to help other people.  I know that I have given friends advice before on projects and i would like to keep a written record of them for future reference. I also wanted a place to promote my work. 

My content is going to be a combination of parenting stories, craft tutorials, my personal artwork and the stories or processes behind them, and anything else that may come up that may be of interest to anyone.  I hope you will join me on this journey!