Fairy Tale Ball

 Last Friday my boy had his Fairy Tale ball at his school. The school sent home a flyer about two weeks before announcing it and to make sure the kids dressed up. That afternoon I asked him what he wanted to be for the fairy tale ball. his very first choice was a dragon. he saw Disney's version of Sleeping Beauty and just loved the dragon.  I couldn't imagine at first how in the world I was going to make that and I didn't want him looking like a toddler in an all in one outfit. I asked him if there was anything else that he would be interested in being. his next thought was one of the three little pigs. my reaction, really, a pig is pink!?!  Later on when I asked him again he said mommy, if you want to know what I want to be then it is a dragon. ok got it. a dragon it is. I got on Pinterest of course and started searching. I came across two tutorials that were extremely helpful in making my sweet boy into a dragon.
the first thing I tackled was the wings and I came across this tutorial to help me out. luckily I had all of the materials that I needed from when he was Robin Hood this past year for Halloween.

 next was the tail.  I found this tutorial on a tail. I wanted the spikes to all be different so I cut the two triangles in big to small sizes and stitched them together and then flipped them inside out. after all of the triangles were made I used some green felt that I had and cut the tail in a triangle shape that was long enough to fit all of the triangles. then I started from the bottom and started sewing the triangles on all the way up. I wasn't sure what I was going to use to tie it on his with but I was at Michael's one day and saw some bungee cord on sale for 70% off. I thought it would work great and it did. I came home and stitched it into a fold of the fabric and tied it on and walla.......his dragon tale. I stuffed the tale with scraps from the triangles and wings and tale and some cotton balls. use what you have laying around right?  since I had everything already this project only cost me the .75 cents that I paid for the bungee cord. of course I don't have a sewing machine so I had to hand stitch it which took a could nights but it was worth it to see his face when I showed it to him and he got to wear it.

 the next thing was that I knew that I wanted something for his face or something for his head. I searched pinterest again. (have I said how much I love pinterest?) for dragon face painting. I wanted to do this but he said he wanted the dragons fire to go down his face. so we came across this what that is what I did. of course his hair is so long it was hard to see it but you get the idea and I think he was precious.

 

 

Books Read in 2013

I have been posting by book list for the past couple of years and I have been a total blog slacker and while here is now way on earth I can catch up with all that has been going on with us I am going to try to be more intentional about updating the blog so here goes. a post that should have been written at the beginning of the year

Cottage by the Sea-Robin Jones Gunn
River's Edge- Terri Blackstock
Her Mothers Hope-Francine Rivers
Breakers Reef-Terri Blackstock
The Thirteenth Tale-Diane Setterfield
Her Daughters Dream-Francine Rivers
The Night Circus-Erin Morgenstern
Grace Based Parenting-Dr, Tim Kimmel
The Power of One-Bryce Courteney
Falling Together-Marissa de los Santos
Breathe- Lisa T. Bergren
Glamorous Illusions-Lisa T Bergren
Gone Girl-Gilliam Flynn
The Bridge-Karen Kingsbury
How to be Lost-Amanda Eyre Ward
The Chance-Karen Kingsbury
Cutting for Stone-Abraham Verghese
Palace Circle-Rebecca Dean
Life of Pi-Yann Martel
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie-Alan Bradley
Frenchman's Creek-Daphne DuMaurier
Firefly Island-Lisa Wingate
A Step of Faith-Richard Paul Evans
A Winter Dream-Richard Paul Evans
The Christmas Jar-Jason F. Wright

such a fun year of reading. four months into this year and I am 15 books in........yeah for lists and for this years.........

Our Hope Chest

I added some tutus to my etsy Shop
I can take custom orders too.
Please go check it out and if you are on instagram follow the shop at @ourhopechest
Thanks

Teacher Gift

cute apple cups

yummy candy sticks from Cracker Barrel



a cute cup to give to teachers

 I saw these cute cups in the dollar section of Target a while back and grabbed three of them for Little Guy's teachers. I wasn't sure when I would use them for but knew that would get them some time during the year. Teacher appreciation week was the perfect time. I wasn't sure what I wanted to put in them either until my hubby came home from Cracker Barrel with a hand full of these candy sticks. After we ate almost all of the ones he got I headed to CB and got some more to put in the glasses.

Ticket Stub Banner

 so i made this banner out of old ticket stubs that i couldn't part with. i have to say that it is not my original idea. i remember coming across something very similar to this but maybe with the ticket stubs that you would get at a raffle. i remembered my jar of ticket stubs and pulled out all of the red white and green ones (and two yellow for the stars on the ends) to make this. i just found some red ribbon that is sheer and her white polke dots on it and then used a stencil to make the letters on the ticket stubs and then i just staples the tickets to the ribbon. i also have one for fall time that says happy harvest (or halloween(i can't seem to remember)) it is stapled to black ribbon and the tickets are oranges and yellows (i think)  this pin that a friend pinned is what prompted me to write a post about this. it reminded me that i had this and gives a fun idea of something to do with all of those ticket stubs that you just can't get rid of (if you are anything like me) 

Something Blue

a friend of mine pinned this pin on pinterest and it reminded me of my something blue almost 11 years ago. I saw in a magazine somewhere to do blue shoes. i searched high and low for blue shoes that would suit me. you can't see them very well in the picture but you can see that they are indeed blue. they had a strap across that top that looked like eyelet lace and a blue bow. we are not Turkish but i read in the Martha Stewart magazine about Turkish shoe signing tradition and thought it would be fun. all the single brides maids would sign the bottom of your shoe and after dancing the night away which ever girls name wore off the most was the one to get married next. cute fun. so we did it. 

 

years later my little sister decided to wear blue shoes as well. only she took is a step further and got a pair of blue shoes for the reception as well. funny how both pair suit her. love it.

isn't she gorgous. i think she pulled off the blue shoes better, for sure.

her super cute reception shoes. the inside lining of them is hearts.

Hubby Valentine Card

i saw this on pinterest and knew that i wanted to do something like that for my hubs valentines card. i decided to make my own. i google searched the number of days between the two dates (valentines day being the end date) (it could be an anniversary or birthday though) and then made the card with leftover stickers and card stock that i had at home. i really liked the way that it turned out. i think that he did too.

Kids Valentines

 this year for valentines day i had my daugther make one for my mother in law. this is what we created.

all it takes is a construction paper heart,

a little lipstick and

some sweet lips

i had my son make one too but i just follow this link. only we just traced his hand

Window makeover

 a couple months ago i pinned this. i loved the idea of using napkins as a curtain on our kitchen window because if i got a couple sets that i loved then i could always interchange them. i started to search on etsy first to find some that i liked. i came across these and just loved them. i tried to use a tension rod first for the curtain rod but i think the span between the two cabinets was just way to big and it kind of sagged in the middle. i thought a tension rod that was bigger around may work better but after talking to my mom decided to just go with the curtain rod that had the hooks to set it in. i got the rod at walmart and then got the silver mini rings at target. it took two packages to use for all four napkins. i love the way it turned out.


the curtains opened



the curtains closed


 

this is what i had up before the change. i liked it but liked the idea of more light coming through the window and being able to see out of the whole window

Julie's Sprinkle

yesterday we had a "Sprinkle" for my friend Julie. she is pregnant with baby #2 and the baby is a girl. her first is also a girl so she wasn't in need of many things. her oldest loves books and was pretty hard on them so she wanted us to have all the guests bring books to as the gift. we would have probably gone with a book theme but just a couple months ago we did a book theme shower for two of our other friends. julie is a lover of all things pink and sweet. once we dedided that we were having a "sprinkle" we went to work planning. i have to say that we had a pretty awesome team in the works to help with getting ready for this. the three other ladies were amazing and super easy to work with. here are some pics of the shower.

Kelly brought the yummy punch



i provided the mason jars but Linds had the cute straws and made the little clouds that went on the straws. she got the idea from here



Linds also made this table cloth. she was going to pain the circles like this one(to mimic sprinkles of course) on the table cloth but she decided to just lightly stitch them on one corner. i think it turned out awesome.

these balloons were also something that we saw and thought would be fun. but instead of putting the sequins inside of the balloons Linds glued them to the bottom. i love how they came out

the streamers were made by me and and i got the inspiration from these sites
6thstreetdesignschool  hostess with the mostess  elleapparelblog
 

our good table was covered with all things sprinkled. mini cucakes (by Kelly) donuts (by me) chocolate covered pretzles (by Blakeley), bakes pretzles (by me), cake pops and sea salt covered caramels (by kelly)

we had an ice cream bar were you could sprinkle nuts, mini chocolate chips or sprinkles on the icecream and keeping this the drinking mason jars we went with the little ones to eat the ice cream out of. found the pic here

Linds made these cute flower vases out of baby food jars and sprinkled pink and purple senquins in the water. she saw the idea  here

Blakeley put together a cute mad lib that we did before Julie opened the gifts

Momma Julie  :)

we thought it would be fun to send everyone home with something as a thank you. what girl doesn't love sparkle (sprinkled with glitter) nail polish. got the tag idea from here. thanks Linds for making the cute tags and thanks Kelly for supplying the punch.  

 the only think that i didn't get a pic of was the cup cake liner banner that i made that hung on the fire place mantel.  maybe Linds or Blakeley got a shot of it.   like i said we had a great group helping put this shower together and a great group of ladies who showed up to celebrate Julie and baby peaunt.

here is the link to linds pics from the sprinkle.
here is the link to blakeley's pics from the sprinkle.