Sailor Party

We planned this Sailor party for Jasmine's 1st bday long before she started staggering around the house looking like a drunken sailor, practicing her first steps. It started with an adorable sailor dress I found when she was just a few months old. How is that for being neurotic?

But it ended up just being perfect for her one year-old crazy cool, eating chunks out of toilet paper, best slobber kisses ever- self. 

Adorbs.

For goodies and snacks, we went matchy matchy tongue-and-cheek-themed. Or what I would call pinteresty. Thank you oriental trading company!

For entertainment, we built a cardboard boat from gigantic fridge boxes for the kids to play in and filled the bottom with small plastic balls. Jasmine's own mini ball pit =)

They colored cloth sailor hats as well as the boat and their cardboard spyglasses (from paper towel rolls). Jasmine loved the boat and all of the balls so much so that we kept it in our living room for a few weeks!

Can you tell who is burnt out on pictures? Sorry Miss J!
Happy birthday little sailor. We love you so immensely and celebrate the miracle you are!

Baby Sensory Board

Exposing your little one to a variety of textures and sensory stimulation, sensory boards are not only classified as educational, they are wildly entertaining as well. What's great about this project is that you can use items that you already have around the house! The main thing is providing things to look, touch, and feel- soft, bumpy, shiny, rough, etc that can be fixated down securely. As with any play, you want to make sure you give them plenty of time to discover the different things on their own but with direct supervision.

How to get started:

Poke holes in sheet of cardboard & securely tie ribbons & pipe cleaner
(make sure there are no rough edges)

Supply List:

• Cardboard sheet, Hot glue gun, Stock Paper
• A Variety of ribbon, Pipe cleaner, Leash (shortened)
• Zipper, Fake flower , Fake jewels
• Foil, Fabric swatches, Pinwheel
• Magnets backed with foam sheet
• Pom-Pom balls

Cover with stock paper

Fixate flower with hot glue after poking through cardboard

Add fabric swatches, foil "mirror" & pom poms

The J & ? are magnets that I backed with foam for safety before
hot gluing them on

Remove the top portion of the pinwheel, poke through the cardboard, and glue securely.
Trim the pointy edges of the pinwheel so they are rounded 

The Finished Sensory Board:

It has been such a hit around here that the older girls wanted to make their own boards too! We will have to share what they came up with as they used things that were challenging for each of their age (preschool & elementary). I may just name them Bored Boards!

Repurposed wood art

Art on wood is nothing new and it seems that now it has made it's way from the world of pinterest and etsy onto the store racks and after seeing them, I went home eager to make my own version for my bestie. I'm a words kind-of -gal. Words that fuel the heart and soul. Words that speak life and not death. My bestie is the queen of words and is ALWAYS encouraging those around her so it was something that I was hoping would bless her!

I started with a few pieces of scrap wood that we had in the garage. All were the exact same size and had that distressed effect from the paint peeling so they were all ready to go.

Next was adding wood glue in between each panel and firmly placing them together,

and lastly, adding the hand-painted quote:

To make it extra sturdy & for hanging purposes (the glue is not enough to hold it together for a long period of time as I found out the hard way) add metal brackets to the back =) Is it bad that I ended up liking the version that was created at home better then the one in the store??

Art Wall Makeover

For my awesome Mama's (A.K.A "Mimi's") bday present, I decided to surprise her by creating an art wall full of her grandbabies' masterpieces! There was a PERFECT emptier then empty wall in the hallway in between the living room and kitchen that needed some TLC. Although I didn't get a "before" picture, I'm sure you can use your noggin to imagine a completely blank tan wall and now THIS:

ARTWORK DISPLAY

 My parent's house has a lot of bronze hues and a tropical vibe (we were raised on Kauai before we moved to the awesome Northwest) so I wanted to incorporate that feel into the frames. Not so much my "style" but it was all about blessing my Mama. 

The frames and large wooden A-R-T letters were snagged at the good ol' craft warehouse. 

 I am over the moon with how it turned out and what was so special was the look on her face when she saw it! Truth be told, it was hammered up in close to 20 min. before she got home so I could surprise her and because I never ever ever use any form of measurement it was all done very scientifically....I eye-balled it.

Behind those sentimental frames filled with her grandchildren's time, sweat, and imagination are multiple holes in the wall from mis-attempts at hanging them properly. Soooo it looks like for my Mama's next bday, I will be buying her some spackle !!!!!

It's a Pony Party!

This was a fun one and the highlight was seeing our daughter light up like a christmas tree with her special surprise we have been keeping for months and months and months (all of the family pitched in to make it happen). She was in shock and she was soooo blessed. As you may have heard me say numerous times before, Nevaeh is in love with horses and now the color purple! Anything purple. Anything resembling a horse. So her 7th bday party had both....LITERALLY....

When she walked into the backyard there were two decked out ponies waiting for her!

 

She even got to decorate & brush her mane for the party!

Ruby helped out with the other pony (it was hard work but someone had to do it) & they had a whole hour to themselves with "their" ponies before guests arrived.

 

Oh yes & little little sis got her chance to sit on a saddle

As far as the party details, here are a few little ah-ha touches:

A "watering hole" filled with mini water bottles. Each bottle had some ribbon tied to the top for flare. Let's not forget about the peanuts- what would a party be without peanuts??? Nev likes them so there you go.

 The horse was a word document image and was printed off for the decor.

The rest of the time the kiddlets took turns riding the ponies, being silly, and painting water color pics (all horse themed from the dollar store).

And then there was the cake which was John & I's first attempt at making a fondant cake- or fondant anything! It has always seemed very intimidating to use but it turned out to be funner & easier than I thought! The base of the cake was made from white cake (straight from a box) which was coated in frosting with rolled chocolate fondant placed on top to finish the look and create the shape. The eyes & flower were made from air heads that were molded by hand.

All in all not that bad of a horse cake- or as one cutie pie referred to as a "cow" cake =)

Look at all of those girly personalities! I have to say this was a far cry from my little Nevaeh who use to sleep in a spiderman costume, who hated pink and dresses & out of all the things she could ask santa for a few years back, asked for transformers....but I think I can get used to it =) Just maybe. Love you sweetie.

PS. If you are live in the NW, look up "Dazzling Pony Parties". They were seriously amazing! Helmets & safety instructions were also provided along with a lot of genuine fun!

Nerdy father's day gift: Edible tackle box

How many ties, shavers, gift cards, & shirts can you buy before feeling like you are getting the same thing over and over for your dad? After all, I am a daddy's girl. Like pretending to love football and even memorizing the stats of players to feel closer to him as a kiddo and going out of my way to "HELP" him. Although somehow that always got me into trouble....like the time I cleaned out his oil pan to "help" and he was mortified to find his little girl covered in car oil. But I did have that pan spick-and-span let me tell you LOL. Or how about the time I tried to defrost a can of olives (who puts olives in the freezer anyway) and blew up the microwave. Hey I was just a kid TRYING to help and it was out of love right?

Some of my FAVE memories are being on the docks fishing together. Most of the time it was just me and him doing the fishing as it was not my mom or sister's thing which meant more time for just the two of us. Since he has started up fishing again (and that is the plan for father's day) we made him an "edible tackle box" for a small gift.

You can use a real tackle box or a craft organizer like this one that was re purposed. Whatever is clever. 

The funnest part was filling it with goodies (all found at the dollar store of course) to which my girls GLADLY ate a boat load helped fill the box with "bait" for fishing:

To personalize it further and create a label, I modpodged some pretty paper along with a heartfelt quote:

The kids can't wait to give it to him & I am looking forward to honoring him on Father's day and catching some REAL fish!