Gavin's 2nd Birthday Bounce Ball Party

This super cute little guy, my nephew Gavin, turned 2 in June and we had a ball celebrating his birthday!

Don't they both look adorable in the little felt hats I made them?  Jaina is a very big fan of the party hat concept.  I love that about her and it kept me motivated to make sure I got some made for them!

Decorating for a ball party was a lot of fun!  Plus I didn't have to customize too many decorations...just accumulate!

These colorful paper lanterns are a nice big pop of balls and color and were simple to hang! 

 I loved using the super balls as a vase filler for a fun display.  My husband Dale's favorite thing is super balls and for several years we have had a big decorative apothecary jar full on display in our living room.  Of course whenever we have kids around or fun adults for that matter too, they get a super ball!  Gavin is a big fan of the concept and he never steps foot in the house for very long before requesting one and playing a rousing game of bounce and chase the ball all over the house with Uncle Dale!

 Even more super balls were useful for holding up party favor bubble wands!

How much fun is it to be able to use the big colorful inexpensive play balls from Target as colorful party decorations!  And at the end of the party they do double duty as take home favors for the kids!

Lots of balls everywhere made things so fun.  I used the plastic ball pit balls as fun decorations.  They looked so cute in the big glass Jars I already had, and with a big play ball on top, an instant centerpiece!

I spray painted some unfinished letters from Michaels in our party colors and just spelled the word BOUNCE to make the backyard cute!

We got Gavin this bounce house for his birthday. There weren't many kids expected at the party and I knew it would make things festive and fun for the kids! It was a big hit and lots of fun, but small enough that they even set it up sometimes inside to play with it.

Cute colorful and big round balloon "balls"  and extra play balls scattered across the lawn made the back yard festive and fun!

Melody made a delicious mellon ball fruit salad as one of the sides...so fun!

Gavin was a big fan of the big ball shaped lollipops!

Surprise balls made their debut performance as a party favor around here and the kids and adults loved them!

Before the party Gavin and Jaina enjoyed helping their mommy put the little balls on the cupcakes!

Too bad he didn't like the new car his parents gave him!  :-)

Gavin is such a happy sweet little guy and so much fun to be around!   We are all so glad to have him in our lives and I had so much fun helping  throw his 2nd birthday party!

Owl Birthday Party

Look who is turning two....Cali that's who!  My niece Annie and sweet toddler niece Cali came to CA for a visit and while they were here we got to celebrate Cali's second birthday a couple of weeks early!  

It's Owl-ways fun to sit on a tiny toadstool at a party.  I wish I was tiny enough to sit on them too!
So glad I could reuse these little stools I made for Jaina's fairy party!

I was a hoot making this banner out of felt and cutting out fabric owl appliques.

These little hats were fun to make.  I bought some cheapo paper party hats on clearance and unfurled them for a pattern.  Then I cut pieces of felt the same size and sewed it onto the cardboard hat. I added some ribbon bling and more owl appliques!

Lots and lots of ribbon pieces tied onto a wire form wreath ...easy but time consuming;  good thing  I already had the owl! 

All of the littles got a cute little owl I made from felt and fabric.  It's a parliament...did you know that is what a group of owls is called?  Well now you do!

As you can see the party hat was a huge hit with the birthday girl....haha!

But my nephew Gavin and niece Jaina got into the spirit of things.

And eventually Cali came around to the idea!

How about a little owl sticky darts anyone?  Jaina had a good time running around and giving everybody a chance to throw the sticky darts!  Also a little Tic Tac T-Whoo.  Gavin discovered that you could twirl the little shapes on the board that were stuck on with velcro.  The little flowers twirled just like a steering wheel so he spent a lot of time "driving" the flowers....Vroom! Bloom!

Lots of fun coloring owls!

And who doesn't love a big colorful tube to crawl around in!

Plus all you really need at a birthday party is a couple of little cousin friends to pal around with!  "Try to remember that next time Auntie Molly".  OK Gavin I will!

Owl you need is love!

I wanted to make some things for Annie to take home and have a little owl party for Cali and her friends in Pennsylvania, so I had that in mind when I made the felt banner and made 10 more of the little owls.   The next day I made  this little picture with paint and fabric pieces for her to use as a centerpiece....small enough to fit in the luggage.  I thought it turned out pretty cute too.

Happy 2nd Birthday sweet Cali!  Thanks for coming to visit us!

It's Curtain Time!

My darling daughter Becky is a senior in college and is enjoying living in a cute little apartment in downtown Fullerton.  Becky calls it the burrow..a reference to the Weasly's home in Harry Potter.  I call it the tree house.  It's a teenie tiny little place up a few flights of stairs with a little bitty kitchen and living room and a tiny little bedroom on top of that.  Every level has an outside balcony and above the bedroom balcony is a ladder up to a private roof area where she has made a little make shift garden hang out place.

Anyway the inside is adorable with the exception of three windows over the doors that were covered by simple panel curtains made out of old bed sheets apparently....or just really ugly fabric.  With Becky's pleading juxtaposed with my desire to be more creative and crafty, I agreed to sew up a few simple curtains that turned out really cute and brightened up the place.

First we trekked over to Joann's fabric to find some fabric she loved.

A little cutting.....

 A little ironing......

 A little sewing......

And voila!  Cute little curtains where ugly ones used to be!  Happy daughter and proud of myself Mom!

Oh The Irony!

My lovely and very creative niece Autumn made me this beautiful quilt as a Christmas present this year.  She really surprised me with it.  I couldn't believe the time and effort that went in to making it and  I love it.!   I keep it in my Family room and snuggle under it while watching TV.  When I am not using it I often find my husband wrapped up in it.  She did such a great job and I love everything about it!

Christmas is always really busy around here.   I often have much loftier ideas than I actually get around to pulling off and this year was no exception.  I am the queen of  Christmas stockings and like to give them out to friends and family filled with fun little gifts.  This year I had seen a really cute and simple sewing idea online that involved making cute dishcloths by buying white dishtowels and sewing little strips of fabric onto them.  I really am not much of a seamstress.  I made a few Halloween costumes for Becky when she was a kid but I always found the experience very frustrating, and there was usually a lot of swear words flying.  So in the interest of raising a sweet little girl most of my sewing ambitions were put on hold.  But Becky is all grown up now and turned out pretty good so I have recently purchased a new sewing machine and I hope to be a little creative with it.

Alas, as so many Christmas inspirations go, although I purchased the dishtowels and the fabric, I never got around to finishing the project.  The stockings got filled, but just with other things that did not require my making them!  So today I was organizing some of my craft supplies and I found the bag with the fabric I had purchased to make the dishtowels.

Look familiar?  I had Autumn in mind when I was buying the fabric.  She and Becky have very similar taste in things anyway and I thought this would be cute fabric that they and all of my nieces would enjoy.  When putting it away this morning, after I looked at it a minute I realized that although Autumn lives in Spokane WA and brought my finished quilt down with her  from there, and I live in southern CA, we had purchased the exact same fabric!  The  quilt she gave me is sewn so beautifully with this lovely leaf like fabric though out.  And even the teal fabric that I purchased, though not the same exactly is very similar in color and pattern to what she put in my quilt!

And my first thought was THANK GOD I didn't get around to making those dish towels after all!  I mean, really,  she would have given me the beautiful quilt that took hours and hours to make...and I would have so proudly given her my little dish towels with the no doubt crooked square of fabric sewn on in a matter of minutes!  Made from the exact same fabric!  Ah the humiliation!  Score one for procrastination!

Fairy Party

Happy 5th birthday to my sweet little niece, Jaina.  I had so much fun throwing her a little fairy party!

I spent the week before the party decorating fairy wings, and making peter pan like costumes for the boys.  I  made paper mache toadstools, sewed fabric banners, and made 9 little toadstool stools for the kids to sit on at the tea party.  You can just see a little bit of all of this peeking through the pictures with the kids.  As usual my grand plans of taking pictures of everything once it was set up was thwarted by the inevitable mad dog rush that happens right before party time.  Thank goodness that in addition to the fairies showing up our good friends Jeff and his daughter Emily who couldn't stay for the party came early to help Dale and I set up.   We had an absoulutely beautiful day in  Irvine Park that made the perfect fairy setting!

My nephew Gavin wore his little fairy wings and costume the whole time.  He was so adorable toddling around in it!

Jaina and her little friends having "tea".

The tea party table with toadstool stools!

The fairy table with toadstool seats, before it was set for tea.

Giant bubbles for the fairies to ride on!

Give a boy a sword and there is no end to the fun running around that they will have!  Plus it balanced things out nicely with the wands for the girls.

The kids hunted for little trinkets and treasures and added them to their fairy jars!  The boys recieved small knights for their jars.

There were lots of laughs and giggles when Dale suited up for the Gnome on the roam game! (the kids had a good time too!) It was basically tag but if the kids touched him with their wand or sword he had to freeze and throw out candy!  The kids  loved this!  The adults cracked up!  

 I made a miniature version of the party for the fairies and set it up behind a tree for the kids to find.  With all the running around I thought for sure they would find it and left it as a surprise.  I realized once the party was over...it was never discovered!  We led Jaina and Gavin to the area and they "found" it. I really  love this sweet little picture.  It's one of my all time favorites.