Clay Cupcake Christmas

I know it's been awhile, but I will skip over the whys, and go right into the rest of the post.

I need more than a few Christmas orniments this weekend. I am really into cupcakes right now. I searched on youtube under "how to make cupcake craft" because I wanted something cute to make. I found this video:


I had plans to make little cupcake and donut necklaces for me and for all my neices. I made several, but I don't think I used the right gauge wire, cause the loop kept getting bent and warped. They are still wearable, but, eh....

Then the other day, all of a sudden while I was driving, I just thought, those would make such cute Christmas tree orniments. Before I got I home I had come up with a plan to use paper clips instead of the wire. This is the first batch I made, I wasn't really sure how well they would come out, but, I sure am happy with them.



I didn't really use traditional "Christmas colors," which is what I agreed I would do this Christmas, so I'm not sure if these are going to be for me, of a gift for someone else. A few Christmases ago was hot pink and bright blue, and I think that would have made adorable cupcakes. Last year was all golds and silvers. Justin said it looked more traditional, but this year he is firm that it MUST be red and green.







I have lots of Fimo left over from the wedding favors, so I want to give it a try again. I also found a few more videos on ways to make differant ones. YouTube is GREAT for instructional videos. Sometimes they aren't too exact, so you have to do a little trial and error, but here are a few of the ones I want to work on next:

"Super" Weekend

So, this weekend was a BUSY one. Saturday was the wedding of a long time friend (and co worker and son of my boss all rolled into one). It was a beautiful wedding, white and black. My only regret is that I didn’t feel well enough to take more pictures. I only have 2 and neither one is all that great. I started feeling sick at the beginning of the reception, and had to leave early. I had great seats at the wedding, 2nd row. But I didn’t expect Becca to make it down the aisle as fast as she did, so the picture of her dress is not the greatest. Then I took 1 picture of them at the altar and enjoyed the service so much I forgot to take more.


You can see her hair pretty well


Not my greatest day as a photographer

Then Sunday was my son’s 3rd birthday party. I had been stressing for a while because we really couldn’t afford to do much. Luckily my family (kind of distant family) has a lake that the rent out to families for this sort of thing. We are planning on having the reception for our wedding there (only 2 weeks to go), and thought it would be nice for Malachy’s party.



The decorations were kind if minimal. There were balloons (which I bought off of eBay), streamers (that were left over from my mother’s birthday party LAST August), and a few other little odds and ends. I made a few pinwheels, a couple of jars with curled paper in them, and of course his birthday shirt hanging up became an unintentional decoration.


On the left you can barely see the jars, primary colors


Matching Pinwheels there were more, but my mom kept moving stuff around




Malachy’s Birthday Shirt

I make Malachy a shirt and a collage for his birthday every year. The shirt is to wear at his birthday party, and the collage to hang on his wall so he can see all the things he has done the past year. He had his birthday shirt on for no more than 2 minutes when he jumped in the lake. He didn’t want to wear a wet shirt all day, so we hung it up to dry, and he put it back on after the sun started going down.



The party favors were candy in Easter eggs. Okay, not really EASTER EGGS. When all of the Easter stuff was put on clearance this year, I picked up some “eggs” that were different shapes. I got Batman, Hello Kitty, and Spiderman. The only ones that looked remotely like eggs were the Spiderman ones, but that’s just cause his head looks like an egg anyway.



Then of course there was the piñata that I included instructions for here. The only problem was, Justin’s sister agreed to bring a bat to hit it with. But she had to leave before the piñata, and took the bat with her. So we searched in the woods and found 2 sticks to use. I was horrified and embarrassed, but the kids didn’t mind at all.





Instead of a cake, there were hero cupcakes. I couldn’t afford to buy a cake, so I was going to make it myself, but couldn’t find my pan. So we had cupcakes, or butt cakes as Malachy says.



The cupcake picks were all hand made. I just printed out Malachy’s name in bubbly letters (the name of the font is Encapsulate from dafont.com), and logos from Spiderman, Batman, and Superman. I printed them on the same primary colored cardstock I did the other decorations. I cut them out, then hot glued them on toothpicks.




Doesn’t he look thrilled for cupcakes?

I didn’t set up any games, besides the piñata. I did bring sidewalk chalk, bubbles, water balloons and 2 extra fishing poles. I told everyone if the weather was nice enough there would be swimming, so almost everyone brought swimsuits and lifejackets for the kids. I didn’t bring a swimsuit, but was chased into the water anyway.

Almost everything Malachy got for presents was superhero, mainly Spiderman (his favorite). He got clothes, toys, books, and the curtains I made him for his new “big boy room.” Of course when he opened it, he decided it would make a better cape. Who am I to judge?



All in all it was fun and a nice day. I am a little sore, and did manage to get 2 injuries on the same leg. My mom managed to sit a picnic table on my ankle. And when I was carrying the trash out, a can of corn someone used as bait stuck through the bag and sliced my leg in 2 places. Now we can sort of rest for 2 weeks while we prepare for the wedding.

3 Day Weekend

I got tons finished this weekend, but I am not posting some of it. All of the birthday stuff I did for this little man:

can wait until I post the pictures from his birthday party, which is this Sunday.

But the birthday stuff I will post is for my step-mom. I was supposed to drop by this weekend, but I was enjoying hanging around the house too much.

A Simpson's Dinner Apron


Journaling Jar and Notebook


CottonCandy Cupcake Soap Popcicle

I also worked on a couple things for the house.

Curtians for the kitchen


And some cute cupcakes

And of course several layouts:

Mother's Day Weekend

I didn't get to take pictures of all the things I worked on this weekend, so I will probably post again tomorrow. I managed though, to use the sweaters I bought last week, felted of course, "korked" some ribbon and made them into hairbows, and made a tutu (at last) for my neice.

First the tutu. I have been eyeing tutus on etsy and artfire. The can go for around $15 for the basic ones. I was about to break down and pay $5 for a PDF tutu tutorial. I had googled my brains out. Then it hit me, youtube. There are tons of how to videos posted. Just type in what you want, and someone has probably already done it. I picked one that was pretty basic, but that's really all you need for something like this. I paid $1 for a spool of ribbon, and got a yard each of pink and black tule, at $1.74 a yard, and I got this:




So instead of paying $15, I spent $5, sat in front of the TV and made it myself. Not to mentionthe bow in her hair.





I found some examples of korked hairbows here, then googled again for instructions on how to "kork" the ribbon. Or maybe it's how to "korker" it. I found better results for "how to make korker ribbon."

Also took a little time to make myslef smething for Mother's Day. A pair of pink Hello Kitty Earrings.



The picture just does not do them justice.

And finally, I made a couple of sweater monsters from upcycled wool sweaters. Of course I only had enough charge in my camera to take a picture of one of them. Just happened to be the first one I made.



He kind of blends into the background of my mother's sofa.

VERY productive Weekend

My mom and step-dad were going through a little Malachy withdraw, and asked to take him for a little while Saturday. Then called to ask if he could spend the night. The called to see if he could eat lunch on Sunday. And so on and so on. As of now, it looks like we will be getting him back tonight. Point is with Malachy out of the house for a bit, I got SO much stuff done.

3 Layouts:




I also cleaned the house inside, and part of out, took a car full of stuff to the goodwill, and finished 3 gifts.
Mother's Day Chalk Boards:



My mom's, you can see where I messed up on the edges a bit. How popular are cupcakes right now? They just seemed fitting, cince she will probably hang it in the kitchen.



Beth's. I love the bling on the crayons. Justin said it would be okay, instead of chalk. I stamped the image, outlined it in glue, then added glitter.

Patrick and Rebecca's wdding present:


I love the little piggy anyway, but I think the colors I used make them even cuter. Again, little piggy's in the kitchen, that's just cute. I only hope they don't think I'm calling them fat.

I even made one for our kitchen:


All of these were wall hangings I got a Big-Lots on clearance. They already had the brackets to hang them on the back. The were only $1! I sprayed them with black chalkboard paint, then decorated.

I also covered a frapp box but it came out too horrible to take a picture. Then Sunday night I realized I had to time to get a workout in. Of course I came back and was too jacked up to go to sleep, so I'm a little tired today, but it was worth it.

Oh yes, and while I was at goodwill, I browsed the sweater racks, and found a few.... I have been looking over and over Betz White's website. I saw her book in Barnes and Noble ages ago, I think it may have been while I was pregnant with Malachy. There were so many projects I wanted to try, but the whole felting thing looked hard. Then I saw instructionsfor machine wash fleting, or fulling, so, I am going to give it a go. The cupcake pincushion would be sweet for Justin's gramma. The baby blankets look soft, but would the wool make them itchy? I aso saw a sweater vest apliqued with felted wool. Anywho, while I was donating, I picked up a few:

Spiderman Pinata

I needed a pinata for my son's upcoming birthday. We went to my nephew's birthday 2 weeks ago, and they had a Sponge Bob pinata. Malachy loved it, and so did Justin. Since Justin likes to have the best for Malachy, he decided we MUST have one at his party. After pricing some, and not really liking them, the price or the styles, I thought back to a craft project we did when I was in about the 4th grade, paper mache pinatas. I had some Spiderman wrapping paper left over from Christmas, it didn't look very Christmassy at all. Malachy's party is going to be super hero themed, so thought it would work great.

PREP

Mix the soaking solution. I couldn't remember the exact ratio, and when I looked it up on the internet, I found recipes to use flour as well. I thought I would wing it, and it worked out fine. In a bowl combine glue and water, easy huh? I used generic white glue. I bought a botte at Walmart for $.50. Use a pretty good amount. I'm guessing when I say, about 2 cups of water and half a cup glue.
Rip scrap paper into strips. I used an old magazine (magazine paper needs to be soaked longer) and some extra printer paper that I save when extracome out. You can also use newspaper, it soaks up the glue really well.
Blow up a balloon. I used an 11". I bought 12 of them off ebay for $1.


Cover the ballon with the strips of the soaked paper. I used 3 layers of magazine pages and one layer of printer paper. I would not suggest letting it dry until you do 2 or 3 layers first. The paper will be too thin and when the ballon starts to deflate the sides will callapse. You can do all layers at onc if you want, but I let i dry between the bottom laters and the final patterned layer. Do not cover over the knot in the balloon.


The final layer is the wrapping paper riped into strips. It is about the same thickness as the magazine, so they need to soak longer than newspaper printepaper s well. Let it dry over night. I bought the wrapping paper after Christmas. It was originally $3, but it was 75% off when I bought it.


Close up of the patterns



Holding the knot in the ballon, cut a small slit in the ballon and let the air out. Pull the balloon out through the hole.


Using a sharp knife (like an exacto) cut a flap in the side. Like a rectangle that isn't closed on one side. This is where you will put the candy/prizes.


On each side of the balloon hole knot, cut a slit big enough to fit the ribbon (or in my case fibers) used to hang the pinata through. I thought I had red ribbon, but after going thgough my stash, relized that all my red ribbon was patterned. So I used some red fibers. I got the spool of fibers at the Dollar Tree


Pull the ends of the fibers up through the knot hole. Tie the ends together.


Tuck the knot back in the hole.


You now have a loop to hang it up with. It also makes it a bit like a pull string pinata, ripping the pinata.

And that's it. I did a litle price comparing: An Iron Man Pinata for about $15. A Spiderman one for about $23. Superman for about $16. And Batman for $23. So that averages about $19. And that doesn't include the stuff that goes in it.

I spent less than $6 on supplies. And that's enought to do at least 4 or 5 pinatas. As long as you can find wrapping paper in the pattern you want, you can make a pinata to match. As cheap and easy as it was, I am going to make another one,that way the "little" kids and the "big" kids have there own.