Penguin Party Recap

Only one month later, but not my best turnaround time.  Sorry.

Okay, so you've already seen these... a little card stock and crepe paper.

Here are some black paper lanterns that got tissue paper faces as well.

Here is the gorgeous cake, made by the lovely ladies at 'Tis So Sweet.  Note the little sugar-coated marshmallow ice blocks.  :)

We had a penguin waddle race,

musical ice blocks,

and a somewhat macabre bludgeoning of the piñata.

Poor little guy.  You can see the tutorial here.

Here's the food table, complete with one of those really loud toy rollercoaster thingies, where the penguins hop up the stairs and then go down the slide, over and over, with obnoxious carnivalish music playing.  DS loves it a little too much.

SO ANYWAY, I put fish sticks and hot dog squid in food safe metal pails to resemble penguin feeding time.  There were veggies and fruits, too, with emphasis on the orange accent color.

I made a small army of these guys,

and then rolled a bunch of sushi.  Some people call me crazy, but really, my three-year-old asks for sushi for his birthday?  I'm not going to refuse such a healthy request!  And besides, what else would penguins eat???  Well, sashimi, if you are being technical.  Whatevs.  No raw fish this time, though...  California roll is DS's fave.  Shrimp nigiri was DD's request.  Cucumber and carrot rolls were included for the unadventurous.  I love making sushi, and it's really not that hard!

I'm not sure why I don't have more pics of the desserts, but here you can see the birthday boy enjoying his cake with his dairy-allergic BFF eating blue jello cubes intermingled with Swedish Fish.  There were also rice krispie squares, made with coconut oil instead of margarine, of course!

This party was laden with food allergies, which is why we were almost entirely gluten, egg, and dairy free except for the cake itself.  There were a few other small things, but enough choices that everyone had plenty of penguin-related partying.  Allergy-friendly goodie bags are tough, though.  In the piñata, we had enough treats for everyone to get a lot of candy that they could eat,  but the goodie bags were mostly handmade prizes.  The one food item in there was Trader Joe's kettle corn... yummy for everyone, and beautiful packaging, too!

 Here are the recycled crayons I made, inspired by this.  The sticker on the baggie says "Arctic Art."  I got the fish shaped ice cube mold from IKEA, and the crayons were free because we already had them.  The mold is okay to use because the oven temp is pretty low.  I know a lot of people who get crayon molds from the dollar bin at Target.  I will say, though, that once you use a silicon mold for crayons, you probably can't use it for anything else after that.

Then I made play dough and added glitter for "Snow Dough."  (Please note:  play dough is NOT gluten free.  The kids I made it for are old enough to not eat it.  Use caution for younger kids who might "accidentally" try some, or for those who have contact allergies!)  I added a penguin eraser that I got at Party City.  Also in the goodie bag were black and white paper blow-outs.

Did I forget anything?  We are pretty penguin-ed out.  Or maybe that's just me.  I did obtain a penguin game at a yard sale two weeks ago, so keeping the penguin thing going is really pretty much my fault.  O.o

And then the week after the penguin party, DS started preschool, and he got to be the popular kid who brings a treat on the first day.  So this happened:

unscrewed "Joe's O's" cookies for faces and wings, molded orange Starburst candy for beaks, and candy eyes bought from the cake isle at the craft store.  Maybe I am just a little crazy.

Drumroll, Please!

I know we can't be the only family with this problem:  an almost 3-year-old with too many drumsticks.  For his birthday coming up next week, I made DS a drumstick caddy using a tutorial for a crayon roll I found here.

I used Ed Emberley's dragons for the main fabric, which I bought at Hawthorne Threads.  I am in lerve with this print, and I plan to use the rest of it in a quilt for the little man someday soon.  The other fabrics are fat quarters from Jo-Ann.  I had the other materials around the house, including the awesome glittery black hair tie for the closure.  :)

I followed the tutorial pretty much exactly, except I made each fabric piece 16"x16" and I used fleece for the lining instead of flannel.  It's a little thicker and provides more padding and stability for my purposes.  I also made the pockets 2.5" wide to accommodate 2 pairs of drumsticks each as his collection grows.  I hope he likes it!

So I realized that this is my first post in a while... sorry about that.  I've done a few projects, but not much worthy of its own post.  I have some recipes to share soon, though, as well as the upcoming penguin party!!!  Here is a sneak preview:

I'll be making a lot of the decor and party favors, as there is a very limited supply of penguin stuff in the world.  These invites are just cardstock and a little orange crepe paper left over from a Halloween party of yore.  Today I need to make a piñata.  I'll let you know how that turns out... O.o

Pinteresting Travel

We're going on a road trip soon!  I want my kids to remember road trips as fondly as I do, so I needed some fun things to do in the car besides eat beef jerky.  I got some ideas off of Pinterest, and I actually made them happen!  First, I made a little travel art box from the idea I got here.

I mostly had these materials on hand, although I did splurge on the 97 cents for a new box of crayons to go in it.  I cut apart some sheets of stickers to add to the kit.  Now I will have stickers and post-its all over the car, but that is the cost of travel sanity!

Also, I made one of those fabric marble maze thingies.  There are several blogs about them circulating, but here is my inspiration.  My maze is about 9 X 11, and I used a scrap of an upholstery fabric, and a scrap of flannel to make it even more tactile.  

There are buttons for start and finish, which I should have sewed on BEFORE I put the front and back together, but I forgot.  SO that took longer than it should have.

 Oh, and I used one of those glass blob aquarium jewels instead of a marble, because I was having a hard time finding a marble.  It slides along just fine, and is maybe even less cumbersome than a marble, so I am happy.  And now I have a whole package of glass blobby things to craft with!!!