M-I-N-N-I-E M-O-U-S-E!!!!

Ok, I realize the song is M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E, but this weekend at the Deeply Rooted House, it's was all about Minnie and a birthday party for a sweet little girl!

Her birthday isn't actually for a few weeks, but we'll be in a post-moving frenzy at that point, so we decided to celebrate a bit early.

There's more in here, right??

Love these Melissa and Doug dress up dolls!

Now, if you've seen my previous posts on this little missy's first birthday party (with the owl cake), or her older brother's Word World cake, you've seen that cakes are my 'thing' for their parties. I love making them, taking oodles and oodles of way-too-much time to make them completely awesome. And this year?

Epic fail.

So you've heard we're moving, right? Last week of work, packing, stress, and a busy (i-had-to-go-to-a-stampin'-up-party-that-morinig) day? Time escaped me, and alas, the cake didn't happen.
Cupcakes, however, did:

Did you know that when you put a Starburst in the microwave for 19 seconds, it becomes a pliable, but not-yet-sticky molding putty? I did!!! Chocolate wafers for the ears, white chocolate chips for the dots, and molded Starbursts for the bows. Yum!!

As crunched for time as I was, I did have a few minutes to make some totally cute party favors for all of the kids:

I decided I had enough time to make these about 15 minutes before the party started!! They're super, super easy!!

1. Cut circles from craft foam (I used one of the paper cups for the party to trace a circle)
2. Cut a curve from the circle so it will fit to the headband
3. Apply a 1" Glue Line® to the curve on the craft foam, adhere to the headband.

To go from 'Mickey' to 'Minnie', make a bow and stick it on between the ears using a Craft Glue Dot®.



Even after the party, they'll still love to play with them!

Another way to easily customize your party is to make cup cozies!

I used a coffee cup cozie as a template and traced that onto my patterned paper:

I used the Mickey Font cartridge on my Cricut to cut the Mickey shape with the '2'. While I was hurriedly cutting foam ears (remember? Just before the party started?), my husband stole the 1" Glue Strips®, glued these to fit the cups, and grabbed the Mini Glue Dots® to stick the shape on. 

Parties can be exhausting! At least I always have six months to recover from one child's birthday before the next one rolls around!!



I wrote this blog post while participating on the Glue Dots® design team.

All Aboard the Polar Express!!

Toot tooooooot!!!!!

I have to admit, I've never seen the movie. I probably should. Pretty soon my kids will be to the age where they'd find that mesmerizing! In fact, not too far from our town, there's a place that reenacts the Polar Express, complete with a train ride to the North Pole (you can check that out here). I'm sure they'll love that in the coming years.

A friend of mine wanted to take her three grandchildren to this Polar Express event, and asked if I would make tickets for them.

Would I???

OF COURSE!!

Now remember, I've never seen the movie (I'm pretty sure the book had been read to me once upon a time, but that wasn't enough at this point). I Googled away, and came upon this great packet someone else had already made up, and it included the images of the actual tickets used in the movie! I'm not one to reinvent the wheel (why make more work for yourself!?) so I used these:

Reproducible Image from http://www.hmhbooks.com/features/thepolarexpress/pdf/polarpartykit.pdf

Now, here come the part I lllooooooovvvveeee!! Print it on paper? These will be given to kids. Torn and wrinkled in two seconds. Nooo, no, no, no. I had a better idea:

Grungepaper.

Yup, this is going to be awesome.

So. Grungepaper. Never heard of it? It's in the Tim Holtz line of Grungeboard, described as "a thinner form of Grungeboard with the same grungeable properties". Love. It. Completely pliable, able to alter in tons of ways, including writing, sewing, stamping and inking it (like printer ink?? You see where my mind's heading here...)

Off to the printer I went! I used a laser printer, if that matters to you folks, and this is what I came out with:

(I am in love)

I knew that my Stampin' Write markers from Stampin' Up! worked really well on Grungeboard (no pen lines, blends perfectly!), so I tested it on a scrap of the Grungepaper: worked like a charm!! I cut the ticket out and colored it to appear gold (like in the movie, I'm told) and then did some Christmas-y colors on the holly and ivy. The bell got a little daub of Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint. 

I added a rolled up letter from Santa and some awesomely huge jingle bells to finish it off.

I can't wait to make these for my own kids someday soon!!

Make sure you stop back by tomorrow...I'm giving out one of my favorite creations tomorrow, so I can finally blog about it!! (Can you say MIXED MEDIA?!?)

Homemade Christmas Gift Blog Hop, Day 2!

Merry Christmas and welcome to the Homemade Christmas Gift Blog Hop, Day Two! You should have gotten here from Carla's blog. If you just happened here and want to start from the beginning, click here to get to her blog.
We have 7 fabulous crafters again today who are going to share some of their ideas for Homemade Christmas gifts. What is better than making something personalized for someone you love.  So sit back and enjoy.

  Here's the lineup!

1. Carla

2. Erin (<-- You are here!)

3. JulieK (<-- Here next!)

4.  Barbara B

5.  Lynda

6. Ashley

7. Gina

Now on to my second handmade project!!

 

This little guy is a lot of fun, and you can really personalize it to whatever you want it to be!!
I started with a set of paper mache nesting boxes from my local craft store and painted them white. After that was dry, I dry brushed a light coat of midnight blue. Lastly, I painted the stars on the larger two boxes and the face on the smallest box.





You can pack these boxes with cookies or other treats and be the hit of the party.
I hope you've enjoyed these homemade goodies and gotten some great ideas for your next Christmas gift!

Homemade Christmas Gift Blog Hop

Merry Christmas and Welcome to the Homemade Christmas Gift Blog Hop. You should have gotten here from Carla's blog. If you just happened here and want to start from the beginning, click here to get to her blog.
Today we have 7 fabulous crafters who are going to share some of their ideas for Homemade Christmas gifts. What is better than making something personalized for someone you love.  So sit back and enjoy.  And make sure you come back to see what they’ve created on both days.
 

Here's the lineup!

1. Carla

2. Erin (<-- You are here!)

3. JulieK (<-- Here next!)

4.  Barbara B

5.  Lynda

6. Ashley

7. Gina

Now on to my first handmade project!!

I made this simple mitten garland from two old sweaters I had from years past. They're so (sew) easy!!! :)

 Step One: Cut out mitten shape from sweater (be sure to leave the 'cuff of the mitten' along a finished edge of the sweater - either the sleeve or waist band). Cut both layers of the sweater (front and back) at the same time.

Step Two: Machine or hand stitch along the edges of the two mitten pieces together. Turn the band down to form the cuff of the mitten.

Step Three: String coordinating buttons along wire, adding the mittens as you go (the wire will string right through the knit of your mittens!). 

Easy, simple and cute! (and refurbishing!!)

Be sure to head over to JulieK's blog next, and stop back by tomorrow for more handmade inspiration!!

Quick page...and I mean QUICK!

So I'm on my own for a bit! My wonderful hubby took the kids to visit his parents out of state until Thanksgiving. It's only been a few days since they left, and I think I've slept the majority of the time away!! Hopefully I'll be able to get quite a few posts up while I have a bit of extra time on my hands.


I've had this piece of cardstock since I started scrapbooking in 2008, and I could never figure out how I wanted to use it. It's a very bold image, and already had a title printed on it. This combination can either equal a quick page or a challenge that takes 3 years to figure out!

I bought it because I was sure my son, in the years to come, would do something that would make me want to use this paper. While I'm sure that he did, this cardstock still never 'spoke' to me. It wasn't until my daughter came along that I wanted to pull this out!

Cardstock is Write Print Crafters 'Engine Tach'

All I did to complete this LO was to trim my pictures down to fit into a cluster to the side of the title and add my beloved Thickers letters (these were Iguana). I had run out of i's, so I used one of the tilde pieces to replace it! This page might have taken me 5 minutes to complete!


Are you ready for my tip of the day when it comes to using a sheet of letters? 

Use a water soluble marker to mark over the letters on the plastic packaging for the letters you'll need. You can easily tell if you'll have the correct letters for what you want to spell, and the marker will wipe right off with a tissue or baby wipe!




A lot of scrapbookers I've talked to say that they'd rather have their pages done, even if they don't love the page. While I have a hard time with this motto, personally, I think this page meets the best of both worlds!