12 Step Sheep - Tutorial

So, last week I shared about the sheep themed baby shower I helped to put on for my sweet sister-in-law. I'm back with the tutorial of the cuddly, cute sheep I made for the table centerpieces and decoration.

Here we go!

What you need: (for one sheep)

Head:
- small styrofoam ball (about 1" diameter) painted light brown. I already had a bunch painted brown from a previous project.
- two short pieces of pink pipe cleaners (about 1.5" long) to make the ears
- small piece of cotton
- two eyes
- permanent marker
- glue gun

1. Fold your pink pipe cleaners into ear shapes and stick them into the head. There is a small seam around the ball and I used that to help get the ears in roughly a straight line.
2. Use your glue gun and stick a small piece of cotton in between the ears.
3. Use your sharpie to make a mouth and to mark where the eyes go.
4. Use your glue gun to stick the eyes on.

And the head is ready to go!

For the body you need: 

- a slightly larger styrofoam ball (about 2" diameter)
- 4 pieces of brown pipe cleaner (each about 2.5-3" in length)
- a toothpick to connect the head and body
- two squares of cotton (about 4"x4" - doesn't have to be perfect - regular cotton balls would work too, just need a little more fiddling to cover the body)
- white glue (Elmers)
- paint brush to apply the glue. (you could also use your glue gun, but I found the white glue easier to work with and just as secure)

 5. Bend your pipe cleaners into legs and stick into the body. Again I used the seam of the ball to help orient the legs. Basically if you were to connect the legs you would make a square with the seam of the ball running through the middle.
6. Get your head, body and toothpick ready
7. Stick the toothpick at least halfway into the body, at about a 45 degree angle.
8. Attach head.

 9. Get your cotton and glue ready, and glue around the neck of the sheep.
10. Wrap your first square around the neck like a cape.
11. Then glue down the back of the cape.
12. Glue the second piece of cotton starting from the bottom and wrapping it around the legs and gluing upward. There's quite a bit of give to the cotton so it stretches quite easily. If you think about the square you created with the legs, the second piece of cotton gets attached like a diamond, with each corner going through one side of the square.

There you go. A sheep in 12 easy steps!

At the shower I attached the sheep to a small box to place on the tables. You could also make a really charming mobile with these. Everyone commented on how cute they were, and by the end I didn't have any to bring home with me.

Linking up with: Tutorial Tuesday, Show Me What Ya Got, TOO Cute Tuesday, Terrific Tuesdays, Handmade Tuesdays, Crafty Tuesday and Take-A-Look Tuesday

Another Pompom Party

I was absolutely delighted when my sister-in-law's sister asked me to decorate for my sister-in-law's Baby Shower. It was planned for three weeks after Elena's party and my new-found love of pompoms meant they were sure to make another appearance. I was even able to re-use some of the pompoms from Elena's party (score!)

We were going for a sheep theme for the party. Here in Brazil it is very common to find out the gender of your baby almost as early as possible and come right out with the name as well. So we were planning a Sheep Shower for little Lara - due in November. A little over two years ago I did another shower for Lara's older sister, Sophia, a bear-themed shower with pink and brown as the main colors. So this time I stuck with pink, grey, white and silver. Seemed to also fit better with the sheep theme. 

The shower was held in their church's foyer/meeting room. I knew we would have a lot of tables and chairs and began to think about center pieces. A crazy idea came to me as I was cleaning up some other decorating stuff. I started dreaming about sheep made from styrofoam balls, cotton and pipe cleaners. 

But let's see how the prep and party went down.

Here are my sheep center pieces for all the tables - yup, I made almost 20 little sheep. I'm always looking for ways to reduce stress by prepping ahead of time, so it was fun to make these little guys without feeling rushed. At the party the sheep sat on little boxes with Lara's name on them (good thing it's only a four-letter name), on top of a pink heart-patterned square (actually cellophane gift bags that I cut into squares). The tables themselves were covered in a sheet of silver paper. 

The day before the shower I headed down to our local farmer's market and picked up some beautiful pink and white flowers. I made three arrangements and packed them up ready to go. Another simple prep idea for color, class and charm. I also made about 60 favors for the guests. On the left a simple envelope filled with marshmallows, wrapped in silver ribbon and secured with a hand-cut label. The label says, "We thank you for your presence here - Baby Shower for Lara" and the date. Yes, hand-cut labels - my hands were definitely sore after cutting out 60 tiny little labels. On the right I made little bags, tied them up with ribbon and added the label to the front. 

At the church we set up a crib to collect all the presents. I used four of the center pieces to spell out Lara's name on the edge, and used some pompoms to decorate. I made tons of big white pompoms and several smaller pink and silver ones. Notice how the big ones have rounded edges while the smaller ones have pointed edges. I think it's a nice contrast. 

Of course the main attraction is the cake/sweets table. I set up a few room dividers, covered them in a white tablecloth and attached a pompom arrangement. 

Some close-ups of the table. We served the main cake, a pineapple cake and cupcakes. Along with some little sweets (you can see in the top right corner arranged under the cake).

I did also have some large white pompoms hanging up with pink and grey ribbons underneath, but somehow forgot to get a picture of it. Every time, I take tons of photos, sure that I've got a shot of everything, and always feel like I should have taken more.  

Hope you enjoyed a little peek into the party. Come back next week for the full tutorial on those cute little sheep! 

Tutorial - Mini-muffin Flowers

Last week I showed you how to make super cute gumdrop favors for your flower-themed party. Today is the last of the tutorials from that party - a mini muffin flower. This was also one of the first things I saw when I was starting to plan this party.

What you need: (For one flower)

- Bamboo skewer

- Green straw

- regular sized muffin cup (I used a thick yellow one)

- mini-muffin/cupcake decorated with icing (I made vanilla with bright pink butter cream icing)

For the display

- Flower pot

- half of a styrofoam ball or florist's foam

- green tissue paper/easter grass

Step 1: Fold your large muffin cup in half and cut to create a six petal shape.

I used a template for the first few and then gave up and did most just by eyeing it. This is a step you  can do a few days before the party.

Step 2: Create your stems by taking the bamboo skewer and placing it inside the green straw. Make sure you have a bit of the bamboo skewer sticking out the top. This makes it easier to insert into the muffin.

 Step 3: Make your muffins and ice. I used a simple butter cream icing that hardened nicely, so I wasn't worried about the icing dripping off. Wait until the icing has dried before sticking them though, just to be sure.

We baked the cupcakes on Friday night and iced them on Saturday morning. Little Sunshine was starting to get sick, so I had to do a lot of this prep work with her on my hip. :)

Step 4: Glue your mini-muffin to the larger muffin cup and then stick the bamboo skewer into the bottom.

Step 5: Arrange in your flower pot. I made about 15 flowers and split them into two flower pots. Make sure people know they are edible - we had a lot left over because they didn't know they could eat them. :)

They really added a nice touch to the sweets table and it didn't take too long to put it together. The rest of the cupcakes we displayed on the table.

Hope you enjoyed this series of Flower related party tutorials. Come back next week to see how I made sheep centerpieces for a baby shower.

You can see more of this party here.

Linking up with: Tutorial Tuesday, Show Me What Ya Got, TOO Cute Tuesday, Terrific Tuesdays, Handmade Tuesdays, Crafty Tuesday and Take-A-Look Tuesday

Tutorial - Gumdrop Favor

This is the thing that first got me thinking about a flower themed party for my little girl. So cute, and would make such a great favor. As a die-hard control freak detail oriented person, I love things that can be made in advance, warding off some of the last minute pressure when preparing a party. Given that the gumdrops are wrapped in cellophane I was able to make them a few days before the party. Didn't want to go too much earlier and end up with stale candy.

So, here we go!

What you need (for one flower)

- 6" (15cm) square of cellophane

- 7 gumdrops, 6 of one color for the petals and 1 contrasting color for the center

- bamboo skewer for the stem

- green curly ribbon

- paper/printer to make tags

- hole punch

Step 1: I started by creating my tags in the shape of a leaf. I used a brush I had in Photoshop to create a JPEG which I then printed out 9 to a page through Preview. I printed the basic leaf shape onto green paper that I had left over from my no-sew banner. 

Step 2: Cut out the leaves. After the first one I realized the shape was just a little too complicated for easy cutting so I simplified the shape a bit. After cutting out, I punched a hole in the leaf. 

 Step 3: Lay out your cellophane and arrange your gumdrops in the shape of the flower in the middle of the cellophane. Then stick the bamboo skewer into the center gumdrop. Don't worry about your placement of the outer gumdrops. It doesn't have to be perfect at this stage.

 Step 4: Pick up the cellophane and bunch it around the bamboo skewer. I found it easiest to pick up opposite sides (not corners) to keep the gumdrops from falling out and then pick up the other two sides. You can then turn it right side up and push the gumdrops into the right position if they've shifted at all. Then tie a ribbon around the bamboo skewer and cellophane. I wrapped it around once and then tied it to keep the cellophane nice and tight.

 Step 5: Thread the ribbon through the leaf tag and tie a bow. Voilá!

 Step 6: Arrange in a flower pot with a half sphere of styrofoam (or use florists foam).

There you go! See more of the party here.

Linking up with Tutorial Tuesday, Show Me What Ya Got, TOO Cute Tuesday, Terrific Tuesdays, Handmade Tuesdays, Crafty Tuesday and Take-A-Look Tuesday

Tutorial - Colorful Cupcake Stand

It all started with a set of plastic bowls. It was a great deal at the superstore - and while the bowls didn't last very long, I was left with several matching lids that were screaming to be used somehow...

When we decided on a flower theme for my little sunshine's party, I knew we were going to incorporate green into the decor. Pink, Green and Yellow were the colors we used throughout the party. And since I had these green lids, all it took was three little flower pots and we had a cute, colorful cupcake stand.

Here we go!

What you need:
- Three matching lids of varying size. (You could also use plates, this is just what I had around)
Mine were 9.5"(25cm), 7.5"(19cm) and 5.5"(14cm)
- Three flower pots (same size) - height: 3"(8cm) width: (at top) 4"(10cm)
- Hot glue gun

You can see I used three different colors for my flower pots, allowing me to incorporate pink and yellow with the green lids.

1. Set it up - Figure out what order you want the pots (if they are different colors). I decided to go with yellow at the top, light pink in the middle and the dark pink at the bottom. (Also, plug in your hot glue gun so it's ready to go.)

2. Mark - You can see from my lids that it was pretty easy to see where the middle of each one was, but if you are using something without a clearly marked center make sure to mark where the flower pot will go. When you're using hot glue it's best to only have to stick it down once.

3. Get Gluing - I started with the top and worked my way down, first gluing the yellow pot to the bottom of the top tier of the cupcake stand then to the top of the second tier - making sure it was in the middle. This way when I turned it upside down to glue the pink pot it was steady and also reinforced the glue a little bit. Then I glued the pink pot to the bottom of the second tier, and to the top of the first tier. And so on and so forth...

4. Ready to go! The good thing about the hot glue gun is that if you get it totally off center it's pretty easy to clean off and try again. Also, after the party I was able to take it apart very easily (that also means it's not a suitable toy for your kids before the party!)

All set up at the party! In the end we didn't use it for the cupcakes, but for a Brazilian treat called Brigadeiro. The top tier will definitely only hold mini cupcakes, but the bottom two tiers would hold regular cupcakes.

See more of this party here.

Linking up with Tutorial Tuesday, Show Me What Ya Got, TOO Cute Tuesday, Terrific Tuesdays, Handmade Tuesdays, Crafty Tuesday and Take-A-Look Tuesday

No Balloons Needed

Ok folks, here it is - the big party reveal! We held Elena's second birthday party at our house - the first time for most people to see our new place. It was a good chance to see how our house would hold up to guests. It seems like we hit it right on the head - about 20 people (in addition to our family) is about all our little house can handle.

Here's how it all panned out: we moved our car out of our parking space, put up white fabric to cover the gate, hung white lights, pennant banners and pompoms, and set up white tables with white and pink tablecloths. The centerpieces were just glass bottles that I have been collecting with two tissue paper flowers in each, grounded with some white rocks for weight and stability. We are able to fit 5 tables pretty comfortably out there. 

Inside we had the drinks, food table and sweets. Since we've just moved in (and from a much smaller place) we didn't have to move any furniture out. 

Here are some of the details of the sweets table - definitely the most fun part of any party! We decorated the tables with flowers, and used flower pots and cereal boxes (wrapped in coordinating paper) to hold some of the sweets and cupcakes. The "cake" was a flower made of one big cupcake and eight smaller ones, covered in marshmallow fondant and icing.  I had a lot of fun making the tiered cupcake stand. I was going to use it for the cupcakes but in the end decided to use it for the fun and colorful brigadeiro that my sister-in-law made for the party. No brazilian party is complete without brigadeiro*.

The numbers on the photos show the items I'll be making tutorials for in the coming days/weeks.

1. A super easy No-Sew Banner

2. A simple and colorful cupcake stand

3. Gummy flower favors

4. Mini muffin (cupcake) flowers. 

Hope you enjoyed a peek into my little sunshine's birthday party. Despite both her and her older brother fighting off colds, fevers and a strange allergy, they had a great time! 

*brigadeiro - a simple brazilian chocolate bonbon, made by mixing sweetened condensed milk, butter and cocoa power together, and heating it over the stove until it becomes smooth and sticky. It can then be rolled into balls and covered with sprinkles - here my sister-in-law put it into small cups and added the sprinkles on top. Yummy!