Teacher Appreciation Week: Door Decorating

Kindergarten Room Mom: Halloween

So I found out 2 weeks before Halloween that I was going to be Room Mom. No one had volunteered for it… and you know…. Yeah…. YOU KNOW.

My daughter’s teacher liked his holiday events more like activity stations that the kids can rotate through. I thought it was a great idea too, because then the kids have lots to do, and its not all about eating sweets. So with 2 weeks to pull it together, I combed Pinterest for about 6 activities related to Halloween that would be engaging and cover an array of areas (art, fine motor, science, etc). Here’s what I ended up with:

Food Activity: Spiders and Monster Mouths

I choose these in an effort to avoid cookie decorating. I figured the oreo and the marshmellows would be offset by pretzels and apples.

Spider Web Lacing: For some fine motor skills!

Original Pinterest link here.

Science: Fizzy Eyeballs

I wasn’t able to find plastic eyeballs as the original I found on Pinterest. But I did already have these glow in the dark bouncy balls that I had from a previous projects. They were perfect because the kids were excited to be able to keep their ball afterwards.  We did them in individual plastic cups to contain the mess. And the kids were able to select from various colored “potions” to drop on their eyeballs.  See original Pinterest link here.

We also did a fine motor activity adapted from this Pin I found. We used chopsticks instead and had the kids pick the spiders up with them and sort them into cups.

Lastly, we did some scissor skills by having them make pumpkins from this Pin here.

Kids Bedroom Wall Art Decor

Yay! After collecting unique pieces from here and there…. I finally completed the wall art collages for both the kids’ rooms! We ended up moving, so I got a chance to kind of move things around a little bit…. but you can see how it started out, along with when I was making one of the glitter shoe pieces myself.

Okay… So where are some of these goodies all from?

Bicycle – After Valentine’s Day clearance at Target

The two small square canvas art – Dollar section at Target

Fabulous Me – $10 clearance at Target

Green Owl – On sale for $4.99 at Kohls

Keep Calm and Sparkle On – Purchased a print from Etsy and put in a frame from Target

Pink Crown – Hobby Lobby – Don’t forget the 40% coupon!

Glitter Shoe – DIY see link above.

Cinderella quote – $4.99 Kohls

Chandelier Canvas Art – Ethereal Vision from Oliver Gal (but I happened to find it priced down on Zulily!)

One another side of my daughter’s room, I found the pink chevron board from Hobby Lobby when I ordered the crown… and the cute Owl vinyl wall art was from Dollar Tree!! weeeeeeeeeeeeee!

 

 

For my little man…. the goodies came from:

Teal Chevron board – Target

Keep Calm and Go Get Mom/Wake up and Be Awesome – $4.99 on sale at Kohls

The large Initial Letter – $11.99 at Ross

You are my Sunshine – $7.99 at Marshalls

A Little Man Sleeps Here – Print ordered from Etsy and frame from Target

Robot Wood Cut-Out – Etsy

Mustache (its actually a corkboard) – Kohls

Get in gear! Let’s have a Robot Party!

Since I did a fairy themed party when my daughter turned 3… that meant it was my one opportunity to do a boy-themed party… whoohooo! Robot it was! For the centerpieces, I found these Valentine Boxes from Oriental Trading – which of course I bought after V-day for much cheaper. Came in a dozen, I only used 5 though. But they were super cute and easy to put together with adhesive foam. I put a small vase inside to weight it down and with a styrofoam piece inside the vase, I was able to make the toppers.

I saw a robot from cardboard on Pinterest and thought… I could do that! The hardest part was finding all the pieces. More details on how this robot came to life here.

A party is not a party without a watermelon carving! Saw this idea on Pinterest as well. 🙂

We were hoping for a transformer pinata… but couldn’t find one… so Iron mad had to do!

The bakery from Ranch Events did an amazing job as usual!

For the crafts, I couldn’t resist these adorable little ceramic robot piggy banks! 12 for $20. I bought a set of Owls for any girls who didn’t want to paint a Robot. The kids enjoyed it.. but I think adults had more fun with them!

Lastly, our lovely photobooth, designed by Snapshots Moments. Check out how I put together the backdrop here.

DIY Cardboard Robot

I first saw a pin for a cardboard robot here. I thought it would be an inexpensive way to add some fun decor to our robot party. First things first… Start collecting boxes! Once I got most of the shapes I needed, I started to spray paint it….. unfortunately, that robot had a really big body!

To be honest I ran out of spray paint after just doing the body and head… so we opted to just foil the arms and feet for contrast. Was then going to do the legs in red or something (because that’s a leftover color I had) but we lucked out when my mom went to Costco and saw these star patterned boxes in exactly the shape we needed. Score!!! For the shoulders and hands, we bought the tubing at Home Depot for a few bucks.

We pretty much tried to use whatever we could find around the house to finalize the robot. The ears are spray painted pieces of a to-go cup holder from some fast food restaurant. The eyes are cupcake wrappers. Colored popsicle sticks for the mouth. Pipe cleaners for the antenna!

We then recycled the number 3 cutout I had made for the photo prop from my son’s birthday photos. It was perfect on the body! Then we found some little stampers to use as buttons.

Total cost: about $15

 

DIY Tablecover Backdrop

I first saw this on Pinterest here and totally thought it would be the perfect way to backdrop the photobooth this year.

I bought a little bit more than I needed to start. … but ultimately used 3 table covers and two banners from Walmart. Didn’t cost more than a total of $7

The longest part was probably the cutting. The strips were about 3 inches wide and the braids were maybe 3 inches down. I’m pretty good at braiding so that was easy, although my arms were sore from being in the upward position for so long. Haha.

I have to admit. It looked pretty cool once it was all braided and the colors mixed together.

Add the banners… and there you have it. I contemplated doing the fans at first…. but I didn’t want to take from the photobooth template.  So I kept the backdrop simple.

Looks good! I’m definitely going to do this again! Different colors!

Preschool Graduation Goodies!

Seriously. I’m that kind of mom that is looking for any excuse to put together a goodie bag. HAHA. Picked up those felt Owl stickers 50% off after Halloween at Target last year + 50% the bags after Valentine’s Day + some clearance graduation tattoos and gift tags from Oriental trading + recycled Graduation bubble favors from my own graduation party over a decade ago….  Ta da!

Party time: All things Disney

For my daughter’s 5th birthday, we went for a “Disney” theme. It was good timing as she now has gone to Disneyland many times and familiar with all the stories and characters. Having a Disney theme was definitely due to come! Oh and I had so much planning this one!  Let’s go over the details:

Centerpieces: I found lots of versions on Pinterest and went for a pretty simple one. Went into detail about it on the blog here.

I was able to find a HUGE lantern on Oriental Trading on clearance for $5. Didn’t realize how big it was until it arrived. But my dad was able to rig some ears to it out of a foam board, lots of tape, spray paint. It turned out pretty good. Could also be used for a Deadmau5 party for sure! 🙂

For the fruit display, my mom carved Mickey into a watermelon and also used cookie cutters to skewer some as well.

Cake: Again, we got our favorite marble and bavarian creme with fresh strawberries from Renaissance Bakery (Ranch Events Catering). Went for a simple Minnie Mouse patterned design with the ears and bow on top.

We had our usual photobooth set- up with template designed by Snapshots Photobooth. The kids and adults always love the photobooth.

For the goodie bags, I had one of my friends who is a passholder and lives in Anaheim, collect the “I’m celebrating” buttons for me for a couple months leading up to the party. So each bag got an authentic button from Disneyland. The girls got Minnie ear headbands that got for $1 a piece in the LA Fashion District, and the boys had gotten a Cars glider that I got for $1 a piece at Target’s after-Easter clearance. What else was in those bags…. crayons from Target’s after-Halloween sale, and little playing cards as well.

More on the pinata from previous blog post here. It was HUGE! $13 in Tijuana baby!

Lastly, I put several of the costumes myself and blogged about it here. All except for Mike from Monsters, Inc. – which was actually a children’s costume that I got on eBay for $17 and then sewed to a $3 t-shirt from Michaels. It was to match my son’s Sully costume which I got half off the day after Halloween at Target last year (always think ahead!)

DIY: Tweedle-Dee & Tweedle-Dum Costumes (and Toy Story Woody)

For my daughter’s “Disney” themed birthday party, I had to conjure up some costumes for my mom and aunt. I was trying to think of cool BFF costumes… and decided it would be fun for them to go as Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum (I ended up dressing up as Alice anyways, so it worked out!)

I headed to Michael’s and purchased the following:

2 Yellow Gilden T-shirts

1 blue 8×10 felt

1 white 8×10 felt

1 sheet of Yellow foam

Then I headed to Walmart and picked up some white fleece material about a yard and a half – got extra because I was making a Woody Vest for my dad as well (more on that at bottom!)

So for the lowdown on the homemade costumes…

The hats: I used fabric “puffy paint” to write in the character’s names after I cut out small rectangle pieces. While that was drying, I sewed a straw to the top of each hat. I opted to sew it because I couldn’t imagine any type of adhesive or glue being able to keep a stick straight on top of the hat. It actually held it up pretty good and was easy to fix if it got moved at all. After I sewed on the straw, then I hot glue gun the yellow “flag” piece at the top and the names on the front.

The shirts: I visually saw what shape I was going for for the collars of the outfits… so I actually kind of free-handed the cutting. Lucky for me they turned out pretty good. But you can see the shape and where the cuts were made. Once it was cut, we sewed the back part of the collar and the top shoulders, and the center to the shirt. Just those key spots – not the whole perimeter of the collar. For the bow, I folded it into a pleat and sewed the center. then let it fan out before we sewed it to the shirt.

So for the Woody vest. I basically folded my fleece in half and cut out a neck hole first. Then plopped it over my dad and drew out the lines for where I wanted to cut off the shoulders and down the sides. Then free-handed where the cut down the front would be. For the cow spots, I cut out random shaped oblongs onto card stock and spray painted them onto the fleece. Once that was done, we sewed up the sides of the vest, added a red bandana ($1.50 at Walmart) and a cowboy hat and we were good to go. Simple but still in the spirit of the party.

DIY/Upcycle Kid’s Vanity

A friend of mine had posted on FB about this project she just completed. I thought she did such an amazing job! Told her it had to be blogged about and then unleashed into the Pinterest world! Thanks so much for sharing this Rosella!

Here’s how she completed this beautifully crafted vanity for her daughter:

I got the vanity from my  sister-in-law who was kind enough to offer it to me because she thought my daughter would like to play with it.

It’s vintage style and the white color was fading. I liked it immediately, It’s real wood too! I was so excited to give the vanity some new life- with paint!  My newest hobby has been upcyclng beautiful furniture. It’s so exciting to see old furniture look like new and more personalized than anything you will find in a store!

I used some paint I had leftover for when I painted my baby girl’s nursery.  I’ve been painting the house and working on some pieces for our backyard. This piece has been my favorite so far!

Here are the steps I followed for painting this piece:

1. Clean the furniture- I used some wet wipes that are made for wood surfaces that I got from Target.

2. Set down a drop cloth and place furniture on top- you don’t want to get paint all over the place.

3. Tape/remove anything that doesn’t need to be painted.   In this case I removed the mirror and the hardware. The handles are too small and intricate to be taped.

3. Sand furniture if needed.  I usually sand rough spots, even out dents and sanding also can remove old chipping paint.

3. Prep paints and paint brushes, put them in a place you can reach while working.

4. Then I painted the vanity in light pink. I used a glidden paint, semi gloss.

5. I let it dry a night and  the next day checked on it. The paint had dried mostly,  it was dry to the touch but the paint can scrape off easily if you don’t handle it carefully.

6. I painted the pink flower on the top and let it dry for hours and then came back and added the turquoise center.

7. I let the finished vanity dresser dry for another night and voila! It was done!