Somewhere, Over the Rainbow (with unicorns)

So I'm back in the saddle for being crafty again. It's December, and it's my niece's favorite time of the year. I'm sure every kid loves December for Christmas, but in our family, it's a busy month for birthdays.

Erica has requested an obscure birthday theme, a Rainbow Unicorn party. Really?! Of course she couldn't pick a theme that is easily found at Party City. And, you guessed it, I'm up for the Auntie of the Year award again.

Her requests were simple. (Yeah right!)

• A Rainbow Unicorn invitation
• Some bows for her hair and a matching rainbow outfit
• Unicorn goody bags
• Cute centerpieces

 

This is her invitation that I came up with. I left it very simple, but she adored it!

 

These are her rainbow bows, I didn't quite finish the middle yet, because I need to buy barrettes to glue gun it to.

 

These rainbows are about 7" tall. They will part of her centerpieces, which will have paint cans filled with jellybeans with these on a dowel rod coming out of them. They were made with our Cricut die cutting machine.

 

I made about 30 Unicorns with rainbow manes to be stuck onto the outside of colored gift bags. These were also made with the Cricut. We glued little purple jewels for the eyes to girly them up.

 

We got most of it accomplished. We still have a ways to go with her outfit, it's being made, but I feel like we've done most of the grunt work.

Stay tuned for next week, I think I'm  going to attempt a festive wreath for our home's front door!

Cookie Monster

So there I was, minding my own business, catching up on work.....when the inevitable happens.

My husband lets me know at 9pm that he signed up for a potluck at work for tomorrow and needs a lot of cookies to be baked. REALLY?! It must be my lucky day!!!

Thank goodness that Target is already on Holiday hours so that I could speed over and get cookie supplies. I don't have enough time to bake from scratch, so premixed bags will have to do. ( Did I mention that although I don't cook or clean, I'm an awesome baker!)

So, I'm currently still working on the cookies, while doing laundry and catching up on overdue homework and caring for the dogs and a houseguest. Whew! I want flowers or something for this.

A little pic of our scrumptious baked goods....

The artist in me

I don't always like to toot my own horn, but I have to admit that I take my academics seriously. Now that I am much older than typical college age, I have learned the importance of keeping a good g.p.a. I currently have a 4.0, but that may come to an end soon by the one class I thought would be an easy A!

I am taking a Drawing I course, and it has been the death of me. I have struggled every week, with every assignment, and I have a B. I am in denial/shock that there is not a paper I can write to fix my grade. I thought I would document my latest assignment which was drawing fabric or paper. I chose to do paper because after trying to draw fabric, I found I do not have the patience to do the work carefully. ( I later found out that I was the only student to attempt paper, because it is SUPER HARD!)

Below, you can see my drawing transform from nothing to the end product. I think I got a B on the assignment, but I did my best to try for an A.

Skeleton Mania!

So, finally an update on our skeleton craft.

My students LOVED this edible craft. Not all went as smoothly as Pinterest made it look, but that's to be expected my kiddos are 3 years old afterall.

The brownies I found were round instead of the square they were supposed to be, so the space the kids could work with was limited. The lollipop sticks were way too long which made an inch of the stick come out the top of the marshmallow skull. We of course cut the sticks, so we fixed that problem fairly quickly. My assistant allowed the kids to make the faces themselves, which in some cases was hilarious.

I think overall, the project was a success, and the parents were surprised and impressed that their kids made these skeletons.

I'll let ya'll be the judge.

The skull is connected to the rib bone....

So I haven't officially made anything for this week, but I have a craft in mind.

Since I am a teacher, holidays are always a fun topic to cover and there are lots of cutesy things that we can do with our students. This year as a food craft, we are going to attempt a skeleton coming out of the dirt.
Supplies needed:

• brownies
• white chocolate covered pretzels
• marshmallows
• black edible decorating pen
• lollipop sticks
• clear bags

The one thing I don't have is the black edible decorating pen, but I do have NEON colors! I don't know if it will have the same effect,  but I will update with our version when we do it tomorrow.

Here is a picture of the original post I saw on Pinterest.

Coming soon: OUR version.

Fifty shades of what?!

Alas, another bachelorette party is amiss. I find I have no time to cook or craft because I am so busy fulfilling invitation orders in my free time!

I created a bridal shower invite a few weeks ago for my friend Alex, and got a special request to do the bachelorette party. After a summer obsessed with "Fifty Shades of Grey", she decided that was the theme she wanted!

I like the end product and I think she will too!

(And yes, I am patting myself on the back.)

Mexican Fare

We had Mexican night courtesy of moi'!Ole'!

I have to give thanks to my old pal Trappey's for helping with the beans again. I also bought the HEB fully cooked shredded chicken and some corn tortillas. I heated up some oil and dipped the corn tortilla in there, then filled it with chicken, and put it back in the oil to fry it up. I made chicken flautas with guacamole and shredded Monterrey Jack cheese, and rice and beans. I CAN cook rice. It's one of the few things I do well. Here is a picture of it all cooking. And it was scrumptious!