Homemade gifts

This year the kids and I decided to make presents for the grandparents.  My kids beg to "do crafting" (as they call it) almost everyday, so turning their new passion into presents was the greatest thing they could think of.

My parents have game night at least once a week.  All of my siblings (we join too if we are in town) gather in my parents' basement around the game table and play game after game after game late into the night.  Snacks and sodas are heavily involved, and I have often heard both my parents complain about water spots left on the table from cans and glasses.  So we "did crafting" to make some coasters to protect the game table.  A1 and A2 drew pictures and I decoupaged pictures of each of the grandchildren onto tiles (wouldn't you know, I forgot to take pictures of my coasters), glued some cork on the back, and (ta da) coasters!

As for R's parents, we turned our recent family photo shoot into wall art for them to hang.  I found a cheap way to turn regular pictures into canvas pictures (I love Pinterest), so we could provide them an entire gallery!

We loved making gifts.  I think this may become a new family tradition!

Lost: One Tooth

For about two weeks, A1 complained that all her friends were losing teeth, why wasn't she?  Then one of her teeth started to get wiggly.  She was so excited!

And I decided it was time to get off my duff and make her something to hold her teeth once they fall out.  So I looked around Pinterest (what did people do before Pinterest to find ideas?) and combined a few of the ideas out there to make a Tooth Fairy pillow.

It has a ribbon so she can hang it from her bed and a pocket to hold the tooth in the back.

This little pillow makes it easier for the Tooth Fairy to find the tooth and trade it for a prize.

And I couldn't have chosen a better time to make the pillow.  Within a day of receiving the finished pillow, A2 promptly lost her wiggly tooth!

She is such a big girl now!

How to Make Cake Platters

Those who know me know that I love to garage sale.  You just never know what treasure you may find for dirt cheap.  This project was perfect for that treasure-finding bone in my body.  I found some ugly plates that had stains on them for 10 cents a piece.  Then I found some little glasses for a quarter.  The cute old lady who sold them to me went on and on about how great they would be for a little tea party or birthday party.  I agreed with her that they would be perfect for this birthday party, but I don't think I'm using them in quite the way that she had in mind!

I cleaned all the plates and glassware really well, then wiped them all down with isopropanol (rubbing alcohol).  Then I put a small thread of E-6000 glue (found at the hardware store and will now last me for the rest of my life because you use so little of it each time you use it) around the edge of the drinking glass (if you squint really hard you can see the little bubbles of glue on the glass).

Then I flipped the glasses over and glued them to the bottom of the plates.  I placed books on top of the glasses to make sure they stayed put while the glue cured for 72 hours (actually I left it for more than a week to cure, but that is because I got caught up in other parts of my life, like doing the dishes).

Then I spray painted them pink.  I laid down some paper to protect the floor and surrounded the area where I was painting with cardboard boxes so the paint wouldn't get all over the garage floor.  However, I failed in that respect and my husband came home to a slight pink hue in his parking spot.  It's all cleaned up now, but from now on I'm required to do all spray painting on the grass where we can mow away my mistakes!  Oops!

I also failed to account for the fact that the paint would get close to me.  Brown and pink flip flops are totally the rage right now, right?!

After the paint had a couple days to dry and cure, I used Mod Podge to glue some cute cupcakes onto the top of the platters.

(The yellow one isn't glued down yet.  I was just trying to figure out what configuration I wanted and where the center of the plates were.)

I used five layers of Mod Podge over the entirety of the plates.  One of the workers at Michael's assured me that Mod Podge is food safe, but I couldn't find another source of confirmation on that.  So I placed the cakes on circles of parchment paper, rather than directly on the plates.

And there you have it!  Easy peasy, cheap cake platter, perfect for the girls to take home as a party favor!