Home Made Jake and The Neverland Pirates Toys

Will I ever write on this blog consistently? Probably not. But this time I have a good excuse for my long absence...or a cute excuse at the very least. This little sweetheart decided she needed to join us 8 1/2 weeks early so we've been busy running back and forth from our house to the hospital and there and back again. She's home now though and doing fantastic. Can you tell that we are Disney addicts at our house? Well it's true, we have a problem. Anyway, Disney has a new show, Jake and the Neverland Pirates. May is crazy about it. She loves to pretend she's a pirate and that she has pixie dust and can fly. It's so new though that they don't have anything out for it yet (or else you can be sure we'd have at least a Jake coloring book to drag around). So for her Easter basket I thought I would make her some Jake toys.
This is not the greatest picture but there was about to be a mutiny if I didn't return that pixie dust pouch to its rightful owner. So the foam sword laying in the back is from the dollar store. There were no questions asked that it was Jake's sword.

For the Izzy doll I used the Black Apple Doll pattern found here on Martha Stewart's website. I used the leg piece of the pattern as a guide for the boots and just made them wider and shorter than the leg. Sew them and then fold the tops down. The bandanna (and that pink think on the left is a matching bandanna for May) are just triangles cut from fabric with a zig zag stitch around them.
The pixie dust pouches are pretty simple. I used felt so I didn't have to worry about fraying but you could probably use whatever you want. Cut a circleish shape from your material. It doesn't have to be perfect because you are just going to bunch it up anyway. Run thread up and down (by hand) using long stitches around the entire circle. Make sure you start and end on the outside of your pouch. Pull it tight. Take a piece of ribbon and stitch the ends onto opposite sides of the pouch to make your necklace. I filled May's with glitter knowing full well it would be a huge mess. Yes I've been finding glitter everywhere but it's not as bad as I thought and totally worth how excited she gets when she sprinkles it on something.
The map is also incredibly simple. I bought iron-on transfer paper. Printed the map on it and ironed it onto some brown material. I did a zig zag stitch around it hopefully to keep it from fraying too bad but you could skip that part if you wanted might make more authentic looking if it was frayed.

So..YO HO Let's go!

The Art Wall

We've just moved to a house where we can have a just play area. It has been oh so heavenly. I wanted something on the walls to put up May's artwork. So I made these. Super easy.

Materials:

Clothespins (You can find a big pack at the dollar store)

A piece of wood the length and width of your choosing

Hanging wire

Hot glue or screws

Paint

Take the clothes pins apart and paint them and your wood. Once the clothes pins are dry put them back together.

My wood is balsa from Micheal's so it's super thin so I just hot glued my clothes pins on alternating facing up and down. If you want something sturdier you may want to screw your clothes pins into some actual wood.

Attach hanging wire on the back-mine are held up by a hanging wire on each side. Again hot glue worked for mine because the board was so light but you may need to attach it better if your board is heavier.

St. Patrick's Day

My sincerest apologies that this post is going to be super lamely put together but at least it's here right??? right???

We had a leprechaun leave a note for us this morning...here it is...sideways...and in picture form instead of document form...because those leprechauns are tricky like that. That first little picture in the letter is a picture of May, that yellow blur is a pile of gold coins. The top picture is a green egg (Yes, I may have paid the leprechaun off to make eating breakfast one of the requirements before finding his gold coins). The picture at the end of decorate it with is green glitter. The top picture is a pot of gold followed by May's picture again. The leprechaun left the note with a St. Patrick's day crown for May, green hair for me, and a nice big green hat for May's dad. All of which I'm pretty sure the leprechaun got from the dollar bins at target.

So after eating breakfast, May went upstairs to pick out a green shirt. Oh funny. She pulled out her pink Minnie Mouse shirt and was trying to convince her teddy bear it was green (I don't think he believed her). So we went through her shirts and I asked her if a few were green and she would say , "No that's (insert color here)." In her sweet little "duh mom" voice. So then she put a green shirt on once we got to it.

For the puzzle I just google imaged a 4 leaf clover and printed it. Before I cut it up I traced the shape on another piece of paper so she could see how it was fit together. She put it together the first time but wasn't about to do it again when I asked her to glue it on so I guess I should've had her put glue on the pieces before she put them on. Then she decorated it with glitter.
Cookies were oh so fun and oh so messy. (Side note: Yes I know she has on a green and pink shirt with a purple headband and a red and blue flower, May picked the hair pieces herself and the girl knows what she wants).

I knew I wasn't going to have the energy to make cookie dough so I just bought some premade stuff from the store...never again...although May didn't seem to mind. I cooked a batch ahead of time so they were ready to be frosted at the same time. I skipped the cookie cutters this time and we just made flat shapes and put them on. I think this was actually better. May said she was making, a train, a pirate, and a kite which we have none of those cookie cutters so it would've been a shame to miss out on that.

I bought a can of premade frosting and we divided it up into 6 zip lock bags. I put the food coloring in zipped it up (make sure most of the air is out) and then May mashed it up to get the frosting to turn colors. I clipped the corners off so she could squeeze it out. I thought this might be easier but we resorted to getting out a plastic knife and spreading the frosting anyway. Then we decorated...or mostly ate with a little decorating kind of thrown in there.

After we cleaned up our cookie mess the check list was complete and gold coins started appearing all around the house! That leprechaun (aka grandma being super and picking some up for me at Harman's because I couldn't find any at wal-mart) bought some chocolate coins in gold foil. They come in a net bag and they might be just an Easter time thing but I'm not positive.

Here is May counting her spoils. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Valentines Day

I know I know, Valentines day was a month ago. Moving and pregnancy have taken their toll and this blog is the first thing that's gotta give. But here are some fun things we did for valentines day. Most of it could be used any ol' time just don't make it valentines stuff.



Starting from the 1st until valentines day we had little mail boxes. I had May color some little cards to put in her dads. I put princess valentines, suckers, and a few dollar store toys in hers. She loved it-she was so excited to open her mail box every morning and she felt so special putting stuff in her dads. It was fun. We made some heart flowers. I let May choose a paper from my scrap book pile. Then I cut out about 10 hearts from it and punched a hole in the middle of them. She put them on the straw. Bendy straws work the best because it stops the hearts from sliding all the way down. Then she did the vase. I measured the paper before and then she taped it onto a juice can. This picture does not do the random tape strips everywhere justice. I think she had more fun taping than doing anything else. Then she decorated it with stickers.

I found this cute valentine heart sorting mat here at prekinders.com. May sorted out the hearts in colors. We got some of them counted...but most ended up in her tummy before the counting began so there ya go. I've seen a mat like this that was just different color O shapes to be used for fruit loops but I haven't really looked for it.

The letter S

We've been going to a preschool rotation thing once a week. Each week they focus on a letter and this week it was our turn so here is what I did.

First I read the "S the snake" story from our flip book here.

Then I used these flannel board cut outs from DLTK to tell the story of Stone Soup. I laminated the food and passed them out to the kids then when we came to the food that they had I would have them put it in a pot. It worked really well.

For our activity thing we made these snakes. I cut out the tongues and the ovals ahead of time. I wrote and S on most of the ovals but then I put a few different letters on some of them. Then I laid them out on a cookie sheet and the kids had to find ovals that had S' on them to make their snake out of and then they glued them on the paper.
For our snack I made bread stick snails. You can find the recipe here at parents.com. It's very simple. I forgot pesto though so I just brushed them with butter and rosemary.

A Minnie Mouse Party!

We had a Minnie Mouse party for May on Saturday though and I thought it turned out pretty good. I got a lot of my ideas from At Second Street but I changed a lot of them because she is way more creative and talented than I am.



Here is her cute Minnie outfit. She is wearing this for Halloween too. I made the skirt (the tutorial is in the link At Second Street) and the headband and then just bought her a pink shirt. And of course she is wearing her sparkly pink shoes-can't leave home without them





Here are the invitations. The inside was basically the beginning lines to Mickey Mouse Clubhousebut we changed it to come to my party and "Maylie Mouse" instead of Mickey Mouse. If I had a bigger budget I would've got pink M&Ms but regular ones just had to do.




I made the cake. For Minnie's face I used a 10" round and her ears are 2 6" inch rounds. I used 2 cans of chocolate, a can of vanilla, and a can of cherry frosting. I sized a picture of Minnie so that her face was 10" then I cut out the black parts of the picture. I would post where I found the picture but I'm not sure if it's copy righted or not. I just googled Minnie Mouse though and it came up. I frosted the 10" with white and then laid the picture on the top and filled in the detail areas. The ears are just frosted with chocolate and then the pink cake is just another 6" to add some color and some cake. We had about 25 people and we only had a few pieces left over so it worked out well.

I made a fabric banner. I cannot find the original tutorial I used for the life of me but here is another one that looks great.

Aren't the poofs adorable? So easy and pretty cheap. They are just made out of tissue paper and I love love love them. The tutorial is At Second Street but she takes you to the Martha Stewart website.

This is our pinata. The kids were such good sports about going in the rain to hit it. We don't have any pictures because cameras don't mix well with rain. We made the kids wear Mickey Mouse gloves ( you know the big squishy ones you get from Disneyland) so that it was hard to grasp the bat. I made the older kids wear a blind fold too. Funny story. Morning of the party and I'm looking everywhere for the table clothes I bought and suddenly I realize that I probably glued them into the pinata. Way to go. Everyone was a little confused about them when they came out.

Zach shaped the pinata but I think he did the hard way. Check out At Second Street for the easy way. She also tells you how to decorate it this easy peasy way with crepe paper. The bow I sewed from material leftover from May's outfit.

We gave everyone a "toodles" bag that had mouskatools in them that we used throughout the party. For example-stickers and markers to decorate hats, blindfolds and tape for pin the bow on Minnie, candles for the cake etc. When we needed a mouskatool we'd call for toodles! This will probably make no sense to you unless you've seen Mickey Mouse Clubhouse so go watch it and realize what cute idea it was. :)

Here is everyone in their mouse ears hats. I found plain hats at the dollar store as well as a pack of foam. I drew the circles on the foam and then had them decorate their hat and cut their ears out. Then they brought them to me to hot glue the ears on the side. I love our family. Everyone decorated and wore a hat. What good sports.

We played pin the bow on Minnie. I used the same picture of Minnie for this as I did for the cake and then cut out bows from pink paper. This is May's 94 year old great great grandma pinning the bow on Minnie. What a sweetheart huh.

We went pretty simple for food. We bought Mickey Mouse Chicken nuggets from Costco and then just got some fruit and veggies with dip for both. It turned out great we had fun!

What's Your Name?

I would love for May to be able to respond to the question of, "What's your name?" Partly because I hate when people ask her and wait for her to answer-they look like fools (yes I said fools!!). And partly because if she ever got lost it might be nice if she knew her name (our names our next on the list followed by our phone number).

So we played a game with her stuffed animals. We set up all the ones that she has a definite name for, like Minnie Mouse, Snow White, Lemur, Puppy, Baby, etc. up at different places on the couch. Then I would walk up to them and ask them their name. Then make them respond. May caught on quickly and would ask "syur name" funny. Then I would ask her, "What's your name?" and if she didn't answer I would say, "May May!" I think she knows the answer now but she doesn't always say it so we'll have to keep practicing.