Fiesta Birthday Party!

My little girls are turning eight.  There birthday is actually on September 10 but they wanted to have a summer fiesta type party.  Sounded great to me because it is always so hard to have a party right when school and fall activities are starting.

We had a really good time and I just wanted to share a couple of the activities that we did in case you want to give them a try. 

I got a lot of my inspiration from Dana at Made.  She had a fiesta party for her daughter Lucy last year.

I used this tutorial for Ruffled Streamers and my tutorial for Tissue Paper Pompoms to add some décor to the party.  I ordered the fiesta graphics from The Digi Butterfly.  I used them to make the invitations, thank you cards and sign.

The girls helped out and added the Barbie on the piñata.  By the looks of Barbie’s hair, she may have already been doing some partying.

 

I wanted to plan some fun crafts that would serve as both party activities and party favors.  Here are the three that I came up with.

First, we painted freezer paper stenciled shirts.  I think that they came out great!

 

I used my Silhouette to cut out the shapes out of freezer paper and that saved a lot of time but you could definitely cut out your shapes by hand if you planned ahead.  This is actually reverse stenciling so I used the pieces that I pulled out of the center rather than the paper that was left over with the cutouts.  Can you see the butterflies and dinosaurs on the shirts bellow?

  Then I ironed them onto shirts so that they would be ready to go for the party. 

I used dye found at Dharma Trading and put them into spray bottles with equal parts dye and water.  (The bottles were great for spraying a light mist but got harder to use after a while so I think that I would try the ones with a squeeze pump the next time.)  I was a little nervous about this activity because I didn’t test it out first but the shirts came out great!

The best part was peeling off the stencils to see the results.

Everyone looked so cute in their shirts and it made for a fun party favor.

Next, we decorated bags with sharpies and stencils.  I embroidered each child’s name onto the bag to make them a little more special.  The best part is that these bags were only $1 at Michael’s and I had a 20% off coupon so the were only 80 cents each! 

The last craft that we did was homemade maracas!  They were fun and easy and the kids had fun making them.  For the tutorial go HERE.

Then there was still plenty of time for:

swimming in the pool,

lounging in the hammock,

enjoying slushies,

and breaking open the piñata.

 

Then it was time for pizza, cake and ice cream.  The girls wanted to have a picture cake this year.  I think that it turned out cute and of course they were thrilled with it.

 

Make a wish!

 

Two funny things after the party were:

Their little brother dressing up like the piñata

and the pieces of cake that the girls chose after dinner that night!

Happy Birthday Girls!  I love you!

Hooded Towels

 

I have been wanting to make up a few hooded towels for my kiddos.  I searched Blogland and found some really great tutorials.  I chose elements of my two favorite tutorials and combined them to make exactly what I was looking for.  I used Andrea’s tutorial on The Train to Crazy and Lindsay’s tutorial on  The Cottage Home.

Materials:

1 large bath towel

1 hand towel

Coordinating strip of fabric “4 x 25 “

Ric-rac (optional)

Coordinating thread

sewing machine, scissors, etc. 

Rotary Cutter and Cutting Mat or Scissors

 

Tutorial:

 

Take your hand towel and cut the trim off of one end and about 3” off of the other end.  Your towel should be 24” long.

 

Now fold the towel in half and cut it to a width of 11”.

 

Find something round like a plate and use it to cut a curve on the top folded edge of the towel. Important: Make sure that you are not cutting the curve on the side with the finished edge.  This finished edge will be the edging of the hood.

 

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With right sides together, sew from the curved edge to the bottom of the hood piece.

Now we are going to attach the hood to the beach towel using a French Seam.  This awesome idea comes from Andrea’s tutorial on The Train to Crazy.  I love it because you won’t have an unfinished seam were the hood is sewn to the towel.  With wrong sides facing, lay the hood piece on the center of one of the long edges of the beach towel.

The raw edge of the hood piece should be just below the edge of the beach towel.  Pin the hood in place.

Sew using a 1/4” seam allowance.

 

Flip the towel over so that the right sides of the beach towel and the hood are now facing up.

Top stitch close to the edge of the beach towel and you’re done!  Wasn’t that easy?

 

Look at those nice finished seams.

 

Now if you want to get fancy, you can also use Lindsay’s idea from The Cottage Home and add some cute coordinating fabric.

 

Cut a strip of fabric 24”x 5”.  Sew a piece of ric-rac to each long edge and press edges under.  For the boys’ towel, I skipped the ric-rac and just folded the long edges under about 1/4”.

 

Lay your cut hood piece out flat and pin the strip of fabric close to the finished edge.

 

Sew the fabric strip to the hood piece.

 

I wanted to give the boys’ piece a little more pizzas so I used a contrasting thread and sewed with a decorative stitch.

Now complete your hood and attach it to the beach towel in the same manner described above.

Happy Sewing!