Goldfish Valentine [a re-post] with a Printable Template!!!!

Re-post! 

I have received so many questions about this little valentine, I thought I'd post it again for 2013.  Edited to add the files I created so you don't have to make your own!

(see below for templates)  

I purchased a pack of 100 of these bags at Michael's Craft Store for $3.99 (use the 40% off coupon!). 

originally posted on February 13, 2012

Happy Valentine's Day! 

xoxo

I saw this valentine on, you guessed it, Pinterest.  (Click here to see what else I'm pinning).  The file is available in her Etsy shop, so you can simply print it. 

The concept of this valentine was perfect for us b/c it's unisex so it worked for both my son and my daughter!

For the over-achievers out there [insert fist pound here], you can make your own simple (translation: looks like a 3 year old drew it) version in Photoshop or Picnik (or another free photo editing site) and add your child's name.  Just don't fall in love with the ease of use of Picnik.  It's closing on April 19th. Boo.  

Use your printer settings to print 4 per page.  I stapled several sheets together (outside of my cutting area, of course)  so the sheets would stay straight while I cut them out.

Other variations include:
"Our 'school' is cool because of YOU!"
"You make our 'school' cool."

The bags (bought a pack of 100 for $2.99 minus 40%) stuffed with the card stock inserts.  Doesn't this pic look a little trippy?

The kids chose Goldfish crackers instead of Swedish Fish (which I was a *bit* disappointed by, btw). 

We made about 50 valentines and used about 2/3 of the giant milk carton-shaped Goldfish package.

Print.  Trim.  Fill.  Give.  Eat.  

[edited to add files for you!]
I am not a programmer, but if you have problems with the downloading the files, email me and I'll try to help!  

The first two files are PDFs and are not editable. #3 and #4 are Word documents that you can download and add your kids' names before printing*.
    

1. Download PDF & Print

2. Download PDF & Print.

3. Download Word Document. Click on the text boxes to personalize with names. Print.

4. Download Word Document. Click on the text boxes to personalize with names. Print.

 

*For personal use only. Please do not edit these files beyond the text boxes I've provided. Do not post these files anywhere, rather share them by linking back here!
Have fun!  

It doesn't get any easier than that, right?  
(well, maybe it would be easier to buy a huge bag of boxed nerds and just hand those out...but they aren't nearly as cute!)  
(don't worry, we bought said bag of boxed nerds...they are slowly disappearing into my belly) 
(just doin' my share to keep Wonka in business)

Make a Ruffly Table Skirt for under $10

How to make your own ruffly table skirt for under $10!  I've had several inquiries from this post asking how I made this table skirt, so here's a quick tutorial!

I made this to use on a table for my daughter's rainbow birthday party, hence the height of the ruffles.  At the last minute, we changed plans and set this up here (covering a living room cabinet) to house the favor bags.  It worked out.


And as a bonus, because this is made completely of plastic, it's weather-ready for outdoor events and easily wiped down (or hosed down in the back yard!).  You could even hang it up in the shower for it's original purpose after the party was over...hmmm...why not? 


On to the tutorial.  


Your supply list:

1. 54"x102" plastic table covers in your color scheme ($.97 at Walmart) for the ruffles
2. One white vinyl shower curtain (mine was 70"x72" - bought at Walmart for $2.38) or you can use a flat bed sheet, an existing table cloth, or a curtain panel.  My first thought was to use a white plastic table cover, but I'm afraid it's too thin and will tear and bunch up when sewing on the ruffles.
3. Sewing machine + thread
4. Scissors + ruler

First, make a plan.

  

Width of ruffled section

My supply list calls for a shower curtain that is only 70" wide.  If your table is wider, you'll need to adjust by sewing two curtains together to achieve your desired length. 

Height of ruffled section

If you're covering a standard height table, plan to make the ruffly part about 28" to 30" to just hit the floor.  If you're covering a counter height table, plan for about 36".  Best bet?  Measure your table.  

Take your table measurement and divide that by the number of ruffly layers you desire.  So for me, I took 30" (table height) divided by 6 (colored ruffle sections) to get 5".  

Now, add a couple inches for overlap and error (5" + 2" = 7") and you have your measurement to cut your strips.

Measure and mark your shower curtain where you intend to sew (every 5" in my example) from the bottom, up.  I didn't do this step and you can see my ruffles start heading uphill on the right.  Don't do as I did...  :)    

Cutting the strips

I cut my strips on the long edge of the plastic table covers, so they were 7" x 102".  Cut three strips for each ruffle. So, for my 6 ruffles, I cut 18 strips.  Each ruffle will require about 2.5 strips to cover the 70" width of the shower curtain.  


Making the strips ruffly

Enter sewing machine.  Set your stitch length to the longest possible.  Adjust tension to achieve the ruffle you like.  Run each strip through your machine with about a half inch seam allowance.  I noticed each strip ruffled up a bit differently, but don't be alarmed, you won't notice once it's all assembled.

Assembling the skirt  


Start from the bottom and work your way up.  So for me, that was the purple ruffle. It is not difficult to sew it up, rather it is a bit unwieldy.  Make sure you have plenty of room around and behind your machine.  You'll need it.  As you add more ruffles, you'll have to roll up the excess to help guide it through your machine.  Take your time and adjust as you go along.   

  
Then hang it up and admire your work.  You can really see my uphill to the right in this pic.  Take the extra 5 minutes and mark some lines on your shower curtain to avoid this rookie mistake.  ;)

A cheap, but very high-impact, party decoration for less than $10.  And I had plenty of strips left over to make a coordinating poof to decorate the front door!


Let me know if you have any questions!



linking here.

Rainbow Party Favor Bags and Bracelets

These are so simple, they don't need a tutorial, but I wanted to share some details with you so you can make your own Rainbow Party!

Simple favor bags.  

This could be done with any color scheme, but I thought it looked like a rainbow coming out of the bag so it was perfect like this!  

Get these spools of ribbon at your local craft store for cheap!  These were from Michael's and were 3/$1.00 on sale.  I think they are normally only $.50 each.  So, my 6 colors were $2.  Can't beat that.  I already had these little handled bags, but any bag would work.  Try brown or white lunch sacks!


Use a couple inches of scotch tape, line your ribbons on the tape in the order you want, then just tape it to the inside edge of the bag.  Easy. 

Rainbow Personalized Bracelet Favors.
The bracelets were simple, too.  I purchased letter beads and multi-colored beads at our local Hobby Lobby during a 50% off sale. I already had the 'Stretch Magic bead and jewelry cord' and a needle with a large enough hole to string the elastic.  The elastic cord I had was 5mm.  Pretty sure I saw similar stuff at Wal-Mart.    

String on your beads, adding the names, or a word that goes with your party theme.  Even Ethan (almost 9 year old brother) got in on the action making himself one in purple and yellow with the word, "Vikings" (after his love for the Minnesota Vikings) and a yellow one with a Pokemon character name.  (are your kids into Pokemon?)

I sized the bracelets using Maeve's wrist as a guide.  You just don't want it to be tight.  Otherwise, these are pretty forgiving.  Knot the elastic several times over and then clip the ends about a 1/16" from your knot.  I gave it a tug before clipping the ends, just to be sure it wouldn't come undone.  

See the whole party here.  And a pinata tutorial here.

Pretty Piñata on the Cheap

I'm cheap frugal.  

I will do almost anything to avoid paying full price for anything.  

And after seeing Becky of Infarrantly Creative's tutorial for a paper bag pinata, there's no way I was spending $15+ on one (that didn't match the rainbow theme, no less)!

Here's how mine came together.

  

I must give credit to Dana of MADE, because she showed me the magic that happens to crepe paper streamers when you feed them through your sewing machine!  

Now that you have ruffled your streamers, let's build!

I used a paper sack that had a handle on top so I could hang the pinata (from the swingset!).  It wasn't part of the plan, but as it turns out, the stripes on the DSW sack were very helpful in keeping my layers straight.  Bonus!

Plug in your hot glue gun. 


Start at the bottom (not on the top, like I did in the pic below -- oops!).  

You could leave it as is, or if you have extra ruffles, glue them to the bottom for added color!

Easily hung from the rings on the swing set and ready for a good smashing!  It made for a pretty sturdy pinata, given all the thread and hot glue.  I recommend candy that can't be pulverized...a pretty shower of Smarties powder sprinkled out of the pinata as it was whacked!

Disclaimer:  Buying yourself an incredibly cute pair of flats at DSW will drastically increase the cost of this project.  :)


linking here and here.

Maeve's Rainbow Birthday Party

My baby girl turned six this month and we celebrated with a colorful Rainbow Birthday Party!

The invitation is my first-ever made from scratch using Photoshop Elements.  I'm slowly learning the basics, so here's my simple invite!

We invited kids from Maeve's kindergarten class and had a party of eleven including the birthday girl!  Maeve greeted each friend with a handmade rainbow bracelet with their name on it.  It also helped us keep track of who had arrived!

bracelet details here

Food was simple (and store-bought).  gasp!  I simply ran out of time, so I assembled the pretty rainbow fruit platter from pre-cut fruit.  I cut the fruit into smaller pieces so they'd be kid-bite-sized.

I pulled out the handy tiered tray from the tutorial I did last summer.  It made a perfect display for colorful sugar and M&M cookies!

If you do a rainbow party, you must get the rainbow Twizzlers.  They were a huge hit with the kids.  I cut them into thirds; don't they look like tasty confetti?!

My husband made tissue paper poms last year and Maeve ordered them again this year.  They even have scalloped edges! ;)  And they look great on the railing.   

We covered the living room cabinet with my ruffly rendition of the rainbow table skirts I've seen all over blogland.  All for just $9 in materials. It was so colorful!

Click here to learn how I made this table skirt.

A balloon swag filled the hallway and invited guests into the party.  There's the birthday girl showing off her balloons.  She and her brother worked hard blowing up a lot of those!

For activities, I picked up a few rainbow scratch art kits from Michael's.  Each pack came with 6 bookmarks and was only a dollar.   Also at the art table was dyed ditalini pasta and Elmer's glue.  I soaked the pasta in rubbing alcohol & food coloring for one hour, rinsed, then dried overnight.

I found these small pails at Hobby Lobby for a quarter a piece on the clearance shelf b/c they had initials on them.  All that was left were "i" and "u".  Nothing a little spray paint can't fix!  They were perfect for holding the pasta for the art table.

It was a whopping 84 degrees here in Iowa in the middle of March!  That's ridiculous...but we took advantage of it by having outdoor activities, including the art table (translation: less mess)!

Two clear boxes filled with skittles and M&Ms asked the kids to guess how many.  The guesses ranged from 20 to 2000!  The winners got to take the candy home!

Maeve didn't want (another) birthday cake - "because we had one for my family birthday party" last weekend.  Instead she requested jello!  These were topped with whipped topping, if the kids wanted it.

And then it was pinata time!  I loved the idea of a homemade pinata -- not so much the idea of paper mache, though.  Becky at Infarrantly Creative has a great tutorial for a paper bag pinata.  Love.  Fastened to the swing set.  Easy.  Here's how mine came together.

paper bag pinata details here

The favors were simple, handled white sacks with a line up of ribbons 'rainbowing' out of the top.  (pretty sure that's not a word, but I'm going to use it anyway).  The bags are filled with gum balls, flavored tootsie rolls, balloons, Twizzlers, and stickers - all of the rainbow variety, of course!

favor bag details here

It was such a fantastic party!  And what generous gifts she received from friends!  (And a special day for mom and dad, too!). 

linkin up at the usual places and here