In the Palm of My Hand!

Good Morning Everyone!  Before I get started, I need to get the business out of the way first to my sister Sandy - Sands, if you don't want to see any of the decorations for your party next week, don't read any further!! 

We are entering into a big week in my family.  First, my baby sister, Laura, will be honored as Detective of the Year for the DC police department.  I am so proud of her!  Additionally, I will be hosting my older sister's 50th birthday party at my home.  I am so excited to not only be able to celebrate this milestone with her, but also to decorate for a themed tropical/cruise party!  As a gift to herself, Sandy will be taking a cruise with her wonderful friend Lori, which is where the theme came about.  Everyone has been asked to dress tropical or cruise-y - which will be very interesting since it is still March in Virginia and I'm not sure how we'll do in flip flops and sarongs in this cold!

I have started some of the decorations to give my home a tropical flavor..this week it was the palm trees and some flowers.

First, the front entry columns.  I figured out how to make palm fronds with foil tissue paper and a wire hanger.  I found the foil tissue at Michael's in the gift wrap section with the regular tissue paper.  For the trunks of the trees, I just used brown grocery bags.  I ripped the top of the bag for a jagged edge, then rubbed dark stencil gel along the top edge to give it a darker line.  Total cost per tree, about $2.99 for the foil.  What an impact!



Here is the view from my front door.  I will add some signs on the trees before the party, probably an arrow to the beach and one to the ship.  By the way, there is an "H" at the beginning of the banner hidden by the palm leaf..

Here is how to make the palm fronds.

There are 5 pieces of foil in each pack.  Lay them out on your work surface.

I opened up a wire hanger for each of them, keeping the hook part and trimming the opposite end to make it just shorter than the foil. Run some glue on either side of the hanger wire as well as on the wire itself



Fold the foil in half, making sure you press down along the wire, ensuring the glue makes contact with both sides.




Once the glue dries, trim all four corners of the foil, then make small cuts at an angle toward the hanger hook from the edge of the foil to about an inch from the center wire.  You can start seeing the fronds now.  Don't be perfect with the cutting, the choppier, the more natural they will look!





To attach the fronds to the columns, I used duct tape.  For each column, I measured out four pieces of tape the diameter of the column plus a few inches to overlap.  I then attached two of the pieces together on one side to make it double the width.  Lastly, I laid the final two pieces over the first two, sticky sides together.   I don't want to tape the duct tape to my columns directly as the glue in the tape can sometimes leave a residue.  I wrapped each piece at the top of my columns, then used another piece of duct tape to tape the ends together. 



I simply taped each hook end of the palm fronds to the duct tape base I created.  Once they were all up, I wrapped one more piece of tape around the entire column for added strength, then bent the ends of the palm fronds to give it a natural curve.



Once the fronds were in place, I just wrapped the columns, starting from the top, in the grocery bags, overlapping each as I moved down toward the floor.  I used a piece of duct tape, wrapped in a circle to make it two sided to hold each bag in place.  Once the tree was done, I ran a bead of glue along the edge to make it lay flat. 

On to the palms trees that I will place in my family room!

My neighbor gave me a few years ago.  Coffee cans mounted on a square base, filled with concrete with a metal pole sticking out of the top. I cannot tell you have many times I've used these!  Wrapped in balloons, holding up banners, plastic tubing filled with white twinkle lights!  These have a dozen uses!  Now they are the base for two more trees.



Terrible photo, I know, but I purchased some pvc pipe to go over the poles (about $4 each) and wrapped each pole in twinkle lights.  Next (and this is the part my son walked in on and thought I was nuts), I cut off the feet and top of three pairs of panty hose and pulled the leg portion over the pipe.  I cut a little hole at each little light and pulled the bulb through the panty hose.



After tucking in more palm fronds in the top of the pvc pipe, I placed them in the dark corner of my family room, which will be the dance floor for the party. 

The bases will be wrapped in greenery with flowers added - I won't do that until just before the party.  It makes a very pretty decoration!

Now to decorate the fireplace mantle.  I found this blog, http://mousechirpy-polkadotpineapple.blogspot.com/2010/01/wire-edged-fabric-flowers.html that explains how to make wire edged flowers.  Great instructions and easy to follow.  I used some of my scrap material and made the flowers to put on the mantle, along with some white flowers I already had (I keep everything!).

Some more twinkle lights and purple tulle (tulle is that fabric that looks sort of like the netting you would use for a ballerina tutu), then I lined the mantle with the flowers and felt leaves.  It looks very tropical!

The leaves I cut out of green felt.

Gathered the edge, then used the ends of the 18 gauge wires that I cut off from the flowers I made to hold the end in place.

Next week, I will show you more of the projects I'm doing for the party.  I have some fun things planned that I hope will make this my sister's best birthday ever!  Have a great week!

Learning to App-ly Myself!

Last week I took a mini vacation to Florida and found myself staying with my nephew, Charlie, and his girlfriend, Arielle.  Charlie set me up with two apps for my IPad - Sketchbook Pro and Paper 53..  Oh my gosh!  They have rocked my world!  Having colors and various brushes and pens and endless paper in the tip of my finger is magical!  I've decided to show you the various stages of my leaning how to use the apps - technology never being easy for me.  I feel like I'm getting better with it, though there's a long way to go but I  am almost ready to experiment with some other buttons I haven't used yet.

Little Bunny Foo Foo apologizing to the field mouse was my favorite so far!



A quick sketch over breakfast for Valentines Day.



This was my sketch on the airplane going home, a nod to me and my sisters.  I didn't even finish it because, quite frankly, my older sister in the middle isn't frumpy at all, and my baby sister on the right does not actually have a head the size of a dinner plate!  Still on the learning curve, but I like the lights and shadows of my little sister's top and the pattern on the skirt.



I was practicing doing hair in this one, which is the only thing I really like about it.  Not quite sure why I decided to have her drinking from a bottle, but somewhere in my head I saw her as a mermaid.  I occurred to me that it must be very frustrating trying to drown your sorrows when you live underwater...



This one was from the Paper 53 app.  My first in Florida.  My nephew, Charlie, Arielle and I sat in their back yardwith a glass of wine and a fire in the fire pit and all drew pictures together.  Paper 53 doesn't have alot of bells and whistles like the Sketch program does, but it's perfect for quick and simple journal sketches to be refined later. 



I made my sister, Sandy, email this photo to me of one of her recent paintings.  I just love how creative she is!



Another Sandy painting that I made her send me to share with you all.  Isn't it gorgeous?

 So, as I sit here finishing up this post, I can hear everyone having breakfast.  Charlie and Arielle suprised Sandy with a quick trip up here this weekend and we had the whole family came over last night!  Laura (the non-big headed baby sis) and her husband, John, Laura's son Thomas and his family, Sandy, Charlie, Arielle and my family.  All but Laura and John spent the night.  I am so blessed with such a wonderful group of people and I love that we have these times together.  Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Good morning everyone!  This weekend I find myself basking in the warm sunshine of Florida!  An unexpected visit with my nephew and his lovely girlfriend.  I hope everyone is keeping safe with the big storm in the northeast and I will post next week!

Cake Boss!

My nephew recently asked me if we would mind if he and his wife hosted my great-niece's 2nd birthday party at our house.  I was so excited!  After raising two boys, I finally get to be involved in a pink, sparkly, fluffy little GIRL Minnie Mouse party!!  I'm not sure he actually finished his question before I said YES!!  I offered to do the cake and spent the next few days watching Cake Boss. 

Here is my humble first try at using fondant icing (a type of icing that you can roll out and drape over the cake so it forms a smooth finish - you can buy it pre-made at a craft store), and creating a Rice Krispie treat sculpture! 

First step is to make the Rice Krispie treats.  Second step is to spray a non-stick cooking spray on your hands (front and back because you are reaching into the pan and the Rice Krispies will annoyingly stick to the back of your hand if they aren't covered).  Start molding the pieces of the sculpture.

The head.

Adding the ears.

Her dress

Big shoes.

Can you see Minnie yet?

Here's a little lesson I learned.  Keep the pieces separated until they set.  I attatched her head to the body and the Krispie treats sort of settled a little, the result being her head was lower than I wanted.

Next, melt a bag of Candy Melts (also found at craft stores) and cover the sculpture with it.  It took a while because it had to set before I could turn her over, but I put her in the fridge to speed up the process.

Using a hand held grater, "file" down the candy melts to make a smooth finish.  I saw this online and it does make the fondant lay much smoother on the sculpture.

Filing a smoth finish after the candy melt covering had hardened.

Now to cover her in fondant.   I purchased both black and white fondant, then tinted some of the white with red food dye to make the pink dress and shoes.  To make the skin tone of her face, I used two drops red food dye, 2 drops yellow food dye and 1 drop green.

Making the skin tone fondant.

For the cake itself, I rolled out some white fondant and separately, some black.  Then I used a pizza cutter to make stripes from the black and I rolled them onto the white to make a zebra stripe.  If you search this on Youtube as I did, there are some great tutorials.  Make sure you keep the fondant covered in wax paper so it doesn't dry out while you are making your design.

A rectangle cake, a round cake and a cupcake for the top.

Two oreo cookies for the ears and a bow (the only non-edible item on the cake because I ran out of the fondant)

For the outside of the house, I purchased a pack of black plastic plates at the party store for $6 - I used my handy stencil maker to burn a hole in each, then connected them with string and added a bow - voila, Minnie Mouse ears hiding in the bushes coming up my path!

Have I mentioned how much I love my stencil maker?

I lined the path with Minnie ears.

Lastly, was the mantle.  Loose batting covering some twinkle lights and a bag of Pink pom-poms made a sweet glowing decoration.  A big bow in the middle finished it off.  I did receive alot of complements on my hot pink disney candles.  I didn't have the heart to tell anyone I had just wrapped my old candles in pink card stock and added three circles for Minnie and some stickers.  There are battery operated tealights that are perfect for this - just cut the card stock slightly longer than the candle and drop one in the top - warm glow and no problem with fires! 

It was a fantastic party!  The birthday girl had a great time and I think everyone enjoyed themselves!  After the party, we all ate the Minnie sculpture - there's something very cool about making a temporary, edible decoration.  I will be doing more of these, I'm sure!  Have a great week everyone!