BubbaChic

Cat House

I came across this wonderful post last week and immediately forwarded it to my hubby at work...at last, proof that you can add a safe outdoor area for cats that isn't a complete eyesore!

I have been badgering Jay for a couple of years to make my kitties a place they could sit outside in safety.

After seeing the post by 'Cookoo for design' he agreed to make one (yay!!)

I constructed a very detailed drawing of what I wanted and he set to work!

There is still one more piece of wood to add to the front and then the whole thing needs staining, but we were far too eager to see what the kitties thought of it.

They love it! I was woken up at 7am by Maddy asking if she could open the window to let the cats out, as they were all sat there waiting!

I love the idea of extending it later on and adding tunnels to another bigger cat house...oh the possibilities!!

 

 

Mothers Day Thumbprint Necklaces

I saw this post on Monday and thought it was just the cutest Mother's Day gift of all time (fantastic blog too, very real-life, with a splash of humor!)

Maddy and Josh's teachers agreed. So yesterday I spent the morning up at the school::

 

48 little pairs of thumbs later, we have our own little collection of heart necklaces.

 

Josh holding his class necklaces!

The turned out super cute and I am excited to drop them off to the teachers this morning!

Wanna see something else that is super cute??

Mr B's latte heart on my coffee this morning! :o)

 

 

Angry Birds Quilt

Although, strictly speaking, this is not the finished product...I had to snap some photos of this quilt now to try and catalog the process. You see my version of an Angry Bird quilt (where you just add a few of the yellow triangle type birds to this design) is faaaar different to my Son and Husbands idea of an angry bird quilt...

I got talked through the Angry Bird game (by both of them) explaining which ones were fast and needed to look like they were flying, which ones were in fact bombs and didin't need to look like they moved, which ones had pained expressions...you get the picture...

So today in between running backwards and forwards to the school and taking my girl out for lunch after her 'Celebration of learning' production. I will be adding more birds...and piggies...and all the other stuff they told me about, so that, hopefully we will have a Birthday gift to give at the party tonight to the Birthday Boy (who is turning 7 and an Angry Birds fan)

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts - Finish it up Friday

Confessions of a Fabric Addict - Can I get a whoop whoop!

UPDATE:: Finally finished!! With 40 mins to go!!

I ended up ripping out the first two birds and re-doing them in fleece!

I was going to back it in minky, but then I came across this super cute fleece which I thought was very appropriate!

Just enough time left to dive in the shower and get going!

EDITED TO ADD: Blue Bird added (along with a quilt label on the back)

 

Little Brown Bags

There has been plenty of quilting in the parts over the last few days and I am hoping to get my first teachers quilt top finished today (ready for the hand embroidery to start) However, whilst I finish that off, I realised I had a little project that I didn't share...I had to come up with a cute gift wrap recently that could be used for 30ish gifts...in a short space of time.

The answer? Washi tape, doiley's and brown lunch sacks

Cheap, cute and all the supplies are readily available...perfect.

and did you know you can now get washi tape at Michaels (and probably Hobby Lobby too)..bingo!

 

Hair Accessories Organiser

Another non-sewing related finished project, I am on a roll this week!

There are still a good few drawers in this house, that were filled temporarily when we very first moved in - and have never really been organised. 2 drawers in the lounge were a living testament to this, both filled with a messy jumble of Maddy's hair accessories. Yesterday, when hunting through them for a simple pink bow, i'd had all I could take - they needed sorting.

I have been meaning to make Maddy a simply bow organiser for ages, something to hold a few ribbons that we could clip her bows and clips onto, it just never happened. But motivated by my need to sort and organise I remembered a frame I picked up for a few dollars at a flea market.

My original intention with the frame was to staple chicken wire to the back and hang it in the playroom where we could peg different artwork to it, but all of a sudden it seemed perfect for this new task.

I went ahead and stapled chicken wire to it and ran two ribbons down the right side to clip all the bows/clippies onto.

Little hooks (from Lowes) were screwed down either side to hold Maddy's necklaces and bracelets

and I used plastic hooks from ikea to hold other hairbands and accessories.

I covered a large 'rolled oats' container in pretty scrapbook paper and hung it with a ribbon to hold all of the headbands neatly

and used some larger steel hooks from Ikea to hand her purses and hats. The little lady was incredibly pleased with her newly organised hair accessories and enjoyed helping me hang all of her items! and I now have 2 empty drawers in the living room which can be filled with something more appropriate!

 

The chore chart

Organisation continues in this house, a little spring cleaning. Part of that involves continued help from my newly motivated children.

Eager to continue along this line of motivation (and make sure they know this change is not fleeting) I spent the last few days coming up with a magnetic chore chart. One that can change with our needs and be added to.

There is plenty of chore chart eye-candy on pinterest and after finding a sheet of 10" x 24" metal at Lowes, I decided to try and make my own. I sprayed the metal with a white primer and then used my cricut machine to cut the words onto vinyl.

After attaching the words, I coated the whole thing in a clear polyurathane varnish to make it more durable. The discs are just wood discs from Hobby Lobby (25 pack for $2.99) with magnets hot glued to the back (50 for $6.99)

I added the colour coding so that the kids would know which tasks had to be done each day (blue) and those that could earn them a little more pocket money (white) the deal is that all the blue tasks have to be completed by the end of the day in order to any extra chores they have done.

So far the kids are following it well. It is a week today that the new chores have been established and I am happy to say the change has been very positive!

 

Quilt for Nathan

I finally managed to finish up a quilt for my new nephew - Nathan and pop it in the mail to England!

I used the 'Zen Chic' pattern by Orange Brick

and found an amazing selection of perfect little boy prints in the 'Backyard Baby' fabric line by Michael Miller

I have little pieces of fabric left to make him some matching bibs and burp cloths, but I knew I couldn't wait any longer to get his gift to him (I am way behind anyways!)

I cranked up the embroidery machine to embroider his name on..

and I just hope he is not allergic to cats!

 

The Cake and Resources (Lego Star Wars Party, part three)

Lego Star Wars Party part one here and part two here

Onto the cake...Josh seems to have a penchant for Boba Fett, so I decided I should try and make him one as his cake. I stumbled upon this amazing blog and got to see, step by step how this mama made her lego cake! Perfect!

This was the first time for me to try and do a cake this detailed. Last years cake, although it looked compex, it was easier because it was just tiny little details all put together. This was larger with more room for error and more space to see the errors and lumps and bumps. I also think that I could have hidden more errors if I had rolled the fondant thicker. BUT I only discovered this whilst running out of time and running out of fondant!

The head and body of the cake were simple sponge cakes, I started to shape the head to be represntative of Boba's helmet and then used rice crispy treats to build it up in places:

Every part of the sponge had to be covered in frosting prior to placing the fondant one (to get it to stick and stay in place)

I used this recipe to make the rice crispy treats to make the legs. After shaping the legs and one hand, I ran out of rice crispy treats and had to send Mr B to walmart to get more ingredients!

After whipping up another massive batch, I shaped the arms and hands and was just putting the fondant on the last arm when the guests started arriving...phew.

I am not a huge fan of this cake - all I see is inaccuracies, BUT the Birthday boy loved it...and apparently so did his guests, and that is all that matters..

The Lego Links:

Lego party ideas here

Lego party printables

Party ideas - including amazing Lego shirt

Other cool lego cakes can be found here

Lego crayons - ready made, at a GREAT PRICE

Fantastic Lego Star Wars Soaps

Great custom invitations

Lego Minifig Mould

Lego Pens

Party City supplies (you can also find these at Walmart, just in-store but not online)

The Lego Star Wars Party (part two)

Lego Star Wars Party (part one) can be found here

The games

Noodle light sabers - these were a bit hit (literally) and super easy to make. I bought dollar store pool noodles, cut them in half and then used blue and silve duct tape to decorate and make a handle. Maddy then helped me draw on buttons and gadgets on the handle in black sharpie.

Guess the number of legos

Pass the parcel - we initiated Joshua's peers with this very english party game. Entirely Mr. B's idea and was a HUGE hit with the kiddies. I found some very cute pens in Toys R Us to use as prizes and wrapped each one in around 8 different layers of wrapping paper. The game begins with each child passing around the parcel to music and when the music stops, the child gets to unwrap just one layer of paper. They, of course have no idea how many layers there are.

They got the hang of it pretty quick and started hanging on to the parcel for as long as they could. As soon as Mr B enforced the 'one second rule' (hold onto it for longer than one second and you are out...heartless I tell you!) then the game went much more smoothly!

Lego star wars bingo, free printable available here

Find the lego man - a lego take on a traditional hunting game, that kept them occupied for all of 5 minutes - and I am all about keeping kids occupied when there are 18 in my house!

The prizes - lego kits, the kiddies got these as soon as they got a Bingo in Star Wars bingo. I picked up these kits when they were on sale in Toy R Us (last summer!) for about $8 per bag of 8, but they are also still available on Amazon, although their price seems to have sky-rocketed

For the 'hunt the lgo man' and 'guess the number of legos' game I made up these cute buckets of treats from Party City.

The lego favors went down very well and kept the little guys busy for quite a while (and the big guys too)

The party bags

After getting the Lego man ice tray - I decided to try my hand at making my own crayons. Although kinda time consuming they worked really well and I thought they would make the cutest gifts in party bags - along with a coloring book:

The images for the coloring book (and great directions and other ideas) are from here

Each child also got to take home a noodle light saber and the lego kit that they had built earlier, I am sure parents were very grateful that their little cake-filled boys could take the light sabers home!

The cake - was a mission in itself, so I will leave that and some excellent party link ideas until later! The Cake and resources here

The Lego Star Wars Party (part one)

This party has been in the planning for quite a while now. My boy knew what he wanted and it was my job to translate that into a cool and affordable party.

The invitations and t-shirts

The amazing invitations were from here, they were super fast and very affordable. I begged asked for an RSVP for all the boys attending so that I could make them each a lego head t-shirt, which was put in their backpacks at school the day before the party. I didn't realise just how excited that would make them! I think that helped build up the anticipation for the party!

I bought the packs of 'Fruit of the Loom' t-shirts from Target (5 for $8.50) making all 17 t-shirts for this party very affordable. I think I spent $35-40 on party bags for the birthday party last year - and think these are waaaaay cuter! My trusty embroidery machine was working overtime for a few days to make up all the shirts. Although this was initially meant to be a 'boys only' party (Josh's rules) he later announced that Maddy could have one friend over...which then turned into three!

I bought the pink t-shirts for the girls and added a bow to the lego head, just for extra girly-ness (thanks for my friend Erika for the great bow idea!)

The decorations

There are some lego star wars party supplies out there. I got some plates and napkins and a banner from Party City and then promptly found them a lot cheaper in Walmart - d'oh! I mixed these up with some banners from the dollar store and printed out lego men to stick on them.

I used the free Lego fontto make up some posters which were put on the windows, so guests arriving could see which house was the 'party house' note: once downloaded I opened up Word to make my posters and the Lego font only seemed to work when in capitols.

We set up a snack table with chips and drinks on it and I used our ikea table on top of it to display all of Joshy's lego star wars ships. Although he wanted his guest to see all of them, he was a little scared about 18 children playing with them, hence why it was nice to have them on display but out of reach to little hands.

The Lego head was a gift for his birthday and is actually a lego sorter...so cool!

 

The bathroom even got a little Lego makeover, in the form of a new soap:

The storm trooper soap was a hit! This lady was wonderful to work with and rushed my soap order to make sure it was here on time :o)

Talking of Etsy, we also have a Boba Fett custom stamp coming for the 'Thank You' cards

I set up a backdrop in the hall, to snap some photos of the guests. We put my camera on a tripod so it was fast and easy to snap some photos of the party-goers and then they could get back to playing! My original idea was to do a 'photo booth' type set up with props for the boys to mess around with, but I ran out of time!

The Games, Party favors and cake will have to wait for tomrrow...this post is already toooo long and I am not even half way through!!

Part Two available here

Part Three - The cake and resources available here