While I'm doing tutorials, I realized I didn't post on my sorting hat fiasco from our Harry Potter Party. First of all, this was a last minute party set up and then I became obsessed with doing a sorting hat. Why, considering I hate to sew, I do not know. I just knew I had these old leather jackets that I'd gotten for free somewhere because they were damaged. I thought this would work great. So, I made a form from newspaper, cut out the leather...

Then I pinned the leather to kind of get an idea of how this would work. I thought it looked pretty good and so i started sewing up the back but then I had to cut out the front piece to accommodate the curve in the hat. There was probably a better way of doing that, but it worked out because it gave me a more defined brow area.

I then added the brim. I can't really give instructions on that because I was just guessing on how that's done.
I did the sewing by hand, which was no easy feat, but it still ended up being the easy part. The hard part was figuring out how to make it stay stiff enough to stand up. I tried starching it like there was no tomorrow, that didn't work. I tried stuffing it, but it was a fine balance trying to make it look wrinkled and old with stuffing inside.

Finally, I sewed some creases here and there, stuffed a little then just propped it up underneath with a CD spindle. It still wasn't what I wanted but after stressing over it, I through my hands up and it was fine.


Of course, it didn't fit my husband who I'd made it for, but it fit me. So, I didn't have sizing down either. Still, I feel it went pretty well for someone who was winging it the whole time.

I had mentioned before that I would give a few more details on how we made our volcano for our son's Dino B-day party (click link to see more pics). Mind you, I say "we" loosely because it was mainly my husband's work, though I did do some painting.

Basically, he had a cardboard tube with a plastic cup at the top. He then started building the volcano by wrapping newspaper to add bulk without wasting too much foam. He then covered the whole thing with spray insulation foam, which balloons up to what you see in the picture below.


He sprayed it with brown matte spray, but it's wet here so it looks much shinier than it dries. Still it was too bland and so that's where I came in. I went over it with greens and black to break it up. He did the red and silver at top, not sure why he used the silver, but whatever.


To make it explode, he read it was about 2 tablespoons baking soda to every 1/2 cup of vinegar, but he said more baking soda produced better results. He also added a little dish soap to make it foamier and red food coloring.

Sorry, don't have a picture of it, I was too busy filming it. If we'd been outside I would have done the mentos with soda. I still plan on doing that though, when it gets warm again.

Now this Dexter inspired theme is what I call a party. I absolutely love Showtime's Dexter and I find this mix of horror and fine dining hi-larious!

Equally hi-larious and to go right along with decorating your stroller, why not decorate your car? Tip Junkie has a nice round up of different pics from the web.













Eddie Ross has a super simple bat napkin ring tutorial.

Creativity Portal has a good tutorial on making Hershey Nugget Candy Wrappers. Just think scary and add any scary image you want.

Okay, these band aids for "boo boos" could be handouts for people at the party, or just for your kids. They don't even have to be for Halloween, honestly, but I saw them and had to list them. I actually have some Dexter ones that they gave out to my husband's work. I didn't even think about stamping my own, but now I know. Thanks to Gets Bored Easily for the tip.

If you don't have a costume yet and you're freaking out, there are a lot of tutorials out there on some cool make-up effects. I really liked this one.

I am loving candy corns this year and apparently everyone else is too because I'm seeing them everywhere. I saw these Candy Corn Pom-Poms on Intimate Weddings. Don't know that they scream wedding to me, but party...yes!

Entertain Exchange has a good candy corn round up.

Speaking of seeing something everywhere, I've seen these Candy Bar Covers from Skip to My Lou several times now and can understand why...they're awesome!!!


Hey, don't forget the bathroom with these tastefully done Pumpkin Toilet Paper Covers from Blissfully Domestic

I saw this Stroller Fire Truck Costume from Free Kids Crafts and kicked myself for not thinking of this last year. Now my son's all about walking and probably wouldn't get in it.

It got me thinking of what other ones might be out there. Here's what I found:

Pig in a Barn from MapleTree. Oh I hate it when people are more creative than me. That's funny.

Mouse and Cheese by KiKis Things

Costume Page has a great list of costumes, some that suit strollers and some wheelchairs, which is a whole other area I never thought about.

For My Son's B-day, I decided to do a shirt for him that I thought was ingenious. His name is Jaxon, or "Jax"; so, I made this image:

Well, I hadn't done a T-shirt transfer before and ended up messing up a corner of the image. I then printed out some colored strips and created a little border. I thought it was a good save personally.

Well, my son's b-day was over the weekend and I thought I'd share some highlights:

My husband chalked dino prints and made some different direction signs (Bedrock, Jurassic Park, etc) to welcome our guests. This was a last minute idea so we didn't go to much trouble over it.

We went ahead and did the dino balloons that I posted on before. I loved the way they turned out!


My husband made an active volcano, which I plan on giving more of a detailed description in a post to come.

I did the dragon turned dino eggs from Dad Can Do out of Easter eggs and matte spray paint. We then decorated a box lid with plastic bags to try and contain the liquid when the volcano erupted. We spray painted the bags to look like camo.

I used drink holders to hold the silverware, complete with dino wraps I made and scrapbook paper cut to look like grass. I knew those decorative scissors would come in handy one day.

Okay, so then I decided to paper mache some giant bones. This turned out to be a horrible idea. It was too heavy when wet and ended up collapsing. So, I started over with newspaper wrapped around wood sticks. Then I taped it like nobody's business and painted. I would have aged it, but by that time I was ready to be done with that project. I cut leis to look like vines and topped off with 12 x 12 cardstock cut to look like leaves.

Just a side note, I tried to do the origami dinos and that is, along with paper mache, not my thing.

Cake wise, we had 3 again this year. This first one was the one I wanted, but I had my sister make it because I'm not a baker either. Here's the instructions from Family Fun. Note that my sister said the bones aren't as easy to do as it seems.

My mother-in-law made the other two. She spread coconut around with green frosting at the base. I thought that was a nice touch.

The frosting on these was amazing.

Anyway, that's the gist of it. I thought it went well. I originally had a lot more planned and probably would have stressed more over it had he been older, but this was good for his age I think. Of course, I know a 2 year old doesn't really care either way, but I like doing it.

Is it bad that I already know what I want to do for him next year?

It's that time again, my son, Jaxon's B-day. This year we're doing dinosaurs because he loves them. Here's some stuff I found:

Family Fun had this cool balloon idea that I think I'll use because, frankly, I like homemade things better than store bought (if you couldn't tell by now).

Tons of Dinosaur Printables @ Kaboose. I'm thinking I could blow them up and maybe do some wall art. Kaboose also has instructions for a super easy erupting volcano and Coffee Ground "Fossils"

You can get free downloadable 3-D paper crafts here.

I found these cute Thank You cards at Baby Face Design. She has a lot of cool party items for sell on her site.


I also found some dinosaur things, not necessarily for the party, but thought my son my like them anytime:

Free printable Dinosaur memory game. Just print, attach to some card stock or whatever and there you go.


FishGoth has some pretty involved origami dinosaurs (just click on pics for instructions).


I tried to find the perfect dino hats, but didn't have any luck. I did find this hat to the right that is pretty good, but I'm still looking to see if there's something better.

My son's b-day is coming up, so I have been on the lookout for some unique gifts and thought I'd share my finds:



Polliwalks- I love these!!! It's getting a little late in the year for them now; but next year, I'm getting some for sure.


Funky Moose (UK) sells these adorable " daysacks". They have a cow one and turtle one too, all so cute. They actually have a lot of cute things, but I'm not big on ordering toys on-line just because you can find cool toys everywhere. These bags are a different story. Thanks to Giver's log for the find. She has a whole article on neat backpacks.


Apparently, I like the bee theme because I am also drawn to Kidorable's bee umbrella. You've probably seen Kidorable rainwear and things around, but thought I should mention it for those who hadn't.