Blingtastic Flip Flops

Well, my daughter's birthday party is over. What a relief! I worked hard planning, preparing, and creating for 4 months and it turned out dreamy, but now I am ready for a little break. Some time to work on quick, easy projects where I get some instant gratification!!! I have Christmas presents to work on and a huge cross stitch in progress I could work on, but I said heck with all that for a day and I enjoyed a fun and easy project!

I really envy this gorgeous pair of Swarofski flip flops my best friend has. They are super fancy. I couldn't afford to buy them at around $75 a pop, and I wasn't sure if I had the talent to make them myself. So, I opted to make a much more simple version of some blingy flip flops and see how that went before investing in better supplies and attempting a pattern with colors.

I got a $1 pair of flip flops, some E6000 adhesive, a pair of tweezers for picking up stones, some assorted brushes and foam pieces to smooth the adhesive on, and 2 packs of 7mm rhinestones. I got the rhinestones on sale and have tons of glue left. Altogether what I actually used cost me less than $5 to do these!!!

I finished them in I'd say about an hour. I wasn't paying super close attention to the time. It wasn't too hard at all. I am pleased with the way they turned out, and am feeling more confident that maybe it would be worthwhile to invest in better flip flops and stones and try something fancier in the future. For now, I am super proud of my cheap and easy blingtastic flip flops! *LOL*

The Garden I Made

Well, it's been a lot of seperate projects that came together to make a beautiful garden wall that was a decoration for my daughter's very first birthday party! I am just THRILLED with the way it turned out.

I took the tissue paper flowers that I made and glued them to 3 poster boards with tacky glue. I drew the stems and leaves with markers. I cut the grass out of green poster board. I used the foam ladybugs I had made earlier as part of the garden.

The sign was made very easily using my Cricut Expressions that my husband bought me for Mother's Day, and some super cute ladybug stickers!

It felt wonderful to see it all come together. I am certainly very proud of what I was able to create! All the hard work certainly paid off and I'd do it again in a heartbeat!

My First Adventure in Cake Decorating

Well, I knew the day was coming. I've been wanting to learn to decorate cakes for awhile now. I had purchased this ladybug cake pan several months back in preperation for Tiffy's first birthday, which is tomorrow! So, today was the day to finally try my hand. I think it went pretty darn well overall. My hand is so cramped up I don't know how I'm typing, and the details are a bit crooked, but hey, that gives it "personality" right?!

I'm pretty proud of myself. It feels so good to be doing all this myself and putting that love into something for my daughter, it is so much more personal and special than a store bought cake! I look forward to working on my skills and doing birthday cakes for my kids for many years to come!

It was my husband's idea to add the text to the bottom of the cake box. I thought it was a great idea! I didn't want to write on the cake, so I was thinking of a little sign put in with a toothpick or something, but I liked his idea better!

Tissue Paper Flowers!

This is a wonderful project I did and really enjoyed! I was actually suprised at the cost of tissue paper though! *LOL* I usually buy it on discount at closeout stores and such, and I was a little blown away by the cost, but of course it was well worth it to do such a neat project with!

I needed 3 packs of tissue paper, all solid colors, some jewelry wire (I improvised on the instructions) and scissors to complete this project. The basic instructions can be found from Martha Stewart, but I'll tell you what I did differently. http://www.marthastewart.com/how-to/tissue-paper-pom-poms-how-to?lnc=bf89cf380e1dd010VgnVCM1000005b09a00aRCRD&pgType=intro&rsc=howTo_tab_intro#menu_container

I cut my sheets 10 by 15 instead. She was making very large hanging things, I just wanted them to go up on the wall flat. By making them this size I was able to get 2 flowers out of each color of tissue paper. As I already mentioned I just used jewelry wire for the center, I had it on hand and it worked fine. Another lady online had mentioned using pipe cleaners instead an I suppose that would work fine also. The other major difference is that I only fluffed mine to one side! I got beautiful, full flowers this way and one side is flat. I will show you what I did with them in the next post, and it is pretty darn neat!

They worked up pretty quickly, but I will say they made a mess with a lot of tissue scraps everywhere! *LOL* It made my hands hurt a bit fluffing them out, but they were well worth the work for the finished result. I did find myself wishing I had a much better pair of scissors also! Maybe sometime I'll try the larger round ones and hang them.

My Little Foam Ladybugs

These adorable little creatures were created a few months back. I had a couple different inspirations. I had seen rocks painted to look like ladybugs, and when I asked for ladybug ideas online one woman shared she'd decorated bowls like ladybugs with googly eyes and pipe cleaner antennas. So, I sort of combined the two ideas into this fun project.

I purchased styrofoam in egg shapes, and then cut them in half. I just used regular craft paint. It was easier to dab the paint on for the initial colors.


The eyes are just adhered with tacky glue, and still holding strong! The antennas were just poked through the foam and have held tightly.


One of the BEST things about making these was that the little imperfections really don't seem to show in a bad way! The spots are all kind of different, the antennas don't match perfectly, etc. Those things actually seemed to help give these little critters more character! I just love projects like that! These were pretty quick to do to! I would think it would be a great project to do with kiddos!



They are really lightweight and I have incoorporated them into a tissue paper flower garden that I created. The others will probably be set up around the food. I would say they wouldn't be a good fit for an outdoor party unless they were secured with something!


I think that next Easter my husband and I may be painting some of these styrofoam eggs and creating decorations out of them. I'm not sure what yet, but this was so fun and easy I can't wait to do something similar again!

Ladybug Invitations

Well, my daughter's first birthday is next Saturday! I have been planning for it and making things for several months. I thought I'd share the ladybug invitations I made several months ago. I didn't have the blog then, so I'll post 'em now!

I used a Martha Stewart punch to make the ladybug design. Premade white cards, red and black cardstock, large black brads, a "You're Invited" stamp, and a couple colors of sticker tape.

It was really a pretty straightforward project. The big challenge was getting everything straight! I assure you, I failed miserably at that! *LOL* I need to get some tools that help me line things up better!

I will be posting a LOT more photos soon of the other wonderful things I've been working on for her party! So... stay tuned!

Some handmade gift goodness!

My best friend just had a birthday. Her main gift was a personalized, engraved compact mirror for her purse. I just thought it was so pretty, and would be somewhat practical too. I also took the time to decorate a gift bag for her, and also handmake her a bookmark and card. She's a huge Eeyore fan, so I went with that theme!

Everything was pretty simple to make. The gift bag was just decorated with stickers, and I used a scrap of paper to create the tag. I think the keys were finding stickers that were an appropriate size and just arranging them carefully. This was super easy, and I recommend trying it next time you have a gift to give! It made it so much more personal, and like I said, it wasn't that hard at all! There are such a great variety of stickers out there you're sure to find something great!!

The card was made using a scrapbook paper with Pooh and friends, some fabric ribbon, and a button. I actually sewed the button to the fabric ribbon, and then adhered the fabric ribbon to the paper. The "Happy Birthday" is stamped on, and I had some blue paper on hand I used to accent it. Boy, I love having things on hand!!! Otherwise there are just too many things to buy at a time to make one item! I love to get large stacks of papers in solid colors just for occasions such as this!

The bookmark was made cutting out individual squares from the paper I bought. Pretty easy! I cut the bookmark, cut the squares, glued them on, and then I laminated the bookmark and trimmed it. I was really glad to have my laminator handy for this project!!! I don't use it all that often, but for things like this it makes them a lot more durable and really seals everything in for you. I don't have to worry that the corners of the images will come up while she using it or anything.