Superhero Birthday Party, Take 2

My second born turned five recently (sniff, sniff) and requested a superhero party to celebrate. Having learned some things from the first time around, I resolved to make this superhero party a little easier to manage.

LIttle Chefs Party

Shortly before Christmas, my firstborn celebrated his seventh birthday. I'm still kinda shell-shocked by it because I can still remember celebrating his first birthday as if it was yesterday and I'm not really sure where all the time has gone. Who knows whether or not he'll even want mommy to throw him corny birthday parties anymore in a few years? Every new year for him brings unknown waters and new territories; being the first child, he'll always be our parenting test subject.

Yes, that's PvZ on his apron... he's never played but his friends have! (Sorry for the bad picture... don't know what happened to the original picture, just took another one with my phone when I noticed today, Jan16/15)

DIY Halloween: The Cheshire Cat How-To, Part Two

You came back for more after my long-winded Part One? Thanks for the interest! The first part of this tutorial in which I go over how I modified an existing (free!) dinosaur costume into a cat body is here. And the original, unmodified costume pattern is available here.

The hood part of the costume is where I made the most changes. Nothing mind-blowing or super innovative. Just adding a lining so that details could be added onto the hood or, in the case of my modified Buddy the Dinosaur costume, teeth could be inserted into the mouth opening.

DIY Halloween: The Cheshire Cat How-To, Part One

I know it's almost Christmas, but better late than never... and when I say never, I really mean never. This post might be lost to the abyss of mommy-brain for-EVER. So without further ado, the final Down the Rabbit Hole Halloween post... part one.

So here's a two-part, how-to post on making a full body animal costume by modifying a great free costume available from PBS.org --> Buddy the Dinosaur Costume. The first part will be just dealing with the body and then I'll write a separate post for the head.

DIY Halloween: The Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit

I'm proud to say that this Halloween I only spent about $25 on new materials/accessories. Everything else came from previous projects (which were probably also bought on the cheap!) or was clothing items from the kids' closets. Of course, as my hubby always points out, that doesn't account for the time spent in making those costumes and I have to admit that I expended far more effort on this Mad Hatter costume than I had originally planned. 

DIY Halloween: Simple and Quick Alice in Wonderland

Note to self: Never ever make promises that have dates or times attached to them. Like saying I'll be somewhere with my four chronologically-indifferent children at a specific time. Or saying that this post would be done a week ago. Or promising myself to start Halloween sewing earlier. The end result is always that I'm rushing up until the last minute and sometimes miss my deadline completely.

This year, I started out with a bang and high hopes. The fabric was bought and washed at the beginning of October, making an early Halloween costume debut entirely possible. But as my young children slowly become older children, I'm starting to get a taste of how chaotic scheduling and managing children's calendars can be. So between birthday parties and Chinese school and weddings and Thanksgiving, the costumes were just barely done in time for our annual photo shoot with friends.

DIY Halloween: Down the Rabbit Hole We Go...

How many more years of matching costumes will my kids allow me? I don't know. My eldest is now almost seven and surely will tire of mommy's cute family costumes soon. In fact, I was worried that this year was already the beginning of store-bought, licensed costumes since their first costume requests were for Tranformers and various Marvel comics characters.

Happy belated Canada Day and it's been a year since I've blogged...

It's been at least a year since I've devoted time to this blog and much has happened since then, most notably...

Yes, our "little" family of five has now become a family of six. Life is busy, happy and full.

And since I'm feeling ambitious, I figured now would be as good a time as any to once again attempt the plunge back into chronicling our household adventures.

Here's a short visual recap of ten moments from the past year that I thought to photograph but hadn't the inclination (or time ;) ) to write about:

On a Rainy Hallowe'en...

I've been on a bit of a hiatus lately owing to a lot of changes in our home lives... back to work (for me), back to school (preschool for the middle son and grade one for the eldest) and a new bun in the oven! Been tired and sick and trying to figure out how to juggle school, the midwife, work, swimming, Chinese school, etc. and still find time for my few pursuits and blogging.

Anyway, three months have gone by and I'm feeling a bit more like myself again and I am game for bringing this blog back up to snuff in the few months left before the next child hits our household. So here's a look at what's on tap for tonight's soggy trick or treating and I'll follow up later with some pictures of the costumes in the making.

I had a request for dinosaur costumes this year and because they are still subject to my will, I interpreted that to mean Dinosaur Train.

The general pattern for the costume can be found on the PBS website and I made a few modifications to make the hood more realistic.

That pattern also served as my template to create Tiny Pteranodon and Mr. Conductor (seen above without his signature uniform and below with all the pieces together).

Hopefully, hubby can get some nice pictures of the kids tonight before they step out and get soaked. Happy Hallowe'en to all!

A Super Fifth Birthday!

Like some kind of clockwork child, my eldest son is now into superheroes.
His current favourite? Batman.
Why? "He has a cape and a mask and spiky things on his arms."

Ahh, accessories. Men love them too. Just in a different way. (For instance, my husband said he always wanted to be a hockey goalie because of the cool pads and gear... but that's a story for another day.) Today's story is about my son's super fifth birthday.

DIY Hallowe'en: The Fit for a Queen Top

I can't believe I finished the kids' costumes early enough this year to make something for myself. It helped that my costume took less than two hours to put together (including drafting!) and I was able to put it together along with DH's crown (the only thing he would consent to wearing) on the morning before our planned pumpkin patch outing. Actually this post took longer to write than the costume construction... although that's partly because we ran out of 8.5 x 11 paper for me to draw the template on [palm-forehead].

I'm going to include a tutorial and my pattern with a few notes:

• I am about 5'7" and usually a size 10 for dresses and a size L for shirts at Old Navy/Gap/Banana Republic.
• I am wearing a white, v-neck shirt underneath.
• I used crushed velvet (very stretchy), so I basically cut and sized without any darts or other things that you may need if you choose a fabric with no stretch to it.
• I didn't put a huge bell bottom on my sleeves for convenience' sake, but if this top had been for an adult masquerade party (i.e. no squirmy babes in arms) then I would definitely have made the sleeves more elaborate.
• Another modification that would also have worked for the sleeves would be to have fitted forearms/cuffs and a big puffed shoulder/upper arm.

So without further ado....

Hallowe'en 2012: Royalty Costume Round-up

This year's jumping off point for Hallowe'en was knights and princes(ses). And after much waiting for better weather and lighting, I finally have some decent pictures of the costumes in action.

DIY Hallowe'en: Princess of the Autumnal Forests & Bonus Tutorial

I still remember a time when being a princess didn't entail having a specific name, hair colour, dress and prince.  Being a princess simply meant that you dressed beautifully, behaved elegantly, wore a crown and bossed your little brothers around :) Whenever I wanted to be a princess, I just wore my twirliest dress and taped a zig-zaggity piece of paper into a circle around my head. Now with my own brood yearning to recreate ye ol' ladies and knights of yore, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to bring back the old-fashioned princess costume. So here's a super easy princess costume for any little girl whose mommy feels a little nauseated and disturbed by the Disney Princess franchise.

DIY Hallowe'en: The Felt Princess Headband Tutorial

Baby headbands are too cute, aren't they? I used to think they were more or less ornamental, or at the best, they simply served to distinguish a girl baby from a boy baby. However, now I have a baby with fine, sparse hair that is growing long and scraggly, but not growing thick enough to be held back by any hair clip, and I am beginning to understand that hairbands may serve a purpose.

So scratch using a tiara for her Hallowe'en costume because it would not have any hair to be clipped onto. And ditto for the classic circular crown because her crown definitely needs some kind of elastic to keep it anchored on her constantly moving head. The only headgear left is the venerable head/hairband.

This one was particularly easy to pull together because it consists of only three pieces and some fancy cutting.

DIY Hallowe'en: Knight's Costume/Tunic Tutorial

Lucky me! I went to Fabricland and a roll of crushed blue velvet was on sale. None of the other colours or styles were... so I'm not sure if I was the beneficiary of a lucky mistake. In any case, I'll take it because it was so perfect for my little knights' tunics.

DIY Hallowe'en: Felt and Cardboard Knights' Shields Tutorial

My sons have requested to be a knight and a prince-knight for Hallowe'en this year. You can't have a knight without a sword and a shield. This one is pretty straightforward to make, especially if you've already made the felt sword with the replaceable insert.

DIY Hallowe'en: Felt and Cardboard Sword Tutorial

The cardboard sword. A staple of every boy's childhood. Easy, cheap, not very durable. Here's my shot at making the cardboard sword a bit more tolerant of the bumps and bruises of childhood fencing.

We've tried heavy corrugated cardboard, thick wrapping paper rolls, doubling up and taping down - but nothing has ever solved the inevitable bending and breaking of our many cardboard swords. So I began thinking about making a sword out of an etsy-staple... felt.

Of course it would still need some kind of reinforcement and thus the felt sword with a replaceable cardboard insert was born. Here's the tutorial:

DIY Hallowe'en: Felt Sword with a Cardboard Insert

Do your kids love swords? My boys do. So I am constantly saving wrapping paper rolls and other strong, sturdy pieces of cardboard to feed their sword-fighting appetites. Now that the two boys are getting older and play-fighting has become a daily occurrence, I have come under the constant assault of, "Mommy, can you make us some swords?"

Of course, there has not been a single sword that I have made or that has been bought that has survived beyond two or three play sessions. Inevitably, every sword (including, once, a little friend's plastic sword [heartfelt sorry!]) breaks or bends or somehow becomes irrecoverably damaged. There's always the possibility of wooden play swords, but I think I would have a hard time explaining to the ER doctor where my young sons got wooden swords to pummel each other to bits with.

A Quick Boy's Gift

As a mother of three (children :P) sending her son to a birthday party hosted by another mother of three, I am very careful about what to send as a birthday gift. 

Having three children means that over the course of three children's birthdays, Christmases and other occasions that grandparents deem gift-worthy, we have accumulated enough toy/clothes/books to keep our children happy. Don't get me wrong, we appreciate the kind intentions of friends and family assuming we need three times as much of everything - but we simply do not have enough house to store all the transient items of childhood. Also, we believe that our children are already lucky to have so much and part of our world-view is that anything we do not absolutely need would be much better off left in currency form and used towards helping those in need.

For birthday boy M, I asked mom what he would like and she simply replied that M would be happy with any gift. My husband and I decided on a gift card, but what of the birthday boy and our son? Surely, no kindergartener gets joy out of giving or receiving an envelope with a gift card in it?

Cooking with Kids: Accessorizing with Felt Flowers

I had a disappointed customer the other day. This chef's hat actually elicited a frown from its little recipient because she expected me to make her another pretty in pink concoction (like her birthday dress), but instead she got a barely pink, mostly (gasp) white chef's hat.

So I had to improvise with some of the materials I had on hand for a quick accessorizing fix.

Felt flowers are so fast and so easy and they don't require much material. Here's a great tutorial on the basic technique from papernstitch.

I made one with a ruffled edge, jagged edge and one cut with the pinking shears and attached them to a spare piece of plastic that I had lying around.

After I thread a safety pin through the plastic, the flowers were ready to accessorize the unappreciated white hat.

And voila, I attained four year-old girly-girl approval!