Build-a-Bat

Meet BatBoomer!

This project all came about on Saturday when I was out running errands and I stopped by the fabric store to pick up some supplies to help with Natalie's girl scout badges. Zander asked me "how come you do more creative crafts with Natalie?" A very valid question. So I asked what he would like to make and I came up with a fun idea that seemed to pique his interest. We were going to create a creature out of felt. When we got home I Googled ugly plushies and he was very inspired and quickly drew a creature of his own. This afternoon, I turned his drawing into a little plushy and he couldn't have been happier. I was just beaming on the inside because it has been a while since we have been able to connect like that. Dan is spending lots of quality time with him at Cub Scouts, but I haven't really felt like I have contributed much to his little world lately.

We worked together, cutting the shapes out and he was very good about speaking up if I cut something out that didn't match his vision. When everything was all cut out it was time to sew it all together. Zander said he liked it so far and hoped the sewing made it look good. He stood by me as I stitched it up on the sewing machine. (thankfully, it wasn't giving me fits like it normally does.) He got nervous when I turned everything right side out and there was a hole at the bottom for stuffing it. He thought I had decided to make it into a puppet, but was glad when I explained why it was open at the bottom. At any rate here is his bat! He loves it and has thanked me numerous times. "I've never made my own toy before...Well, you actually made it, but it looks just like my picture!"

I haven't been doing anything crafty lately to blog about because I have been extra busy getting my photography studio —Alyssa Ernst Photography— up and running!!!

Here is a link to the photography blog:




I'm getting ready to shoot Fairy Portraits soon...check out the photo blog for some of the latest and greatest.

Wall•E Birthday Invitation

Wow, it has really been a whirlwind of a week. Last weekend I was up to my eyeballs in fairy dust and butterfly wings and now I am switching gears and getting ready for my son's Wall•E party. Sunday night I was up late working on these invitations:

My son Zander really loves Wall•E so I wanted to come up with an invitation with a robot flavor. Many different ideas came to mind. I even thought of making the card out of sheets of tin, but then realized it would cost more to mail. I settled on this cool glittery black card stock from Doodlebug because it reminded me of outer space and all the sparkly stars in the sky. The Wall•E stickers are by Jolee's and the screw shaped brads were the store brand from Michaels. The information section was done on my computer using InDesign. It was fun to incorporate Zander's name in the style of Wall•E's logo.

Fairy Party

It's challenging to decorate with such a flowery theme in December because there's just not much available in the stores (unless you are looking for red and green.) I found this light up gerbera daisy garland at Amazon.com. I found the figurine in the centerpiece at the dollar store, the tea pot is one I have in my collection and the tea cups I purchased about 4 years ago at Birthdayexpress.com, but I haven't seen them lately.

The canopy is from our bed, so I just thumb-tacked it up to the ceiling and it was the perfect size. The table is a small table we use up in the playroom covered with a purple tablecloth and a couple yards of sparkly star organza fabric.

Sprinkling pixie dust on her friends as they arrived.

Our first activity was to make fairy wreaths. I wrapped the flowers around pipe cleaners using floral tape. 

Fairy nests (phylo dough "nests" filled with M&Ms)

Tinkerbell's cake. My idea was to use sparklers for candles, but the ones that I had on hand were not working at all, luckily I had these other long candles on hand.

The girls had fun decorating their own cupcakes.

I found plastic stemmed desert bowls at Party City and just hot-glued some artificial rose petals to the edge to make it look more like a flower.

Here is the way I set up the photo corner. I had fun taking pictures of all the girls. After the party I used the Photoshop brushed (Obsideon Dawn) to give them a sprinkling of pixie dust.

Drinking all the last bits of tea.

Fairies drinking tea.

All kinds of fairy-sized goodies.

Top tier is chocolate covered strawberries, then flower shaped lemon tea sandwiches. On the bottom, I made triangle shaped chicken tea sandwiches.

I found these glow stick fairy wands at the dollar store. They were fun to use while watching the new Tinkerbell movie.

Fairy Cake

Tomorrow is my daughter's 8th birthday party and she decided on a fairy theme this year.

I searched all over for ideas, but the ones that caught my eye were covered in flowers...so I asked my sister-in-law (our family cake expert) for some help. She is amazing with flowers, isn't she? She made all these up, so all I had to do was make the cake, frost it and arrange everything. It was great fun!

I looked at some of the Tinkerbell cake toppers in the cake decorating section, but they seemed kind of cheesy to me and not very well made for sure. I found this while out Christmas shopping. It's a Hallmark ornament, so Natalie will be able to keep it and use it at Christmas time!

Fabulous Food Friday: Buttercream Frosting

Buttercream Frosting

In a large mixer bowl, combine 1 1/4 cup sugar, 5 egg whites and flavoring. Heat over a pot of simmering water. Wisk for 3 minutes.

Whip on high for three minutes using the wisk attachment. 

When frosting is thick, add 4 sticks of butter, a tablespoon at a time. Using the paddle attachment, mix until blended. Add food coloring and frost your cake.

This recipe makes a lot, so I usually only make half the recipe, which frosts one cake.

Fairy Invitations

I got a late start with Natalie's birthday invitations, but I think they turned out pretty darn cute! This year I am really gonna try to keep things simple, we are only going to have a few girls over instead of the usual 10-12, which should cut down costs and ensure I keep my sanity through the remainder of the December birthdays and into the Christmas holidays.

 I used my Fiskars scalloped border punch along the bottom edge. To decorate the envelopes. I stamped the girls' names with celery colored ink, then added glitter over the top. 

This fairy invitation has a fairy dust velum overlay. What you can't see from this photo is the white sheet is mounted onto clear acetate, so it looks like it's floating. The bottom layer is a background paper with silhouettes of TinkerBell.

Here's another look. Special photoshop brushes courtesy of Obsidian Dawn.

Fabulous Food Friday: Spooky Treats

Happy Halloween! 

Last year I had a lot of fun making Halloween treats for the kids. I made these cute mummies stuffed with chicken salad:

You can find the instructions for these mummies here.

This year, my friend Teri told me about a Halloween treat that she was making and I had to give it a try. They were really easy to make which was great because this year I seemed to be full of festive plans, but short on time.

STEP 1: insert chow mien noodles into double stuff Oreos. I used chocolate mint Oreos cause those are my fave, but I think there are orange Oreos this time of year that would be cool too.

Second melt 4 squares of chocolate almond bark to 1 C chocolate chips and drizzle over the "spiders." I found it was the easiest to scoop up the spiders with a fork, then using a mini ladle or large spoon, drizzle over cookie until coated. Let the excess chocolate drip off and then place on waxed paper to set. Lastly use two mini M&Ms for eyes. The kids had fun with this part and were trying to figure out which color was the spookiest for spider eyes!

Chocolate covered spiders...good enough to eat!

John Deere Tractor Party

Back in August, my son celebrated his third birthday with a tractor party. He loves everything with wheels, especially tractors!

 

Our neighbors let us borrow their tractors...

...and the kids loved climbing around on them!

The John Deere pedal car was a big hit!

So were the boxed lunches packed up in John Deere gable boxes. I ordered them from this online store. I also purchased some astro-turf from Home Depot to use as a table cloth...cause it looks like grass!

Inside their lunch boxes was a sandwich, juice, applesauce, sesame sticks, and John Deere fruit snacks.

I made the cake, but in hind site I would have made the base a little wider to accommodate the toy tractor a little better. We also had "haystacks" made from chow mein noodles, almond butter and melted butterscotch chips. Just mix it all together and drop by large scoops onto some waxed or parchment paper and let set.

.

Along with the cake, we served little piggy sherbet scoops. I used a big scoop for the body, a little scoop (from the melon baller) for the nose, mini chocolate chips for the nostrils and regular chocolate chips for the eyes. The ears are made from pink Jelly Bellies.

 For goody bags, I found the John Deere coloring books at the dollar store, the fruit snacks were from the grocery store and the John Deere logo lollipop and the popcorn were from the Green Fun Store (website listed in the link above).

I packaged them all up in John Deer retail bags that cost just pennies a piece from the same website.

Andy and Taly's Wedding Card

Our weekend was a busy one. We had a family wedding in which my husband was a groomsman, my daughter was a flower girl and I was the wedding photographer. I am finally catching my breath and wanted to post a wedding card I made for the special couple. Their colors were black with a hint of red, so I made this to coordinate.

The stamp is from Stampin' Up! and I used white craft ink to make the image show up on the black cardstock. Then I added some rhinestones and a ribbon. It's not very traditional for a wedding card, but I kinda like how it turned out.

Here are a few of my favorite photos:

Fabulous Food Friday: Aebleskiver

Yesterday my friend Debbie and I drove for 2 hours down to Junction City to attend their Scandinavian Festival. We both have Norwegian heritage, so it was fun to spend a day celebrating our ancestors. One of the things we tried was a dish called Aebleskiver. They are little round waffle-like treats that are served with jam. I've never made them, but it was fun watching them make them at the festival. My mom has the iron to make these and we are planning to dust if off and make some soon.

Danish Aebleskiver
2 C flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 T sugar
2 T melted margarine
2 C milk
2 eggs, separated

Mix together dry ingredients and set aside. Separate eggs and beat whites stiff, not dry. Combine milk, egg yolks, margarine and add to dry ingredients. Fold in egg whites.

Use a heavy cast iron aebleskiver pan on medium heat. Put aprox 1 tsp veg oil in each hole. Pour batter in each to level top. Using a thin knitting needle, turn when bubbles appear. Continue turning to complete the ball shape. To test for doneness, insert needle. It should come out clean. each batch takes about 7-9 minutes.

Here you can see the woman pouring the batter into the hot iron.

Once they have cooked for a while, you turn them about a third of the way over and let them cook some more.

Then turn them again, using a metal skewer.

Lots of young girls were on hand to help turn the aebleskivers.

And there you have it...ours were served with strawberry jam and norseberry jam ~ yummy!

More pictures from the Scandinavian Festival 2008

There was lots of dancing by adults as well as children.

Here are some clogs that I thought were so cute. Click to enlarge the photos to see the rosemaling detail.

Many girls wore these flower wreaths in their hair...so sweet.
I couldn't resist taking this little girl's photo. She was adorable.

Here are some of the women representing traditional costumes from Norway. Many of the dresses were made by the ladies who were wearing them.