DIY mini chalkboard

As promised in my previous post, I created little chalkboards to include in the goody bags I gave to the party guests.  They came out really good, and were easy and cheap!!

I was at AC Moore the other day perusing for the decorations for the minion cupcakes when I saw a jar of chalkboard paint and the little hamster wheel in my head started turning. The jar ran about $7....

The next aisle over, I found these little wooden "tavern boards" for $1 each. Lightbulb! 

I thought to myself, "I could make little chalkboard slates for the kids", knowing how much Princess loves to draw on stuff.   It took about 4 coats of the chalkboard paint to get a decent coverage on the wood.  Princess wanted to paint the ends hot pink, so I picked up some acrylic paints.  I painted the ends, and then decided to use the white acrylic paint I had picked up to paint Princess's dollhouse Adirondak chairs to paint the opposite side of the board. 

The little bottles of acrylic paint were about $1 each.  I used those sponge applicators on a stick to apply the paint.  We already had a stash of them, but I saw they were about $1 for four of those.  After getting to this point, I thought the backs were awfully plain.  Once again, I ventured out and got more acrylic paint and some stencils.  I saw these really cute rose stencils and an alphabet stencil.  I believe those were about $5 each, but you can re-use those things for like, ever!  I attempted to stencil the names using the finest brush I had with black acrylic paint, but the wood kept soaking it up, making it look splotchy.  So I had to settle for using a felt tip pen.  I then used a sealant on all surfaces except the chalkboard section.

This is what the finished product looked like, front and back.  I also gave each child a few pieces of chalk.  Your kids could even help you paint.... mine did!

The Spa Birthday Party - 7/30/11

Well, the party is over and done with, and appears to have been a success.  Whew.  All the girls seemed to have a blast, and Princess just LOVED being doted on.  Like she doesn't get enough of that at home..... When we got to the spa, Princess was presented with her own monogrammed spa robe that she got to keep:

In the party room there was even a large bed.... I was totally tempted to take a nap!!

You can see Princess totally took advantage of it.  Kids have it so easy, don't they?  So the girls start getting their hair did and not a single one of them was squirmy.  I was kind of expecting that to happen with a handful of little girls, but they were all AWESOME!

Princess's hair looked magnificent, and of course she chose her signature color for her eyes.  Pink.  The child loves pink.  I'm waiting for the Pink Panther theme to start playing in the background when she enters the room. 

Next after the hair and make up, the girls moved on to having their toes painted.  Once again, Princess chose..... can you guess? 

They got their nails done next, yet again none of these girls squirming.  I'm sorry to their mothers if I've set a precedence now, and they start expecting mani/pedi's every few months. 
After getting pampered, they then got to make glitter lotion or glitter bubble bath to take home.  Princess chose to make lotion.....

We then returned to the party room for cupcakes and present opening.  I made minion cupcakes.  You know those little yellow guys from the movie Despicable Me?  I got the idea from a website called http://www.sugardoodle.net/, incidentally.  Her website button is at the bottom of my blog.  The cupcakes turned out really cute.  Prior to taking them to the mall, I had the minion heads separate from the cupcakes so they wouldn't fall off.  Kind of reminded me of fish heads. 

The end product looked pretty darn cute if I do say so myself.... and they didn't have to twist my arm too hard at the party to sample one, either.

Princess got to the front of the room so all her friends could sing "Happy Birthday" to her....mind you she had taken of her robe at this point.  Can't say I blame her though, it was rather warm in there.  Hello A/C??

She got to sit in the special "birthday girl chair" while she opened up her presents.....

She got some really adorable gifts!!  Thanks guys if you're reading this....

She then as a surprise finale got to walk down a red carpet at the front of the salon with her friends hollering and screaming at her and the staff clanged cowbells.  I'm sure the rest of the mall patrons were scratching their heads with that one.  Must be horrible for the neighbors of this spa everytime they do a birthday party! 

All in all, a great time was had, my pocketbook is a little lighter, and my little girl was treated like royalty for a day.  The smiles on her face made it all worthwhile.  And once again a heartfelt thanks to all those who came. 
I'm going to make another post showing the progress on making the chalkboards I gave to each party guest.... they seemed to have gone over well, and were actually pretty easy to make.  Cheap, too!

Swimming.....

So Princess is gonna put me in an early grave.  Both of my children are water babies, they absolutely LOVE the water (which really comes in handy at bath time)...  I will hopefully get both of them into swim lessons in the near future.  In the meantime, however, floatation devices are a good thing.  My little man has just recently gotten to the point he doesn't need them, but he still needs a wall nearby.  Here's footage of both children on the diving board at my cousin's pool:

So, on to the part where I said Princess's going to be the death of me.... you see how well she did with a floatie?  Well.... I don't think she fully comprehends that without that thing she will, well, ya know, sink.  So last night at the pool, we didn't have her floatie.  So after swimming in the baby pool for a while, I take her over to the 3 ft. deep section.  She keeps trying to pull away from me.  So I tell her that if I let go, she'll sink.  She keeps pulling.  I let go.  She begins to sink.  I'm not a bad mother, I pulled her out after a second or two or three.  She comes up out of the water wide-eyed, and says, "Again!"  Sigh.  Really needing those swim lessons about now.  However, that wasn't the killer part!  I'm trying to get us out of the pool, so I set her on the ledge.  I should have seen it coming.... she runs down a couple feet while I"m on the ladder, looks at me devilishly and jumps in.  Sigh again.  She's gonna give me gray hairs.

Princess's Birthday 7/24/11

So my little princess turned 4 this past Sunday.  She managed to score a brand new dollhouse, a slew of dollhouse accessories, a Big Time Rush CD, and a crayon dry erase board.  For those that don't know the group Big Time Rush, they are to kids today what the Monkees were to my parents' generation.  They are a boy band that has their own TV show.  Julia LOVES them.  I think LOVES may not be strong enough of a word.  Point being, I'm already sick of the CD and it's only been a couple of days.  Sigh.  Here is a video of her pulling the blanket off the dollhouse.  I used a blanket because I didn't feel like wrapping that huge bohemoth of a package.  Besides, she's 4, it didn't matter.

Needless to say, she was pretty stoked.  Then we moved on to opening the rest of her presents which were the accessories.  I gave her the cd that morning so we could listen on the way to church.  I know, I know, Big Time Rush isn't exactly church going music, but hey, it was her birthday!

Here's the dollhouse fully assembled.....

Not a day later, and the dolls clothes were completely removed, piano missing a leg.... all in all I'd say this was a great gift! 
Her birthday cake she absolutely had to have an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins.  She selected a Dora theme.  I'm very glad she didn't choose Spongebob (who is her other fixation these days).

And just when you thought the festivities were over.... her party with a handful of her friends is this Saturday.  I had a coupon for this spa at the mall that caters to little girls, so yes, Princess will be having a spa party.  She's so excited, she bugs me constantly.  Unfortunately I the coupon only covered 6 additional children, so some of Princess's friends won't be able to attend.  Needless to say, it should be fun for her anyway.  She even said I was invited!  Whew, I was worried there for a minute.  Maybe I'll need a spa day for myself after this one....

I'm new to this!!

Ok, so I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and make a blog.  Since most of my Facebook posts these days seem to be of witty things my children are doing, why not just blog about it so I don't clog up my friends' news feeds?  I'll also attempt to put up pictures of projects I may attempt to do, however feeble the turnout, and perhaps post recipes of meals I find particularly successful.  Please feel free to comment whenever, whereever or however you may and criticize, critique or just enjoy the wild ride my children take you on!