Mario Themed Birthday

If you know me, you probably know that I'm a sucker for a themed party. Cory's 23rd birthday was last week, and I had so much fun planning a Mario themed bash with my sister-in-law Tanya (who is basically an expert on all things Mario, and anything else awesome for that matter).

We decided to go with some low key cupcakes over one big cake. Red and green icing, with a few touches of white chocolate chips made the perfect little Mario 'shrooms:

I searched all over for gold chocolate coins (apparently they're seasonal items) but finally lucked out at Walmart. We used a star shaped cookie cutter on some lemon bars to make the little stars from the game. Chocolate sprinkles were the perfect eyes on these bad boys.

Princess Peach Lemonade was our drink of the evening. I just mixed a packet of Peach flavored Crystal Light, a packet of Lemonade flavored Crystal Light, and the appropriate amount of water. Easy Peasy. My brother made the little crown for the drink dispenser. Construction paper and tape, people. It's magical.

Speaking of construction paper and tape, thats exactly what Tanya used to make the pennant "Raceway" banner. And speaking of Tanya, behold her masterpiece:

 Two pounds of cheese, a few well placed crackers, and the aforementioned construction paper brings you a scene straight from the game. (I forget which level, world, and game...forgive me Tanya?)

And, what's the point of a Mario party, if not to exploit the mustache trend while it's still here? Black felt cutouts were super easy to make, and we just stuck them on with tiny adhesive scrapbooking glue dots. It worked for our very temporary needs.

We ate, modeled our 'staches, and played almost every Mario game invented. It was awesome, and worked out just perfectly for my big 23 year-old  kid at heart. I also see this working out great for any actual children's parties you might be planning, so feel free to use our ideas. We'd love to see your take on the idea!

Lindy




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Might you care for a flower?

Card of the week post!! Horray!

Okay, it is written, let it be done! It's a very happy birthday card! Sorry, not much time for chatting, just a bunch of smack-me-down pictures and exclamation points to make you feel like I love you!
Well, I do!

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I've got your number

I saw that Donna at Funky Junk Interiors was going to host a numbered theme linky party this week. I really wanted to play, but didn't have any projects w/ numbers planned...but then I started looking around the house, and realized that I've been stashing numbers all over the place! So, the I took my crappy camera for a walk around my poorly lit apartment to get some shots of the little numbers I've been hoarding for years...

Our wedding photographer gave us these old numbers after our engagement shoot this summer. She wasn't using them, and thought I might be interested. Ummm...yes please!

I plopped a few on our "entertainment center", and I think it adds the perfect little vintage touch to Cory's electronic mountain.

Then I stuck the a few more of these numbers in our "hall closet". 

All I had to do was take off the doors, and you have a whole new display space opened up! Is it sad that I have enough junk to justify sacrificing a closet for decorative purposes? Perhaps...

But it makes me so happy to see our little cake toppers along with these cute numbers :)

Our coffee table holds the rest of the tiny white number/letter collection. This tray corals our keys, cell phones, some handy pens, and a plethora of tiny white typography.

And the final stop on our tour of numbers would be my small but well loved collection of clocks. I started collecting these in middle school (I was what one might have called...a little different), and just love the numbers on these bad boys.

This one lives under the coffee table:

This one is tucked safely in the aforementioned "entertainment center":

 And this little baby is currently propped up with a SWEET teal door I saved from the trash certain death earlier today.  (Thanks to my junk spotting friend Kristen! Eagle Eyes! Seriously...you might have a problem if your friends leave you voicemails like this, "So, I was driving and I just spotted an old door in the trash...")

Those are all the number's I'm currently loving around my place :) I hope this qualifies for ze party!

Lindy

Obviously I'm linking up to Funky Junk Saturday Nite Special, Numbers Edition.

Storybook Nursery

When we found out we were having a little girl, I knew I wanted to do a "fairy tale" nursery. My nursery concept is actually based on my favorite childhood books and items that are special to me, so it is a little different than the princess fairy tale nurseries that are so popular right now.

Here I mixed tea time with the garden. Memories of Alice in Wonderland and The Velveteen Rabbit come to mind when I look at it.

I painted this chair during a summer break from college--long before I ever thought about children. The quilt was actually a wedding present from my parents. My mother, grandmother and great grandmother all contributed to it.

Here is my blessing dress with a little nutcracker ballerina. I've always loved the Sugar Plum Fairy.

This shelf (yes--it was an unfinished wood Roberts shelf I got for half off) holds some discount finds that really completes the story tale theme. I found some vintage copies of Beauty and the Beast (my favorite fairy tale) and Cinderella at our local thrift store. Rummaging through my Easter stuff, I also found an old mini flower tea set my mom sent me that I had adored growing up. To do the name letters, I bought some cute letters at Hobby Lobby and covered them with scrapbook paper using mod-podge. Unbelievably, Jason happened to have the awesome frog prince sculpture by artist Gary Price. I scored the Glenda vintage barbie on clearance at Wal-mart just a few months ago!

This lamp is actually sister inspired. You'll notice that the rosettes are none other than the glue gun rosettes previously featured on this blog.


Now all I have to do is paint the room "Cinderella Blue" and finish sewing the three layered ruffled crib skirt. Those feats will deserve a separate post of their own!

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BOY'S ART

Long blank walls without any features like windows, doors, or furniture petrify me! It means either I have to get pretty creative or spend some money. My little boy's room had two of these walls. Yikes! I had been collecting vintage transporation decorations for almost a year, so I had quite a few knick knacks, but the big bang was missing. I liked the idea of getting something like this or this

to fill in the great void (pieces are from pbk if anyone is interested), however, they were above my budget and didn't even match the colors of the room. Besides, I knew I could make one for free, and what can be better than free?

First, I decided to recycle some old wooden plaques that I was not using. I didn't have a really big one, so I put two matching ones together and ended up with the split art look. My finished project ended up being 32"X 20". Then I simply painted them antique white to establish a base color.

For simplicity's sake (and to avoid making it look like cheesy DIY art) I decided a screen print of a car would be my best option. I took the vintage cars on his bed that I was using as a model and measured how big the car needed to be to fill the canvas. Then I drew the car by multiplying the original car's lines by that scale. I am not an artist, so turning it into "painting by measuring" really worked for me.

After I painted the car, I decided it needed a little personality, so I mod-podged some paper accents to the art and dirtied it all up by glazing on some diluted brown paint. It was pretty easy to do and saved me quite a bit. Plus, I got to choose the colors and add personalization to it.

For fun and diminsion I added some planes above the car art.

To finish the other wall, I bought some unfinished wood shelves and a magnet board half off from Roberts. He loves his little vintage transportation room. Now I just need to paint his walls tan and it will be completely finished!

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I think maybe I want it all...

Garage sales are so fun. Especially when you can pick up some really great finds for less than $24!!

Point in case:

I got really excited with these finds, it meant getting a few things up above my kitchen cabinets, a goal I've been aiming for since we bought the house!

And in my excitement, I put EVERYTHING up:

I knew it looked a little cluttered and texted the picture to sisters, mom, friends and pretty sure I may have texted the picture to complete strangers for their input. However, they all agreed, too crowded, too much, so I re-vamped and now I'm done. Or rather, I'm done for now:

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Welcome to my entryway...

My first linky party post!!! I'm so excited, thank you Dana for the invite!
http://danajeanward.blogspot.com/2010/11/strut-your-stuff-link-party-and.html

Sadly, this is what it looked like for close to a year:

Then I sanded it one day in October since I had bought the stain and poly the day after I bought the bench almost a year ago:

Then I stained it and cried when my polyshade did not work as it promised to. So I sanded again and again and again. Then I called Dad, who politely reminded me no Hansen should ever be using a Polyshade for ANY peice of wood, and reverted to regular stain and polyurethane.


And while the stain dried, I made toilet-paper-roll wall art (idea found here: http://www.designspongeonline.com/2009/11/diy-project-toilet-paper-roll-wall-art.html).


Then one glorious day, almost a year after purchasing the bench and stain, a month after sanding and re-sanding and a week's worth of staining, it's done!





Look at that poly shine:Pillows were purchased at Pier 1 with coupons :D. Oh how we do love coupons!

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Pillow Makeover

When I bought a couch with my very first room mate right out of high school, it came with two throw pillows. They weren't exactly my definition of cute. See for yourself.

It's been a little over 3 years now, and I finally did something about those ugly pillows.  I've been meaning to make some pillowcases for...well, a little over 3 years. Once I got started it was easy, especially if you're not picky about stuff like measuring.

A little bit of felt, some dollar store doilies, and spray adhesive later:

To make the yellow pillow I just sprayed doilies with Elmer's craft Bond, and stuck them on the fabric. They've held up pretty well, but I would recommend reinforcing with some actual fabric glue, or even actual sewing,  as well.

The grey pillow took a little bit more time. I'll give you a step by step.

 1) Cut 3 inch circles out of felt. I chose three shades of grey and black. One flower takes about 25 circles.









2) Make the first petal by folding one circle in half, and sewing the bottom down with a few tight stitches.





3) Repeat, and overlap the next petal slightly.


4) Continue pattern. The last petal should be sewn right next to the first petal.

5) Make one big circle of petals, and then a smaller circle inside of it.


6) To hide the stitching on the bottom of your petals, just glue a circle of felt to the center of your flower.

You should end up with something like this:

 

Here they are all together again, just in case you forgot:


























One detail that I was extra proud of was the back of the cases:

I used two separate pieces of fabric, and overlapped them. That way I can take the case off for easy washing, seasonal changing, etc. For someone who doesn't sew, it was a pretty huge breakthrough.

This took less than an hour, and completely finished the look of the living room. The colors matched the one other pillow we own perfectly, which is a major advantage to making your own cases.

Also, when I showed Cory the final results, he said, "Hey! Those look like real pillows."

Thanks for the vote of confidence, babe.

Lindy

Don't forget to check out the "Party Central" tab to see what parties we love linking up to every week!