The Dragon Turned One!

We celebrated our little dragon's first birthday last week. I absolutely cannot believe that it has already been a year. While at times I'm sure I felt like the days (or nights) would never end, the year really did fly by. Maybe it feels like that because of all the incredible changes that take place in a baby's first year, but I have a feeling I'm always going to think that the days are long while the years are short.

On to the DIY birthday party! I'm not sure when I began pinning ideas for the party on Pinterest, but it feels like I started at least 6 months ago. Of course that doesn't mean I started making things super early, so there was definitely a lot of mad dashing right up until (and after) people started arriving. That's just how it goes with our parties though. The Dragon theme was pretty set in stone in my eyes. Hopefully people won't think I'll always force dragon stuff on our little boy, but since that is the meaning of his name I figure I should milk it while I can (since he could hardly express his choice for a party theme yet).

The first thing I started working on was the faces banner. I'd seen ideas on making a banner with rectangular pictures (including at one of my BFF's son's first birthday), but then saw the idea to blow up the faces and cut them out. I used thick birthday scrapbook cardstock to make the hats and hot glued pom poms to the top.

The next item on the agenda was definitely the most time-consuming, but also my proudest accomplishment...Dragon Tails! I made 12 in all (to have some choice and a few extra just in case). I followed the tutorial from this site: http://tatertotsandjello.com/2011/03/guest-project-dragon-tails-sewing.html I decided to take her advice to use felt instead of sewing the spikes. Pinking shears are quite an essential tool for sewing. 

straps for the waist

cutting the tail pieces

 cutting the circle

 spikes

 leaving a hole to stuff

 pinning the circle

Time to stuff!

 sewing it closed

finished products!

In action

Next project was the balloon wreath. This was something I pinned several examples of Pinterest and saw several bad attempts as well where the balloons looked rather...limp. I used this tutorial: http://www.abstractgrace.blogspot.com/2012/05/birthday-balloon-wreath-tutorial.html. In the end, I needed 3 bags of balloons (although I didn't use all of the third bag). I didn't use that round wreath though...mine had a flat back and was perhaps a little bigger. I also chose to add some colorful pipe cleaners and some party blowers. I painted the L and glued it on with fabric glue. I tried hot glue at first, but it wouldn't stay glued that way. 

For the kids' goody bags I made molded chocolates (in dragon molds of course) and put them inside jumbo plastic eggs. I wanted the eggs to be more dragon-y than Easter, so I spray painted them. I was going to put chocolates for all the guests in these eggs, but I didn't actually love how the spray painting turned out so I only used them in the kids' bags. All guests got chocolate dragons though :) The kids also got a homemade coloring book, crayons, and some dragon stickers. 

Lindsay, an awesome friend who also was the talent behind creating the Dragon's nursery, created the dragon art for the party. Of course, I used it to make a onesie. I'm glad I have this picture because there aren't any great ones of him wearing it that show the whole thing. 

I used the Dragon picture to create a high chair banner. I love my Cricut and Xyron machines! (It says "I Am  1")

And for the finale...the cake! The cake is the main thing I started pinning way back when. I have several examples pinned, but ultimately went with the directions from this site: http://www.instructables.com/id/Fire-Breathing-Dragon-Cake!!/#step1 I made a red velvet cake (think bleeding armadillo!), but the frosting took some searching. Everyone loves my whipped cream cheese frosting, but I was worried about how that would stand up needing to sit out over night (because there was no way this cake was fitting in the fridge). I didn't want to make a standard butter cream because most people, including Bama, think it's "too sweet." After much internet browsing and some taste-testing, I settled on this recipe: http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/desserts/thate28099s-the-best-frosting-ie28099ve-ever-had/. If I continue to use this recipe, I need to think of a better name though...

Finding fruit roll ups proved to be the hardest part. I could only find solid red pieces, which isn't want I wanted for the wings. I decided to use the tie-dyed ones. Also, apparently they only make them with stupid tongue tattoos now, so...yeah, the dragon has tattooed fire.

I struggled with the smash cake ideas. I didn't want to make a dragon head or anything creepy like that, so I just made a small cake with my mini pans. I saw someone use the idea of sprinkles in one of my March Mommy groups and loved it. The execution wasn't great...but I don't think my 1-year old minded too much. 

I'll finish this post with pics of the food from the party.

 Dragon Tail Pies (crawfish etouffee in puffed pastry)

 Dragon Chow (mac n cheese)

 Deviled Dragon Eggs (yes, I dyed the yolks blue...)

Dragon Scales with Hummus (the pita chips are the scales)

I didn't take a close-up picture of the Dragon Claws (Chocolate Dipped Bugles), but I found that idea online too. They were a huge hit! I also intended to make dragon egg truffles to go in the adults goody bags, but the recipes weren't making nearly enough, so I just put them on the dessert table. They were Dark Chocolate Cabernet Truffles. 

Crib Rail Cover

I have probably 5 or more posts that I "need" to do, but I just finished this project and am actually quite happy with the outcome. The other week I noticed teeth marks on the dragon's crib. I've never caught him biting it, so I didn't think it was happening. I was wrong. Thus a new project was born. I'd heard about crib rail covers and people making them, so I turned to google (not Pinterest *gasp*) and found this tutorial http://www.babyrabies.com/2009/02/shes-crafty/. It was definitely more complicated than just buying some fleece and tying it around the rail, but Hobby Lobby still had the fabric I used to make a table cloth last year for the little table in his room. Seemed like the universe was telling me to get sewing!

First Step: Measure the crib length and width of the rail.

Second Step: Cut the fabric. This job is much easier now that I have a cutting mat and rotary cutter.

 I decided to use two patterns for the long front, so I had to do some math and then sew the three pieces together.

Next, I measured and cut the quilted batting. I had to add some extra to one side because the long piece is longer than one yard. No biggie. 

The original blogger said that the next step of making the ties was a PITA and she was NOT kidding. She mentioned a type of ribbon you could buy, but I did not want to spend more money on special ribbon. So, I spent hours turning these strips inside out. Sewing them wasn't hard and was good practice in sewing straight lines (and occasionally fighting with my machine), but turning them face-out took a while. I eventually managed to speed up the process using a wooden spoon, but I was hesitant with it because I didn't want to push out the already sewn end (which did happen once or twice). The real PITA though, was the fact that my math skills weren't working and I kept having to go back and cut/sew/turn out more pieces. Seriously...why did I not just count correctly the first time?!? I think the tutorial confused me here a bit because I didn't account for the fact that I was doing three sides and she was only explaining about one at a time. Still...I should have realized that. 

Pinning is never my favorite thing, but there was a lot of it in this project. I dutifully ironed up the sides a half-inch and pinned that to the quilted batting.

The next step is to lay the ties out where you want them to be. I took the pieces up to the crib and used pins to mark where I wanted them to go. Then it was back to the craft room, I mean dining room, to pin them onto the pieces. 

Finally, it was time to sew everything together. I won't say this went off without a hitch, but it wasn't too bad. I had to stop to re-do the bobbin twice during this whole project (and that's always fun times...not). I will not say that my stitching is the straightest or best looking thing every, but it's not too terribly awful either.

Ta-da! The final product!

I will likely need to make one for the back rail too...must figure out if I have enough left-over fabric.

Dragon Blanket

I have been wanting to make a dragon (lovie) blanket for ages and have finally gotten around to it. I'd been on the lookout for a good dragon for a while and finally ordered one from Amazon around Christmas.

 I think I sewed myself out, though, with stockings and soft books, so I just now got the motivation to finish it. I was going to go the whole nine yards and get fabric and everything, but I found a nice soft blanket with satin edging at Ross for a good price and decided to save myself some steps. 

I cut the dragon apart to make a "body" out of the blanket.

At first, I attempted to use the sewing machine. Unfortunately that just resulted in a broken needle, so I had to abandon the machine in favor of sewing by hand. It worked well though. The type of materials the blanket and dragon are made from do not show the thread (which is good since it doesn't really match). 

Eventually I'll learn to edit my photos to take out all the background garbage...but that day is not today. Hopefully my little dragon will like his little blanket!

12 Weeks to Better Photos Week 2

This week's lesson was on ISO and Shutter Speed. ISO is the film speed. "ISO, or film speed, is really just a setting to determine how quickly an image will be captured by either the film or digital sensor. The higher the ISO, the quicker the image will be captured and the less light that is required. The lower the ISO, the longer it takes for the image to be captured and the more light you will need. " "Your shutter speed is how quickly the shutter, or the little door that opens in front of your film or image sensor, operates. It can range from several seconds (or minutes on the Bulb setting) to 1/1600 of a second or faster. It might help to visualize your shutter literally as a door, with your shutter speed controlling how fast or how slow the door opens and closes" http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/class_pdfs/photocourse/weektwo.pdf

For the photographs this week, we were to take two pictures. One with a low shutter speed, such as 1/80 and one with a high shutter speed. Since I was inside with bad lighting, I set my ISO to 1600. The assignment was to take a picture of water flowing from a faucet over an object that would interrupt the flow. I was really excited about this project after seeing sample pictures. Unfortunately, I wasn't very happy with the end results of my pictures since, as I mentioned, I was dealing with bad lighting. The window over our kitchen sink is really small and the sun never really gave great light. I ended up going upstairs to our master bath. The problem there was the faucet is really close to the side of the tub, and thus didn't give a good flow of water over my cup. I ended up letting the water fill the cup and spill over. So, without further adieu (or excuses) here are my pictures...

 1/80

1/80

1/80

1/1000

For the high shutter speed photo (1/1000), I used picmonkey to lighten the picture because it came out too dark.