Birthday Bliss turned BAD!

Jessica went to her friend Emily's birthday party yesterday (Saturday). It's only the 3rd birthday she's ever been invited to. Emily's mum asked to put their dog in the neighbours yard and made sure she cooked the cake from scratch, had no balloons and checked every pack for nuts and sesame. What an awesomely kind thing to do! I am so pleased she included Jess as I feel she probably gets left out a lot as people are terrified of her allergies. The last parties she went to would have been some 2 years ago.

Emily's bday was a smash hit with the kids and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself over her presents. Then the kids started dobbing, and as they were another came out the door crying. That child's mother jumped up to sort her out with the baby in her arms. She almost threw the baby when she started screaming "OMG OMG!" I grabbed the 6mth old and was a bit lost as to what was going on. At first, none of us saw the blood streaming out of the child's head!! Her mum raced her inside and grabbed a hand towel and was in the bathroom all panicked. I was feeling a bit helpless when I realised that, other than the host, I was the only one who drove the party. I was going to give the mum my keys until I realised how freaked out she was. I passed the baby (who hates anyone but her mum) and talked her into getting in the car. We got to the hospital as fast as we could, and boy am I glad we live in a small town!!! It was a quick drive but it seemed to take forever. The child was alert and asking to go back to the party, the mum was crying and I think she wanted to smack out whoever did this to her little girl. The nurse gave us the all clear within moments. The cut was tiny, and 4-5mm, and she had a nice egg on her head. But she was talking, not crying, not wanting to lay down on the trolley or anything else. So we were sent on our merry way. It turns out they were playing chasey through the house and out the doors etc. It seems another little girl nudged her and she hit her head on the handle of the fridge. One of those older style ones with the stainless steel handles. OUCH! Needless to say when we got back to the party everyone was ready to go home. I helped the host clean up and assured her the injured little girl was fine.

Now, on a MUCH happier not, LOOK WHAT I MADE!

A crayon roll, this is what started it all. I've seen these all over the net and knew I wanted to make one. Emily's mum said she loves arty/crafty stuff so it was the perfect excuse to try it out! I didn't follow a pattern or tutorial. I probably should have as it got a bit of a trapezoid shape to it once I sewed the little pockets. The fabric is some I bought off the Lincraft site under "kids prints".










An apron. Again no pattern. I just held some fabric up to Jessi and then added some as Emily is at least 2 sizes bigger, then added some more as I wanted to have a gather across the top. Flat aprons look so wrong to me. I cut it at the length I thought was about ok, considering I wanted to add a ruffle on the bottom and when I got to the outer corners I just cut them rounded. Easy.


SEWING TIP: For the ruffle I tore a piece of fabric about 2inches from selvage to selvage, overcast stitched the outer edge then upped the tension on my machine to max, and maxed out the stitch length too, and let the machine gather it up. A great tip I picked up on Craftster!! Worked a treat.


Again, with the pockets I just cut a rectangle with rounded corners. No rocket science here people. They're not completely "finished" as I just left the pinking edges exposed but I like it like that ;)


The strap I again tore across the selvage and sewed it up. It needed some hemming tape or something similar on the back to neaten off the torn edges but I couldn't find mine.

A very basic school supplies scrapbook, covered in brown paper and decorated with scraps from the previous projects. I needed stick glue and couldn't find any, the only glue I had was this horrible BIC School Glue that's blue and dries clear. It's useless stuff but it was all I had. I didn't like my chances of the double sided tape holding down fabric. So it's left marks on the fabric. UGH! Oh well


And last but not least, I have picked up so many wonderful ideas from some truly amazing people and I saw this paint on a blog and wondered if it would be too tacky to give as a gift. I decided that no, home made doesn't make it any less fun for a 6yr old! I emailed the blog owner Mel at Day to Day:One Crafty Mumma to see if I could write a recipe for the child using Mel's post about microwave puff paint. I was getting a bit worried I wouldn't get an answer in time and tried to think of a way to give the paint as a dry mix, rather than as dry ingredients.

First, gather ingredients (PS. Black and Gold Cooking Salt has the texture of sugar!! HUGE crystals and cooking salt is supposed to be super fine. Not happy). That little box is the back of the food dye as it has "colour blending" details. I didn't have any baby food jars and my Neil's parents own the cafe, so I went and stole some of the little containers tey use for gravy ;)


I mixed the salt with the food dye in the little containers. It took a bit of stirring but nothing too hard. Left them in the sun to make sure the salt/sun had absorbed all the moisture. Believe it or not that horrible brown in the middle there is red/blue ie, purple. Hope if makes up as purple!!


Once I was sure it was completely dry I mixed in the flour. It doesn't look very attractive...


I was going to decorate the containers with brown paper and more fabric scraps, I was running out of time. I made a little instructions card, included some cotton bud "paint brushes" and some plastic spoons for mixing. I imagine her mum would need to mix these in other containers as I think it would be too thick in those little ones but who knows what will happen. The kids wanted to get into it right away!! I am lucky enough to know a picture framer and he is happy to offload mount board offcuts to me so I gave her some of those for her artworks too. All up she got 8 colours.


To give this gift I didn't wrap it. There was also a colour by numbers book to use with the crayons, so I layed the books and card on the bottom, put the 8 paint pots on top, wrapped over the apron (so those paints would stay put), placed the stirrers, mixers and crayons, and tied it all up with 2 lengths of fabric. Looked cute! No wasted paper floating all over the place, and she still enjoyed "opening" it. I took the camera and didn't take a single photo while there. Not good!! I don't think anyone took a photo..

So now I am thinking since Feb is a HUGE month in this town for bdays and it's when school just goes back etc, I might wait for some warmer weather and Jessi can have a party. Albeit wont be her birthday, but it will still be fun. And I am so stealing more blog ideas to do it!!! I had fun creating Emily's presents and Emily is sure to have fun with them. Woohoo!!