Party! Party! Simple Party Projects

Well this post is a month late. 

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we celebrated Andrea's birthday party at her school. It was a few weeks earlier than the date of her birthday because her birthday falls on their school break for October. We only had a week to prepare. I never realized the last day the school will allow a birthday party in class was the first week of October. 

Anyway, I had to come up with a party theme that will not require a lot of work. Right now, Andrea likes Doc McStuffins, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Disney Princesses and Tinkerbell. The theme has to work for both girls and boys so I decided to go with Jake and the Neverland Pirates because I remember they have a lot of downloadable party projects at the Disney Junior Asia website. 

You can visit the website here to check out available projects. 

I didn't like the invitations available so I made one using the character images I was able to get online, some digiscrapping elements, and then printed it on brown paper. Daddy insisted on singed edges to make them look authentic *rolls eyes*. 

I rolled the invites and tied them with a small rope. 

 

We made the treasure box. My husband did all the cutting and pasting, and he was even meticulous enough to line the inside of the box with violet paper.

We also made the sword and the rainbow wand to give to the kids as party favors but I wasn't able to take photos of them.

We enlarged the toy set, printed them on cardstock, and then with some marshmallows and  chocolate rock candies, used them to decorate the plain chocolate cake we bought. 

One more fete by daddy... he made pirate balloons ;) 

Yep, he made 10 of these for all of Andrea's classmates.

If you plan to use the same projects from Jake and Neverland Pirates on Disney Junior Asia, let me warn you that it wasn't as simple as I initially thought. It involves lot of intricate cutting and folding and I was lucky hubby was patient enough to do all that.

And in conclusion... I survived my first toddler party!! YEY! :)

Dora's 'Backpack' Envelopes

When my daughter celebrated her first birthday, we gave her a Dora-themed party. I made the invitations myself and shared it here last November. I received a lot of requests for Backpack's face template (that I asked my brother, a graphics artist, to vector and clean up for me) that I used and I have shared that template with everyone who asked. To make it easier, the template is now posted on my blog entry for easy access by anyone who needs it. 

Last Friday, I received a very sweet email from Nessa, one of the ladies who asked me for the template a couple of months ago. She used the template to make invitations for her daughter's first birthday too and shared her photos with me. Isn't that sweet?

Aside from the invites, Nessa DIY-ed other party elements too. Can you ladies say 'labor of love?' 

It totally made my day when I got her email. I love seeing projects inspired by something I posted here. It makes all the hours put into coming up with the concept and tutorial totally worth it when I know someone else aside from me gained from it :) So if you made something inspired by any of my tutorials, please feel free to share them with me. I would love to hear from you!

And thanks again Nessa, for sharing your pictures with me.

Reminiscing crafts gone by

I have about 3 projects in progress (and only around 30 minutes per day to work on them so I think they will be finished like next month?) and about 50 others developing in my head. I think it's really sad that I don't have much time left for other things after work and Andrea. But I guess that's just how it is.

Anyway, I was trying to make room for my new craft supplies which led me to dig out the old ones to see which ones I can let go. Let me see... I tried paper embossing once, and bought several brass templates because I had grandiose plans of marketing personalized invites and crafted cards:

They were a little pricey but I do tend to get really involved when I get into a hobby so I wanted a variety of templates because of several design ideas in my head at the time. However... after a few hours of embossing, and 10 numb fingers... I figured this is not something I can do as a business. It will kill my hands! But I kept the supplies because the brass templates are pretty and I still use them on occasion, like the time I made my Christmas CD envelopes.

I also tried my hand at bead jewelry making. This one was a little more profitable and I enjoyed my small side business for about a year before my real job caught up with me and I didn't have much time to spend on my little hobby. I still have a lot of supplies left over (more like a small fortune tied up in semi-precious stones, swarovski crystals, pendants, tons of beads, etc):
 

 I did mention that when I get into something... I can get really, really involved? And back then, I didn't have a baby spend on attend to so...

My old product boxes with my logo. I  must have changed my logo a couple more time after this. I still use these as gift boxes whenever I give small personalized gifts.

Here's a few of my earlier pieces when I started out. I was able to sell all of these, but looking at them now, I think I should have kept a few of them for me...

You can click on the photos to enlarge them. These pictures were from before I had the patience to set-up my jewelry in better lighting and better backdrops for "real" shoots. My latter works, before I stopped, were more commercial-fad pieces (with better pictures!) but I think I like my earlier works better. I closed my online store already, but maybe I can take this up again one day (like when Andrea is 12?).

Anyway, to go back to my story... I didn't end up throwing anything away. Aarrggh! I'm like this sometimes. I'll just worry about this again when I need the spare room we're using as a store room for something else... like guests staying over at our place... which will be soon... but still, soon is better than now so for now, my stuff stays :)

DIY Dora Birthday Party Invites

I've been planning to share this for a while because I was so happy with how it turned out. We gave our princess a party for her first birthday with a Dora The Explorer theme. She loves Dora. She starts giggling and dancing whenever she hears the Dora theme song.

Anyway, we held the party at a restaurant so I won't have to worry about the food and hired a photographer and party planner to host and decorate the venue. However, I decided to DIY the invitations and loot bags to save a little on cost because I like doing stuff like that.

I went online to look for party ideas and I was surprised that there were a lot! I liked the party favor container ideas on this site.

So creative. However, my loot bags were all set. I was able to buy backpacks with Dora print for the little girls, and blue paper bags which I plan to decorate with Diego stickers for the boys. Here's a picture of party loot bags with the items we got to put inside:

I decided to use the idea for a character on the invitations instead. I made "Backpack" character envelopes and "Map" invitations :)

ENVELOPES

You will need:

• Purple paper (to make envelopes) or purple envelopes
• Image of Backpack that clearly shows the eyes and mouth (template provided in this post)
• Printer
• Yellow paper
  
• Red paper
• White paper
• a Printer
  

STEP 1: Make your own envelopes (you can find several tutorials online) using purple paper or, buy purple envelopes (like me!).

STEP 2: Search online for images of Backpack. Using Photoshop (or other image editing software), re-size the image to fit your envelope. Then create 3 separate images: 1. Eyebrows, 2. Eyes, 3. Mouth.

Here's the template I used:

To download: 1) Double-click the image. 2) After the image loads, right click and choose 'Save Image As'

STEP 3: Print the image of eyebrows in Yellow paper.

STEP 4: Print the image of the eyes in White paper

STEP 5: Print the image of the mouth in Red paper.

Here's what I had after printing.

STEP 6: Cut out the brows, eyes, and mouth images.

If you will notice, my image wasn't so good. The mouth had parts that are nothing but printed lines! My fingers went numb after all that cutting.

STEP 7: Paste the cut outs on your envelope. Make sure the facial features are positioned to resemble Backpack.

Here's what mine looked like:

Cute huh? :)

INVITES

You will need:

• An image of Map
• Photoshop and Photoshop skills preferred, but Word editing skills will do
• White card paper
  
• a Printer
  

STEP 1: Draw a map to your venue. I used MS Powerpoint to draw because I find it easier to draw lines there.

STEP 2: Layout! (using Photoshop, other software, or MS Word). Paste the image of Map on the upper left side of the invite... kind of how it looks on TV when Map sings "I'm the Map!" and shows Dora the way to wherever she wants to go.

STEP 3: Print

Here's what I came up with:


I downloaded clipart of buildings and trees to add dimension to my map because it looked a little plain. I was trying to look for free font online that resembles the font for Dora the Explorer. I found a forum online and someone suggested Creative BB. Sorry, I forgot which forum I got that tip from :(

I also created an image for a birthday banner which we had printed on tarpaulin to be used as backdrop:


Of course, we got a Dora cake from Goldilocks (they are the only ones authorized to carry Nickelodeon character cakes here, I think).

So there, my little baby turned 1 already! How time flies.

Edited 03/08/2011
I finally posted the image of 'Backpack' I used. I used to have a note here that says leave your email and I will send it via email. But since I'm a little busy, it might take a while for me to check my emails so here you go!

Some of the projects on this post are linked up to the following link parties:

• Creative Itch

Parchment Craft

Parchment craft is a set of techniques that results to lace-like design on parchment paper. I bought tools and supplies for Pergamano parchment craft back in 2006 when my husband and I planned to DIY our wedding invitations. A few tries told me the idea was crazy to even consider. For one, Pergamano parchment is a bit expensive (P35 per sheet last time I bought) so it's not economical compared to just getting your invitations printed. And then each design takes as long as 2 hours to complete (depending on the complexity of the design). Imagine making 100+ pieces!

I parked this hobby for a long time and was only able to try again last week when I was trying to rebuild my archive of downloaded patterns (since I lost everything when our hard drive crashed). I was able to complete these 5. I still need to improve my coloring technique since it is nowhere near those I see online (those I see online are great!).

NOTE: The patterns used are not mine, I just downloaded them from different sites offering free patterns.


I linked up to the following link parties:

• Creative Itch
  

Craft Project: Christmas CD Envelope

My latest project:

CD envelopes for Christmas (for the CD of scanned old photos I want to send to my uncles and cousins).

with the CD

A closer look.

Materials used:

Textured paper in Red (for the envelope)
Textured board in Ivory (for embossing)
Brass stencil
Embossing stylus
Glue
Masking Tape
Gold rice beads (optional since I only used 6 beads per envelope)
Printed image of a poinsettia (at least 3 images per envelope for layering).
Scissors