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.

Andrea's "Dora" Weekend

Last weekend was "Mommy and Andrea's Girl Bonding Weekend". My husband attended this meeting/event which left me and Andrea alone at home (the nanny was there, but she was working on something else last weekend). While we were playing... Andrea kept asking me for "Dora"... which means she wanted me to play her "Dora the Explorer" DVD's. She's crazy about Dora... but I try to limit her TV-watching time. So I tried distracting her with her "Dora" dolls and books instead.

Dora the Explorer as Little Red Riding Hood

In spite of the costume, Andrea recognized this doll as Dora when she got it as a gift from one my aunts last Christmas. While Andrea was taking a nap, I got this idea to make new clothes for this Dora to make her look like... well... Dora :) The Dora that Andrea knows and loves that is. So I got to work.

First on my plate... Backpack! I already featured Backpack on my post yesterday, modeled by Barbie. Here it is again:

From a small piece of leftover fabric from an old t-shirt, a little red and yellow felt for the eyebrows and mouth, and plastic eyes.

This time, worn by Dora :)

Andrea loves that little Backpack! I haven't finished the rest of Dora's outfit yet. I will post again when Dora, the Little Red Riding Hood, looks like Dora the Explorer already :)

Hmmm... notice that bracelet on Dora's wrist? Looks very easy to do... all you need is a blue flower and yellow beads. So I got to work:

ta-dah!! Dora's bracelet!

And here's my little Dora wearing her new bracelet while playing.

Notice the outfit? That's a little something we did last Sunday. I dressed up Andrea as Dora the Explorer. At 15 months, she recognized the outfit. While I was dressing her up, she picked up her orange shorts and said "Dora!!!". Tsk, tsk... little fan girl!

She wore her Dora outfit to visit cousin Laena:

1) Pink t-shirt, check! 2) Orange shorts, check! 3) Yellow socks (i.e. yellow strip of fabric wrapped around her socks and secured with velcro), check! 4) Pink rubber shoes, check! 5) Blue flower bracelet, check! 5) Backpack, check! 6) Bangs... errr... Andrea has wavy hair and bangs won't work for her so let's skip this one :)

Good thing Dora's costume is simple and easy to put together from stuff we already have.

That Backpack she's wearing... it's store-bought. And it's not hers, it belongs to her cousin Helaena. We just borrowed it.

I've been checking the mall for a couple of months now for another one like it for Andrea but it's still out of stock.

With my little Dora :) (who wasn't in the mood for photos)

Well, that's it! I hope Dora fans out there enjoy our post. Bye-bye!

Great Weekend Finds: Doll Accessories

I just want to share some cute stuff I found at the grocery store last weekend.

Yep, you read that right... grocery store. See, the grocery store near our house has something like a general merchandise store on the 2nd floor. They carry stuff like clothes, shoes, bags, toys, scrap booking supplies, make-up, accessories, hardware items, school supplies, knick-knacks, kitchen items... you name it... they probably have it ;) So, when I do my grocery shopping on Saturday mornings, I usually browse around 2nd floor first. And last weekend... look what I found...

A pair of pink rubber shoes for Barbie for P25 (approx $0.50)

A small denim bag for P38 (approx $0.80)

A small body bag for P38 (approx $0.80)

I saw doll accessories being sold separately and they were cheap! The denim bag came in other colors: beige and olive green... but I only bought these 3. And there were other shoes that look like bulky rubber shoes which I don't really find pretty. I've been wanting to go back for the other bags though... maybe I will later. I've been collecting clothes for Andrea's dolls for a while now... waiting for the time that she will start appreciating them.

Inspired by my finds... I made a little something for Andrea that I know she will appreciate now...

 

 

Hmmm... does that backpack look familiar???

It's Dora's friend, "Backpack"!!!

More about "Backpack" on another post... this is just a preview :) Hope you all had a great weekend!

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