A Fancy Nancy Soiree

This past weekend was exhausting. I had two huge choir concerts for which Mark's family was in town and so then I decided to throw Mady's party the same weekend so they could attend (they don't like to miss anything). It all went great, but I spent Monday putting my house mostly back together and yesterday just being tired and completely useless.

BUT, I knew I couldn't put off this party post any longer. You guys have been WAY too patient for all the details (and with me being pretty much absent)

This year we hosted a Fancy Nancy Soiree (that's a fancy word for party). Last summer I introduced Mady to Nancy and that was pretty much the end. The theme was decided. She just loves her. She has been asking about when her party is going to be since about Christmas time and counting down the months, weeks and days. Needless to say, she was very excited.

It wouldn't be a Fancy Nancy party without a fancy ensemble (that's a fancy word for outfit). I wasn't sure what to do, so when my sister suggested a pettiskirt I knew it was perfect. But then I'm cheap and there was no way I was paying the ridiculous prices for them. So I made them. And now I know why people charge ridiculous prices. And let me tell you, people, you're getting a steal of a deal! But I love them and they love them! I made the shirts (which are cupcakes if you can't tell) to match using leftovers from the skirts and other stuff from around my house.

Let's start with the invitations. I cut out little purses with my Silhouette, printed all the party info to put inside. Added a flower, ribbon for the handle and some velcro to keep it closed.

I know I could have gone crazy making them more fancy, but sometimes it's just better for me to stop. Apparently quite a few of the kids liked them as I had a few parents calling or emailing me for the party details because their child had wandered off with them! Ha!

Let's just take a quick peek at the decor and then I'll show you the actual party and what we did.

Clockwise: Framed print on mantle, French Happy Birthday Banner, Door Sign, La Chic Boutique sign

 I missed taking a picture of the big pink poms and ruffled streamers between my living room and upstairs (it's a sunken living room), but you can imagine they were there.

Clockwise: Tea Party Set up, King's Crown Sign, Place settings, Food labels, Tea cups with Pinkies up and Mustache Staws

When the kids arrived we played Mady's Fancy Nancy Parfait game until all the kids arrived. I didn't get pictures of this as I was still completing a few last minute food things. But it's a great little game that Mady loves and doesn't torment me as a parent to play so I highly recommend it.

Next we read Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy. I chose this book in particular because it's probably Mady's favourite and it introduces Mrs. Devine.

 I have a fabulous friend, Eve, who agreed to come and play the part of Mrs. Devine (Fancy Nancy's neighbour who taught her all about being fancy) and she was perfect! Mady was completely star struck. It made me giggle! It was even better because Mady has never met Eve so she didn't recognize her as my friend at all.

So then Mrs. Devine suggested the kids all get fancy for a fashion show. I had set up the "La Chic Boutique" with all sorts of dress up supplies. For the boys I had some less girly sunglasses, top hats, ties and moustashes. I even found some less feminine rings. For the girls there were necklaces, boas, rings, coloured "hair extension" clips (which Stanley was a huge fan of), and sunglasses.

Then Mrs. Devine showed them all how to walk with a banana on their head (Nancy does this with her sister in one of the books) and for those willing to participate we did a little fashion show.
I had a frame that I painted pink for some extra pictures. I somehow did not get everyone, so if you were at the party and got pictures, you may have kids I missed.

Last we played Mrs. Devine May I. Which most of the kids didn't get. Probably should have gone with Simon says vs. Mother May I. :)

Then we went up to the table for a tea party.

We had peanut butter and jam or honey sandwiches cut into the shape of crowns (my mother in law made them all for me and was so kind as to follow my crazy instructions for how to cut them).

 

My sister in law put together fruit kabobs for me, and we had "tea" in their cups, which was really just raspberry lemonade. And, of course, Mrs Devine showed them how to drink with their pinkies up.

After they finished eating we took them outside for the pinata. This was pretty much the only request from Mady for her party. I had a bit of trouble coming up with an idea for how to make a pinata fancy. Then I remembered seeing one somewhere in blogland that was covered in tissue paper roses. So that's what I did. 250 roses later we had a fancy pinata. One that was apparently not made thin enough for dainty 3 and 4-year-olds to break.

Good thing we had a Dad close by to help! Once it was broken they discovered candy necklaces, ring pops and some pink jelly beans inside (and I put them all in bags before so that it was fair. Maybe that's a kill joy, but I figured at this age all the kids probably don't really understand the candy scramble so if I didn't there was going to be tears).

Then they came inside and decorated some boxes with stickers and such. I tried to gather the nerve to bring in paint, but decided I couldn't quite get to that point of mess. Maybe when she's five... The plan was that they would be jewelry boxes, but since we had boys I didn't call them that. They put various treasures in from the boutique.

Then we had cake, cookies and parfaits.

And lastly we opened presents.

At the end of the party, each child got to pick a Fancy Nancy book to take home as well as keep the butterfly place mat that I made them from the table setting (you can find the tutorial here).

My kids are blessed with such wonderful friends! Thanks everyone for coming and making Mady's fourth birthday so special.

(and thanks Katie for the pictures I stole off of your facebook page of all the things I missed...)

And there you have it! And now I have less than 6 weeks to get the next party together. :)






Ps - I collected ideas from all over the internet for this party. Know that some really fabulous people helped to inspire this party and I couldn't have done it without their ideas.
Here are the ones I could find the inspiration websites for. If I missed something you know is your work or idea, please let me know and I'll add you to the credits.

• For the Pettiskirts I followed this fabulous pettiskirt tutorial. One of these days I'll explain how I did it because I made it more work than necessary and sometimes that comical.

• The t-shirts were inspired by the shirts found in this etsy shop. I'm cheap and was running out of shipping time and since I had everything on hand to make them, I did. But if you're lazy, or not crafty you should buy them from her. And she has TONS of chiffon, at great prices, which I found AFTER I purchased all my non non-fraying kind. Which made my skirt making a pain...

• The fancy pinata was inspired by the pinata in this post. Her's was much prettier. But like I always say, my versions are always slightly dorkier/wonkier/floppier.

• Um this cake is amazing. And I couldn't quit thinking about it. So this is the cake that I modeled mine after. Minus the crown because I got all creative with modelling chocolate, which then fell apart.  -

• The raspberry lemonade punch was a doubled version of a recipe that I found on pinterest. Delish!  

• Invitation Wording – I pieced together from various invitations I found online and now I can't find any of the sources. Sorry. If you recognize your creativity, please send me an email and I'll give you credit!

•  Same with the party signage.

Ragged Butterfly Place Mat Tutorial

Here is the promised tutorial for the Ragged Butterfly Place Mats. There is nothing that is particularly hard about them, but I did find them to take some time (though I also did 10, so it may have just FELT longer!).

I started with a basic butterfly shape. I got mine from the Silhouette online store, but I'm sure you could draw one or use any butterfly clip art. I drew a line down the centre (the middle of the body) so I knew where the halfway mark was.

I sized it so that half of the butterfly filled a vertical (portrait) page. I printed this size and then I shrunk it so that it was about 1/2 inch smaller all the way around. I had to stretch out the wings a bit in order to make the body small enough, but basically you just want a 1/2 inch smaller butterfly as even as possible all the way around (but it doesn't have to be exact).

Once I had printed my butterflies, I cut them out of the fabric that I wanted to use. Use the large butterfly for the outer fabric and the smaller butterfly for the batting. Since you only have half a butterfly, you'll need to place it on the fold. To get better mileage from my fabric, I folded both edges into the centre fold line (and then I was able to cut 2 at once).

I was going with the birthday colours. 8 of the 10 that I did I made pink on one side and purple on the other. 2 of them (for the boys) I made green on both sides. Then for the circles (my butterfly shape came with them) I cut out the small ones all green for the girls (both sides) and opposite pink and purple for the big circles. On the boys I did one side with large purple and small pink and the opposite side was the other way around. It really doesn't matter what colours you use or how you do the dots.
For the 10 place mats I did I had:
8 pink butterflies
8 purple butterflies
4 green butterflies
20  purple large circles
20 pink large circles
4 purple little circles
4 pink little circles
32 little green circles

Cut the smaller butterfly (1 for each mat) out of the batting. I used a thin batting. I have no idea if it has a special name as I got it on a bolt. I just asked the girl at the store to help me find the cheapest and thinnest batting they had.

Once you've got everything cut out it's time to layer it.

Take one of the fabric butterflies, right side down, then place on some batting (centering it), then place the opposite colour fabric right side up. I then placed on my circles, being careful they are more or less in the same spot on the opposite side (I used my fingers to pinch the feel along the outer edge to gauge how close I was. Not all were perfect, but most were good enough). Pin in place.

Using a straight stitch sew around the circles (remember to back stitch) leaving about a 1/2 inch seam allowance. With your needle down lift your presser foot to help swivel around the circles. Again, these don't have to be perfect.

Starting 1/2 inch in from the edge, sew two straight lines on either side of the body of the butterfly. Stop 1/2 inch from the bottom edge (otherwise you won't have anything to fray!). This stitching helps tack everything in the middle down and gives definition to the butterfly.

Then sew around the entire body leaving a half inch edge (I realized after the second line down the centre by the body, you can leave your needle down, turn the butterfly and start sewing around the edge from there).

(if you look closely on this picture you'll see that some of my stitches got too close to the edge. You don't want that because it makes the next part not work as well)

Once you have sewn all the way around, take some snippers (they're the spring loaded scissors, also called ragging scissors) and snip all the edges and around the circles too, about 1/4 of an inch apart. Careful not to clip your stitches! You can do this with regular scissors, but it's very tiring on the hand. I found this to be a good TV watching exercise.

Once you're done throw them in the washer and dryer to help the fringe to curl and look all ragged.

That's it, you're done!

 

Simple Layer Skirt with Ruffle

Mark referred to me as a clothing factory yesterday. I think I'll take that as a compliment. :)

It's totally addicting, this making clothes business. I haven't stopped. I recently counted and I still have 7-8 more sewing projects to get done between now and July (when it will be time to start on all the fall ones, so I'm thinking this will never be done).

Don't worry, all you non-sewers, I have no plans to turn this into a sewing blog. And birthday party season is upon us, so you will be seeing a bunch of projects for that. I don't know who is more excited, Mady or me. :)

The weather has been gorgeous this weekend. I didn't really get to enjoy it too much though because I started working on the never ending project. Let's just say it involved a lot of chiffon and ruffles. Good thing the girls enjoy playing outside and out of my way since it's hard to walk through a living room of ruffles.


So, since working on the project that won't die end, I needed a reminder about simpler times. Like when I made this skirt for Mady. In a nap-time. Yup, it's that simple.

(oh the sass! Check out the foot! I fear asking where she gets it from...)

Some of you will recognize this fabric from the apron set I made. Well, Mady requested a dress from it. I didn't have enough left for a dress and the fabric store didn't have any more in stock. But thankfully there was enough (with the addition of a ruffle on the bottom) to make her a skirt and that seemed to appease her. I used Dana's Simple Skirt tutorial from MADE (the layered version). I love her stuff. Her whole blog makes me happy!

So if you need a quick skirt and you don't have a ton of fabric, this is the way to go.

Spring Wall Hanging (Wreath Alternative)

I suck at hanging things up on my walls.

It took my 4.5 years to hang a clock. I'm not kidding.

Basically it's because I have no idea what I'm doing. I have super huge walls and think everything looks funny.

But then at Christmas a found a good space for a wreath (my door style doesn't work and is on the side of the house any way, so I don't see the point of hanging one on it). After Christmas I made a winter wreath that wasn't really Christmas-y so that it wasn't so blank in the space once the Christmas wreath was gone.

And then I made a valentine one.

And then I was completely uninspired on the wreath front and so I left the valentine one up for about 5 weeks too long. Yes, really.

And just when I couldn't take it anymore, I found my inspiration on Pinterest (isn't that where it all comes from lately?).

The link didn't come from a blog, it was uploaded directly by a user (not sure if it's this person's actual personal work or not, so if you know the actual source, please share!). You can find the inspiration pin here.

But I didn't have a wreath form to put it on and I didn't want to go get one. So I decided to go for a spring wall hanging instead of an actual circular wreath. The point is to not have a blank wall, so what does it matter it's shape, right?

Some ribbon, a few fake flowers, some hot glue and my cute little bird houses make me smile.

Rolled Easter Baskets

So last year, about a week before Easter, something caught my eye in blogland.

Home made Easter baskets.

Lovely, fabric, scrappy, shabby-chic, spring-y, not too big, not too small, not too juvenile, Easter baskets. They were perfect and I was utterly in love!

There was only one problem.

Time.

I had no idea if I could find supplies locally (sometimes a problem in Canada when you read American craft blogs) and since I have TWO kids there was no way I could only make only one and I had less than a week.

So I put it on the list for next year, determined to do them.

In January we had some warm weather that totally got me in the Spring mood so I dug out the tutorial and went in search of supplies.

I was able to find the cording needed at Fabricland, but no one in any fabric store (not even quilting stores) had Honeybuns (some had Jellyrolls, but that was it and they're too big). I looked on Etsy, but the only stores that carried them (including the one linked to in the tutorial) were closed or on holidays.

When I get an idea in my head, I have a hard time just waiting around, so I looked up the dimensions of the honeybuns (1.5 inches by the width of the fabric, generally 44-45 inches. 40 strips in each roll), bought a scalloped cutting wheel (they didn't have a pinking wheel. So weird) and went in search for my own fabrics to make strips out of.

This project took me a long time not because it's hard, but because I ran out of some supplies (thick thread) and couldn't get back to get some. So finally a few weeks ago I got them finished. They look great up on my mantle. And I can't wait to fill them full of fun Easter goodies this weekend. Hopefully they last for years to come!

Want to make one too? You can find the tutorial here.

Linking up to the fabulous parties in my party tab. Check em out!

Another Dress...(Polky Nots Dress from Sew Easy Being Green)

Are you sick of me making dresses yet? I hope not because I still have a couple to show you and a few more I HAVE to make.

This is one of my favourites (I think I say that about all of them). But this one really is. I love this fabric, it just makes me smile. It's so fresh and happy. And this dress has shirring (my new favourite thing) and pockets.

I know. I might die. It's amazing.

I thought up this dress in my head. And then put off making it. Good thing because that afternoon the tutorial came up on my Google reader. I love when someone else has the same idea and does all the work.

Anyway, I followed the pattern and tutorial found here.

I think Mady feels awkward when I take her picture. So to try to get her to loosen up I told her to make silly faces. This is what I ended up with. Oh dear.

(I think she was going for cross eyed here)

Surely by now you think this dress is just as cute as I do. So now I think you should go whip one up!