Tractor Birthday

I can't believe it, but my MonkeyBoy turned two years old this November. Where does the time go?

This year, although still a huge fan of monster trucks, he opted for tractors. I scoured the web, and here's what I came up with for a John Deere-esque Birthday Party:

1. Tractor Cake

Thanks to this fabulous idea, this bad boy was one of my easier cakes to make since it was basically all props. I purchased an Ertl John Deere tractor with hay baler "hook up", as my son calls them. I also found the miniature animals, fencing, and trees at my local crafts store's hobby section.

What's great was the prop became one of MonkeyBoy's gifts!

2.  Party Favors

Following the John Deere theme, I found some green and yellow gift bags at my local dollar store (above pic with the cake). Luckily they had two packs in assorted colors, and I was able to find eight two-packs of green/yellow combos.

For inside the bags, I found a four-pack of toy push/pull tractors at Walmart in the party supply section, green and yellow hankerchiefs, and tiny board books that came in two-packs from the dollar store. Since we were also having the party run until five in the evening, I stuck in some glow sticks for the kids to have fun with outside.

3. Chocolate dipped French crullers

I found these coolest and yummiest tractor wheels you'll ever eat! Dunkin' Donuts even had them covered in chocolate already, so one less thing to do. 

4.  Tractor Wheels and Cheese

I forgot to take a picture of this, but this one's fairly easy. I purchased rotelle pasta and just melted Velveeta all over it. Super yummy and a toddler winner every time.

5.  Hay Stacks
I thought this idea was so cute, and super easy. Take vanilla wafers and cut them into smaller rectangles to resemble stacks of hay. Who doesn't like vanilla wafers?!?

6.  Cardboard Tractor Box

I took all my son's birthday gifts and gave them to him in a big tractor made from a cardboard box. I used brass prong paper fasteners to attach the wheels so they could spin.

7.  Tractor No-Sew Fleece Blanket
MonkeyBoy is obsessed with anything that is fleece. Fleece blankets, fleece clothes, fleece pillows, ANYTHING FLEECE. How could I possibly go wrong with a Tractor Fleece Throw?  It only took about 20-30 minutes to make. He immediately laid down on it when he opened it.

8. Farm Felt Board

For more toddler entertainment, I created this fun board hung at baby level. I'm excited to start creating other scenes to change up for different seasons and holidays.

9. Tractor Bean Bag Toss

I was so proud of this, and yet all the kids wanted to play with was MonkeyBoy's new toy (see #8).

10. John Deere Pedal Tractor

The pièce de résistance. This is a fabulous little riding toy with a chain and pedals to work those little muscles. It also came with a "hook up", one of my son's favorite things. He loves stuff hooking up.
















All in all, the party was a huge success. And for not having a nap that day, we were shocked that he was still going at 8:30 PM that night without any "toddler incidents."

Yankee Doodle Dandy,
– TYG

DIY: Repurposed Sweater

I found this L.L. Bean wool sweater at a local thrift shop for $8. I immediately fell in love with it, imagining cuddling with a hot cup of cocoa reading in front of the fire. So, I wore it once this winter, and basically hated the way it fit. It was just too big and bulky, and the buttons kept coming undone.

Rather than have it take up space in my already overcrowded sweater tub, I decided to cut it up and repurpose it.

STEP 1: Legwarmers

Remove the sleeves. I cut the slope-side of the sleeve to make it more tubular for leg warmers. I sewed it closed, then hemmed the top. I made the size fit my legs snug enough, so no elastic was needed at the top. I used the already cuffed bottom of the sleeve as the ankle cuff.

STEP 2:  Mittens

I traced 1/2" around my hand on a piece of paper to make a mitten pattern.

I cut out pieces at the base of the sweater. This allowed the bottom cuff of the sweater to become the bottom cuff of the mitten. 

STEP 3: Hat

I used the remaining scrap of the back of the sweater and the rim of the neck to make a hat. I used the the pattern shape below; Cut two, sewed them together. Then I cleanly cut the neck cuff off the sweater, and sewed it onto the hat around the bottom hem.

STEP 4: Add Embellishments

The buttons on the sweater were actually really pretty. Just not functional. So I removed them and added them as decorations to the leg warmers and the hat

I'm super thrilled with the results. So much so, I would love to buy more thrift shop sweaters and make more sets. 

I now need to purchase some cute skirts or skinny jeans to make these leg warmers do their adorable thing to my ensemble. Then I'll need to get some flats. I love ballet slipper flats and leg warmers.

Come to think of it, the skinny jean aspect scares me. I haven't been in skinny jeans since the inception of my son. Three years now. 

Maybe I should stick to skirts. They're a little more forgiving with a derriere that may not see a size 4 ever again.

Yankee Doodle Dandy,

– TYG

***DISCLAIMER:  Yes, sweaters were hurt in the making of the above ensemble. I am not affiliated with L.L. Bean, nor would they want me to be after they see what I did to their product.

KIDS DIY: Fire Breathing Dragon

Another great inspiration, this time from KangarooBoo Blog with ideas for the Chinese New Year. I saw this and knew we just had to make it right away!

Cast of Characters:

• Scissors
• Glue
• Paper cups
• Crepe paper
• Construction paper
• Pompoms
• Googly eyes

I actually had all these items already in my stash. I tend not to throw anything out, and I still had a ton of red streamers leftover from MonkeyBoy's first birthday, and green paper cups from his second birthday. Of course, these little guys would be so much fun in any color.

STEP 1

Cut out the bottoms of the paper cups.

MonkeyBoy promptly used the circles to make "crafts", as he calls them, for eye pizzas.

STEP 2

I found a rag-tag piece of green construction paper and cut out scale shapes and had MonkeyBoy glue them sporadically all over the cup. 

STEP 3

Cut the crepe paper into strips and glue on the inside, top lip of the cup. I used crepe paper because it is very light and will easily blow around. Tissue paper would work well, too.

STEP 4

Glue on pompoms for eyes.

STEP 5

Glue on googly eyes on top of pompoms.

STEP 6

After I finished him, he looked naked without some nostrils, so I fished out a couple of green pompoms to put on his nose.

STEP 7

When the monsoon finally blows by our house this morning, we'll go outside and get some sticks. The original blog post for this craft used large popsicle sticks or tongue depressers as a handle.

STEP 8

Blow and roar into the cup!!!

Yankee Doodle Dandy,

– TYG

KIDS DIY: Paper Tube Snake

We were up so early this morning, I felt like lunch would never arrive. To kill some time this chilly AM, I pulled out another awesome Pinterest find. 

This little guy was fun to make and even more fun to play with.

MonkeyBoy had a blast painting the tubes and sticking the eyes and tongue into place.

Mama had to cut the tubes and pipe cleaners, puncture the holes with a mini awl, and connect all the components.

What's great is that my son immediately started seeing "letters" with the snake and started making them.

For the complete directions and materials list, visit Cheap Crafty Mama.

Until the next!

Yankee Doodle Dandy,

– TYG

DIY: Stair Basket

Our accumulation of hats, scarves, and gloves has really gotten out of control. I'm a full-fledged freak for those cheap $1 stretch gloves. I need to have a pair that matches every coat I have. And, of course, I've projected that onto my son.  Anyway, the hats and scarves were taken up too much space on the coat hooks and racks. I was starting to leave them on the stairs and on the half moon table in the foyer.

Well, I started searching for storage options on the world wide web, and the images for a stair basket popped up. Well, at $25.99 and up, I was turned off....until....

I was staring at the pile of recycling that I was procrastinatingly leaving in the hallway, and it occured to me:  The diaper wipes box was the perfect width for a stair basket. 

I grabbed a knife and started cutting up the diaper and wipes boxes. 

Duct tape, the handy man's secret weapon, brought the boxes together.

A hotglue gun and a pile of upholstery fabric I had left in my stash covered my duct taped masterpiece.

If I were a more thorough person, I would have ironed the fabric.

The front part of the basket is two stairs deep; the back is one.

I adorned the front, where there were obvious seams from my fabric, with twine, extra fabric as a ribbon, twigs, and fabric remnants rolled to look like flowers or pinecones, or something like the such.

I must have had corsets on the brain.

It's working beautifully, and it cleaned up my staircase. And it cleared off my half moon table so I can start piling other type of junk on there.

It never ends...

Yankee Doodle Dandy,

– TYG

DIY: Photo Glass Bulb Ornament

OKAY, homemade Christmas Gift #2 was a glass ornament filled with beads, mistletoe, and a picture of my little MonkeyBoy.

I created a lined pattern in PhotoShop, along with a 1" x 1.5" image of my son, and a tiny "2012" placard. These three images are layered to show dimension using small pieces of foam sheets.

I rolled the image and stuffed it in the bulb. With a tweezer, I then arranged it, put in a piece of green mistletoe, and stuffed some pearlescent bead-ribbon to fill the space.

This was a time-consuming project using the tweezers to try to get all the components to cooperate, but I'm fairly happy with the results.  I used wire ribbon for bows to adorn the top, and I found gold ornament hooks at a local discount store for 25¢.

I ended up making six ornaments. I only spent $8 for the mistletoe and a quarter for the hooks (50ct). All other supplies were on hand. I had purchased empty glass ornaments YEARS ago (like 15+  years ago), and I finally had a reason to use them. Not bad for $1.38 each!







Until the next!

Yankee Doodle Dandy,
– TYG

DIY: Single-Color Watercolor Portaits

I can't believe we're almost a month out from Christmas, and my family is still trying to get together for the holidays.  MonkeyBoy, the hubby, and I went out to Ohio for the big event this year, and ever since we've been back, we've been near-missing my local family with flus, colds, noroviruses, pink-eyes, and who knows what else. This past Sunday, we finally got together with my mom and dad, so MonkeyBoy had Christmas #2. And that means my family has started to open their gifts from me, which, of course, were all home made. I've been waiting to post my DIY's so I wouldn't spoil the surprises.

The first item I'd like to post is this fabulous tutorial I found on Grow Creative for easy watercolor portraits. And, wow, it was easy AND it came out fantastic. Here's how I did it with my resources.

ITEMS USED:

• Digital photograph
• PhotoShop CS4
• Printer (Black and White)
• Watercolor paper
• Soft and hard pencils
• Kneaded eraser
• Dollar store watercolors
• Paint brush
• Water

This project only cost me $1 for the watercolors, since I had all the other items on-hand from my ancient art school days, and $3 for a frame.

Step 1:  Make image of your choice two-color and blocked. I accomplished this in Photoshop decreasing the threshold. You'll need an image with contrasting color in order to get great shapes on the face.

Original

Crop to the size you want.  I cropped at 8"x10" in order to frame.

Step 2:  Print out your image black and white, cropped at the size you want,  then use a soft pencil and color in the entire back side of the image. I used a 6B, one of my softest pencils, but really, any No. 2 pencil will do.

Step 3:  Use a hard pencil and trace the blocked images onto the watercolor paper. Again, any No. 2 pencil will do. I had the stuff, so I wanted to use it.

I had a large watercolor pad on hand that my son and I had been using for coloring until I bought him some much cheaper newsprint. Using watercolor paper to sketch on is not particularly cost-effective, as young starving artists know. Not that I'm young. Or starving for that matter. I mean, I did buy the pad....ahem....20 years ago.

Step 4: Pencil will show through watercolors. I forgot this on my first try. So, the next try I used a kneaded eraser to lighten the pencil marks after tracing the whole image. Pink erasers may leave marks, so you're better off using kneaded or white erasers.

Step 5:  Using much needed and obvious water and a paint brush on hand since the brush in the kit was too stiff, I filled in the shapes I had just traced. The variation of colors happened naturally as the brush began to dry on the page or if I used more water or more paint in some areas. I just experimented and let whatever happen, happen.

I went a step further and framed my artwork. I made sure to crop my image at 8"x10" so I could easily find frames. With sales and coupons, I ended up finding lovely wooden frames for just $3 each.

Very Andy Warhol.

I am so super thrilled with the results for this project, I have already printed out another image to make one for myself. I can see this project being used frequently for presents, so be forewarned my friends and family.

Until the next...

Yankee Doodle Dandy,

–TYG

***Disclamer****
Please note that I am in no way affiliated with the products used for this project by Strathmore, Staedtler, Faber-Castelle, and Adobe. The items used were the items I had on hand from my old art school days back in the early 90's, and by what was available to me at my college bookstore.