DIY Cotton Rounds

Hello lovelies! So, before we get too far into this let me warn you. This is my first crochet tutorial. I am so guilty of just making things up as I go and I can never follow patterns correctly. Clearly, it works out for me most of the time. (: But I tried to get this as accurate as possible, it's really pretty easy. Please let me know if you find anything confusing or any mistakes. If you're anything like me, you use way too many cotton balls or pads to remove eye makeup. Now, I know what you're thinking. "Amanda, cotton balls aren't very expensive. Plus cotton is a renewable resours, mostly." Okay, you're right. But wouldn't it be great if you could just throw them in the washer and have new ones in a couple of hours? I thought so too. (: This idea isn't completely mine, I originally saw a puff-stitch version on Pinterest. While those are so much cuter, I like my version because I feel like it exfoliates a little more and I think, over time, they'll hold their shape better than a looser stitch would. Anyway, let's get started, you'll need some cotton yarn (any color your heart desires), corresponding hook, and a pair of scissors. That's it, really!

You're going to start with a magic circle OR however you prefer to start your round. You just need to end up with 10 stitches in your first round. If you're following me, make your magic circle and chain two, make 9 half double crochets and pull to close.

Still there? I hope so. Now you can crochet this in rounds if you'd like, I made these in a continuous round. That just means instead of joining that 10th stitch you're going to make a half-double crochet in the next space. Half-double crochet in each space until you've reached the space where you would join, which will be at 20 stitches.

Smudged nail polish helps you crochet better.

In the next space you'll do 2 HDC, next space do 1 HDC. Repeat until you've done 30 stitches. Skip one space and slipstich into the next. Weave in ends and you've finished one cotton pad!

I hope this wasn't terribly confusing, if you have any questions feel free to ask. Don't know how to crochet but still want some awesome little scrubbies? They're now available in my shop. Have a great day and enjoy!If you have any suggestions on what we should make next feel free to leave me a comment!

A's 4th Birthday - Brave theme

We took A to watch Brave in theaters and she fell in love instantly. Before it could come out on DVD however we also had short but very intense relationships with The Lorax, Barbie's Princess and the Popstar, and Angelina Ballerina.

But the minute Brave came out, Merida won. I'm a pretty crafty person to begin with, but Pinterest has completely taken it into overdrive. There are so many possibilities! Unfortunately, we live in a small town so I wasn't able to do everything we had originally planned. Not that the attendees cared too much, it was cold outside and they spent the majority of the party playing Dance Central on the Kinect.

Just in case your little Princess wants a Brave birthday party, here are some of the amazing things we found and some that what we tried out. For her personal cake I used a lot of the tips from this pin. Ashleey at Topsy Turvy Cakes is INCREDIBLY talented. If you're in the Salt Lake area and need a cake made, she's your lady! This one was made out of Funfetti for us non-chocolate-lovers. When you do this you should A) buy the Barbie cakepan or B) not cut a huge whole that seven barbies could fit in. I made that mistake and tried to correct it with Marshmallows.. Also my icing layer should have been thicker and then I think it wouldn't have looked so lumpy. You live and you learn. For our cake I went with something more simple and we got the idea from this. A was very adamant about wanting a blue chocolate cake and I was really surprised to find that it exists! There are a lot of not so pretty blue velvet cake recipes online but this one made the most beautiful shade of blue.

This is part when you're absolutely sure I am not a proffessional cake decorator.

And now it's time for the highland games! I wasn't able to find any archery sets or even the items needed to make some. VERY disappointing. I even asked people to look in other towns for the Disney sets and they were sold out almost everywhere. We did eventually find one but not enough for everyone to take one home. If you're up for some DIY adventures though, this looks like a great tutorial. For a Caper toss I was going to use a yoga mat as some others have suggested but my boys are still pretty young and I didn't think they could throw it very far. So instead I made one from a stick, a lot of batting (the thickest you can find, in my case it was some I had used as a baby bumper for a crib set.) and pink duct tape. I basically just rolled the stick in the batting and then again in the wrapping paper. I duct taped both ends and the middle, just to make it cuter. Everything but the stick, ha, was purchased at Hobby Lobby.

We also did a ball toss, an idea I got from A Crafty Chick She has so many good ideas, check them out too! For the ball toss board we used a foam board and (my saving grace) more duct tape! I traced 3 circles, cut them out with an exacto knife and then taped around all the edges. So simple and I think this is the game the younger ones played the longest.

For food we just had pizza, A's favorite. We did make about 100 little black bear cookies. This was my first experience with "flooding" but I think I got it down by the last few. I used this recipe for the Royal icing and this recipe for the sugar cookies. To be a bit more authentic, you should think about including Scottish sweet buns. There is also a recipe there for bear paw cookies which are absolutely adorable but we had a child with a nut allergy attending and in all honesty, we made way too many sugar cookies. For decorations we used a lot of blues and greens. Blue/Green streamers and Brave balloons. We also made some "blue wisps" out of a sparkly tulle, they turned out so cute! After her party they ended up on the Christmas tree as decorations. I had them around the party favor bags, with those we included a trophy for each child. (Party supply area of Hobby Lobby) and that's pretty much all of it. Hope this helps you plan your little ones special day!

Halloween 2012, DIY Rugrats costumes!

The kids have been pretty obsessed with the Rugrats cartoons (thank you Netflix!) I wasn't sure if I'd start doing tutorials or not so I didn't take a step by step, but these are all fairly self explanatory. It's a 90's cartoon after all. (:

With each of these we went for the more cartoon-ish version rather than what they would look like in real life. Except mine, but not really on purpose. My hair is pretty Deedee-eque on it's own, especially after the second day so I just teased it a little and sprayed it orange. Having 3-point hair would be more true to the character but, sadly, I chickened out. I ordered cheap green-rimmed sunglasses on Ebay and simply popped out the lens. A red turtleneck sweater dress was so hard to find this year! I found this one on Sammydress.com for something like $14. So even if it was terrible I wasnt too worried about it. I didn't think to dye some huge socks orange when I did A's shirt so I just wore some fold-over boots and legging so it still looked somewhat similar. Oh! I almost forgot the necklace. My ears are still stretched so I couldnt do the earrings but Deedee wears big, gaudy gold jewelry. I wore this super fake looking pearl necklace. I bought K and R's shirts at Hobby Lobby. I'm sure Walmart also sells plain, blue shirts. R is still not potty trained so technically he didn't need anything else but we put one of those huge white trainers and safety pins on the side for a more cartoonized diaper. If we could have found a toy screwdriver that would have been perfect! Angelica is known for pigtails, a purple dress, and her cynthia doll. I wish I had a better picture of Cynthia but she was disassembled promptly after trick or treating. Oh, boys. I bought a cheapy NOT-Barbie from the dollar store and hairsprayed 3 clumps of hair like the doll in the cartoon. She was so cheap she only had hair around the perimeter of her head to begin with so there wasnt anything to shave off. I bought blue leggings at Target and painted green circles on them. We had the hardest time finding turtlenecks anywhere, but finally someone told me to check walmart and there was ONE left in 4T. It was white so I dyed it orange. I made a really, really simple purple dress and put a hanger in the shape of a circle in the bottom so it would bell out the way Angelica's does. I think it turned out so cute! We just put some gold hairspray (could not find yellow, we are a family of improv, okay?) and she was set. Don't forget the chocolate chip cookies! Chuckie has a shirt with Saturn on it and green shorts with lighter green squiggles on it? Is it supposed to be Camo? I'm not sure. I made him a pair of green shorts and just painted lighter green squiggly lines on it, on his blue shirt I painted the lines around the neckline and armholes. Oh, and Saturn. Obviously. (: Chuckie has red shoes that are constantly untied but that seemed like a pretty terrible idea so I just left his shoes alone, I sprayed his hair orange and gave him some freckles. I got his purple glasses from Ebay but these lenses were glued in so I wasn't able to pop them out. Overall I think everything turned out pretty well and we had so much fun!

Halloween 2010

This year was so much fun! I actually got G to dress up.. it took three years, so I feel pretty good about myself. Haha. The kids and I dressed up as batman villains and I took A around to a few houses to "treat treat". She hasn't really had candy before, I'm afraid we created an addict. It's been a few days now though and she doesn't ask for it or anything but all day she wanted "some me".