A Mermaid Plush Doll

It has been a long time since I have done a craft due to the fact that it is hard to find material here in Poland. But I did however manage to do a plush doll for my daughter and it was really easy to do. 

I started with felt material that I purchased (for Polish friends) at Empik. Using a pattern found HERE and HERE. I made changes to combine the head and torso in one piece but the head shape and arms I used. Using the leg shape I got the general length that the tail should be and added the flipper. The body, hair and face are felt. Hand-Embroidered face and seashells, hair flower and braided "seaweed" belt made out of satin ribbon. You can make any doll that you want from the above patterns just using your own creativity to give it a little bit of your own personality.

The doll's face is hand stilled with embroidery detail.

The detailing on the fin was done by a sewing machine. But it could be easily done by hand if you don't have a sewing machine.







The finished product measures about 20 inches (51 cm). Like I said before, the pattern was changed to fit the mermaid doll and it can be changed any way you want. Comment and send some dolls that you have made and I will post them to share with everyone! The Pattern that I made for the mermaid will be posted soon.

Your Kid will Love it!!

Easter Time!!

Easter is always a fun time to decorate the house up nice. Easter is a great time to shake off Winter. What better way then to hang flowers in your window. This is a Styrofoam egg hung on a craft fishing wire. I used a needle to pierce through artificial flowers. You can use any type of flower but I believe the smaller the better. I made DOZENS of these and they are strung across every window.

Here are a bundle of Icicle or Carrot boxes strung together to greet the Easter Bunny! The patterns were found HERE and you can have a blast making them. These boxes can be used as small gift boxes too.

In the hallway there are an assortment of Bunnies, Decorated Easter eggs and flowers to welcome in the spring and Easter.  Patterns for these can be found HERE, and HERE.






Here are the cutouts up close. I used my glitter pen (Glitter Gel Glue) to give it a little sparkle. For the squiggly stripes, I used my decorative scissors to cut strips of a contrasting color. I think that the smaller bunnies would be a cute size for a template for sugar cookies as well.

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For the most part, It is not hard to decorate your home if you have the right amount of paper to do the job.

And as always,

HAPPY EASTER!

Valentines Day Decorations

 

Hearts in the Hallway and Cupid on the door. Just to add a little bit of Valentine feel for the holiday. I always decorate to add more of a feel to the apartment. 

Hearts on the curtains and a Mobile for Valentines Day. There are hearts and cupids that I recycled from Carsyn's Birthday for Alice in Wonderland Party. These are all the decorations that I made to celebrate Valentines Day. It was fun to make. 

Valentines Day Cards

These are the Valentines Day cards that I decided to make this year. I got the idea from HERE. It was fun to make. The who purpose is that when you open the card up, you have a "box of chocolates". It was a cute idea that made for a cute card.

This is the view of the card without the cover lifted up. Happy Valentines DAY!

Microwave Oven Peanut Brittle

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups dry roasted peanuts 1 cup white sugar 1/2 cup light corn syrup 1 pinch salt (optional)

1 tablespoon butter 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon baking soda

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Grease a baking sheet, and set aside. In a glass bowl, combine peanuts, sugar, corn syrup, and salt. Cook in microwave for 6 to 7 minutes on High (700 W); mixture should be bubbly and peanuts browned. Stir in butter and vanilla; cook 2 to 3 minutes longer.
2.	Quickly stir in baking soda, just until mixture is foamy. Pour immediately onto wax paper (tried a greased glass dish..BAD IDEA). Let cool 15 minutes, or until set. Break into pieces, and store in an airtight container.

Ginger Bread House

Butter Cream frosting with the Assortment of Cookies and Candy. Carysn was supposed to help but she was a little coughy. Besides she likes eating it rather than making it.

No Bake Cookies

INGREDIENTS

2 cup sugar

pinch of salt

1/2 cup butter or margerine

3 cups quick cooking oatmeal

1/2 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

DIRECTONS:

Combine the first 5 ingredients and cook for 2 minutes after it starts to boil. Remove from heat and add the oatmeal, vanilla and peanut butter. Stir until thick and well mixed. Drop small tablespoons full onto wax paper. Wait until cool and ENJOY!! They may look like Poop, but they are melt in your mouth DELICIOUS!!

Pop-Up Reindeer Merry Christmas Cards

Inspired by Martha Stewart these are my Christmas cards that I decided to do. The pattern can be found HERE for all you brave souls with no work to do.

Top is the normal pattern to the Christmas Card. I ran out of the color paper so I had to improvise. The alien reindeer was my husband's idea and the banner saying "Merry Christmas Earthlings" was my idea. :) I don't need to make more but they turned out so cute that I might just do it despite my hand being worn down to a nub.

OMFG Cinnamon rolls

Cinnamon roll recipe is found HERE. Here is the picture of the finished product. The recipe turned out REALLY GOOD and they tasted devine! It was so good that we had to take a break from it because they are REALLY SWEET!! It was really good and we shared with the locals. We await their response or call from the hospital for sugar overdose. This is because they are not used to sweet things here in Poland.

All in all a Great recipe. :) The only modification to the recipe is that I used Dark Molasses Brown Sugar rather than regular. Makes for a richer flavor. Not like these needed it tough. :)

Alice in Wonderland themed decorations

This is the table with decorations. Notice the heart plates, napkins and the outline of roses

I scanned a regular playing card and enlarged it with the printer. The crape paper adds to the color to the decor.

A character banner

The inside of the 3 layered cake. YUM!

Get the spirit and dress up! Mad Hatter, Queen of hearts and Alice

Drink me juice bottles. BIG HIT with the kids. You can even write the kid's name on it so they don't loose their juice too!

A view of the whole table

Party hats

The invitations. What? You can't read it. Oh yeah it's in Polish. :)

Personalized gift bags saying thank you filled with yummy goodies and prizes

The decorations. Notice the hand-made tissue paper roses.

A closeup of the roses. I attached the roses to a length of twine to achieve a cascading effect. Came out rather nicely if I say so myself, don't you think so?

Happy Birthday sign of course

The mobile. Got the idea from the website thelongthread.

Eat Me cookies. I didn't know if the thirteen year old girl inside of me would allow me to write that on the cookies, but the polish kids didn't seem to get it. So it was my own private joke.

Carsyn's 6th Birthday Cake.

It is 3 layers of divinely delicious chocolate cake covered in Butter Cream frosting.

It is approximately 11 inches across and 6 inches tall. Took 2 days to Bake it.

Halloween Decor

Tis the season for Halloween. Here is the decor that is surrounding the apartment at the moment. Anything to get ready for the Halloween season.

This is the bat mobile that I made for the Halloween season.

This is the Balloon Bat that I made to add to the decor of the Halloween season!

Manly Cupcakes!

How do you make cupcakes "Manly" when cupcakes are basically a nine-year old little girl who believes in Unicorns? So this is what I came up with. Blue with moca trim. This is as manly as I can get them without giving them steroids or injecting them with motor oil. (not the preferred cupcake filling by the way).

Bat Piñata

This is the Bat Piñata I made for our Halloween party. I used a punching balloon for the base, then did 5 layers of paper-mache and one layer of black crape paper. The final layer is also crape paper, but I cut it half way to make a " Hairy" affect.

The wings ears and face are black poster board. I decided to make it a pull string piñata so that I could use it for next years party too. The trap door bottom was a little tricky, but it will be worth it not to make an other next year.

I made little pouches out of orange crape paper for the candy and tied it up with green ribbon to make them look like little pumpkins.

Puppets! (Paper Bag Style)

The reason I made these is because Carsyn kept doing little hand puppets with her bare hand. I had left over felt so I decided to make her a dragon. Then the dragon came out so freaking cute that I decided to make a Princess. Now I think I need to make her a ship captain or a pirate, maybe a mermaid, I don't really know yet.

Close up on the Dragon

Close up on the Princess

Hair of the Princess

Side spikey's of the Dragon

The Princess and the Dragon

The puppets in Action