3/52 : What a week

What  a few weeks, possibly the most nerve wracking ever. My Mum was diagnosed with cancer at Christmas and we have been waiting nervously to find out what will happen. The week ended well though, with news that my Mum's cancer is treatable, I think we all feel like we have won the lottery! This year is going to be very tough for my Mum but she is determined and will fight this every step of the way.

We got a wee bit of snow during the week, I wish we had more, I love snow! little e made herself a tiny Gruffalo snowman!

Today was Big E's birthday party, we had a party at my in-laws garden railway, all the kids had a fab time! He is 9 on Tuesday, I have no idea how that happened!

Off to recover now!

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The Birthday Skater Dress!

It was my birthday last Saturday and Husband excelled himself and booked a table at The Dome in Edinburgh. I had heard how amazing it was a Christmas but WOW, I didn't expect it to be this fab!

Anyway, a special place meant the perfect excuse to make a party dress! I spotted this dress in M&S and knew I needed to make one of my own!

I bought 2m of stretch velour on ebay (£5.99 p/m) and whipped up this Lady Skater in a couple of hours.

think I was about to say something...!

The fabric is more of a teal colour in real life but it is the perfect understated party dress (it is stretchy too so may end up as my Christmas Day Dress too!

Going to hit publish now, we have had no consistent internet connection for weeks now so actually being able to publish this will be a miracle!

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Frozen Birthday Party

What a crazy week, I have been in party / back to school mode and I think I need a holiday to recover!

Little e was 6 on Friday, how 6 years have passed I have no idea but all of a sudden our little girl isn't so little any more :( She is Frozen daft so wanted a Frozen birthday party for her friends. We had it on Saturday and it was a simple affair - 14 children, 1 bouncy castle, 2 organised games (stick the nose on Olaf and frozen statues, no photos of these as all the kids are in them) and some food.

I had been madly pinning Frozen party ideas which was probably a mistake as my effort looks lame in comparison but here are some pics of the day:

These are 2 marshmallows, a chocolate stick broken in half, some raisins
and a bit of dried apricot cut into a triangle. They went in the party bags.

Frozen Hearts

Food - Melted Snow, Olaf noses, snowflake biscuits, snowballs, frozen hearts and fairy cakes.

Olaf on the beach cake

The cake was a night before job. Little e requested an Olaf on the beach cake so that is what she got! I used this how to to help getting the shape of Olaf's face correct, it worked not too badly. The sand is crushed digestives and I used a flower garland round the cake. If I had had time I would have piped the surf but just stuck on a sausage of fondant instead...!

Finally, here are the labels I made for the various food, if you click on them they will come up full size and then you can right click and save them so you can print and use them as well!

Use this on small bottles of water.
Put it into a word document and make the correct size for your bottles!

carrots!

white chocolate coated strawberries

I put this on the party bags

I made Elsa inspired hair bands for the party bags but I will do a separate post about that.

Now to recover from the party and get ready for back to school tomorrow!!

Linking to some of these linky parties.

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Fabric Headbands

Big E's 5th birthday is fast approaching and I am making headbands for the girls party bags.

Here is how I have done it (to fit age 3-6 yrs approx): 

Cut out 2 strips of fabric, I have used scrap jersey material so they have a bit of stretch:

Headband strip is 35cm x 9cm 
Smaller strip, for the elastic casing, is 24cm x 5.5cm. (forgot to take a pic unfolded!)

Cut one, 12cm, strip of elastic 2cm wide elastic.


Fold the two strips in half length ways, right sides together, and stitch (I used a 0.5cm seam allowance).

Turn right sides out then press seams down the middle and you will end up with:

Attach a safety pin to the elastic and thread it through the smaller tube until it is just at the end.

The safety pin will still be in the tube at this point but first the most important thing is to anchor the elastic at the end of the tube. I had to unpick the first headband twice so decided this step was essential!! I pulled the top of the casing away from the elastic and stitched throught the elastic and one layer of material.

Then fold over the end of the tube ~0.5cm,

gather one end of the larger tube (the pic shows a gathering stitch but in the end I just gathered them by hand),

Stuff the gathered headband piece in to the elastic tube (make sure the seams are both on the underside) then stitch in place. I stitched twice to make sure it was really strong.

Now, pull the elastic to the other end of the tube and repeat the above until you have something like this:

I made the flowers using this tutorial by Little Miss Momma, hopefully you won't burn yourself with the hot glue!!


I have made 8 of these and hopefully the girls at the party will like them!!

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