Alice in Wonderland Party Part 1

So, my daughter turned 11 and had a party. An Alice in Wonderland party. Because she is an enormous Alice fan! I didn't take any pictures of the processes by which I made most things, BUT I do have many pictures of the party! And of the fun items I made/found/bought/traded for!

First I will start with my girls and what they wore.

The birthday girl wanted to be the Mad Hatter, so I made a dress, jacket and hat for her to wear. Her striped petticoat was from her halloween costume last year.

The top of the dress was made using an oversized t-shirt that was screen printed with suspenders, buttons down the center, and a bowtie. I had to cut off the bow tie and then applique it on after I had the dress made since the shirt was so large.

The skirt was made from a super soft lime green microfiber sheet with embossing in it. And fun pick-ups using ribbon to show off the striped pettiskirt.

I just so happened to find the PERFECT fabric for the jacket in the clearance section of JoAnn's a few days before the party.

Two different types of buttons placed wonky to each other.

For my younger daughter I made an Alice dress, apron, and bloomers. I had already made the hair clip.

The whole outfit together! The apron is a separate piece so that it can be removed if wanted. The skirt of the dress is made from a beautifully embroidered, very soft, upcycled sheet.

A ruffle added for cuteness. And the lace strip down the middle has sequins on it! :)

Together they looked completely adorable!

Part 2 will have some of the party details in it! :)

Experiment 626 Chicken Verde

Sooo this is one of those use what you have meals that turned out to be a success. And I'm calling it Experiment 626 Chicken Verde for a couple reasons...one is that for the last 11ish years I've been making experiment dinner after experiment dinner...so who knows what number it should really be?! And also, my 2 year old is obsessed with monsters. Monsters Inc is her favorite, but she will settle for Lilo and Stitch or Monsters VS Aliens, or even The Lorax....as long as he's called an orange monster. ;-)
We had a green pepper (actually 2, but i only used 1) and an onion that both NEEDED to get used, or they would be tossed in the trash soon. You know the kind - sitting in the veggie drawer for just a little too long, doesn't look all pretty and fresh anymore, but not quite to the point of growing its own fur coat. Still useable.

And dinner had to get made. And we didn't have anything thawed for making tacos or spaghetti (what we usually use the peppers for), but we had chicken ready to go.
And to be honest, taking pictures was kinda an after thought. More of an "if this works I want to know what was in it again" sort of thing. So I'm sorry for their poor quality (my phone's camera) and their lack of quantity (like I said - after thought).

Don't let the picture fool you. This stuff is GOOD!!

I used:
1 whole large green pepper
3/4 of one very large onion
Parsley flakes (dried)
Mustard
Badia Complete Seasoning
5 huge chicken breasts

I cut open the green pepper and removed the seeds, then diced it into roughly 3/4" pieces. Then dice up the onion. Put it all in a food processor with about 2 tbs mustard, 1.5 tbs parsley flakes, and a generous amount of the seasoning.

Blend until it is fairly smooth, but still has bitty bits of chunkiness to it. Kind of like a pesto consistency.

Cut up the chicken into large chunks and put into a dish. Pour the "sauce" on top to cover it all.
Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

I served it with linguine and Alfredo sauce. But I think it would be great with some rice and corn too. Or something else. :-)

I don't know if you can tell, but there is a lot of juice in the pan. I didn't use any oil or anything, and I cut off about 98% of the fat from the chicken, so it's just all natural juices. And it tastes really yummy. Would have been good poured onto some rice.

Choose Joy Banner Necklace 1st Necklace

Here is the second part to making the Choose Joy Banner necklace. Today's tutorial will show you how to make the first pictured style. At the bottom of this posting is a picture of a sneak peek at next week's tutorial for another version! I love having variety!

If you haven't already made your banner pieces, refer to last week's Tutorial Tuesday post.

Please excuse the completely terrible self-taken pictures of the necklace. And the absolutely wrong shirt to go with it. (Seriously. I should have just changed out of the cowl neck and put on something else! Oh well. C'est la vie!)

Some necessary supplies (for this necklace and the other kinds): chain, jump rings, needle nose pliers (I have two different kinds), wire cutters, mod podge, paint brush, ribbon, ribbon fasteners, necklace closures, pin/safety pin/needle (you only need one of them).

Measure out a length of chain to go around your neck and hang to the point that you want the "choose" to hang from.

Re-fold each banner in half and paint some Mod Podge onto the inside.

Then press the banners closed and carefully smooth them out to make sure there are no air bubbles inside. Let dry for a little while and then trim the edges of the banners to be more uniform.

Get out and open 2 jump rings for each banner. Measure where the center point of the chain is.

Make sure your banners are all dry, or have plenty of back-up banners to use incase this part goes awry. Use your poking device (aka pin, needle, or safety pin) and poke a hole close to the edge on each side. But don't get too close to the edge or you will rip your banner open instead of have a hole. Wiggle the poker around just enough to make the hole big enough to fit a jump ring through it.

Start with the O's and insert a jumpring into each of the holes, but don't close them yet. You will attach them to the necklace itself next!

Just to one side of the very center of the chain line up one O banner and insert the first jump ring and close. Go over a few chain links and insert the second jump ring and close. How many chain links you have the jump rings apart depends on what kind of chain you use. There is no set amount that I can tell you! Sorry about that! Repeat these steps on the otherside of center with the other O banner. The O's will now split the center of the chain between them.

Continue, continue, continue! Just leave a couple of links open and free between each banner so that the necklace has the ability to move.

Use a jump ring to attach the end of more chain between the S and E.

Measure out how long you want the JOY to hang down then cut off the chain and attach it with jump ring between the C and H. Mark the center of the chain to see where the center of the O banner will be. Attach the letters the same way as you did with CHOOSE. This time make sure the center of the O is in the center of the chain instead of off to the side a little.

Once all of the letters are attached attach the closures to the ends of the chain.

Here is a little sneaky peek of next weeks necklace!

Choose Joy Banner Necklace

This was supposed to be yesterday's Tutorial Tuesday post....but seeing as how I couldn't find ANY of my jewelry making supplies I had to postpone until today. I have NO IDEA where it all went. I guess it decided to grow legs and walk away. Because of this I had to go get some new supplies today, which I had to squeeze into my insane day. I'll actually be splitting this up into a few different tutorials. Partially because I have come up with a few different ideas as to how to make the necklaces, and this tutorial would be insanely long and full of a ridiculous amount of pictures if I put it all in to one! So... on to the first part of the tutorial!

I came up with this idea in the wee hours of the morning last week. My littlest nugget had woken up super early (hello 5am!) and was "snuggled" up in bed with me. And by "snuggled" I really mean she was rolling all over the bed wanting to get up and go play. And this is what my poor tired brain came up with (I was extra tired since I had stayed up really late getting sewing done)! I was far from in the mood to wake up after only about 3.5-4 hours of sleep. I guess my tired subconscious was reminding me of what Ashley from Lil Blue Boo has been trying to remind all of us.... to Choose Joy.

I wore completely the wrong shirt to show off the necklace!

The Choose Joy banner necklace! Want to make one too? Here's what you need to make the banner flags:

Freezer paper, calendar pages, scrap paper, pencil, scissors. Not pictured: pen, super skinny paintbrush (or permanent markers), paint, fatter paintbrush (for the mod podge).

Fold the scrap paper down about an 1 - 2 inches and draw a few different triangle shapes along the fold.

I decided I liked my third one the best. That's the one I cut out. Once it's cut out open it up and you will have a diamond shape. Put the diamond on the fold of the paper with the center being as close to perfectly perpendicular to the fold in the diamond as you can.

Trace around the diamond shape so that you now can cut out a diamond that is as close to perfect as you can without having to use graph paper and a ruler. Cut out the new diamond shape. Use this diamond to trace onto the backside of the calendar pages.

And then repeat repeat repeat! For one Choose Joy necklace you need 9 diamonds. But I would suggest doing 10 or 11 in case you mess up along the way.

Then cut out all of those diamonds!

Fold each diamond in half to create banner triangles again. Then open them back up and paint the words on them.

Once the entire word is painted on you want to completely turn the diamonds upside down AND make the word go backwards. Then rewrite the same word. So now the same diamond will have a C on one side and an E on the other, an H on one side and an S on the other, and the two O's in the middle with also have O's on the other side.

Once all of the diamonds are lettered and dry paint a layer of Mod Podge onto each one. Once that layer is dry paint another coat of Mod Podge on.

Enough Choose Joy banner pieces to make 5 necklaces!

Next Tuesday, for Tutorial Tuesday, I will show one of the ways to put the necklace together. It will be the one in the first picture of this post! And I'll show a sneak peek at the next necklace at the end of the next post. ;-D

Note to self: Don't wear a cowlneck shirt when trying to showcase a necklace! Also, remember to Choose Joy!