Pinterest Adventures - The Peacock Costume: The Final Product

   

Today is Halloween and I have perfected the costumes! I made some adjustments to my eye-makeup. I searched the web for pictures of other people's peacock makeup but when I looked at a real peacock I realized that although pretty, they weren't very accurate. So I did my own take on peacock eyes. I colored in my eyebrows with purple eyeliner and extended the line down my nose and around my bottom eyelid. Then I filled it in with a mix of purple, teal and dark blue eyeshadow. I concentrated the dark blue at the corner and crease of my eyes. I also put black and purple eyeliner on my lash lines and added a few "feather" like lines under my bottom lid. Then I slapped on some mascara and some fake eyelashes that have feathers and I was done! I've already gotten many compliments from my co-workers and students so I guess I did a good job.

 

Last night I decided to paint my nails to match my outfit. So I painted them with a purple metallic color and then did the tips with a sparkly blue. I can't remember the names but I'll add them later.

So, here are our costumes! If you would like to see how I did them you can check out my previous posts: Costume Update and Peacock Costume.

An Impromtu Halloween Party

I decided at the last minute to throw a Halloween party. It wasn't anything fancy. I just threw together a few fun things and we had a good time. I made guacamole and my artist brother helped out by carving a "puking" pumpkin to go with it.

 

We also had a panna cotta brain with cranberry sauce as well as mozzarella, tomato and olive eyeballs.

 

The best thing that we made was caramel apple jell-o shots. They weren't too much work and were the best jell-o shots I have ever had. Normally, they are either horrible tasting or not strong enough to be worth eating but these were neither. The apple made them taste really fantastic and made them super easy to eat.  I got the recipe here. However, we did add more vodka and we made a double batch. As a note, I bought a melon-baller in order to make these and I don't know why I have never owned one before! It is an amazing little tool!



 

I also got to give my costume a test run but, I plan on doing a few things differently for the actual day of Halloween.

Bats!

I have shingles. So, yesterday I was in bed all day. I didn't really do much other than sleep but I did manage to cut out some bats and put them up. I know this idea is all over and is not original but I though I would share.




This was a super easy project that probably only took me about 15 minutes. First I scrounged around for some black card stock. Then I googled "bat template". I found this great folded paper template and was so lazy I didn't even print it out. I just free-handed it. I decided I wanted several sizes so I drew 3 different sizes based on the same original image. Then, after cutting the first three out I used them as my template for the rest. After cutting them out I stuck them on the wall with sticky-tac. I was a little worried that they would fall down overnight but, when I woke up this morning they were still there. I am also working on a spooky window silhouette project and I'll share those pictures as soon as I am finished.

Pinterest Adventures Volume 1: The Peacock Costume update

I have finally finished our Halloween costumes! I ended up adding a few projects to the costumes overall so it took me a little longer than I had expected. I decided to make some peacock feathers that would stick up behind our heads. I found a tutorial from "Dollar Store Crafts" that showed you how to make some using fairy wings. So, I made some with their tutorial as an inspiration. However, I modified it slightly. Instead of painting my "feathers" onto the wings I made more felt "feathers" to match my the tu-tu's. I also didn't actually take apart all of the wings. I cut the felt portion off and then spread the wings out more and finished by layering them, gluing them together and re-wrapping them with felt.

Then, I decided to make her candy basket match her outfit. So, I bought some more of those $1 boas and glued them to a plastic pumpkin candy basket. 

So, now we are ready! I'll post pictures of us in all of our peacock glory as soon as we wear them!

A Cute, Quick, Owl Shirt - For Kids

I wanted to do something with Lilly's handprint for a shirt. I saw some cute activities for paper crafts involving handprints and decided up transfer that idea to clothing. I found this cute owl craft and thought it would work really well.

First I free-handed an owl shape on a piece of paper and traced around the edge with a fabric marker. It's gave me a reference for where the handprints needed to be. I then painted Lilly's hands with purple fabric paint and let her make the handprints. 

Then I used the lid to some oil to create eyes. I also free handed a nose and legs. Then I painted the eyes white with acrylic paint and placed a black dot in the center for the pupil. I also painted the nose and legs orange and added a little more purple to the handprints so they would "pop". And finally, I outlined everything with gold.

I'm pretty excited about how it turned out and I can't wait to see how cute it is on. She had a great time and I am sure she will be eager to tell everyone that she helped in the process.

Spooky Lamp Shades

Making these spooky lamp shades is super easy. All you need is a printer, paper, scissors, tape and wax paper. Simply find an image that you like for your silhouette. I found mine by searching google images. An entirely black image that is an actual silhouette works best. Then print the image and cut it out. After that you simply tape your cut out to the inside of your lampshade. For the bats I taped them to a piece of was paper and the taped that to the inside of my shade. Pretty easy huh?!

Color...I'm good at it

We have a family photo shoot on Sunday so I have been thinking about what we're going to wear. I decided that I wanted Lilly to wear this adorable little sweater. So, I went looking for things for my husband and I to wear that would match. But, I kept forgetting to bring her sweater with me. I scoured the mall looking for things that a. would match and b. would still look like something I would wear. I found my top at Vanity of all places and I got it on sale for only $5. (I rarely enter that store but spotted many potential color matches through the window.) I found Derek's polo at target on sale as well for $9. I also got the headband for Lilly at target for $2.50 on sale. When I got home a pulled out her sweater and they match perfectly. I'm so excited. We're going to be super cute. I won at colors and shopping.

Making Play Make-up: A Twist on the One You've Seen on Pinterest

I have seen the pin that shows how to make play make-up from empty make-up compacts and nail polish. My daughter is very interested in mommy's make-up but can't be fooled by toys masquerading as the real thing. So, I headed out the Dollar Tree to buy compacts that I could empty of their contents and eye shadowy/powser/blush colored nail polishes. I had my arms full of nail polish and compacts and this dollar project was entering the double digits when I had a light bulb moment. All of these people are going to all this effort to chisel out the make-up from the compact and then painstakingly pour nail polish into each section while trying not to pass out from the fumes. Why not just pour some Mod Podge over the top of the already existing make-up? It is basically Elmer's glue and isn't going to hurt a kid any more than nail polish. I decided that I would give it a try and if it didn't work it only cost me a couple bucks. I bought a powder compact, eyeshadow, blush and a lipstick. I painted Mod Podge in a relatively thin layer over all of the make-up. After it dried you could rub all over the covered areas without any make-up coming off. My daughter loves it and I know that it is safe for her. I did attempt Mod Podging lipstick by dipping it into the Podge but if you accidentally step on or smush the lipstick it cracks the coating and makes a mess. I'm still trying to think of a way to do lipstick. However, the powder, eyeshadow and blush all worked out great!

 

Note: Depending on how thickly you coat the make-up with Mod Podge it could take up to a week to dry properly. I poured a very thick coating on the powder and it looked normal after about 1 week.

Happy Halloween Banner and My Genius Mirror Project

I found a great free printable at "How Does She..." I decided that I am going to do new banners for different times of the year so, I just put up a rope with clothes pins on it over my mirrors in my living room. Now it will be much easier to change out my banners for the seasons and I think it looks cool.



Now, take a look at my mirror. It is really large, my living room has 30 ft. ceilings and that is a full sized couch in the picture. The mirror is about 4.5 ft. tall and 6 ft. wide. Would it surprise you to know that this is made of 6 $5 behind the door mirrors from Target?! Well, it is! I simply put command velcro strips on the back of each mirror and placed them next to each other on the wall. So, I got this gigantic mirror for only $30 and it only took about 20 minutes to put on the wall entirely by myself. I have toyed with the idea of painting the frames a different color but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Pinterest Adventures Volume 1 - The Peacock Costume

My daughter spent the weekend with her grandparents so I finally had enough time to work on the peacock costumes and I just about finished. I began with making my "feathers" out of felt. I used this blog as inspiration. However, my feathers were slightly different because I wanted to use more green like actual peacock feathers. I cut out all of my felt pieces and then hot glued them together.



Then I began to work on the tutu. I used the same blog for inspiration and my tutu was very similar. However, I found glitter tulle and thought it would be really pretty. It was such a mess! I was completely covered in glitter! They are really pretty with the glitter but I'm not sure it was worth it. The biggest difference in my tutu and the other one is that I found these green feather boas at the dollar store! I was so excited! If you go to Hobby Lobby these are $8. So, I figured I could incorporate them somehow. I ended up hot gluing them to the inside band of the tutu in three different spots and two different lengths. This way they are visible but don't take away from everything else. You can see them when you move and they add some more of that emerald green color.



After rinsing off the copious amounts of glitter from making the tutu's, I was ready to apply my felt feathers. I used a similar method as my inspiration but, I'm lazy and I love hot-glue. So, I didn't sew them. I glued them to the ribbon.

 

I then tied them to the waist band of the tutu and added a little hot glue for good measure. We don't want to be losing our beautiful feathers!



Now that I was finished with the tutu's I was ready to make our headbands. This was all me; no inspiration craft. However, I drew my idea from the fact that peacocks have feathers sticking straight off the top of their heads. I decided that would be easy enough to make with a headband and pipe cleaners. There was some trial and error because the "feathers" were too heavy for just one pipe cleaner to hold each of them but, I was successful.

 

I took my pipe cleaners and double wrapped them. Meaning I wrapped one around another to make it more stiff. I did this twice.



Then I hot glued one of the wrapped pipe cleaners between a feather and an extra piece of felt the same size as the feather for the back. I did this for both pipe cleaners to create two head feathers. Then I wrapped the bottom of the wrapped and feathered pipe cleaners around the headband. I placed them at two different heights to mimic actual peacocks.



My final project for the peacock costumes was to make us masks. I found this interesting tutorial and decided that it would be perfect. The only changes I made were that I used a page protector instead of saran wrap and I added some gold details to my mask. Also, I printed out a smaller version for my daughter. I don't know if she'll actually wear it but it is worth a shot. These only took me about 10 minutes to make (not counting drying time) and it will really add to the look if I can get her to put it on.

 



For the rest of the costume we will be wearing purple shirts and some sort of basic bottom like black or brown leggings/pants. I also plan to do some really cool peacock inspired eyeshadow for myself. As soon as I take some test photos I'll post them so you can see what all this stuff looks like on someone. (I was basically in my pajamas the entire time I was making this stuff so I didn't want to scare anyone away with pictures of me in pajamas, make-up less with funky hair.)

Pinterest Adventures Volume 1 - An Update

I previously posted about the projects I am planning on tackling this month. In the post I mentioned making apple smiles and cloud dough. Well, Lilly and I had some fun yesterday with both of these and here are my results.

Apple Smiles

The apple smiles are stupid easy to make. You only need sliced apples, peanut butter and marshmallows. I decided to use "The Bees Knees" peanut butter which is peanut butter and honey mixed together and is delicious.



You then spread the peanut butter on two apple slices and place marshmallows in between them. Notice how they look kind of like a smile. My only issue with these were that they were difficult to eat and messy. I ended up making them open faced instead of an actual smile. So, they aren't as cute but they are much less messy.



Lilly was more interested in picking off the marshmallows and I had to play the "take another bite of apple and I'll give you another marshmallow" game. I however thought they were a fantastic snack. I am considering making some sort of apple, peanut butter, marshmallow panini in the future. I'll let you know how that works out.

Moon Dough

Moon dough is also ridiculously easy to make but it is quite messy so I recommend that you do it outside. All you need is flour, baby oil and a container for the end product. Then you mix 8 cups of flour with 1 cup of baby oil.

 

 I chose to use baby oil with shea and cocoa butter in it so it smelled really nice. Combining these two ingredients will give you something that feels like flour but is moldable. This was a fun project for Lilly to help with.

 

She also loved playing with the dough. She probably spent 40 minutes playing with the dough and a cup.

 

She was, of course, COVERED in flour when she was done but, it was easy to brush off of her and we did it outside so it wasn't a big deal. I placed the dough in a Rubbermaid type of container so it will be ready for her to play with again tomorrow and the next day. So, this was a total win and only cost a few dollars to make but will give hours and hours of fun.