Car-Theme Birthday Party

I wanted to share the simple decorations I made for my son's second birthday party. I made all of them myself this past week from materials I had around the house.

(I did buy a few things, but didn't spend more than a few dollars).

I used a car silhouette I enhanced with some windows in varied sizes for all the car shapes.

Here's the big picture:

Here's a little tour of the individual things I made.

I made two banners:

This banner was made from felt scraps and ribbon scraps. I cut out all the cars and just hot glued the windows onto them and then hot glued them to the ribbons.

These cars were made from scrapbook paper. I punched two holes in each car and strung them onto ribbon. (Fun fact: the ribbon was left over from my baby shower 2+ years ago! My aunt gave me the extra for my craft stash!)

These were little favors I made with his 2-year picture. I just took clothes pins and used a glue stick to attach strips of scrapbook paper to the fronts, then cut out more paper cars and hot glued them to the front! Then I put magnets on the back.

They stand up.

This is the centerpiece for the table. I used BBQ skewers to suspend the cars, which are double-sided and hot glued to the skewers. Then I poked the skewers into Styrofoam and covered the Styrofoam with blue shredded paper.

This is the side table's focal point/centerpiece. I just used a cheapo sand pail to set Styrofoam in and used more BBQ skewers to suspend more cars.

The only materials I bought were the BBQ skewers and the blue shredded paper. Everything else I found lying around. I'm not usually a big decorator for any holiday or event, but I got on a roll for this birthday! It was a lot of fun; I think sticking with two main colors and the same basic shape helped pull everything together.

My husband and my son's birthdays are two days apart (separated by a 28-year span!) and this year was just small party for both of them. The only thing that wasn't small were the desserts...I made a lemonade layer cake and a strawberry rhubarb pie!

It was a busy week and I didn't do a stitch of sewing.

Piano Bench Reupholustery

My dad has a beautiful grand piano. I reupholstered the piano bench this week.

This is the before picture. He teaches a lot of piano lessons and some of the kids just destroyed the poor bench. It was an ugly fabric anyway, so it was time for an update!

First I had to strip off the ugly green fabric. Whatever was at the edges had turned to dust and I was allergic to it! The middle part had some rubber padding glued to it that was kind of disgusting to rip off. I scraped the glue off.

I put the red braid all around the edge and secured it with tacks.

I cut pieces of ply grip (see video on how to use the ply grip here) to fit the edges of the bench and tacked them the whole way around. It was a lot of tacking!

Next, I cut a piece of foam for the top of the bench. I used double stick carpet tape to keep the foam in place.

For the last and most tedious step, I cut a piece of fabric to fit the bench. It was tough to get the pattern straight the whole way around and also keep tension on the fabric so it was pulled tightly enough.

I tucked the edge of the fabric in and then hammered the ply grip into place to secure it on all four edges.

Quick Car Mirror Fix

Since we're expecting our second baby in a few weeks, I've been surveying the things I think we'll need.

If you are familiar with infant car seats, you know they face backward and that many parents equip their car with a mirror so they can see what the baby is doing in the backseat. I highly recommend them! I managed to put an ugly crack in ours one day...brief explanation is that we had taken it down after our son was able to face forward and he liked playing with it, so it was sort of floating around the backseat. You know how things tend to "float around" the car!

I decided instead of buying a new mirror, I'd just cover up the crack with something cute. I had some felt and an elephant pattern, so I sewed two pieces of elephant together and added a button eye.

Using hot glue, I attached the elephant to the mirror at an angle to hide the crack!

Guest Posting Today

Edited: I guess my post didn't make it for today...check Couturier Mommy tomorrow (6.7.2011). Eva just had twins, so I'm figuring her blog isn't the main priority right now! (Understandably!)

I'm guest posting today over at Couturier Mommy! I've posted a new project for making a ruffle skirt with a flower embellishment using two t-shirts. Make sure you click over to Couturier Mommy to check out all of Eva's tutorials...she's got some fantastic tutorials showing how to make great clothing for kids. She even does videos in her posts to show techniques!

Altering an Undergarment

If you are a woman and wear tank tops in the summer, you likely have the problem of bra straps that show. I've seen a number of ideas for adding snaps and things to the tank top to hide the straps, but I decided that was too much work to alter all the tank tops. Instead, I altered one of my bras to create criss crossed straps and will wear it with tank tops.

It was very easy to criss-cross the straps and only required sewing two tiny seams.

After you take apart the seams, cross the straps, making sure not to twist them in any way. Note how to thread the loose end back through the tiny buckle on the bra (you might have to use an intact bra for reference):

Then you'll just sew it in place and backstitch a few times at the beginning and end of the seam!

Easy, frugal, and a time-saver over adding ribbon and snaps to all your tank tops!