Cute Onesie Tutu

I mentioned back in October that I had made a cute onesie tutu for a friend's baby. Thought I'd actually show you a picture. (It's only December, I'm not that late, right?)  Here are the materials. Nothing fancy. Cute onesie. Some ribbon and tulle (and pink thread, not shown).

It was a quick sewing job. My tulle was very short (perfect for a onesie), so I didn't need to trim it at all, just fold it in half. I positioned the tulle so that it would not touch the baby's legs and bother her. I then sewed the folded tulle on; wrapping it twice, so that it is four layers. With that complete, I sewed the ribbon over the top of the tulle; and voila! Done.

Of course, before giving our gift, we had to try it on (so insisted my 3 year old). So, who better to model than her pink Sea Otter?

I know. Too cute.

Princess Tea Party

In honor of my just-turned four year old's birthday, I thought I'd share last year's birthday party. For her third birthday it was all about being big enough to have a real tea set and pretty, fancy things. In order to accomplish this, but not break the budget, we had to get creative. Something I love to do! First, I hit the second hand stores and scored a cup and saucer (matching no less) for each child at a cost of 98 cents a child. (We had 5 children, including the birthday girl and her sister--We keep it small around here)

After getting the cups home, I washed them, and grabbed the acrylic craft paint and proceeded to paint each child's name on one cup. Party favor one.

Next line of business was to sew cute gift bags that double as a dress up purse. For this, I made a trip to Walmart's sewing section and scored some hot pink, fuzzy fleece and pink polka dot ribbon (all on clearance/remnants). These were very simple bags that I lined with some fabric that I 'inherited' from old curtains in a former house. See, I knew I'd use it one day. ;)

Party favor two. Check. Oh, and to fill these bags, I managed to find a necklace, bracelet and ring candy kit at my local dollar store, plus a few lollipops I had in my stash and some dollar store trinkets. All in all, the bags (materials and filling) cost about $3 per child. So we're up to up $4 a child.

Next step was to decorate for the party. This involved streamers and pink tulle. The latter that I bought off of ebay for a steal! I also needed the cheapest pink bouquet of flowers (with at least 5 sprigs each) and balloons. For the balloons, I again shopped the local dollar store and got four white heart balloons and four pink heart balloons, and two 'special' balloons. Mylar. One dollar each. Also found lovely pink mums for $5 a bunch. Plenty for all.  Here's how things were looking.

For the cake, my princess had a Cinderella cake. I purchased a Cinderella water Barbie doll and then baked a cake in one of my mixing bowls. I then inserted the Barbie (after wrapping her in plastic wrap) in the cake and decorated.

The plate is something I made another time. It's the "Birthday Plate" in our house.

When it was time for our guests to leave they took home a cute, fuzzy bag with goodies, a balloon, foam picture frame that they made while here, a personalized tea cup, and a mini bouquet of flowers. So, for our cost tally, we have the $3 bags, $1 tea cup, $1 balloon, $1 flower bouquet and about 50 cents for the foam craft. So, we spent less than $7 a child for a whole lot of cool stuff. That is $35 plus another $5 for the other balloons that the birthday girl kept; about $5 for the tulle and streamers. I made the cake, so only a couple of dollars in materials there, plus the Barbie, which doubled as a gift (about $10).

Birthday total: $45 Let's call it $50, since I may have forgotten something. So, there you have it. A fun and really cute Princess Birthday party for my then 3 year old. A good investment for the money. At this age I would rather pay this, than rent a facility to play at for $100-$200 PLUS have to have goodie bags, cake, etc.