6 MONTHS!!!

It took me 6 MONTHS from start to finish to get this done!! I cut this out about 6 months ago and finally finished it up in less than 1 hour!! Haha! It's super easy and ridiculous that it took so long - but it's just one of those things that I had a hard time getting around to.

So, I've seen these everywhere on the internet and thought they would be super cute in my girl's bathroom. I cut the bodice of the dress out of mdf board that I had sitting in my garage. I used modge podge to glue some scrapbook paper onto the board. I bought some coordinating tulle and cut it into the desired length. I sewed mine together along the top and then glued it onto the board - but I'm sure you could skip the sewing part and just glue it onto the board.

Add some ribbon and your ready to go!!

I may go back and add a ribbon to the top to hang it from.

click HERE to check out some of the example on the internet:

Hailey's Birthday

Guess what??? Hailey wanted to have ANOTHER cooking party!!! And I can't believe that I haven't posted her other TWO cooking birthday parties!! Haha!

Obviously she loves them and here's why!!

The Invitation
Hailey helped makes these..they are shaped like an apron and the info is printed on a piece of cardstock and place in the "pocket" of the apron.
The invite reads:
A recipe for fun!
Take one birthday girl: Hailey Wilkinson
Add a special friend: (name of girl being invited)
Mix together on (date of party and time of party)
Cook till done: (end time of party)
RSVP regrets only (phone number)

The Goodies...
Each girl gets her own apron (pictured on far right)
Her own chef hat
Her own 8" round cake to decorate and take home
A cupcake wash cloth w/sucker
Recipe Book - Hailey's favorite recipes
**see bottom of post for link info**

Here's a peek at the finished cakes & take home bags!

Activities
The girls get to make their own mini pizzas. I use the biscuit dough but you can use Rhodes rolls - whatever! I keep the toppings pretty simple because kids are picky. All these girls wanted was pepperoni, canadian bacon, and cheese.

While their pizzas were cooking, we pulled out their cakes and let them decorate them. Check out the video for a peek at the finished product.

By then the pizzas are done and it's time to EAT!!!

After eating, we opened presents (played musical gifts to decide which one to open first). Then we had the cake and ice cream.

Now it's time for some games - I was going to do a smelling & tasting game - but OOPS!! forgot to get it ready so we divided up and played PICTIONARY with everything relating to food. It was fun and I think everyone had a good time. Hailey LOVED it and that's all that really matters, right?

****************Instructions**************
I made my aprons out of dishtowels and I found mine at the $1 store. Click HERE for the tutorial.

The chef hats are made from posterboard from the $1 store and tissue paper from the $1 store. Instructions can be found HERE.

Most places will give you cake containers..I usually get mine from the Walmart bakery. This year they were under some type of internal investigation so I got them from Macey's. They charged me $1 per container. I buy the aluminum cake pans and bake away!! I like to freeze the cakes - it's easier to frost that way.

The cupcakes really are self explanatory. I purchased a bunch of bright colored cloths from Walmart and then folded them into fourths and layered 2 colors on top of each other. I rolled them and wrapped a rubber band around them. I looked EVERYWHERE and couldn't find the bath oil beads for the "cherry" on the top so I ended up using suckers and I think that worked just fine. I also added some red fave Starburst to the bag for some added color. Oops - almost forgot!! I also cut my cupcake wrappers out of colored cardstock using my Silhouette. But I'm sure it would be easy to make your own or you could use the regular cupcake papers - but I felt like they didn't support the cupcake enough.

Hailey's Recipe Book - I just had Hailey list off her favorite meals, snacks, cookies, etc and typed them up into a book, punched a hole in the top, and secured it with a metal ring.

Looking back- it can become a lot of work - but really...what wouldn't we do for our kids? :)

YW Room

I looked around our Young Women room one Sunday as we were preparing to start and thought, "This room is very drab and does NOT reflect how bright and beautiful our young women are." Something must be done..hahaha!

We have a bulletin board in the front of the room and it had not long since been forgotten. There were several flower bouquets on the piano but their colors were a bit drab. (no offense to anyone out there!)

I wanted to see some color and energy in this room. Just so you know - I didn't take over the room - I did call the other YW presidents and make sure they were OK with changing things up a bit..and who wouldn't be - as long as they didn't have to do the work..hahaha!

Anyway - this isn't my best work - but it sure does brighten the room up.

I'm still a little unsure about the flower bouquet - but I tried a couple of things and nothing seemed to work - it looked very bare. Then I had the idea of gathering some branches from the park (the city had thinned out the trees and left the branches on the ground). I spray painted them black and glued my paper flowers onto them. It's not the best - but it's the best that I could on my budget with was NOTHING!! :)

I got the back picture frame from Walmart for $10. It was perfect with eight openings..one fore each young women value - how did I luck out?

Aprons

Here are a few aprons that I have made. Some were preprinted and some I had to pick out.