Leftover Dough Ornament

I made my mustache ornaments and had some dough left that was not large enough to make another mustache out of.I didn't want to waste it so I just rolled it out, used a wine glass to create a circle (I don't have a round cookie cutter, obviously something I need to invest in) then dusted a stamp with cornstarch and imprinted it on the dough and made a hole for a string or ribbon. This particular ornament I didn't bake...I saw a recipe where you just leave it out for 2 days to harden so I tried that. Then I sprayed it with Tattered Angels glimmer mist in Blue Skies. Next I took a sponge with Tim Holtz distressed ink in Broken China on it and rubbed all over. After that I sprayed it with Marshmallow colored glimmer mist. Finally I sealed it with Mod Podge and put twine through the hole to hang. This is what it looks like.

This picture was with the flash to show the glimmer.

This is just another way you can decorate those homemade ornaments instead of using paint or stain. The decorating literally took me less that 5 minutes. Super easy and looks pretty cool if you ask me. :^P

Pinspiration Sunday: Homemade Ornaments

I found a really fun and easy tutorial on Pinterest for DIY ornaments. So I had pinned it awhile back thinking maybe I will make Christmas gifts someday. But then I got the awesome idea to make mustache ornaments! What a great favor for Grayson’s 1st Birthday party. Especially since his birthday is just a few weeks before Christmas. Now let me start by saying that I made one batch of these and they DID NOT turn out. The directions are simple…but here’s what I didn’t do: I didn’t knead it before rolling out. I didn’t bake on parchment paper (I used a Pampered Chef stoneware bar pan). The holes I placed in them for the string left a narrow area in the middle which is where most of them broke. And finally they didn’t seem to have completely dried out. Soooo…I decided to try again. This time I still didn’t use parchment paper but I did have wax paper so I used that on a metal cookie sheet. I bought tiny eye hooks that I inserted from the top in the middle that I could then put ribbon through to hang them. I also baked them for an hour and 20min (ten minutes longer on each side). This is how it works:

Ingredients:
1 cup baking soda
½ cup corn starch
¾ cup water

Place all ingredients into a small pot over med-low heat and stir.In the orginal directions it say this process takes a few minutes (which to me means like 5) however it takes about 10-15min.

You stir the pot until it thickens like “smooth mashed potatoes”. Then place dough into a bowl and cover with a damp cloth until cool.

Once the dough has cooled then you can roll out to ¼ inch thick and start cutting. I used Fred & Friends Munchstache cookie cutters that I bought from Amazon.
I inserted the eye hooks prior to baking. I baked them at 175 degrees for 40 min then flipped them CAREFULLY as they were still fragile in the middle. Then baked them for another 40min.

Once done, I removed them from the oven and placed them on a cooling rack overnight (just to be sure they were good to go).

Then I used some paint stain I already had (from ACMoore (it’s the same stain I use on my recipe boxes)) in the following colors: walnut, cherry, and mahogany. You can use craft paint but I wanted the detail to really stick out so I used the stain. I could have watered down the paint a bit but again I had the stain so that was easiest for me.

I then sealed them with mod podge. Finally, I added ribbon through the eye hooks. Here's how they looked:

This is the walnut:

Here is the cherry:

Here is the mahogany:

And here are all 3 together:

I plan on taking a 4 foot Christmas tree to Grayson’s party which I will have the ornaments hanging from with a note telling guest to take one home. Check back after his party to see great pictures from his big bash!

Birthday Banner

I just wanted to share a few pictures of the banner Angela and I worked on for my son’s birthday party. We struggled with what colors and pattern of papers to use. In the end we decided to go with a gray with small white polka dots for the letter flags, and gray and white chevron for the flags between words. I used the Cricut Craft Room software (FREE!) to weld the triangle from George and Basic Shapes cartridge (widen it a bit and elongated it to get the flag) then used the font from Cuttin’ Up cartridge for the words. I used the Billionaire cartridge for the mustaches. Here’s what we came up with:

Pinspiration Sunday: Color-A-Stache Coloring Book

So I came across this blog called Life According to the Street's which had a post about their Mustache Bash themed birthday party. She had made her own coloring pages for an activity. I thought this would be great too. So I decided to look up images of mustaches that could be colored in. It took some time but eventually I found a Mr. Potato Head, the Lorax, glasses, nose and mustache and finally (since his birthday is in December) I chose a picture of Santa. I used the printable scrapbook paper I bought from Honey Bunny and printed 2 pages per book as the cover with cream colored cardstock.I made a cover calling it Color-A-Stache and put a big picture of a mustache on it.

I printed the coloring pages out on regular printer paper.

Then I used my Zutter Bind-it-all to create a binding using 1/2 inch O wires.

Here’s the finished book.

It was actually a super easy creation and I think it's super cute! I hope the kids like it!