Dinosaur-Themed New Year's Party (2025)

Hey, guys! Today I have a rather random post since it is the middle of the summer, but dinosaurs were the theme and they are cool year-round, right? So here is our 2025 New Year's/New Year's Eve party. Below are the details:

-The mini resin dinosaurs came from Amazon.

-The 2025 numbers were made from a poster painted with acrylic paints to look like stones, then cut into the numbers. The dinosaur banner sign ("Celebrating a pterriffic new year!") was free-handed with markers. 

-The foil dinosaur balloon came from Dollar General (as did the treats and other balloons). 

I helped put this together thanks to the help and ideas of my friends (L. and M., they know who they are). 

I hope you enjoyed this theme! 

-Lauryn 

Handmade Mysterious Benedict Society Costumes (Disney Version)

 Hello everyone, it has been so long since I have had time to create a post. This is an overview of how I created our Mysterious Benedict Society group Halloween costumes this past October. It's not exactly a tutorial, but I will try to describe in summary how I made each. 

Cosplay inspiration:

Ours:

For Constance, I found the perfect plaid pattern on thrift store pajama pants, which I cut and sewed into a shawl (I basically just needed to hem and attach two rectangles). I used extra strips for hair bows. I also found a pink, long button-up shirt at the same store. I had to trim the sleeves, add plaid to the tips, and hem them. I hot-glued more of the extra plaid fabric to the buttons to make them match. I bought long white socks at Dollar Tree. That's all there was to it! 

For Mr. Benedict, we already had a hat and grey face paint, so I painted a beard and used Dollar Tree yarn to make hair. The shirts/jacket were thrift store finds, as was the tie. This costume was basically finding and matching up parts, it did not require much creating. 

For Reynie we bought a green sweatshirt at a thrift store, then my brother cut it into a vest and painted a gold trim. He had tan shirts, I got him long mismatched socks at Dollar Tree, and the shirt came from the thrift store, too. 

Finally, for Kate I bought a hat and jacket that were the right materials but wrong colors. I also found a striped shirt and orange-brownish pants. All of the thrift store supplies including those were bought at a big sale at our local Freedom Hill store. I mixed acrylic paints with fabric softener and painted the hat green, and all of the jacket. The jacket took many, many layers and several days since I had to wait for each layer and side to dry. 

I hope somebody who sees this costume idea knows what The Mysterious Benedict Society is unlike everybody we encountered on Halloween, and if you appreciate the series as much as I do, perhaps you'll find this idea useful for the future. 

Thanks for visiting!

-Lauryn 

Valentine's Day Party, 2021

Hey, thank you for stopping in. Here is a party post at last that is actually relevant to the time of the year. I realized I never posted our little Valentine's Day party/décor from last year, so here are the pictures of our Valentine's party of 2021. The tablecloth and bouquet wrapping were just brown Dollar Tree wrapping paper I drew on. The hearts were made from paper plates. If I have a guess, all of the florals came from Ingles. I was kind of going for a playful, whimsical, floral look to make it different from past parties.

I hope you enjoyed! 

-Lauryn

DIY "Fun in the Sun" Gift Basket

 

Hey, everyone! I am sorry that I have not posted in forever, I am so behind and I have so much to share. I hopefully will be able to post weekly as I did before, maybe even more, but I am not sure. Today I would like to share a summer gift basket I call the "Fun in the Sun" Gift Basket. I created this as a family gift that hopefully children will love, along with refreshments for the family. 

To create this, you will need:

-Lemonade Packets (I used True Lemon packets, which my family uses all the time. They have dye-free, caffeine-free, sugar free products, so I'd say this is a pretty safe choice.)

-Fresh Lemons

-A Jar (to put the lemon supplies into.)

-Sidewalk Chalk

-Glow-Sticks (or other Glow-in-the-Dark alternatives.)

-A Book

-A Basket (of course!)

-Yellow Tissue Paper

-Optional: A Card/Letter

To create this basket, I am not going to break the process down into steps because as you can tell, this is pretty straight forward. Simply put the lemonade supplies into the jar, and the lemons that don't fit can go in the basket. You can create a jar label by cutting brown card-stock or an alternative paper into a circle to fit the Mason Jar lid, writing "Lemonade in a Jar" on it with a black pen, unscrewing the lid to put the paper inside, and then twisting the lid back on. Fill the basket with the yellow tissue paper, and try to spread the paper out and fluff the paper up as much as possible. Place the book against the back of the basket. I used a book I published called "Meet Balance". I need to edit a few things, I found, so I unpublished the book temporarily, but you can find "Meet Texture" here. Both are part of a series I am writing called "Meet the Elements and Principles of Design". Next, tuck in your glow-stick package and jar, a card or letter if you decided to add such, and lastly the sidewalk chalk and extra lemon(s). You may need to rearrange depending on how your supplies look, but the idea is tallest items in the back, smallest in the front, and do your best to make sure everything can be seen. I hope you enjoyed creating this fun, simple summer gift! 

Thank you for visiting! I have lots of events and craft tutorials I hope to share with you soon!

-Lauryn

Easter and Earth Day, 2020

Hello, everyone! This is a very unusual post for many reasons. One, becuase I never combine events but both of these were so small I just thought I should share them in one post. For another reason, I love Easter, it's one of my favorite holidays, but I couldn't decorate this Easter so I put my brothers in charge. Being in quarentine and all, they used what they had, which was pretty much paper and a cardboard box, and handmade the decorations. They drew lots of pictures to display as posters, a centerpiece with pictures on all four sides and the top made with the cardboard box, and a banner of sorts made of paper drawings. They used some household things to make a stand for a cross they had and displayed that, too. I enjoyed their drawings and creativity, and I am so grateful they took that duty over for me. That Easter was very unique, between Covid 19, online church, and tornado warnings, but overall it was pretty good, and I can truly say it was an Easter like no other.

For Earth Day yesterday, I ended up throwing up some decorations the morning of from cardstock, plants and branches in our yard, and my pegboard, along with my blanket I love to decorate with and some dishes. I wanted an earthy, natural look with overall subtle colors. My family made some Earth day cakes and my brothers frosted them. I made up a cake recipe as well, and I hope to share that and my weird pizza recipe. They are both made with only four (of my favorite) ingredients. I did an art lesson for Earth day and my youngest brother made Earth day illustrations meant to promote recyling while also being narrative. I normally wouldn't really bother with Earth day although I have thrown up some decorations before, yet this year I didn't do any April Fool's Day pranks or Easter decorations and I put a lot of effort into Earth Day, probably becuase I was procrastinating from homework. It has been a very strange year. Anyway, I hope these ideas give you some inspiration for Earth Day next year, paper decorations, or even for some activities to while at home (baking, nature art, doodling, making a recycled decoration).

Thank you so much for visiting! I look foward to sharing more with you soon!

-Lauryn