Reversible Dress Up Aprons

I created some reversible dress-up aprons for my nieces as Christmas presents.  They just LOVE to dress up and wanted to give them something more personal to them - or at least something that was not found in the stores.

I wanted to dress up clothes as aprons so they are easy on/off, and can be slipped right over clothes. Since it is easy hide seams if you do it reversible, I knew that was the way I wanted to go.

I made up the pattern, which at first was trial and error.  My daughter (shown above) is 4 years old and wears a 4t/5t.  The aprons also fit well on my 3 year old, and the recepient, who is 5 years old.  I put them on my son who is almost 8 - and it was too short, but these can easily be made longer/shorter/wider.  

Here are the measurements that I used.

Since this is imagination play items, I also included a little accessory for each side.

Mail Man Dress Up Apron

Includes a real pocket in the faux messenger bag, and a felt envelope

Nurse Dress Up Apron

Includes Felt Nurse Hat

Construction - Contractor Dress Up Apron

Includes Felt Tools

This dress up was created my dad's company.  He was a general contractor and thought this would be fun - and no one else would have it.  The faux tool belt has pockets for the felt tools.

Chef Dress Up Apron

Includes Chef Hat

I didn't really love this side - but whatever lol

Using the measurements above I was able to create these aprons.  It did take some thought on how to create each side.  The possibilities are endless.  I did love the idea of creating faux items (the bag, tool belt, etc)  Some other ideas of dress up stuff are road worker, police officer, fireman, doctor, waitress, sports player, telephone repair man, train conductor, cowboy/girl, pizza delivery person, soldier, scientist, etc.

These dress up aprons could go together pretty quickly once you figure out the design you want.

If I create another apron set, I will do a photo tutorial for them.

Hope this gets your creative juices flowing

Christmas Crack - AKA saltine toffee

Gotta love me some Christmas Crack

Christmas Crack is so delish!  And, seriously so easy to make.  It's probably called crack because it is so additive.

Ingredients:

Saltine Crackers

1 Cup of Butter (2 Sticks)

1 Cup Brown Sugar

Chocolate Chips, I like to use the mini ones

It is so easy to make

Your oven should be pre-heated to 400 degrees.

Step One:

Line the bottom of a cookie sheet or baking pan with the saltine crackers in one layer.  I like to put foil or wax paper on the bottom, makes it easier to get out.  Make sure to fill the entire bottom, even if that means you have to break some of the crackers.

Step Two:

Melt together the butter and brown sugar.  Let it come to a boil, lower temp and simmer for about 2 minutes

Step Three:

Pour the butter/sugar mixture over the crackers.

Make sure you coat all the crackers, you can use a spoon to spread evenly

Step Four:

Bake in the oven for 5-6 minutes at 400 degrees

Step Five:

Once out of the oven, spread chocolate chips over the entire dish

Step Six:

After a few minutes, spread the chocolate around, coating the entire pan

DONE

  

I like to throw it in the freezer to cool and set.  But, the chocolate will harden if just on the counter. Once totally cool, just break into pieces and enjoy.  Beware:  you can't just have one piece.

Smores Pops

We are having a BBQ for Memorial Day, and I wanted to make a simple "summer" type of snack.  Smores scream summer :)

I did not make up this treat, but rather saw it on pinterest.  Ah, pinterest, what would I do without you??

Smores Pops are a chocolate coated marshmallow covered in graham cracker cumbles.  And, yes - it is as easy as it sounds.  But, of course I have provided a picture tutorial.

I made 35 pops.  But, not because I ran out of ingredients, but rather, I only had 35 pop sticks.  I crushed 1/2 a box of graham crackers, but only used less than half of that.  I used about 3/4 a bag of chocolate.

Here are all my supplies - graham crackers, chocolate melts, marshmallows, pop sticks, wax paper, and my beating spoon lol.

Melt a small amount of chocolate.  I melt mine in the microwave using the defrost setting.  I stop it after 1 minute, and stir.  If needed, I put back in for about 20 seconds or so.

Pour the melted chocolate on to a piece of wax paper.  I like this method a lot since it allows a nice even coating.  I use the same method for my chocolate covered pretzels.

Put a pop stick in a marshmallow, and roll it in the melted chocolate.  Don't forget to put some on the top of the marshmallow. :)

Roll this your crushed graham crackers.  I had mine on a paper plate.

You are done!  I placed mine in a piece of styrofoam that I had from another project.

Looking yummy!

My husband did a little tasting, and he said they were so good.  I will wait until tomorrow to eat mine.

So, there you go - a super easy, super yummy summer treat

Tissue Paper Pom Pom Tutorial

I am making tissue paper pom poms for the girls party - which is this coming weekend. I quickly wrote about it a few weeks ago. But, I figured I would do a step by step tutorial as well.

Paper Globe from Paint Chip Samples

Again, crafting for the party. I made these paper globes out of paint chip samples. Everyone usually has these hanging around the house, right :)

I loved using the paint chips, since there are shades of the same color on one strip.

The strips I used were 2 inches wide and 9 inches long. I cut them into 2-one inch wide strips. Each globe used 12 full strips, so after I cut them - it was a total of 24-one inch strips.

Here is a quick tutorial for Paper Globes from Paint Chips.

Butterfly Crayons out of broken pieces

I told ya, I am being super crafy for the birthday party. A lot of the ideas were suposed to done last year, but Cora's party was cancelled. So, I have been wanting to do the crayon craft for a LONG time.

I am claiming that these are made from broken crayon pieces, but truth be told, I bought them last year when the 24 packs were on sale for $0.25 a box. I probably broke up about 6 boxes, have 12 cut out already, and will still probably get another 10-12.

It is not hard to do, just kinda time consuming. Basically, you break and melt crayons, wait a bit to cool, then use a cookie cutter make shapes.

But, here are some "tips"

• Peeling the wrappers off of crayons is a total PIA, I got the tip to use a knife and score down the side. The wrapper come right off. MUCH faster.


• I separated the crayons in like colors. All the red, orange, pink, peach, etc in one batch, and then the blue, green, purple, yellow in another. Oh, and then the random colors in another (brown, black, white, grey). You don't have to do it this way, do it YOUR way :)


• I used disposable trays, thought this was easier. I used the same one on round two, but must have had a small hole in the pan - it dripped all over my oven. oops. I then put the tray on a cookie sheet (you can see my mistake below)


• I sprayed the pans with cooking spray, no real reason other than I figured, "why not"


• After breaking the crayons, I put them in a sandwich size ziploc bag (until I could melt them), and it turned out that that was a great amount to fill my (probably) 9X13 pan. I just covered the bottom of the pan in a single layer. It does not have to be deep.


• I put my oven on 300 degrees and then kept the light on to figure out how much time


• It took longer than I thought - each batch took about 17 minutes to melt down


• After taking the wax out of the oven, let it sit for about 5-7 minutes. Enough that it is still soft.


• Take a METAL cookie cutter in whatever shape you want. Really press and wiggle a little to make sure to get a nice cut-out


• Wait a few more minutes (maybe 2-3) and then push up on the bottom of the pan and pull out the shapes. I used a disposable pan, you obviously can not put on the bottom of a non-disposable pan lol


• I had a lot of "waste" but I will use that for more crayons.

Over all, I think they came out really cute. They will go into goodie bags, but I was concerned that someone would eat them. So, I made up this little poem:

They look so cool
They look so neat
But, these are crayons
So, please DON'T eat!

And, here are some pictures for your enjoyment :)

DIY Cupcake Tower / Stand

With the girls' birthday coming up, I knew I wanted to do a cupcake stand/tower as the cake. I really like cupcakes since there is no cutting, and I know that I will have enough. Plus, you can get "fancy" with the decorations.

Plus, even with plain cupcakes, the tower makes it look so much more fancy. I am all about fancy lol.

I started googling and found these links, they are all the same concept, but have slightly different instructions. I thought I would just share the links instead of doing my own tutorial lol

Cupcake Tower #1 - Cupcake Tower #2 - Cupcake Tower #3

Basically you use cardboard circles, cover with pretty paper, use ribbon or strips of paper around the circles to make it look like a wide platform. Then you use full cans in between the layers.

I wanted to make one for a BBQ that we had as a practice run. I did it in about an hour, so it is not the best...but overall I think it looked OK. The colors did not photograph well, but I also had bad lighting.

Next time, I will make the bases the same color, and the outer colors different.

But, here is what it looks like uncovered, and then after. Doesn't it look like it is thick platforms, nope, it is thin cardboard with a wide strip of paper.

It was really easy, I used mod podge for the main part, and then hot glue for the outer "ribbon" parts. Took about an hour. I can't wait to make more for the girls' party.