Stickers for the Stinkies

 I saw this just recently on my FB feed and knew I had to do this since we just swapped out my little stinkies' (my two younger kids) chest of drawers with my older stinkie's (my eldest daughter) ones.  The kids' loved it and were excited to get things organized (starting them young!) and even asked for a few more clothes silhouettes that weren't represented!

I also experimented with painting vinyl stickers with Mod Podge.  I tried one with just Mod Podge Extreme Glitter painted on but I thought it was a bit still tacky and it turned out that when you use transfer tape/masking tape to transfer your sticker and peel it off, the glue came off too.  And so I painted another vinyl sticker sheet with Mod Podge Extreme Glitter and a top coat of Mod Podge Matte and it turned out nicely. 

I have also posted these silhouettes if you would like to make them for your stinkies.  Just click to bring up the image and you can right click and save to your computer to use with the Silhouette software.  Once you're on Silhouette software, just use the Image Trace button and highlight the image and there should be no need to do anything since it's a simple image.

I also tried coating paper stickers and photographs with the Mod Podge and they turned out really nice and thinking to use it in an upcoming Christmas craft.  Stay tuned!

Happy Crafting!

Thainie Reads: More Mo Please

I have always been a book lover and I knew that when I had kids I wanted them to love reading as much as I did.  Well, having kids now and especially in this age of high tech gadgets like their toys and the iPad, I'm relieved that they still prefer a night of reading books than clicking on their iPad.  

Lately, my 5 year old daughter has been crazy about reading Mo Willems' Elephant and Piggie book series.  They are absolutely delightful and perfect for emergent readers.  He is also the author of the Pigeon books that my kids think are hilarious, especially when my hubby narrates them in funny accents!

Try checking them out by visiting Mo's website here.

Books can be found at all Asia Books and Kinokuniya bookstores, prices range from 200 baht upwards.

Thainie DIY: IKEA Draggan to Dragon and Dinosaur Keeper

More to share on IKEA hacks, this is not really a hack but more of a re-use.  Check out this cute bathroom trolley IKEA Draggan (how can this not be used to store dragons?) turned Dragon and Dinosaur keeper.  Now my son can both store and use his little cart to pick up his dragons and dinosaurs around the room with fun and ease!

Thainie DIY: IKEA Besta turned Toy Playhouse

I've been working on a project and it involves IKEA hacks, will be showing the reveal soon but for now I wanted to share this hack that uses the Besta shelf to create a custom toy playhouse for your kids.  It can be easily customized for your girl or boy, who says playhouses/dollhouses are for girls only!!!

 So here's how you do it:

• You'll need
• Shelf
• Double sided tape
• Scrapbook paper
• Paper cutter
• Pencil 

• Get yourself a Besta shelf or any shelf that you want to repurpose
• If there is a back panel, mark the lines that you'll cover with wallpaper/scrapbook paper
• Cut your wallpaper and use the double sided tape to stick to the panel, if your shelf doesn't have a back panel then you can stick to the back of the shelf (hope that makes sense!?)
• Add toys and kids and enjoy!

*** I thought to make one for my son but with jungle themed wallpaper for his dinosaurs but lets see how this one goes.

Kids Token System

After much yelling and screaming about picking up this, clean up that and don't do this and that, my hubby and I were looking at ways to motivate our children or bluntly---bribe them to be good!

I searched the web and found wonderful ideas about stickers and charts but we wanted a system that was more visually attainable.  So we decided to work with tokens or poker chips.  Each child gets their own token color (so they can't pinch some from their sibling's) and collects them in their own box. My hubby has a daily token reward ceremony for the kids and they get so excited and happy to receive their tokens and surprisingly not bummed when they don't but are determined to get their tokens the next day! This also works when disciplining them, so if they misbehave or don't behave nicely then they can have their token(s) taken away. 

They get tokens based on different chores they do or accomplishments.  We are starting off with just a few so it was simple for them to understand.  They would get rewarded with tokens for not peeing in the bed (we don't punish them since it's not really their fault and did you know that bed wetting is actually hereditary?), sleeping in their bed (they like getting in our bed, which is fine but then they pee in our bed--sometimes after peeing in theirs!) and cleaning up their room.

The rewards are different toys, books, privileges (i.e. going to a favorite play place) and they can see what rewards they can receive since we place them up (very high) so they are motivated.  This is another wonderful way to help children earn their toys and teach them not to take these items for granted and value each toy/item they receive.

They also have another color token that they can receive from their school teacher to receive a super duper prize as well!  This has been tremendously effective with my son and with great help from his teacher.

So far, it's been working wonderfully and we hope to add more chores onto the chart and later introduce monetary rewards.

Have a wonderful weekend!!!

Thainie Tip: Kids Room Storage

Since having kids, I've gone through so many storage bins, containers, etc... for their toys and they would either break or be used as makeshift go-carts, some kind of step ladder or just not used at all.  

I finally found a fantastic solution and you probably guessed it, it's from IKEA.  I got the biggest SAMLA plastic bin and they fit perfectly under the children's IKEA Sniglar beds (which sadly have been recalled but the other beds are just the same height) for easy clean up and storage.

Ginger---Ahhh Sugar Cookie House

So my children aren't crazy about gingerbread cookies but I wanted to do a gingerbread house.....so why not make them with sugar cookies?  They were easy to make and bake (using my go to recipe here) and the kids had a fun time making their houses--well---more like sheds since I wasn't good at the structural planning initially.  No matter what, they still had fun and enjoyed their sugar cookie houses!

 This was actually last year's edible craft that I didn't get to post, I had made these from sheet cake (any cake batter baked on a thin sheet) and cut out shapes so that the kids could decorate with frosting.  Another alternative to cookies and they were with a gluten free batter.

Easter Baskets

 Luckily we have been in a strawberry eating frenzy and I was inspired to make Easter baskets like we did in elementary school.  Very easy, cute and perfect for collecting all those chocolate treats from the Easter Bunny tomorrow morning.  

All you need to make these nifty baskets are:

- Strawberry plastic boxes or any box/bowl you have on hand will do just fine.

-  Pipe cleaners, if you don't have them then you can use some rope or any kind of string.

-  Decorations, I got a bunch from Chinatown (hoarder!) and B2S.  Scored these crazy cute dinosaur ones out of the blue too!

- Scissors and  a hole puncher (loving Martha Stewart's Crafts Screw Punch)

And then you're ready to make your baskets with the kiddies!

- First have them braid or twist the pipe cleaners.

- Then fold the green paper and have them cut thin strips out.

- Punch holes on each side of the basket and have them lace in the pipe cleaner and twist shut.

- Add the paper grass filling and decorate!  

 Ready for the Easter Bunny!!

Happy Crafting!!!

Quick Tip: Happy Feet

Do you always find a great deal on kids shoes but your kids are not with you and the sale happens to end that day??  I got a great tip!  Trace their foot size on a piece of paper and cut it out to keep with you!! 

Halloween: Hawaiian Hula Costume

My children had Hawaiian Day at their school last week (yes they are in school--very short story but long in so many other parts--but they are loving it) and I wanted to share how I made my daughter's costume just in case you would like to make one for Halloween. 

1) I love these plain tanks and they were so cheap, 90 baht ($3) at Cotton On Mega Bangna.  You will see that I am using these as the foundation of all my costumes this year.  I took brown fabric and used fusible webbing and ironed them on for the coconut bikini top.

2) Then I used some pom pom ribbon for the string of the bikini, you will need to sew all along the back and also the shoulder straps too and just a little right in the middle of the coconuts.  And you're done with your top!

 *** Quick Tip:  I found the lint sticky stick works great when you want to clean up all your thread bits!

3)  Now the bottom part, the skirt I used this wonderful tutorial here and do everything the same but before you put in the elastic, get your scissors and cut strips!  I used 2 layers of different color green fabric so it looks just a bit more grassy!!  

And there you go!  Easy and fun!  Btw the grass skirt gets a bit frazzled if you put it in the washer and dryer but I thought it added a nice effect to the skirt.   As for the lei, I got them at Daiso but cut and strung them on some green yarn.  Made one for my daughter's head piece and one for her neck.  If you like, you can also use the left over petals and decorate the skirt with them.  Aloha!

Put you best vest forward...

Wanted to share a wonderful tute I found.  I was searching how to make vests for my children's class line leader vests and this tute from The Mother Huddle was amazing!  Her tute was very clear and detailed, it was so easy to follow.

But if you would like to make a bigger or smaller size version, I would suggest using any size tee you want and tweaking the pattern from that.  

As for the star emblem and LEADER artwork, I used my Silhouette to cut out templates and then acrylic paints.

Have you started working on any costumes for Halloween?  Well I'm prepping tutes for a Dinosaur and Hula girl costume to share with everyone soon!

The Princess Tea Party Birthday

Of course this idea was from Pinterest, I did this the night before her birthday morning.  Only thing different was I hung the balloons outside in the living room since they always get up in the middle of the night so her room door was not going to work

Okay this is going to be the longest post ever since it's about my daughter's recent birthday party.  My now 4 year old daughter wanted to have a princess themed birthday party and so I played with the idea and thought of a Princess Tea Party theme.  This way the girls would be able to be all princessy and enjoy a nice tea party with tea cups and everything.  I secretly was delighted at the idea of throwing one too!  Although, this year I decided to do a more cozy and small party since it would be more controllable enjoyable to do crafts and activities with a small group of girls, 6 little girls to be exact (T's 3 very best girlfriends, her godmother's daughter and her friend).  Luckily, my 2 year old boy went down perfectly for his nap during the party and my 13 year old daughter was home to help!  Lastly, I set a budget of about 5,000 baht ($150+) for the party since I believe you don't have to waste money when you can diy or find it cheaper!

So here's the rundown!

The Invite...

 

First, you have to have an invite!  I found this perfect scroll online and put the details of the party as well as found a cute seal with her initial.

The font I used was Edwardian Script but after checking for the link, I found that you have to pay for it now and so I would recommend going to any free font site like dafont.com and downloading a font style you like from there. 

I then printed the artwork on A4 premium drawing paper and cut the shape out with the Silhouette.  The invites were then put into an envelope and sealed with our family's letter seal to add that royal touch!!! 

Here they are, signed, sealed and ready to be delivered to the lucky princesses:

The Birthday Banner & Streamers...

I used the Silhouette machine and cut her name and the background shapes then used 3M repositioning spray adhesive (the link actually goes to the widely used Krylon one -- in the states-- but I am using 3M since it's the only kind I can find here in Bangkok) to attach them together.  I really recommend this repositioning spray adhesive for any paper craft you are working on.  It's so easy to use, you can spray several pieces at the same time, goes on clear and you can reposition it (it's like the stickiness on the back of post its!).  After all pieces are cut and glued together, I strung them together with ribbon and then attached with some masking tape at the back so that it would position just the right way on the wall. 

The streamers were made of scrap fabric streams that were cut and then tied onto a plain old white string (the string that is used for packages).  Also great project for just decorating a room too and the perfect way to use all those scraps!!! 

The Pom-Poms

I have a confession to make, I'm a tissue paper hoarder--in addition to a hoarder of mostly all craft-related items.  I love my tissue paper collection and I couldn't bear using tons of them on the pom-poms.  And so trusty ol' IKEA came to the rescue!  I bought the colored paper napkin packs and they had the perfect colors for the party.

1) IKEA Fantastisk (don't they name their items so cool?) paper napkins, I also bought the paper plates and cups for the party there too.  

2-3) You take about 6-8 paper napkins and lay them on top of each other and then follow these directions!  But instead of the wire I used a plain rubber band (it was also great since you can stretch the rubber bands onto whatever you are decorating).    

4) Now the tricky part!  You want your pom-poms to be fluffy and airy but they just don't look like that, you have to spread the sheets since each paper napkin is 3-ply.  So carefully spread your napkins apart and fluff!  It's a learning curve but it gets easier! 

And hopefully you will get these:

The Goodie Bags and Activities Goodies...

As mentioned, I was working with a budget, luckily I found some great goodies that were perfect!  

1) The custom made royal invites.

2) All the goodies on show.  Books were from Kinokuniya (100+ baht/book), some princess pencils from The Emporium (they came is a 6 pack), notepads I had hoarded through the years, fruit chews, bracelets (also hoarded, bought them from Sampeng years ago) and a custom skirt I made with my fabric stash.

3) Princess tiaras, these were for the craft activity, I got the idea from here at Lu Bird Baby. 

4) These were also for the craft activity, they were little zipper pouches that the kids would paint in their names with metallic gold or silver acrylic paints.  You can see my tute for the stencils here.

5) This frame was a light bulb moment at IKEA!  It's the Tolsby frame and was 49 baht for each of them.  I used artwork from Lettering Delights and my trusty Silhouette to cut a hole out so that a photo could be inserted, the other side just had a message saying thank you for joining the party.

 All these goodies then went into a paper bag decorated with a doily and their name written on it.

The Activities & Crafts...

A smaller amount of kids turned out to be perfect since each one had the chance to do their own crafts.  In addition to the princess headpiece and zipper pouch, I also had the following:

-  A bracelet kit that I got at the mall (The Emporium) and it was perfect since it came with plastic bangles and gem stickers.  

-  A bunch of plastic beads and elastic to make our own royal jewels (Central B2S).

-  A wand craft made from foam clay, which dries light and airy (Central B2S) and attached to balloon sticks. *** Sadly, this craft turned out to be more of a art piece than a wand.  But the kids had so much fun making them, so did the moms!

-  "Kiss the Frog" (aka pin the tail on the donkey), I took green construction paper and cut out a frog and cut out lips and sprayed the repositioning adhesive spray so that the girls could kiss the frog while blindfolded with these cute panda eye covers I got from Cotton On (Mega Bangna).  It was a hit!  The girls had so much fun and a lot of giggles, their prize were IKEA markers!

-  Well this was a last minute activity craft that my daughter requested.  She wanted a pinata (she calls it a "pee-a-tah") and how could I say no right?  Well I was very lazy to do the whole paper mache pinata and on a budget to buy one and so I MomGyvered it.  Looked around the house and found paper plates, stapled plates together into a shape, covered it with crepe paper and liquid glue.....then thought about what that shape would be...it turned out to be a teapot for the tea party!  The lid, spout and handle were just cut out shapes, again from the Silhouette and decorated with a bit of frayed crepe paper and presto.....PEE-AH-TAH completed!

The Princess Tea Party Decor...

Paper napkin pom-poms, goodies, pee-ah-ta, streamers and everything else was ready to decorate!  I picked up some helium balloons at Pinata Party Place while out that morning picking up the birthday cake.

Threw everything together and it looked like this:

I had bought these adorable little tea cup sets from the 60 baht shop and you can see the IKEA paper cups, plates and napkins.  I also used paper napkins that I ironed out the night before for table mats.  Bought some fresh (well almost fresh day old cheaper flowers at Villa-I didn't need pre-bloom ones)  and each place setting had a place card cut from the Silhouette with each of the princess' name.

For the cake stand, I just took an over-sized cup we had and a plate and use UHU putty to hold it together.  Perfect again for the teacup/tea party theme!

The Princess Birthday Cake...

How cool did this cake turn out?  This 3D cake was ordered from S&P and was 790 baht ($26)!  You need to order about 2-3 days ahead and pick it up yourself but it was so worth it, the kids all loved it!  I then added a small decorative pom-pom, candle and tiny frog!  Can you guess the on-going theme here other than the princess theme?  Yes, Princess Tiana!!!

Last but Not Least...

My birthday princess and her Princess Tiana costume I had made for her. 

  

Well, that's it....  I'm happy to report that the party was a success but will have to decide whether I'm up for another themed party next year!  I hope you enjoyed sharing this special day with me and it will help you with your princess or prince!  Happy crafting!

Wipe away...

You know how those small packs of wipes some time dry out because of the sticker enclosure not sealing properly?  Well I re-purposed the plastic from the big packs and used double sided tape and stuck it to the small packs!  Easy to use and access!  

Have a good week ahead! 

Image by Thainie

Noo Yoo: Piercing, Perfected.

Images from Thainie

I've been waiting for this day and it finally came!!!  Baby daughter got her ears pierced!  My husband and I didn't really expect it to be so soon since she's not even 4 years old yet but we stumbled across this cute shop at CentralPlaza Rama 9 the other day and decided to give it a go?!  She was so excited, we tried to inform her as much as we could on what was "going to happen" before getting there but she could only think about how pretty her little ears will be just like Mommies, her big sis and her aunties!  

The shop is called Noo Yoo, their website is www.nooyoo.com and they have shops in The Mall Ramkampeng and CentralPlaza Rama 9 and soon at Mega Bangna.  Very nice and clean with all the pretty earrings on display.  They also do nose and belly piercings as well.  Prices start at 490 baht for a simple pair of stud earrings and the piercing service is free.  They have tons of cute earrings to choose from too but the most perfect was that they had a great selection of children appropriate small earrings for children (and all earrings are made of surgical grade stainless steel).    

So we first had our daughter pick out the earrings and then she was seated to do the piercing.  The Noo Yoo staff was very nice and patient with our daughter, she first carefully marked the holes with a marker and let us see if it's good to go.  Once the holes were confirmed it was time for the piercing.  The piercing gun was kinda cool, I was use to the gun looking kind but this was just a square looking metal tool and the earrings were well packed in these medical like packaging and so when it was ready to be used, she didn't have to touch each earring but just used the gun tool to insert and load the earrings.  (Now I wished I took pics of each thing!---sorry)  Well I'm not going to lie, after the first ear piercing she cried but after a little comforting we did the other ear and she was back to being overjoyed with her pretty ears!  If you are interested in getting your child's ears pierced, I would probably suggest to try asking them if they can have both ears pierced at the same time (2 staff assisting)  so that it's done in one go, forgot to think about this.   My daughter is still gushing about her beautiful earrings!!!

Sew What?: Name Labels

Top-left image from Karaku's Shop and other two from Thainie Creations

Not much of a sewing project but just a bit of sewing at the end.  I saw this on another blog and I wish I could remember which one because it is genius!  All you need is some fabric (I think you can actually buy fabric tape that is all in one but I haven't been able to find it here but you can check out Karaku's Shop for it (I want to buy everything there!).  And so I improvised with cotton fabric and fusible web which worked just as good (if you don't want to go all the way to Chinatown for these supplies/notions, you can visit any Elvira store--no--not mistress of the dark Elvira, but the sewing machine shop Elvira---confusing I know!).

I opted to use fabric markers from Crayola since I tried fabric paint but it was too runny, you can easily buy fabric paint at The Emporium, there's a good selection but when I tried it on the stamp, it just was a big mess.  I think I will have to try putting the paint on a sponge/stamp pad thing next time.  The stamp set was a gift but you can find them at Daiso or The Loft.

So here's what I did:

1) Color the stamp in with the fabric markers, the stamp came out very clear and clean.   

2) Heat set it with an iron.

3) Iron on your fusible web on the back of the fabric.

4) Cut out labels.

5) Iron on labels to piece of clothing.

6) You can either leave it but the sides may fray if you're using a piece of fabric and not the fabric tape.  I think you can cut the sides with some pinking shears so that it will help it not fray.  

And presto!  Easy and cute labels!