Halloween Candy Dot costume

I wanted to make my costume this past Halloween, but I was having trouble coming up with a good idea. I scoured pinterest and came across all the pictures of Katy Perry in her Candy Dot Outfit from her California Girls music video. I saw the knockoffs, and I knew I could make a great costume too. 

I got some white fabric from the fabric store and traced a minidress that fit me, leaving room for the hem. I used my mother's ancient sewing machine to sew the dress, and then came the fun part. 

I bought smooth foam craft balls, a styrofoam cutter, foam brushes, and paint from the craft store.

Supplies!

I looked up all kinds of tools and this one just happened to be readily available

It worked pretty well, as you can see, it sliced the balls right in half. Even boyfriend wanted to help me. The fumes were bad, so open a window if you do this.

I wasn't a pro at cutting straight.

I laid out some paper plastic bags and got to work on painting the ball halfs for the costume. I decided to only do the front, as sitting down is kind of important. 

Each color needed a couple coats. They flaked and peeled a bit before a final coat and then a layer of modge podge. I ended up gluing them to the fabric with Tacky Fabric Glue. It held really well. Costume still intact months later!

Laying them out prior to modge podge

glued on and modge podged. Also added a candy neckline.

And wearing it::

Probably shouldn't have gone with the pink wig. hahaha

Holly's baby shower

Holly's baby shower was a post baby affair. We held it at the Springer cultural center in Champaign, IL, where we had a nice huge room to ourselves. Unfortunately, I was running late that day, but I had lots of things pre-made.

ready to party

As you can see, the entire crafty area is covered with preparations for the party. The daisy's are pens, simply popped the ends off and hot glued the flowers in. I didn't wrap the pen parts with flower tape, but I thought about it. The daisy's went in the buckets as centerpieces, and were favors. We also made a daisy ball centerpiece with the pens in it.

centerpiece

We had a quiet shower with lunch and no crazy games, as baby was in attendance, she was the focus.

I ordered candy from oriental trading and we got custom lollipops, pink chocolate balls,  green candy sticks, and gumballs. We had leftover soaps from the cute as a button shower in february, so those were also out as favors. 

We had Holly pick all the candy flavors so she'd be happy with everything. The hit of the party was the crafting station, of course. I set up headbands, clips, and various ribbons and novelties and let the party guests go wild with it. You can see the daisy ball on the table, it's a styrofoam ball that I stabbed the daisy pens into.

The headbands all turned out pretty fantastic, and Holly loved them!

It was fun seeing all the creative sides come out of so many different women. And Baby Madeline looked amazing in them.

Crafting with Mom/Nana

My mother is the original crafter. She sewed us mother daughter doll dresses when I was younger. That means that my baby doll had a dress that matched my dress, that matched my mothers. We were awesome. Hey, it was the 90's, this was totally acceptable.

So in July when my mother asked for some help creating some onesies for the first grandbaby, I of course agreed to help. We went shopping and got some plain onsesies, and then got iron on letters and hearts.

Preparation with Nana was pretty easy. I got out my iron on letters and hers, and we created a sheet where we tallied how many of each letter we had, and how many we would need. I highly recommend keeping these types of things with your iron on letters. We all know you're going to end up with a bunch of letters you can't use on anything and absolutely no vowels, but it helps to know just how many packs of letters you need to go buy. I like to write what brand and how big (1 inch) the letters are as well. 

Iron on letters are pretty easy, follow the instructions and don't put the letters on upside down or backwards. Easy as Pie. Here are some prep pictures.

Mom waiting for the onesie to cool. Also shown, the extra t-shirt required for ironing.

Layout prep. So many options!

And the finals:::

I love creating things, but what I've learned this last year is simple:

It's hard to create anything when you are constantly changing other things in your life. Last July I helped plan a beautiful baby shower for one of my best friends, and since then I have done little to nothing. But I have huge plans to! I moved, then I got a new job, and thing upon thing upon thing has happened. So: it's time to take a break and get back to the good stuff. Creating things. Especially because one of my close friends just got engaged and I can't wait to plan her shower.