Someone recently celebrated their 7th birthday! Wow, can’t believe we have a seven year old in the house. While I am mourning the end of my “little” girl, I am so proud of the girl she is becoming. Always inquisitive, curious, observant, sensitive and sweet- that is my Isabel! This year for her birthday she wanted a simple tea party with a handful of girlfriends at our house. Didn’t quite turn out that way- we came up with a winter wonderland theme (that became more and more elaborate!) and ended up with over a dozen little girls as guests. Crazy fun.
To begin preparing for the decorations the girls and I made dozens of paper snowflakes to decorate the windows, mirrors and walls. Next came the shopping! Thinking this would be the easiest part proved me to be foolish- even though winter is in full swing around here trying to find snowflake or winter themed decorations was very difficult- apparently I should have been shopping for this a few months ago…stores are already focused on spring! We basically bought any snowflake themed item we could find and kept our colors to white and a frosty light blue/silver theme.
Now that the decorations and theme were set I got to sewing. Every Snowflake princess/ballerina needs a beautiful skirt right? I designed and sewed coordinating tutu skirts for the girls, with layers and layers of tulle and a glittery snowflake tulle overlay with a silver satin ribbon at the waist and ties in the back or around to the front.
With Isabel’s I chose to handpleat each layer of tulle, sew them onto a scrap fabric waist and then sew the ribbon at the waist- very, very time consuming project! I simplified Eleanor’s (aka learned my lesson and took a shortcut!) and just gathered the tulle layers and sewed them directly to the ribbon. I think both of them turned out beautifully! Bonus- the girls have been dancing around the house with them on all week. The ability to tie the ribbon will also allow them to grow with them, and should fit for years to come.
Another simple project that seemed to take over my life for a week before the party was the craft- making snowglobes. I picked up these great plain canning jars at the Dollar Tree, a small container of glycerin (from Joanns), various glitters, distilled water and the figurines. Any plastic or ceramic figurine would work- but this proved to be the hardest part! I originally planned on putting in dancing ballerina figures- remember the type that used to be everywhere as cupcake toppers- apparently not sold anywhere anymore? Ugh…so I had to be creative. I picked up a few arctic animal toobs from the craft store. Too small. When placed in the jar they barely reached the top of the lid. So, I found myself digging around my basement and came across an old box of light blue ceramic tiles…and I had an idea! I broke up a number of the tiles with a hammer and glued them to look like ice/snow and glued the figure on the top! Problem solved. I prepared ahead and had the figures glued to the stacks, glued to the lids before the party. I used the most toxic smelling glue- E600, to ensure they would be waterproof and let them set for about 36 hours before the party.
When we were ready at the party the girls chose what figure they wanted and we poured the distilled water into the jars and added a few drops of glycerin and the girls got to work adding al of their glitter and little snowflake confetti and we screwed on the lids to shake them up. Plenty of screwing and unscrewing came as girls added more and more glitter! In the end they turned out great, and who doesn’t like to shake up a glittery snow globe!
Small Seams 