Bertie Bott's Beans party favors

I finally finished the Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans for my son's first birthday party. I also finished and mailed the birthday invitations, but that's for another post.

First, I bought 8 packages of Bertie Bott's Beans from jellybelly.com. I wanted to have a couple of the gross flavors to put in with regular jelly beans to make the 30 party favors.

I emptied all the boxes and sorted the beans by flavor. Let me warn you.. There are A LOT of gross flavored beans in the Bertie Bott's mix. The gray, light blue, orange, brown, white, and green piles are all gross flavors. I ended up with enough to make four all gross packs and put four gross beans into each favor pack. The means there were about 200 gross beans out of eight packs of Every Flavor Beans. If I'd of known then I would have only ordered about four boxes.

Next we have the packaging for my party favors. I was trying to keep it cheap so I saved thirty of Axel's baby food containers (shown above). I spray painted them all a pale blue (I think the color was Ocean Breeze) then packed the jelly beans mixed with the Bertie Bott's beans. I ended up buying four different brands of jelly beans and mixing them all together in a big bowl then filling each container with the assorment. By starting early I was able to get a bunch of jelly beans from the Easter candy section. Then I wrapped the containers with decorative tape I bought from Target and made labels to stick on the tops.

And voila! My version of Bertie Bott's beans. The labels are kinda simple, but I like it. I tried putting images and getting fancier with the labels but I didn't like them with the pale blue containers. I ended up wasting 21 labels so if you do this them print them up on regular paper and see how they look first.

Last we'll have Licorice Wands.

Chocolate Frog party favors

I finished the chocolate frogs for my son's Harry Potter themed first birthday party. I could have taken the easy way out and bought them for $2.99 each (?!) but since I needed thirty that would have added up to $90 for just frogs. I needed to go cheap so I figured I could make my own. In the end I spent about $23 total (or $16 if you don't count the baggies and favor boxes).

I found a soap mold at Hobby Lobby that had three frogs and three turtles on it for $2.99. I used their 40% off coupon and got it for $1.79 (woo-hoo!). I went back the next week and bought another so I'd have two molds. Again, this is why I started early.

At Joann Fabric they had their Wilton Candy Melts on sale for $2.24 a bag. I used three bags to make 30 frogs.

I had small ziploc bags left over from a baby shower I did for my sister in law. I think I paid $1.50 for 100 bags. I put the frogs in the ziploc bags because I was making them three months in advance and I wanted them to stay fresh. The white boxes were left over favor boxes from my wedding. It's amazing how these frogs just came together. I found a microwavable bottle with a squeeze top in the candy making section at Hobby Lobby. It really helped make this project a cinch.

I bought 2" square labels at Wal-Mart and downloaded a pre-made template from Avery's website. Then I searched online for a chocolate frog label and put it in the center of the Avery template. My favor boxes are 2" so I trimmed the labels a little so they would fit on the tops of the boxes better.

And voila! Chocolate frogs!

I plan on doing a nice photo shoot with all the favors once they are all finished. Up next - Bertie Bott's Beans!

Harry Potter themed birthday party

In three months I will be throwing my son's first birthday party and I decided on a Harry Potter themed party. It is quickly getting out of hand since I'm such a huge HP fan. I started working on the party favors pretty early (think November and the party is in June). I'm glad I did cause it helped me to save a lot of money and work at a pretty slow pace. I am going to break each party favor up into its own post so this is going to be a series of posts.

First up I made house scarves. I know a scarf is out of season for a June party, but they were the easiest and I figured kids would re-use a scarf before they would a tie.

I bought fleece on sale at Joann's and iron on patches online.

Then I cut the fleece into 5" wide strips making a 5" x 42" scarf. I recommend cutting the selvages off before cutting because they caused the fleece to bunch up on the end. Or maybe that was because I bought cheap fleece.

Then I cut tassels on the ends of the scarves. My tassels are 4" long and 1/2" wide.

If your fleece is like mine then there should be a fluffier side and a not-as-fluffy side. I ironed my patches on the not-as-fluffy side by putting the patch face down (with the backing facing up) and laying the scarf on top of it. I used the lines on my ironing board to make sure the patch was centered on the scarf and I positioned the patch approx. 10" from the end. To get this measurement I put on a scarf and measured when the patch would look best.

When ironing onto fleece you can't put the iron directly onto the fleece. Get a thick cotton fabric or shirt to put on top of the fleece. If you put the iron directly onto the fleece then you will mess it up. Make sure your iron is on a steam setting then run it over the patch area for about 15-20 seconds while you have a good amount of steam coming out of the iron.

And voila!

Homemade Finger Paints

A little while ago I mentioned trying to make my own finger paints. Well, today I finally did. If you remember I was going to try two different recipes, one from TLC and one from Easie Peasie (see my previous post for the links cause I'm feeling a bit lazy right now and don't want to look them up). My final results are still pending (see my final results at the end of the post below), but I can give you some preliminary results.

First, Easie Peasie was way too thick.

 



In order to get the green mixed I had to use a spoon. It ended up being the consistency of semi-cooled wax.

Next, I didn't cook the first batch of the TLC long enough so it was a bit on the watery side. However it was very easy to mix the food coloring in.

I turned off the heat when the mixture was the consistency of glue and that was too soon. So, I tried again and I think the consistency was a bit better, but you do need a spoon to completely mix in the coloring. Or maybe just not fill the jar as full as I did so it will shake better. I am going to update this in a week or two when I can comment on the mold issue that some people mentioned on the Easie Peasie blog. Here's the recipe I used and some notes to help make it easier for you.

3 tablespoons of sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch
2 cups water
1/4 cup dish soap
food coloring

Mix the sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan and slowly add water stirring until the dry ingredients are completely dissolved. Cook on low, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens. Continue for another minute until the mixture resembles a whitish gel (remove from heat if mixture starts to bubble). Slowly stir in the dish soap and remove from heat. When cool enough to handle, spoon into jars and add food coloring.

Here is what my last batch looked like just after the soap went in.

I might have cooked it a few seconds too long, but it still works nicely. This recipe will make five, 3/4 full, 4 ounce baby food jars.

In my first couple batches I used 4-8 drops of food coloring. In my last batch I used 10-12 drops. I think 8-10 drops is probably best. The red and blue painting was using my last batch of finger paints. The yellow and green were from my first couple batches. Side note - Using the dish soap in the recipe makes clean up a breeze.

I hope this helps you guys. I'll make up some more colors and post pictures... Maybe..

** Update - 24 hours later ** The Easie Peasie batch is a semi-solid substance. You can paint with it, but you have to scoop it out. The first batch of TLC paints is even more watery than before. The second batch of TLC paints is perfect (the recipe I posted above). The consistency is nice (like a firm gel) and it paints nicely. I'll update again in a couple weeks.

** Update - Feb 28 ** The finger paints have no mold. Not even a spec. And the consistency has stayed constant. This is the winner recipe!

** Update - April 17th ** The finger paints still have no mold and the consistency is still perfect. I think it's pretty safe to say that this recipe will resist molding so you can make a batch or two in advance and store it for awhile.

Finger Paint Experimentation

I'm in the process of planning Axel's Harry Potter themed first birthday party (don't worry, I'll post pics when the time gets closer) and I thought finger paints would make a good "potion" for potions class. I found a few different recipes while I was researching recipes on the internet and thought I would try them out. A few people mentioned the paints molding after a week so I'm gonna follow and then tweak a few recipes til I get one that's just right. If you're interested I'm starting out with these recipes:

http://easiepeasie.blogspot.com/2010/07/homemade-finger-paints.html

http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/make-your-own-fingerpaint.htm

One commenter on the first link mentioned the sugar causing the mold so I will try once with the sugar and once without. I'll take pictures and post my final results in a week or so along with the recipe that worked out best for me.

Stay tuned!

Baby food container crafts

I know it's been awhile since I've posted and this post will have a part 2 that won't happen for several weeks, but I thought I would post about it anyway.

I recently acquired this:

 

I never really thought about how many of these containers I might go through until someone gave us several dozen jars of baby food. Suddenly all I could think about was emptying them out and crafting with them. I have a few ideas on what I want to do, but I'm not going to share just yet. I promise that I will post pictures of what I make as soon as I get the stuff made.