DIY: How to Stretch Leather Boots to fit your calves

This is an optional way, a very easy way: you can do it yourself and  stretch your boots. (I bought these beautiful boots at Victoria Secret in size 7.5 and unfortunately they did not list calf size, but it is hard to find boots with big, yet not clunky fitting calves if your not a size 2, and especially in the smaller sizes of shoes.) Now these are leather boots, and I have not had this "stretching" experience with other kinds of boot materials. Although, I should note that materials that make up boots and shoes Gap/Target do seem to stretch pretty easily when worn. Meaning I can wear them in pretty easily. So if you try this with your boots that are not leather, or double lined like these, carefully observe each day to see that it is going the way you want.   

This shows you how far up the zipper got before I stretched them. Again not sure what size they are, I might guess 14 or 16 inches. And then I might say my calf is 18...again if this didn't work as well as it did, I might have been forced to measure and take better notice. And you are welcome to do that with yours.

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This is a regular kids 8 1/2 inch playground ball. I happen to have two around. I deflated them and inserted them in down to where the zipper. You could use a basketball, soccer ball, volley ball or anything that is bigger than your boot, your trying to stretch. You will also need a bike or ball pump with a ball needle. I show both here, but obviously it was easier to use the bike pump.

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Here I show the balls inserted in the boots. These boots are double lined leather and have a heavy metal zipper, I was almost scared when I opened them because I didn't think anything would stretch them. And I didn't want to buy an ugly extender, and I did not want to mess with the integrity of the look of these. And by searching the internet, from frozen overnight to extenders, I did not find anything that I felt comfortable with.  

 This shows me actually pumping up the ball to help stretch out the boots.

  This is both of them, just showing how it looked and how I left them for about a week. I kept checking them to make sure that the seems were secure, that the zipper was fine, that the color and the textures were not compromised. 

This is how you let the air out. If you are not familiar with air pumps and needles, etc. I let the air out and then removed the balls and below is what the boots looked like after the stretching. As you can see they do not look stretched and the seems are all fine. If they don't fit right away, you can always put them back in. I intended on pumping in air every other day, like two pumps. But I didn't get a chance to, and then ended up just fine. 

Its hard to tell but this is my leg in the boots!! They both fit of course, but I just had to show you them zipped all the way up. I didn't have to do any weird freezing thing and risk getting wet, besides who had room in their freezer for these boots? And I don't have to ruin these boots with a funky extender or weird alteration. I wish you luck and hope this helps you. Again be careful and enjoy!

DIY: My Little Pony Party for my daughters 5th Birthday

This is an entry about my daughters 5th Birthday Party and what I did for the My Little Pony (MLP) theme. Below is a couple of the decorations and two the home made centerpieces. One I used a MLP bucket available at Partycity.com, the other items are photos that I printed off the internet and cut out and matted, then added some embellishments from a craft store.

This is the MLP Piñata I also ordered from the Partycity.com.

 This is the MLP cups I made into party favors.

 This is the balloons we got at the Party City store. But I had to order the various different mylar balloons from different websites because they were only available in certain places: Walmart, Target and Party City.

 This is the cake I had made by Piece of Cake in Mesa, AZ. I added the MLP minis that I bought at Toy's'R'Us and added them at home.

 Going with the theme of the rainbow, I made these rainbow Jell-O shots out of the left over jello. Below you can see that I tried to make a rainbow jello bowl. I tried what I saw on Pinterest but I think it works better in smaller cups, in this wide of diameter and size of bowl, it just brown from the top. 

This you can see the bags I made for the candy in the piñata. 

Here is a better look at the mylar balloons.

After all is done, she finished her collections of various MLP's. She got all the minis, the regular figurines, the plush TY Babies, and the MLP Girls.

She also got a medium, 20 inch plush of Twilight to round out that collection too.

Here is a closer look at the collection of the TY Baby MLP. To see more about my thoughts on the differences between the TY MLP's and the Hasbro Plush MLP's. See my previous post. Enjoy!

My Little Pony Plush 4 inch and TY Beanie baby comparison

I am going to compare, make suggestions and discuss best practices for care of My Little Pony plushes of all sizes. For my daughter who LOVES My Little Pony (MLP) the show, and the characters like the plastic classic figurines with brush-able manes and tails. She has a variety of sizes of these dolls, plushes, and mini figurines. When she first started liking the show, she was 3 and there was not as much merchandise out as there is now. The new generation of MLP's show was in it's third season. So as first we kind of settled for what we could get our hands on. In this case is was the small 4 inch plush size MLP's by Mattle that sold at both Toys'r'Us and Target. They were cute enough, soft and because they had fleece like strips hair, it did not need up keeping and she could take them to school and sleep with them and no messy hair to brush. So for younger kids this plush is pretty perfect. Small enough to take with you or stick in a stroller, a pocket in the car and easy to care for. However, when the TY Beanie Baby My Little Ponies came out, it was apparent just what these smaller versions were missing. So for one, the TY MLP's are a little bigger, by about 3/4 inch in diameter and about an inch and half taller, if not two. Making then about 6 inch tall. The TY MLP's also have real hair to brush, bigger more true to character eyes, softer plush and better coloring (as seen in the photo here) The smaller MLP are just a tad darker (or in Twilight Sparkles case a tad lighter) and the features are just a tad more generic.


You can also see that on the left the TY MLP has a shinny horn and embroidered eyes and eye lashes. So a little more detail and what seems to better materials used to emphasis those details were used in the TY babies.

Sometimes it's difficult to get all the characters, or at least the six from the show in any one form: from the plastic ponies, to the small plush dolls, to the TY MLP Babies, to the Build A Bear (BAB) - there was some sort of strategic delayed release of each character. So we had to wait, and check back in at different places to see when or what character was coming out next.

Here is the collection of the TY MLP. which I first found a TY MLP at an airport about 6 months ago, and recently found all six at Party City, Mesa AZ. Just in time for my daughters 5th birthday. They are all stuffed well and stand up alone.

Here is the smaller 4inch Mattel plushes. I do not have all of the six main characters, because between Toys'r'us and Target I was only able to get or find the 4, however there were other characters like DJ (seen here) and Cherry Lee, and some other of the shows characters which I appreciate, but was most interested in collecting all six of the main characters. Because she has most of the shows characters that she likes in the classic plastic figurines,  I did not find it necessary to have them also in the plush.

          This is the collection of Twilight Sparkles. The BAB in the far back left, a 20 inch Mattel plush to the right, and then across the bottom from left to right is the TY, the smaller plush, the plastic figurine and the mini figurine. 

Here is our collection of plush Fluttershy's the large one is from Build A Bear, the far left is the TY MLP and the middle is the small plush. As I pointed out before the TY babies are much closer to looking like the Build A Bear MLP and the characters themselves. The plush and hair used is very similar. The build or structure of them is almost identical, the seams are even the same and I haven't measured to know, but they look like they could be to scale just different sizes. I really like the the BAB because of the softness of the plush and the fact that BAB sells outfits, like shoes and skates for the ponies, that also fits their other BAB animals. But it is just a fun experience to go and "build" your animal. However, be warned the BAB MLP hair is REALLY hard to take care of. We did not know this when we bought our first BAB MLP which was Rainbow Dash, the hair got terribly knotted, it seemed to be a horrible dry, course and unforgiving type of hair. Since this is my daughters favorite character she took it everywhere, including to day care where she slept with it. This further made a mess of the hair. I tried everything from water, to using de-tangler, to leave in conditioner, to trying to brush the hair out every time she came home. Eventually, I gave up and tried to talk to the BAB I got here from. I asked if there was anything we could do. They said no and they did not offer a replacement or refund. It made me hesitant to buy additional BAB MLP's but the BAB manager suggested keeping the hair in braids or in pony tails like they are in the store. So far, so good. And that is what I have done with TY MLP's hair as well.

Here she is with the MLP Dolls from the movie, the TY plushes, the classic plastic figurines and the mini figurines. Personally, I enjoy the little original Ponies because it brings back memories, but the mini figures are fun - because they travel easy!! Throw them in a bag, they can go in a pool or tub and no worries about the hair getting tangled.

Bloopers Reel: It's Never too early!

DIY: Find It game, How to make your own "Find It" Game

This is a very unique project, because it is based on a very unique game. I once saw it in a toy store - called "Find It" and it consisted of a clear container and many mini objects to find. It's roughly around $10 - $20 depending on where you buy it. Then a friend of a friend gave a gift to a child that was based on this same concept. Only it was liquid based and she had made it, and the objects were charms (minus the silver ring) of things. I tried to find the instructors or examples on-line but had no luck. I wanted to create a fun and unique craft for a teen event - so I needed to be able to make affordable - bulk DIY: Find It games for them.

 

So here is a picture of supplies I used from Discount School Supply and below is the link to Barnes and Noble where they have one for sale.

 

 

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/toys-games-find-it-original-edition/13740729?cm_mmc=googlepla-_-toysgames_10to25-_-q000000633-_-9780641845031&cm_mmca2=pla&ean=9780641845031&isbn=9780641845031&r=1 

SUPPLIES: So here is the list of the supplies I used to make 12 - 16 Find It games: empty tennis ball containers, 4 buckets of fuse beads - or any colorful filler that you want to use (see options below), poker chips, globe key chains, flip flop key chains, mini clothes pin, paper clips, rubber bands, mini bottles, toy mini dinosaurs, mini beach bucket beads, buttons, mini jingle bells, glass dice beads, glass dog bones, plastic coins, letter tiles (look like Scrabble pieces), and sports beads that are in the shapes of mini balls. 

They also sell colorful rice, and pony beads, which I considered for the fillers. But in the end, I thought this was the most affordable, closest to the actual product and the most durable and long lasting.

I chose the items as random as possible, with some that were easily accessible - like paper clips and rubber bands. I also chose items I thought were best to duplicate in additional projects - like the toy dinosaurs, buttons, poker chips, dice and letter tile - which I thought kids could use left over game pieces. But I have seen that these games come in themes - otherwise you could get overwhelmed with what to put in there!! And if you aren't going to do this in "bulk" - then you are limited to what you can find. Either way - this was fairly inexpensive for the bulk project and would have beat buying 14 games for each kid, plus they had the fun and experience of making it on their own!!

HOW TO: Anyway, once you have the supplies you are going to use, you will also need to prep the objects for hiding! For instance I had to remove any of the metal rings on the key chains and I added a note to my mini bottle. I also hand picked out the letters of the teens names for their letter tiles :) They you give each a kid a bad of their objects to hide, you can also give them an option to bring an item to add...(limit it to a 1inch X 1/2 inch object) and have them wipe out/clean their tennis tube. Once they have their scoop of filler they can begin to add objects as desired, till they are all in, plus filler - NOTE: leave an inch at the top, or there won't be any movement!! And lastly, glue the top on and add directions!

I printed a list of all the objects I brought for them and left two lines for them to pencil in something if they brought it. On the back of the list was instructions:

One person:
1) Find the objects and beat your best time!
2) Find the objects in alphabetical order
3) How many objects can you find in 2 mins (no looking at the list!)
4) Find every other object in order, then every third, and so on

Two person:
1) Who can find the most objects in 2 mins (no looking at the list!)
2) Time each other to see who can find all the items the fastest
3) Take turns finding every other object, then every third, and so on
4) ADD dice for more fun! Take turns and role the die, find the object that corresponds with that number.

Let me know if you come up with more ways to play!! Enjoy!

DIY: How to make Comic Book/Super Hero Center pieces and decorations!

This is how to make, or how I made my own Comic Book and Super Hero Theme center pieces for a Banquet - where the theme was Super heroes. I blog about what I can't normally find on the internet. So I hope this can help you. I had to first search and collect the clip art to be used and download the fonts. (I went to 1001freefonts.com) I also used some of our own logos that were created for our conference.

 

Anyway, the idea was to create something that looked like a city scape and then a comic strip to accommodate it. I used my printer, foam boards, black construction paper, scissors, spray mount, exacto knife, glitter, comic book stickers and tea lights.  

 

 

 Here you can see the "strips" have been printed out and mounted to the foam board. I then used the exsacto knife to cut them out and score the edges where I bent them.

As you can see here 5 boards made 25 strips, for 25 tables. We ended up needing 30 - so it depends on how big you want them and how many you need.

Here you can see the strips cut out and the one is standing up, now that I have scored it.

Here is the finished product. To make the city scape for the centerpieces I used large (construction type) black poster paper. I made two city scape on each one. If you look at this example, you can guess what the city line looked like in the second one. And I used a silver sharpie to color in some "windows", and cut out some with a square hole punch. Some metallic star garland was added at the event and tea light were set in the middle to light up the table. The light reflecting off the metallic stars and casting a shadow on the city scape was perfect!! Enjoy!

Crafts for Kids: Kids Camps Crafts and Ideas for projects!

 Crafts for Kids: Kids Camp Crafts or Kids Crafts Ideas for projects!

My "formula" for class set up is this: I pick four to five projects that fit within the theme of the days projects: i.e. Animals, garden, space, bugs, etc. This fills up 45 mins to 1 hour nicely. I place one sheet of instructions on the table, but don't insist on children following an "example". I like to see what they come up with, and also it allows them to go at their own pace. I simply ask; "who is ready for the next project?". I also try to mix in different mediums: i.e. painting, gluing, stickers, stamping, drawing, cutting, molding, taping, etc. Using materials like paper, ceramic, wood, cardboard, plastic, fabric, yarn and the other plethora of materials that come in craft kits. I order on-line mainly from Oriental Trading Co., Discount School Supply and S&S Worldwide (SSWW). And I buy materials at Target, Michael's and JoAnne's Fabric stores.  

 

This particular set of projects were based on "Feathered and Furry Friends" - we made a parrot, an owl and bunny and then used scrap fabric to make our own animal.

This used just cotton balls to fill in their bunny and paint to color them in.

 

Below was from a garden theme - this project was garden stones. We used air drying clay, mosaic tiles, buttons, "glass" plastic mosaic pieces and clear letters from Discount School Supply.

Here is a photo of the supplies we used and how I placed them in smaller bags for each table. I used a wire to cut the clay and divide it out. My favorite was the clear letter. They really added to the project and are very unique!

 

Below is from SSWW a DIY: Color me shoe. This was great for ALL ages, and this was for a teen night at the park event. I brought a box of sharpies and the shoes, and everyone got in on the fun. They also doodled notebooks too, for back to school. It was fun and a cute idea.

 

Toilet Paper roll crafts. I try to use as many recycled or reusable things I can find. I call these Toilet Paper roll rockets. Simply collect them, then hand them out and have the kids punch holes in the bottom of them for the streamers to tie in to.

I used sparkly foam to make circles. I found a temple on line, it showed the circle cut out, then make one straight cut to the middle (so only half way across). Then begin to make the circle into a cone, secure the cone with either tape, glue or staples. I found that the foam is so thick, it needed to be stapled. Then I used tape and glue to secure the cones to the paper rolls.

Next: we used pieces of foil to cover the rest of the rocket, metallic stars, and added the streamers. Optional: add a magnet for the fridge, or a string so you can hang it up! 

Below was a "Pond Theme" - we made ponds, dyed small plush lizards, made a bug collage and painted ceramic Frog banks.

 

Enjoy and let me know your ideas!!