DIY Christmas Throw Pillows

I bought a new bench for the basement and it just sat there all by itself. Lonely and sad. I had to give it some life and I knew throw pillows would do the trick. There was no way I was going to spend money on new pillows so I rifled through my fabric stash and found an old cream-colored canvas drapery panel from 17 years ago. These drapes hung in the living room of the house we rented with our friends Brian & Krista in Mississauga, ON. Back then Mike and I went in the woods and cut down the perfect branch that served as a unique drapery rod.  It was well before the rustic-chic movement, I must have been on the cutting edge of design! Okay, maybe I was just resourceful and on the tightest budget ever.
So... why do I still have them??? I'm glad I do!

I cut 4 squares of the canvas panel into 16" x 16" pieces. 

Then I printed off a pattern of a deer head and of a Christmas tree. (The deer head pattern is actually a picture of a deer head pillow).

My daughter Mikayla has a bunch of old dance costumes stored in her closet. One of those costumes was entirely made out of gold sequin which I used for my deer head. I purchased 1/4 yard of red sequin for the tree.That is way more than I needed for this project, but who knows what I will need it for in the future.

Next, I ironed HeatBond to the backside of both the gold & red sequin fabric.

Once cooled I was ready to place my pattern on the front side of the fabric and cut. I originally thought I was going to make 2 deer pillows, but decided against it later.

Here the patterns are cut out and ready to be ironed onto the canvas.

I removed the HeatBond paper off the back of the cut-outs and placed in the middle of the pillow. I used a pressing cloth to protect the sequin when I ironed the cut-out to the fabric. 

Next a zig-zag stitch to give a finished look.

I sewed the pillow front and back together and stuffed with fiberfill I had on hand. The fiberfill was leftover from Boo Day at work last year. It played the part of fake snow in Candy Land for Halloween. I was happy to to take the leftover. That stuff isn't cheap!

Here is the finished product. Looks plain though right? What can I do?

I found 4 cloth Christmas napkins that I have been meaning to use one year for dinner. I've had them for years, but just moved them from one Christmas box to another. I finally used them! I sewed them together and filled them with fiberfill and viola, more throw pillows!

This was a super quick and fun project! 

~Sheila

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Julia's Emoji-cal Birthday Party

We had a great time celebrating Julia's 10th birthday. TEN! 10 years old! How is my baby double digits???

Thanks to Pinterest we quickly determined that Julia wanted an Emoji-themed party. We found some great ideas online and added some of our own ideas too. And of course, we did this whole party on a dime. :)

Everyone knows I love the Dollar Tree, so I started there by picking up a bunch of yellow poster boards. I used assorted pots and pans as my template for the yellow circles, cut the faces out of colored paper, and used a glue stick to adhere the faces to the circles.

Did you know that you can order items at www.dollartree.com that are not regularly stocked at the store and have them shipped to the store for pick up? I needed paper plates and the only yellow they had at the store was a lemon yellow. I checked online to see if they had more of an emoji yellow and sure enough they did! I ordered cups and plates in the exact color for the low low deal of $1 a pack. I had to order a minimum of 4 packs each which was a little more than I needed, but who doesn't need extra plates and cups? And it was still less expensive than if I were to have gone to one of the popular party stores. I also found this fun garland made out of ribbon and tissue paper that just so happened to be the perfect color. And finally, the Dollar Tree had yellow dinner plates that I used for the brownie cupcakes.

I am no baker that's for sure! And I am definitely not a cake decorator, however, I gave it my best shot and the cupcakes turned out great. First, we made smiling piles of poo! Poo is always funny!!! Mikayla helped make brownie cupcakes and I piped a twist of chocolate frosting on top. I used grocery store frosting and man is that stuff thick! It doesn't pipe as well as I thought it would, but it was fine. We added some edible googly eyes and there we had it... edible poo! (always funny:) Next, we made yellow cupcakes and armed with more edible googly eyes, heart-shaped sprinkles, and a black gel decorating tube, I went to town creating emojis. Some may or may not be legit emoji's but whatevs they were fine. Definitely not a professional job, but cute and Julia loved them. Julia had the idea of placing them in the shape of a "J" on the table and they looked great! Good idea Julia!!!

For the beverages, I found a yellow container at Five and Below, and what better drink to fill it with than lemonade? Yes, I did spend $5 on this item, BUT, I will get a lot of use out of this container. As we speak, Julia is using it for her lemonade stand. I also made some emoji water bottle labels to add a little more of a personal touch. 

Once all of the girls arrived we split them up into two groups, one group went with Mikayla to make emoji cookies and the other group came with me to make emoji t-shirts. I really wish I would have been able to watch the cookie decorating because this group of girls is creative! Mikayla put a dollop of yellow frosting on their cookie and the girls took it from there. I provided the same items I used to decorate the cupcakes and I thought we would see a lot of the heart eyes emoji cookies. Nope! It turns out that the googly-eye tongue emoji (not sure of the actual name) is super popular so to improvise, some of the girls used a heart sprinkle upside down as the tongue. So cute! I'm bummed I didn't get pictures of the finished products. They did such a great job! 

Thanks to my friend Michelle Q, I scored a huge deal at JoAnn Fabrics on t-shirts. They had a one-day-only coupon for 5 t-shirts for $10. What a deal!! I ran out on my lunch hour that day and picked up 20 shirts. AND the best part was that it was a pleasant experience! There was a limit of 10 on the coupon, but the lady helping me, was awesome! She didn't give me a hassle about buying more than 10, she didn't refuse my coupon, she didn't make me come back the next day. She let me spend my money on the t-shirts and get a deal. Can you believe it?? A hassle-free that shopping experience! Such a novel idea.  

Before the birthday party, I ironed HeatBond to yellow, black, red, white, and blue felt. Next I pre-cut circles and face parts for four different types of emojis (4 sunglasses, 4 heart eyes, 4 laughing teardrops & 4 googly-eye tongues). I put the face parts into sandwich bags and stacked them on the table by type. The girls selected a t-shirt, a yellow circle, and a sandwich bag of face parts. Once they picked their emoji, they came into my sewing room, placed their emoji the way they wanted it on the t-shirt and I ironed it for them.

 As soon as the t-shirts cooled off, every girl couldn't wait to put the t-shirt on. 

I made the birthday girl's t-shirt the night before and a little bit different than the rest. She got the number 10 on her shirt with the blow kiss emoji. 

The t-shirt making process took longer than the cookie-making process, so that left a fair amount of girls with nothing to do. That didn't last long! As I am ironing in my sewing room, I see that they are all sitting in a circle and the next thing I hear is " concentration, what's your number". How great is that??? They totally occupied themselves while they waited for the rest of their friends to complete their shirts. What a great group of girls! 

Next up, games!

We headed outside to play Musical Squares. Mike numbered the squares 1 thru 4, Mikayla started the music and when the music stopped, we picked a number and whoever was standing in that square was out. We kept doing that until we had one girl standing. She was the winner of a yellow kickball with the sunglasses emoji on it that I bought at Five and Below. We played another round and the next winner received a smiling pile of poo emoji pillow, also purchased from Five and Below (and still funny).

Back inside, we played Pin the Tongue on the Emoji. I made an extra-large googly-eye tongue emoji and used painter's tape on the back of the tongue so each girl could easily stick and remove the tongue. The winner of this game received a round yellow pool float with the sunglasses emoji on it, also from Five and Below.

Julia had an absolute blast at this party and I think all of the girls did too! The t-shirts were such a big hit that the girls wore them to school the next day.

Julia took some poo brownies to school for her teachers, principal, and vice-principal. She laughed so hard when she told me she stopped Mr. Clarke in the hallway and asked him if he wanted some poo. I bet he wasn't expecting that!!

An emoji-cal time was had by all!! 

 A huge thank you to all of these girls and their parents for making Julia's 10th birthday a great one!

~Sheila

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