Mickey Mouse Extravaganza: Our Disney Gear

I'm a little late with this post being that I am out in California but I quickly wanted to share with you guys the shirts and headbands that I made for Disney.  I kept it really simple given my time restraints to get this project done and I wanted to add our names but then rethought having my 3 year old's name on her shirt. Then I was gonna add "Mom" and "Kid" to the back of our shirts but time didn't allow for it, but that would have been a fun addition.

I bought some Simply Spray fabric spray paint and then searched online for some Mickey images I thought would work for this project.  I found this one for my shirt:

This represented the Disney Channel of my day in the 80's and early 90's. Then I found this one for ZeeBee:

This is representative of the Disney of today that she watches.

I cut out our individual stencils.

Then I put a piece of cardboard inside of the shirts to make sure the paint didn't bleed through.

Then I layed out the stencil on the shirt, covered around it with pieces of paper so that there was no rouge spray paint, and sprayed the shirts (I covered the top part of the shirt too).

Now this brand of spray paint DID NOT stand up to the black shirt so when it dried the stencil was all but invisible so I had to get a pink shirt and redo it. But Zee's shirt was already pink and I was using black paint for hers so it worked out perfectly first time around.

Then I cut out a little piece of ribbon and made a Minnie bow for Zee's "Mickey" head. I then hand sewed the bow to the shirt.

That was it!! I also made one of Yellow Blackbird's T-Shirt Mickey Ear Headbands for Zaiah and embellished a simple black headband with some Mickey head stick-ons for me

 ...and here is our Disney gear!!

A super simple way to celebrate the magic of Disney without spending all the extra bucks! Tomorrow we'll spend the entire day jumping back and forth between Disneyland and California Adventure so I'll post some pics of us wearing our special shirts. Disneyland here we come!!



A Mickey Mouse Extravaganza!!

My family is going on a California vacation!

As you can see above in our little countdown, we are leaving in four days. We have collectively been UBER excited for this trip. It is very much overdue. We are headed to San Diego because the ZeeBee has never been to the zoo, so her first experience is going to be at the best Zoo in the US, the San Diego Zoo. She is so excited about this. She is always watching the zoo OnDemand and sees the kids feeding the animals and petting them and she can't wait! 

While we're there we are also going to be heading to SeaWorld and also, wait for it...wait for it...DISNEYLAND!! Now who do you think is excited about that?! ME!!!

I am a total Disneyholic. Completely in love with the place. Stick me in a tiny apartment on Main St. and I'll be happy and content. I've been to Disney World probably more than 10 times, but Disneyland, I've only been twice and I haven't been back since I was six years old!! It's like a homecoming for me! lol. Yes, I'm that excited. But the best part about it all ...Zee has no idea we're going! She only knows about the zoo and Seaworld. She has no idea that she's headed to Disney for a day and she's going to be so excited. She went to Disney World once as an infant so she has no memory of it whatsoever. This is going to be the best vacation!


So in honor of my return to Disneyland, I will be doing Disney themed features throughout the week before we leave. Today I will be starting with some of my favorite Disney crafts I have found on the blogs that I follow.

Cutie pie Budget Friendly Mickey Shirts and Hats from The Terry's - Living a Dream

Simply adorable Rolled TShirt Mickey Ears from Yellow Blackbird

Colorfully beautiful Minnie Mouse/Disney Princess Inspired Headbands from VintageWannaBe

Super crafty Bleach Stencil Shirt from Our Family, Our Way

If you're a crafter who owns a cutter (Cricut/Silhouette) and you love Disney, then the Disney/Pixar Blog Hop is for you. Hosted by Crafty Chics Blog, this blog hop features all kinds of Disney projects like

These greeting cards by Tami's Craft Connection

this adorable growth chart by Funky Cards

...and this Toy Story layout by Jenny's Scrapbooking Haven

They will be hosting another Disney/Pixar blog hop September 24th & 25th.

For lots more Disney crafts visit http://family.go.com/crafts/

Tomorrow I will post Etsy Disney Finds and later this week I will be adding a Disney craft of my own for our Disneyland adventure!!

 



Sunny Butterfly Flower Bottles

I spend a large chunk of my day sitting in an office at work, covered in paperwork, swamped by phone calls, and buried in casework clutter. I decided I needed something a little bit brighter and sunny to lighten up my workspace. Brightly colored flowers are the ultimate cheerer upper so I decided to put some pretty cheerful Gerbera daisies at my desk and make some cute little holders to put them in.

I went to Target and bought some Goya sodas and decided to use these as the holders. I actually wanted to try Izze bottles but they didnt have them at Target and after being at work all day, I really didnt feel like searching stores for them, so the Goya bottles had to work. I forgot to take a picture of the bottles before I worked on them but here is a Google image.

I got these home, emptied them out, scrubbed off all of the labels and glue off and spray painted them white.

I didn't want to leave them plain but for some reason no store near me had any kind of stencils and I didn't feel like driving all the way to the craft store, (hey! it was a long day ;)) so I made my own.  I found some pictures of butterflies online. I love butterflies! 

I laid the picture down on some cardstock and put the cardstock down on a piece of cork just to be sure I wouldn't cut through to anything important and I used an Xacto knife to cut out the shape of the butterfly into the cardstock. 

                                         

                                         

Once the bottles had dried, I laid the the stencils onto the bottles and spray painted them almond. 

I had to hold the stencil steady on all sides to make sure no paint got under the stencil, hence...  

I think it's a good look on me. I have the greatest spray painting skills! 0_o   When painting the stencil on, I alternated the way the butterfly was facing and its position on the bottle to give it some variety. Originally I had wanted to have them getting smaller as the bottles progressed but cutting out butterflies 3x's smaller than this would have been a challenge.

Once everything was dry, I tied a piece of jute twine into a bow around the neck of the bottles, put some water in the bottles, and added my daisies. I originally wanted hot pink but the florist only had bright orange and a deep red. I thought the deep red was a little to Fall-y and Im still not fully ready to accept Fall yet. 

That was it! I can't wait to get these to work tomorrow and see how they look in my window. Ill post an updated picture to share with you guys! :) 

Baby Bonanza

Hey guys! So, I'm in the middle of another baby season and there are a few babies coming into my life this year and so I've been on the internet searching up lots of tutorials for things to make for all the new bundles of joy. I found a few tutorials that I am going to be trying out as well as coming up with a few of my very own. So in the next couple of weeks you guys will be seeing lots of baby crafts on Photographer ...Naturally.

Today I would like to share with you a tutorial I found on one of my absolute favorite crafting blogs, Make it and Love it. They have SO MANY cool things over there and I recommend everyone check it out.  Today I spent the day working on their receiving blanket and baby hat tutorials.

For those of you who havent seen the post, a few months back I bought a sewing book to try and learn how to master the art of sewing. Since buying the book I have rarely had the chance to sit down and actually practice. This tutorial was a good one because it is super simple ...unless, of course, if your hand is unsteady as mine. Complicated for a photographer and an even worse sewer ...wait, that can't be how you spell sewer, that's sewer like where the dirty water is. Is sewer, as in a person who sews, even a word?

I have no idea. Moving on... so my stitches aren't quite straight and it's going to take practice to get them there. But enough with the disclaimers, here is what I worked on today.

Cast of Characters:
Interlocking knit in any pattern you like. How many colors you need depend on how many styles you would like.
Ribbed interlocking knit for your blanket edges
Sewing/Quilting ruler
Baby hat to make a pattern
Scissors
Pins and Needles
Chalk (optional)
...and of course, your sewing machine!


Starting out with the receiving blanket, cut a rectangle of about 36x36. Round off the edges using a bowl and chalk to draw the lines.

Then cut 2 inch wide strips the length of the fabric with the ribbing going right to left not up and down.

Then fold the fabric strips in half the long way and then the outsides into the middle to create long strips or bias tape. I added an extra step here from the original tutorial and ironed the bias tape down so that it would stay in place and be easier to pin onto the blanket.  I made four strips but only used three.

Pin the ribbing all the way around the outer edge of the blanket with the fabric inside to hold in place. When pinning the bias tape, make sure to pin the end of one inside the end of the other to keep the tape continuous. It helps if you fold the very tip of the outside bias to hide the frayed end. Then get to sewing!

Sew all the way around the inner edge of the bias tape. Make sure you're catching the blanket fabric AND the back side bias tape because, believe me, this can be a pain to tend to if you miss a spot :-\

...and that's it! I skipped the letters from the original tutorial and kept this blanket simple as I have many more projects to make for the little munchkins.

Then I moved onto the hats. I used a store bought baby hat to make my pattern. I cut all the way around the hat adding an extra 1/4 inch.

Then I cut a strip 14.5 inches long 5.5 inches wide.

Sew around the outisde of the hat leaving the bottom open. Fold the strip in half and sew along the outer open edge.

 Next you want to fold the strip into itself to create a band. Stuff the band inside of the hat with the frayed edges all on the outside. Pin the band to the hat with three folds on one side and three folds on the other so that the hat can be opened and sew around the outer circumference of the hat securing the band inside.

When you're done turn the hat right side out and you are going to want to open the hat and iron along the inside to keep the inner seam down. Also you can hand stitch the side corners just to make sure the inner seams lie down (picture to follow)

Now you can choose to embellish your hat with these simple little fabric flowers. Start by cutting 5 larger circles from your fabric (5 inch circumference) and 4 smaller circles (3 inch circumference). Fold four of your larger circles in half and then in half again and lay them down on your fifth larger circle.

Hand stitch the tips of the folded fabric to the larger circle to keep them on. Repeat this with the small four circles folding them and laying them slight askew from the 4 bigger folds and hand sew them on and your flower is complete!

Handsew the flowers to the hats in the spot you would like them and you're all done!! You've completed the Make it and Love it baby hats and receiving blanket!

~Stay tuned for more baby tutorials coming your way in the next couple of weeks!!

p.s. SEAMSTRESS!! That's it!