Giant ONE Photo Display

I have taken over a thousand pictures of the triplets during their first year of life. I wanted to come up with a creative way to display them. We plan to have a slideshow of about 350 pictures continuously playing on the TV during their party tomorrow. I still wanted a display that people could see at any time. 

Here's a quick "how-to" for making the giant photo display that fills our downstairs hallway.

1. Use painter's tape to create two lines. Measure at various points to make sure they are straight and level.

2. Use painter's tape to spell the word "one".

3. Remove the sections of tape that are not part of the letters.

4. Tape photographs directly onto the painter's tape. (I had to go back and remove the diagonal of the "N" so the tape would not show.

This collage costs $15 to make (roll of painter's tape + printing pictures). I used 74 photos from James, Amelia, and Madeline's first year. I love how big it is and that I am able to showcase my favorite pictures.

Cake Smash Photos

When I get an idea in my head, I make it my mission to make every detail come to life exactly how I picture it. I am so thankful that I was able to create most of my vision with the cake smash photo shoot. I'm posting the same pictures I posted on Facebook, but here are a few behind-the-scenes facts involved in this photo shoot:

• I moved my couch and opened the blinds in the living room so I could get as much natural light as possible. I took pictures every few hours yesterday to determine what time of day filled the room with the best light. Noon was the perfect time.
• I borrowed my father-in-law's camera (Cannon EOS Rebel from a decade ago) so I could actually focus and take multiple photos in quick succession. I love it!
• I made the pennant banner using scrapbook paper. The twine I bought to string the paper together cost three times as much as the paper did.
• Even though James' cake is essentially missing, it's because he finger painted the floor with it. He may have eaten two bites at best the entire time.
• It took sweeping, vacuuming, mopping twice, and scrubbing on my hands and knees with OxiClean to clean the Crisco covered floor. We still had an ant invasion within an hour.
• While I love the pictures, I unsuccessfully tried to remove the shadows on the wall for a good hour. I have not mastered Photoshop.
• James crawled away after five minutes. Maddie lasted a few minutes longer. Amelia was left alone daintily eating. All three were in the bath within fifteen minutes.
• James' tie was the source of hours of stress. I taught myself how to make a bowtie, then hated it once it was on him. I went to a dozen different stores to try and find ties but they all said the same thing, "We only carry them seasonally." I bought a $12 baby suit from Burlington Coat Factory. After all of that, we ended up using a clip-on tie that we've had packed away in the attic for three years. (I clipped it on to a ribbon with velcro.)
• I originally scoffed at the idea of having a cake smash photo shoot. I changed my mind when I realized the babies birthday party would be a different day than their actual birthday. Sunday's cake smash will be outside (weather permitting) in their high chairs so we don't have to clean up or worry about people cramming into our kitchen. 
• I bought the pink necklace that the girls are wearing for $5 from Claires. When I got home I was upset to discover that it was one long strand that was wrapped together to look like two necklaces in the package. The color matched the tutus perfectly so I just cut the necklace in half and twisted it to make two necklaces. You can tell in the closeup of Maddie. It drives me crazy.
• Maddie refused to keep her necklace on. For once, Amelia did not take off her bow.
• While writing this blog post, I am reminiscing about VH1's Pop-Up videos.

DIY Smash Cake and Cake Stands

If you haven't noticed, we've been living pretty minimally these days. It's hard to go over the top with decorations and outfits when you have a tight budget. I've been determined to make everything perfect for the babies first birthday, despite low funds.

My favorite first birthday tradition is the cake smash. Since their party is not on their actual birthday, I decided to let them have a cake smash on their birthday, and a small cupcake on the day of their party. As I was getting everything ready for the cake smash, I realized I couldn't put the cakes directly on the ground. A paper plate would look tacky and a glass plate could break. I looked online for prices of miniature cake stands and quickly decided that wasn't in the budget. So, off to Pinterest I went. I stole the idea to make my own cake stands using plates and bowls. It could not have been any easier! I spent $4 total at the Dollar Store on one pack of small plates and three plastic bowls.

You simply hot glue the base of the bowl onto the back of the plate. Within two minutes, I had three miniature cake stands that cost just over $1 each!

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Of all the birthday details and decorations, I felt most confident about baking the smash cakes. I baked them in my five inch round pans. (One cake recipe only made enough for two cakes. The second recipe made the third cake and 24 mini cupcakes.)

After the cakes cooled I leveled them. You could either cut the dome off with a serrated knife or use a cake leveler. I did not apply a crumb coat because the rose decorations would be more than enough icing on the cake.

Because I wanted to cover the cake in roses, I had to make a LOT of icing for these small cakes. I doubled my usual buttercream icing (double recipe: 1 cup butter, 1 cup shortening, tbsp of vanilla, 8 cups of powdered sugar). I tinted half of it pink, the other half blue. I used 1M tip to make the roses.

Once you fill your piping bag halfway, you simply swirl the icing onto the cake in a circular motion until you have roses. After swirling the roses on the sides and top of the cake, you'll be left with open spaces.

To cover them, you can either overlap more roses on top, or simply add swirls to fill in the gaps. FYI, it would not look great if you just filled it with dollops of icing because it would look like roses and stars. Try to swirl in the same direction as the roses so it looks less obvious.

Here are the final cakes on their cake stands. I already had all the supplies for the cakes since I bake so much, but you could buy all the ingredients and a 1M tip from a craft store for less than $20. If you didn't have small cake pans you could use a sheet pan and cut circles out or use ramekins.

I cannot wait for the babies to tear these cakes apart!

DIY Tutus and High Chair Skirts

My craftiness is limited to cake baking and scrapbooking. Yet for some unknown reason, I decided I was going to make the girls' tutus for their first birthday. I followed this tutorial to make them using crochet headbands and tulle. The tutus required two spools of tulle and two baby headbands, which cost $5 at A.C. Moore (with the 50% off coupon that comes in the Sunday paper). 

Sidenote: I had to exchange these headbands because they were too big.

I chose to use two different shades of pink tulle. I measured the distance between Amelia's hip and knee to be 7.5 inches. Since I was going to fold each piece of tulle in half, I measured and cut 40 pieces of tulle (20 in each color) that were 16 inches long.

I put the headband around a tea pitcher so it would be somewhat stretched out and stay in place. I folded a piece of tulle in half and slid it through the hole in the headband.

I then pulled the piece through the loop to create a slipknot.

I repeated this 40 times, alternating colors. If I wanted a really full tutu I could have gone around the circumference twice, using the next row of holes. I found one row to be plenty for my little girls.

The girls look precious in their tutus!

Seriously, could they be any cuter?

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I also made two high chair skirts using two more spools of tulle and ribbon. (This cost me another $5 with another 50% off coupon.) 

This was a simple project that followed the same technique as the tutus. I wanted the high chair skirts to be a bit longer so I measured and cut 20 inch strips of tulle. I cut ribbon that was long enough to go around the entire high chair tray.

Next, I folded the ribbon in half to find the midpoint. I tied my first piece of tulle using the same method of folding it in half and threading it through the loop. I alternated colors and tied two to the left, two to the right, two to the left, and so on. I did it this way because I only wanted the tulle on the front of the tray and needed to keep it centered. Since I knew I would be pushing the three high chairs together, I didn't think it needed all that extra fluff of a full high chair skirt.

Once I had enough tulle to cover the front of the high chair, I was ready to adhere the ribbon to the high chair tray. I applied velcro dots to the clean tray, then to the back of the ribbon. It stays firmly in place but is also easy to detach.

Here are the finished high chair skirts, along with a simple pennant banner I made for James' chair.

For a mere $10 I was able to make three tutus, two bows, and two high chair skirts. (Technically, the velcro dots would have added a few more dollars had I not already had them packed away in my classroom boxes.) A little bit of tulle goes a long way!

How to Make a Batman Logo Cake

Jackson requested yet another Batman cake for his birthday this year. I wasn't in a cake decorating mood and planned to purchase one at the WalMart bakery. After waiting 'til the last minute, the WalMart bakery was closed and I ended up scrambling to make a cake late at night. 

Lettering is a weakness of mine, so I bought premade sugar letters. Since the colors didn't match with the Batman theme I dyed them yellow using piping gel and yellow dye. (I would have just used diluted gel food coloring if I had any.)

I printed this Batman logo to use as the main decoration. It was the perfect size for a standard sheet cake, but would not have fit well on a round cake. I chose to make candy clay rather than fondant for two reasons:
1. I prefer the taste of candy clay.
2. I could buy a bag of yellow and chocolate candy melts for $3 and not have to worry about coloring the fondant.

Candy clay is extremely quick and easy to make. It only requires two ingredients--a bag of candy melts and 1/4 cup of light corn syrup. It takes two minutes to melt the bag of candy melts in the microwave. Once they are melted, add the corn syrup and quickly stir before it hardens. For some reason, my candy clay turned out especially greasy and I had to use a washcloth to absorb the excess grease.  After kneading the clay to a smooth mixture (less than a minute) I sandwiched it between two pieces of wax paper and rolled it out flat.

I printed two copies of the template so that I could have the oval and the batman symbol separate. I used a knife to trace the oval on top of the yellow candy clay,

and did the same with the Batman symbol on the black candy clay.

Since the clay was still soft and pliable, the black and yellow pieces adhered together well. I laid them out on wax paper to harden overnight. (This step wasn't necessary since the pieces laid flat on the cake, but it would have been important if I had made 3-D figurines.)

I ended up making a double layer sheet cake because the first cake I made was too thin after I leveled it. I wrapped both cakes in plastic wrap and froze them overnight so they would be easy to frost in the morning.

The next morning I whipped up a batch of vanilla buttercream, dyed it blue, and slathered it on top of my cakes. Because the cake was cold, it didn't tear at all. I didn't have to worry about a crumb coat.

Once the cake was completely iced, I applied my Batman logo in the center, pressed the letters around it, and piped a very quick (and unintentionally sloppy) border on the top and bottom of the cake.  Voila!

Sensory Bottles

After stumbling upon this post on sensory bottles last week, I've been excited to make our own set for the kids.  The whole idea of sensory bottles is to stimulate babies' senses by using objects of different colors, weights, sounds, sizes, shapes, consistencies, etc.  I spent $2 on a case of small water bottles.  (They happen to be the perfect size for Jackson's lunchbox)  The rest of the supplies were various items I gathered from our kitchen and craft closet.  It rained all morning, which was the perfect time for Jackson to work on our "special project".

After removing the labels and leftover adhesive, we came up with different ideas of what to put inside the bottles.  Jackson was very hands-on and creative.  The only thing I wouldn't allow him to touch was the glitter.  I added gold and silver glitter to one of the water bottles. 

In the next bottle, Jackson added centimeter cubes to the water.  Beads would have worked just as well, but I have thousands of cm cubes from a professional development course.  Of course we counted them and identified their colors as he placed them in the bottle.

We poured the water out of another bottle, then curled pipe cleaners using a pencil.  This was good practice for Jackson to work on his fine motor skills.  Once the bottle was dry, we placed the curled pipe cleaners inside.

My favorite bottle to create was inspired by my childhood days of making sand art.  I let Jackson pick the colors and dye salt.  We tried mixing the gel food coloring and salt in a bowl, but discovered that it mixed much better in a plastic bag.

We used a funnel to pour in the different colored salt.

I was trying to continue the learning and make the final bottle a science experiment by adding oil to colored water.  Each time I told Jackson that the water and oil wouldn't mix, he grabbed the bottle and shook it, saying "See Mommy. I mix it."  Eh, I guess that was a bit over his head.

Once our bottles were assembled, I finished them by hot gluing the lids.  I wasn't too worried about the babies unscrewing them.  However, I knew it would only be a matter of time before Jackson had glitter and salt all over the house.

Here are our final bottles.

I introduced the bottles one at a time by shaking, rolling, and squeezing them. The glitter especially intrigued the babies.  (Maddie was sitting on my lap.)

Then I let the babies explore on their own.  It was a successful sensory experience!