Sebastian's 5th Birthday at St. Mark's

Wow. I can't believe it's almost the 11th of May. Already! Sebastian turns 5! My baby has been counting down since December, lol, so you can imagine how loooong he's been waiting for this day! 

Well, first of, we celebrated at his school on today, May 10, which falls on a Friday, since school's out on his actual birthday. We did it in the same fashion as last year's classroom celebration if you recall that (please refresh your memory HERE.) Every single idea from last year was done again this year, except for the theme. Last year's was "WonderPets" while this year it's "Arthur." If you don't know, Arthur is a character from a PBS TV show with the same title. Google said, "the show is set in the fictional American city if Elwood City, and revolves around the lives of 8-year old Arthur Read, an anthromorphic aadvark, his friends and family, and their daily interaction with each other." Sebastian is crazy about everything Arthur, he's watched all episodes from every single season. After watching an episode where Arthur lost his first tooth, Sebastian cried when I told him he won't lose his until he's about 7 years old. He also begged me to have a sleepover with his school friends Anand and Alex, after seeing "Arthur's first sleepover." He *made* his own book (with matching illustrations!) as soon as he finished "Arthur writes a story." Anyway, now you pretty much have an idea why Arthur topped the list for this year's theme! 

So, for the school party, I made these stuff -

Horizon organic low fat chocolate milk, wrapped with a simple "Arthur" label

Homemade cupcakes (whew, all 36 of them in 3 hours - the horror of frosting each one!) with "Arthur and friends" toppers

36 cupcake toppers I designed and taped to toothpicks

And because Sebastian wants to blow candles for his birthday, I bought a ready-made german chocolate cake, which I decorated with my handmade cake topper - an Arthur character toy (Sebastian's own,) a callout that says "Happy 5th birthday, Sebastian," and a number "5" candle.

Party favors this time is a tad bit simpler - Hershey's wrapped with a specially designed paper with Arthur characters printed 

Here's the back of the chocolate bar

And just like last year, we also have a special Arthur birthday t-shirt for the birthday boy! (I just used iron-on transfer for this one)

In a tiny bit, I might be able to post actual pics from the snack party. Stay tuned! 

Thanks for reading!:) 

Dinosaur Pants {A Tutorial}

So the other day I had a lightbulb moment when I saw pairs of sweatpants for kids that were on sale at Target for just ....... $3 a pair! tada!!!!! See, I have been thinking that I really wanna get some sweatpants for Sebastian because I thought it'll be easier for him to pull them down and then back up every time he uses the bathroom at the preschool. They don't get any help from the teachers when it comes to that, but only because they were being trained for Kindergarten where they'll be practically on their own. Not that he needed help though, he's been potty trained for as long as I can remember - one area that we got very lucky at! (He was completely potty trained after, maybe 3 days? I think.) 

Oh but wait, there's a catch to it - they're sweatpants for GIRLS!!!! lol. But no worries, we've got Sebastian's mom to the rescue! I thought I will work wonders to these pairs! 

So here's the grey pair of sweats. I also got him the blue pair.

Since they're for girls, the pants have a flared hem. So using Sebastian's current pair of jeans, I got measurements and had the sweats ready for some alteration. (Tip: if you're going to alter something dramatically, get a bigger size so you have a lot of room to work on. I got a size 6, which is two sizes bigger than Sebastian's current size)

Took it to my beloved sewing machine: 

See the difference between the original and the altered pair: 

At this point I thought plain is boring! So I decided to print out a few images and stencil them later. 

Printed the image on a freezer paper and cut the image to create a stencil. And then ironed it onto the knee part of the pants:

Painted over the opening: 

Let it dry for a few hours and peel off the freezer paper. Here's the finished product:

Dino pants in action! 

Yes he likes to hang out this way in Target!

I'd post the other pair soon! For more stencil tutorials, go here: Jazz up your eco bag, or Pillow Talk. 

EDITED TO ADD:::

Here's the other blue pair that I altered too, and then printed with "hi" on the knees. I would've put "hello" but laziness struck me, what's new! Anyhoo....  


Front 

Side view

Back view lol

Book Advent Calendar

{***Click on all pictures to enlarge!}

It's almost Christmas! Hoooray 'tis the season to stuff our face with 20 lbs of fudge once again! {pretending to not realize that i have 20 million things in my Christmas to-do list and still accomplishing nothing as i type this.}

Soooooo, we've started a cute holiday tradition in our household this year and boy am i super excited to share it with you! It's called 'BOOK ADVENT CALENDAR.' What's an Advent Calendar anyways? Well according to Wikipedia:   

An Advent calendar is a special calendar used to count or celebrate the days in anticipation of Christmas. The days often overlap with the Christian season of Advent. Despite the name, most commercially available Advent calendars begin on December 1, regardless of when Advent begins, which can be as early as November 27 and as late as December 3. Many take the form of a large rectangular card with "windows" of which there are usually 24: one for each day of December leading up to Christmas Day. One is opened every day leading up to Christmas. The calendar windows open to reveal an image, poem, a portion of a story (such as the story of the Nativity of Jesus) or a small gift, such as a toy or a chocolate item. Some calendars are strictly religious, whereas others are secular in content.

Now that you know what it is, imagine that we are doing the "calendar" in the form of Christmas books. So we gathered {some were newly bought, some gathered throughout the past years} 24 Christmas-themed books and wrapped it one by one with adorable holiday wrapping paper and put a number on each from 1 to 24, representing the countdown. 

Each night, Basti would get one and we will read it together, as he is now in the stage where he reads pretty much everything in sight, including our bills and even my text messages {"mom, what's LOL?".} We started tonight, since it's the 1st, and he was just crazy happy! 

Some of the best books i've heard rave reviews about are: "Olive the other reindeer," "'Twas the night before Christmas" {which is our book #24, naturally!,} "The Elf on the shelf," and "How dinosaurs say Merry Christmas," among others. We all have these, aside from the ones in the photo above. 

It was great sharing this little project with you guys! Hope ya'all enjoying your weekend! Hugsss! 

Our Living Room

To start with.................

Ahhh. Won't you pee a little in excitement upon seeing THIS Ryan Gosling coloring book??? Won't you???!! You guys, I die. 

So anyways, due to the fact that my mother is here in our house and making my most favorite home-cooked meals {added lbs = not funny!} and I'm mostly stuck with my little fattycakes {that's while mom cooks, and if I'm not working} either watching Jungle Junction or singing Strawberry Fields Forever {fattycakes is into The Beatles lately, yeah} I feel like if I even tried to write something sensible right now all you'd get from me are these - "let me take you down cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields nothing is real and nothing to get hung about...Strawberry Fields Forever!" And so since my brain is currently strolling between a jungle with animals on wheels and the Beatlemania era, lemme just go ahead and show you how I decorated our living room.

CLICK EACH TO ENLARGE PHOTOS, I URGE YOU! {For some weird reasons, my blog stretches them in an awkward way, so please...}

BEFORE

AFTER 

My most favorite poster of all! 

I used my blue pillows from our old house. Well actually, we used everything from our old house. I just added those storage boxes under the center table and topped it with my old brown tree branch. 

I chose to do modern instead of traditional when it came to prints that I used on our walls. I surely love me some abstract paintings, but I thought it would be fun to be different this time.                                        

Loving the octopus and the owl print! 

Side tables 

And then right next to the main entrance door, I kinda just wanted to gently remind anyone who comes and visits...... 

    

So that's our living room for you, folks! Have a gorgeous weekend!!! 

Sebastian's Bedroom

And because the power of speech has deserted me in the meantime, I won't have any introduction for now. Long story short, here are photos of how I decorated Sebastian's bedroom in our new place:

"BEFORE" photo

{I've pretty much reached soaring heights of laziness, thus this single "before" photo. Sorry!}

"AFTER" photos

This is what you'll see upon opening the door - it was an old framed "Sebastian" name print that we had from our old house. It basically details everything about Sebastian and the time he was born, such as: what his name means, how much did gasoline cost when he was born, what was fashion then, who was the president of the USA, etc.  

This is one side of the bedroom. Along the side of the wall, I put his old rocking chair and foot stool, his tiny table where we do all of his writing and art, and a red & blue toy bin. On the wall, I put these words: "Every Child is an Artist" (by Pablo Picasso) and then hung some of his actual art works from school. 

A closer view of the wall: FEEL FREE TO ENLARGE FOR CLEARER DETAILS

In that little corner, I hung 2 art prints using just a clothespin.

Art prints 

We use a lot of storage boxes from Ikea - with primary colors red & blue, since that's his bedroom color this time.

I also made use of his old "Sebastian" wooden letters from his old nursery room. On top of it, I just added four (4) 8 x 10 framed pictures. I think it worked well withe the letters? 

Hope you like what I did! :) Til the next room......