Seasonal Decorating: Springtime

Decorating for holidays has always been a big tradition in our family. On the first day of every month my mother would have us all help take down the past month's decorations and put up the next month's.  Now I'm 'nesting' with my husband and creating our own holiday decorations.  We got married in October so I started decorating for my favorite holiday, Christmas. You can see a few pictures of the decorations in our Facebook photo album. I also kinda decorated for Valentines but didn't take any pictures because we had decided to upgrade our TV which lead to us getting a new couch, a new TV stand, a new coffee table and a new clock. It was a lot of work but we've finally finished rearranging our living room! Then it was my turn to decorate!

Springtime Decorations

The decorations all started with a remnant from Joann's. I love remnants!  They are small pieces of fabric, usually a yard or less at the end of a bolt and are 50% off!  We get a lot of remnants because most of our projects like our historic Barbie dresses don't need a lot of fabric.  The remnant was beautiful, but it was only 18" and I needed 18.5" inches to make an 18" pillow cover. So my mom, Jeanine, and I spent 15 minutes hunting for the bolt or roll of this beautiful modern cream, mustard, teal, green and brown leaf fabric that was perfect for my room.  Unfortunately, we couldn't find it anywhere.

April 2011 Craft Day: Pysanky Ukrainian Easter Eggs

My mother and I named our handmade gift company Creative Tradition because we have such a rich family history of making unique handmade items.  One of the biggest creative traditions we have is Pysanky or Ukrainian Easter Eggs. At this month's craft day we rediscovered our passion for them and shared the tradition with some friends and family.

What is Pysanky?
Pysanky are Ukrainian Easter Eggs, decorated using beeswax and dyes that are applied in layers. Melted wax is applied to the eggshell. This hot beeswax will harden almost instantly. The beeswax covers and seals the shell where the wax has been applied. A special tool called a kistka is needed to heat and apply the beeswax.

Pysanky in different states of completion

First the beeswax is applied to the egg's white shell. The beeswax seals the white color underneath it. Next you place the egg into a light color, usually yellow.  You remove the egg, dry off excess dye, then apply beeswax to what you want to remain yellow. You continue with more colors, going light to dark. 

A custom Disney Sleeping Beauty Rose (peasent Aurora) costume

For my sister's 20th birthday, she wanted a Disney costume party.  I knew who I wanted to be from the beginning, my favorite Disney character, Aurora from Sleeping Beauty.  My costume was easy to decide on, the Rose forest dress, but harder to find the exact pattern I was looking for.  I knew I wanted a black corset,  a nice flowing skirt, and a three-quarters sleeve collared shirt.  It couldn't be THAT hard to find right?

A custom Disney Sleeping Beauty Prince Philip costume

My husband was a sweetheart and was actually willing to dress up for the Disney costume party. I didn't want to push my luck so I needed to choose a pair of characters that I liked but would have a very simple costume for him.  For instance, he couldn't be Beast and wear a mask all night... or worse Hercules and have to wear a toga!  No, I was going to need to incorporate regular clothes like jeans to ensure he wouldn't be too uncomfortable... and be more likely to dress up for our next costume party ;)

So we decided to be Rose and Philip from Sleeping Beauty during their first meeting in the forest.  Both characters were very casual during that scene yet memorable too.  I found a small picture online as my inspiration and started hunting for patterns that I could alter to be the perfect costumes.

I needed to keep it simple for Philip's costume.  I started off with the basics including jeans and a long sleeve colored black shirt.  Then I made a tan tunic and pulled it all together with perfect accessories!

Homemade Onion Rings

I love surprising my husband with yummy food. When I asked if he wanted onion rings he looked at me a little hesitantly and said he'd never had homemade onion rings before.  I had to remind him that I had made them for him when we were dating. I guess it wasn't all that remarkable the first time so I wanted to include him in making them so he would remember them this time.

The ingredients are simple but the process takes a a lot of space and time to cook everything... but its all worth it! They go great with burgers. We made turkey burgers with Everything Thin Bagels and even put some onion rings in the burgers. Super yummy!

INGREDIENTS

Onions
2-3 cups flour
4 eggs or 2 Egg Beaters cartons
3-4 cups Breadcrumbs
3 Tbsp Italian Seasonings
Salt & Pepper
4-6 cups of oil

Disney Costume Party: Minnie Mouse Apron Costume

Costume parties are great fun, but sometimes as a hostess it can be a bit bothersome trying serve food in a costume.

So for Jeanine's costume for her other daughter's 20th Disney birthday celebration, I made a polka dotted pink and white apron. The apron is one of our standard patterns with a bib and skirt.  I added an ruffle to the bottom to make it a bit more whimsical. Instead of our usually ribbon ties, I created fabric ties for the side and a neck loop.  We finished off the costume with a cute Minnie Mouse headband from Disney.com.

Interested in getting your own apron costume? We're selling this exact apron and ears online or you can contact me for a special order.

Disney Costume Party: Birthday Celebration!

Creative Tradition's Jenn and Jeanine

I've been mentioning on Facebook that our current projects were costumes for a Disney Birthday Celebration for the baby of the family.  She's been our Princess since she was born and wanted to really celebrate it for her 20th birthday.  She's been wanting a dress-up party (did I mention she is 20?) for the past several years but kept getting it pushed off due to sibling weddings and babies being born.  

The costumes, and the party, were a great success!  In total we assembled 6 costumes, 4 of which were designed and sewn within three weeks.  I'll be breaking down the costumes over the next few blog posts and share how you can make your own costumes using the same patterns

Creative Tradition Costumes
The Princess in a custom Cinderella ball gown.
The Hostess, Creative Tradition's own seamstress Jeanine Bass,  in a custom Minnie Mouse apron.
The Photographer (as a Tourist) in an eclectic collection of Disney wear and camera equipment.
The Party Planner, me, in a custom peasant Rose dress from Sleeping Beauty.
The Party Decorator, my husband, in a custom Prince Philip ensemble.
"I-don't-have-a-costume" Party-goer in a previously created kimono.