Boo

For Halloween, I wanted to find something that we could be as a family. Last year, we were super heroes. This year, I searched Pinterest and found a cute costume of Boo from Monsters, Inc.  and I saw this pic of a Mike Wazowski costume (on Pinterest) which I thought would be perfect for me. 

But instead of making that Mike Wazowski shirt, I bought the toddler costume on Amazon and decided I would put the face part on my belly. 

And I thought that Hubby could be Sulley. 

So I decided to try to make this Boo costume for Koala. I'm not sure why I decided to make a costume because prior to Koala's birth, I never sewed anything after my Home Ec class in Jr High school. When she was born, I started sewing to make her bibs (another post perhaps.) And even though I've never made any clothes before, I thought that this costume didn't look terribly hard.

There were a lot of different pictures for inspiration on Pinterest. I found these two blogs that gave details on how they made the costume :

I used mostly this one and also this one to get a basic idea of how the costume was made. And I used this picture for inspiration.

In the end, I didn't actually follow how the other bloggers made theirs. The one blog made it as one big piece with armholes cut out. I decided that I would make it like a dress with two pieces front and back sewn together.

I went to Joann's and found some shiny purple fabric in the dance fabric aisle. Then I used one of Koala's dresses that flared out as a template and cut 2 pieces out in this shape:

I sewed each of the 2 pieces to white fabric. 

This is how it looked once it was sewed to the white fabric before I sewed them together (hope that makes sense). 

I then took quilting batting and stuffed it into both the front and back and then I sewed horizontal lines.  When I was done with that, I sewed the two pieces together. 

 Initially, I sewed the tops together. Koala was able to squeeze her head in but it took a while so I took out the stitching on the one side and added a button so that we had a bigger head opening. 

The hood was the hardest part for me. The two bloggers made theirs similarly but I didn't quite get how it was supposed to look so I thought I would make a template based one of Koala's hoodies which gave me this shape. 

If I were to make this again, I would definitely use more material to make the hood bigger because although this worked for the hoodie, it kept sliding off because of the weight of the hair/eyes and I had to add cardboard in the back of the hood to keep it stiff so that it would stay up. 

The hair was the top of a mop that I sewed to the hood. The other blogs said they used pipe cleaner to hold up the eyes but when I tried that, the pipe cleaner was so flimsy the eyes wouldn't stay up. So I ended up using these glow sticks that I had. I taped them together at the bottom and then sewed them (through the tape) onto the hood under the hair. If you actually look at it, it's pretty sloppy the way that I put it together but I couldn't figure out any other way of keeping the eyes on the hoodie without poking them through the fabric and causing it to poke Koala's head.
As you can read from my technique, I'm obviously not an expert at sewing but I made it work with my tape and cardboard lol!

Here's a picture of the finished product modeled by Bunny with my costume modeled by Elmo. 

Being a perfectionist, I was a little disappointed that the hood didn't turn out as cute as I thought it would be but I guess for the first time ever sewing an outfit let alone a costume, I was pleased with the overall costume. 

In the end, I wasn't able to get a costume for Hubby so I bought a Sulley stuffed animal for Koala to take with her and I think Chunky Monkey might be Mike Wazowski on Halloween.

Koala wore the costume today for the first time for our Hallelujah night at church. I was worried that people wouldn't know what she was, but as soon as we walked in the door, the other kids were saying 'Look! Koala is Boo from Monsters, inc' and I let out a sigh of relief! Koala had a lot of fun and didn't even seem to mind wearing it! Success! 

Playing with fondant

I've always wanted to work with fondant. I have friends who are awesome at cake decorating & I always thought it would be great to learn because ordering a fondant decorated cake is expensive. I even looked into the classes at Michael's & Joann's but I didn't want to have to take the 2 intro classes  they required before you can take the fondant class. So it took me a while to try it. I started out with simple whale fondant toppers for a friend's baby shower.

Fondant cupcake toppers made with a homemade fondant cutter

I also made the fondant whale toppers for the cake.

My nephew- Chunky Monkey's first birthday is coming up and I volunteered to help with desserts & even told my sister I would make fondant toppers if she wanted. I must've mentioned fondant a lot because for my birthday she got me this awesome Wilton starter set that has all the tools you need to start off with.

I decided to make something with fondant for Koala's birthday. We had a small immediate family birthday celebration on her birthday and I thought that would be great practice for her real birthday. 

This was my first real attempt at fondant decorating- Pororo cake toppers.

I bought blue fondant and white, which I dyed to make the other colors. I also looked  up tutorials on Pinterest & came across this awesome step by step tutorial. It's not in English but the pictures were helpful.  Mine didn't come out as cute as the tutorial but not bad for my first try.

I also made these cupcake toppers.

Finally, I made a 4 inch two layer cake that I covered in fondant. The edge on the bottom was very bumpy so I added the ribbon. (After I made the cake I watched a YouTube video on how to do it- should have watched that before!)

I had printed out these Pororo cutouts to use as decoration but didn't have anywhere to put them so I stuck them in the cake too.


Working with the fondant was actually a lot of fun! I can't wait to use it again!

Korean Flash Cards

I don't consider myself the crafty type. My sister is crafty. She sews, knits, and does all these DIY projects that belong on Pinterest. In fact, I usually to refer to her when I needed something done.

I'm not sure if things have changed because now I have a toddler or because I have more time now that I'm working part time- or both. But recently, I find myself working on projects for my daughter, Koala. I can't say that all my projects belong on Pinterest but at least in having fun doing them!

One project I did recently was make Korean alphabet flash cards. 

I noticed that although Koala couldn't say the letters of the alphabet, she was able to identify all of them thanks to her leap frog computer and our daily flash card drills with these Dr Seuss alphabet flash cards that I picked up at Target for $1. (What a great buy! I found them in the dollar section that they have up front when you first walk in. The flash cards have these great pictures from Dr Seuss' books on the back.)

After seeing her learn the alphabet with flash cards, I thought maybe I could teach her the Korean alphabet as well since they say kids pick up languages quickly when they're young. I searched online for flash cards I could purchase but couldn't find any that looked like they would catch the attention of a toddler. I thought about trying to see about getting some from Korea but that would mean either waiting for someone to bring it when they visit or paying a lot for shipping. So I thought I would attempt to make them myself.

I printed out the Korean alphabet onto white card stock  - 4 to a sheet. Then I made a page of Pororo stickers using an image I found on Google. (Koala loves Pororo!) 

I printed it onto photo sticker pages that I had leftover from a previous project. I cut out Pororo and stuck it onto the card stock that I cut into flash cards and voila- Korean flash cards.

Koala really likes them. I think mostly because she likes Pororo. I wanted the flash cards to last a while so I bought the Scotch Thermal Laminator (TL-901) and laminated the card. I love the laminator! It's so easy to use and makes the cards look so much nicer! I even laminated the Dr Seuss alphabet ones.

My friend saw them and said I should sell them on Etsy. I wonder how many tiger moms there are out there who are looking for Korean flash cards... lol