Saturday, July 20, 2013

Mermaid Birthday Party

My first born just turned 5!  I knew I wanted to do a pool party for her and just invite a few of her friends.  When I saw this mermaid tail idea on Pinterest I wanted to try it.  It looked simple enough.  But I couldn't find towels that were in my budget that I thought would look cute.  I found some lime green beach towels at dd's for $6 each and thought they would work, but we'd need to embellish it somehow.  So after some brainstorming and fabric shopping I decided to sew a fin onto each towel with the help of my seamstress step-mom.

I drew a pattern on a big sheet of paper and cut it out.

Then pinned it to the fabric for the tails.  We were making 5.

 Once we had the 2 sides cut out we turned them inside out and sewed all but the top edge.
Then turned them right side out and ironed them flat.
We only had 3 beach towels so we cut them in half and folded over and finished the unfinished edge. The towels were big, and the girls were small enough that half a towel was long enough for them.  We just sewed the tail onto the bottom edge of the towel.
We measured the girls and sewed two pieces of velcro onto each towel.
Here's the finished product.


I put them in their party favor buckets.

 The girls were stoked on their mermaid tails!



 I also had a table full of craft stuff where they could decorate tiaras, make bead necklaces, and paint with watercolors.




Summer Library Program

I meant to post this last month, but I have just been so busy!

When I went to sign the kids up for the "Dig into Reading" summer reading program at the local library, I discovered the adult summer reading program called "Beneath the Surface."  Kids win prizes and adults get entered into drawings as they complete different tasks.  One Saturday morning I spent the whole morning looking at the different activities to be completed on my summer reading card. I discovered a world of free activities I never knew existed on the library website!

Free eBook or eAudioBooks and Music downloads
Free or Discounted museum tickets
Mango Languages - Free online language courses
Free Interactive Children's eBooks (Tumblebooks)

So go sign up or just check out the library website!