Banners for Heartland Music Together

Here are the banners on which I have been working on since last couple of weeks. These are for the 6th Anniversary Party of Heartland Music Together. My son, Kabir, loves these music classes, so these banners were the least I could do for them, Miriam, at the center was very kind to leave it upto me to design the banners. So for the main party room, I made this banner. 

Another look at it..

For this 2nd banner below(my favourite), I made a bunting style, vintage banner for the first time. It says '6 years of music'. To create a distressed look, I burnt the edges of the banner with candle flame.   As it was for a music party, I choose a cardstock with musical notes on it. 

For decorating, on top of cardstock,  I added a piece of satin circle, which was also burnt around the edges to give it a finished look. I love the way satin curls up on heat. And behind the satin, I added crepe paper with its edges trimmed with lace edge cutter. For the corner pieces, I added some buttons to brighten things up.

Here's another look at this banner from a different angle. It was very difficult to take a good picture of this banner, as satin reflected a lot of light. 

A close up of the corner piece.

For various entrances, I made 3 'Welcome' signs. I used one of Heartland Music Together's brochures' for the background.  

Another 'Welcome' banner with extra decorations on the corner pieces.

A close up.

To tie all the pieces of Welcome banners, I used hemp string which can be found at any craft store.

Thanks to Heartland Music Together group for giving me an opportunity to make these banners.

Happy Crafting!

Kabir's 2nd Birthday Party

This post should have been created 2 months back in October, my favourite month of the year, when my dear son Kabir was born 2 years ago. As you all know, I had to go to India at the last minute and this party had to be postponed. The new date for party was set as Nov 20th, vs Oct 30th. I am glad most of the people could make it on this new date.

Invitation
The theme we decided on was Sesame Street as Kabir loves all the characters in it. The invitations were also made on the same lines. I had so much fun designing this card. Got it printed on a white linen card stock, and added a pop up Elmo on top. Then I backed it with an orange card stock to create a border.

After adding the border, this card was no longer of standard size. So I had to come up with this half envelope instead, and decorated it with balloons popping out.

Birthday Boy

Thats the birthday boy, my darling son Kabir, wearing his favourite character Elmo's shirt. It was created by a very sweet seller on etsy and she even customised it to add the number '2' on the back. I loved the way it turned out.  Kabir's hat is also made by an etsy seller. She covered this hat in her blog here.

Decorations

I have been wanting to make these tissue pom poms from a while now. I made 8 of these in all bright colors. This was the last piece to go up the wall/ceiling for the party, so I was dead tired and was thinking that maybe I took up more than I could handle. As I climbed the ladder with this thought, Kabir touched my feet and said 'Good job Mama'. That made it all worth it.

I wanted to make lots of bunting for the party. So I got patches of colorful fabric and rick rack trim. It was as simple as cutting the fabric into triangles and sewing it onto the lace. This was the easiest project I made for the party.

Cake
Birthday cake had to be a chocolate cake as Kabir loves it. I added tons of chocolate chips to it, just to make something special for the kids. For cake topper, I made an Elmo out of fondant. I thought it turned out ok, but when Kabir saw it, he said its 'Papa Elmo'.... lol .. I guess it was a little fat for an Elmo.

Cake Pops
Oooh.. I had so much fun making these Elmo and Big Bird cake pops. Got this idea from Bakerella. I wanted to make Oscar and Big Bird as well, but because of lack of time, had to stick to just these two, as this was the most time consuming. Its red velvet cake pops with yummy cheese frosting added to it.  It was big hit. Kids and adults all liked the pops.

Hats
I enjoyed making these hats in all the Sesame Street characters : Elmo, Cookie Monster, Abbey, Count, Bert, Ernie. I made these out of cardstock paper, and attached a ribbon instead of an elastic for each of these, as little kids were to wear it.

Other stuff on the cake table:

Chocolate Chip cookies from Cookie Monster

Elmo Juice Boxes

Candy and Ice Cream Buffet
The candy buffet had rock candy, big suckers, sixlets, cookies, M&Ms, swedish fish and alphabets and lots of ice cream. Kabir still asks for the leftovers from this buffet. He thinks that by merrily saying 'Trick or Treat',  he would be handed another candy.

Candy Buffet

Banners
These are all the birthday banners, signs and cake toppers I made for the party.

Cake Cutting
Kabir had waited for this moment for a very long time. He was so ready to blow the candles on his cake. But, he no longer wanted to keep his hat on, so Rohit and I wore one too, in desperate attempt to encourage him to keep his on.

Party Games
We played 'Pin the nose on Elmo', 'Oscars Trash Toss'(everyone's favourite), Big Bird's Journey to Ernie(with Easter eggs), Pass the 'Ernie' and Cookie Monster Pinata. Apart from this, there were kiddie tables and chairs where kids could color or play with playdough.

Goodie Bags
I decorated plain brown bags with Elmo/Cookie Monster on one side, and 'Thank You' note on tthe other side. These bags were filled with 'Bubbles from Ernie', Sesame Street drawing books along with some more goodies. I also made crayon rolls for all the kids at the party. For the kids at Kabir's daycare,  I made Elmo and Cookie monster pom poms from wool.

I loved putting this party together for my little cookie, and his reactions and "wow's" at each step made it worth it.