Elmo Cake Tutorial

I am not a Cake decorator by any means 

but I did think it would be fun to decorate a cake for Little M's first Birthday

I am lucky enough to have a Mother in Law and a Sister in Law that

both decorate beautiful cakes so I did get a few pointers

and borrowed some icing bags and tips from my MIL

Well the little one has been OBSESSED with Elmo lately

so I got onto KSL classified and low and behold there

was the exact cake pan I wanted for only $5

I had my hubby so snatch it up for me 

and it still looked brand new

This is my crazy kitchen as I was rushing to make the cake for his party 

Running late like always

Can you say STRESSED?!

First I had to get the Funfetti cake it is the most fun and 

it is for a fun little one year old

Plus it has pudding mix in it so it was really moist

Make the cake just like it says on the box 

To prepare your pan you spread shortening all over it and flour it so the cake will slide right out when you want it to

 Pour the cake mix into the pan and bake it as instructed on the box

While it was baking it was time to get all the frosting colored and ready

I got Strawberry frosting because then I wouldn't have to use as much 

red food coloring to turn it Elmo red

Plus it is yummy :)

I used the vanilla frosting for the white parts of the eyes and also colored it orange for the nose

I used a tube of precolored black frosting because it is so hard to get it the dark black with food coloring

I got the tube at Michaels

These are the food coloring I used for the frosting

I feel like this kind made especially for cake decorating are

better because they don't leave the gross after taste that the regular food coloring does if you use too much

I already had the red one from when I made Ty a U of U law school cake a while back

and I borrowed the orange from my Mother in law

Here is elmo when he is cooked and not yet decorated

See he just slides right out if you use shortening and flour to prepare your pan

Then the decorating began

First I did the mouth I just put a tip right on the end of the tube of frosting and piped it right in then I smoothed out the mouth with a little spatula 

Next, I did the main red of the face first I just put it all on there covering all of the main face of elmo
using the frosting spatula

Then I took the spatula and lifted the frosting to make him look hairy

Next I put the orange on the nose smoothing it carefully so the orange didn't get any where else on the face

Next it was time for the eyes I just used the plane white frosting and smoothed it around the eyes

Lastly I used the black frosting tube with the tip and make the eyeballs. 

And there he is complete

Isn't he cute

It was pretty easy and so much fun to do for my little man

and his Elmo themed Birthday party

And it was delicious

Just ask him?

Oh how I LOVE this boy!

Check out my Where I link tab and here to see what parties this Do it yourself Cake is linked to

Stay tuned for some fun party decoration tutorials coming up soon

Little M's Tree & Tutorial

I have been working on my little guys room and it has been a slow process but it is comin along and I am determined to get it done before his first birthday (April 28th). I have had so much fun getting his room together. His cute ABC wall I did a few months back can be found here.

This is one of my very favorite projects that I have ever done. It was so easy and turned out super cute. I really wanted something big on this blank wall and my mom (from Organize and Decorate Everything) had the amazing idea to put a big tree there. I thought that this would be so perfect for a little guys room. Well, I knew that I couldn't paint it on the wall because we are living in Ty's grandmas basement so I couldn't do something that permanent. So then I looked into the vinyl trees, but they were way too much for my cheapness, but then I had heard about using liquid starch to apply fabric to your wall and so I did some research and found out how to do it. SOOO easy seriously. And it isn't permanent which is perfect if you are renting or just like to change your room often.

What you will Need:

-Your Image- I found a tree that I wanted on the image Google search and printed it out on a transparency just on my home printer.
-Transparency sheet
-A projector. Since I am not very fancy shmancy I don't have one of those cool now a days projectors so I looked on KLS Classified (it is a local ebay type site for Utah and Idaho) for an old school projector and found one for $15! What a steal I was so excited. I couldn't sleep the night before I was supposed to go and pick it up. I know I am a bit nerdish. Don't you remember your teacher's using these in elementary, Jr. High and high school? By the time I got to college they had the fancy ones. (I want to play school with Maddux:)

-Liquid starch (I had a hard time finding some. But ya'll might have better luck than me. The 2 Walmarts by my house didn't have it but the one in Syracuse by my parents did. Wahoo. I got it for like $2.50 or something cheap like that)
- Fabric- I used dark brown for the trunk and branches, a cute patterned green with circles all over it for the leaves, and some red, white and yellow for the owl. 
-A Marker or fabric pen
-Scissors
-Paint roller
-container to put the liquid starch in
-Paper
-Towel- To put under your work area so there isnt any liquid starch drippage on your carpet. Gotta protect yo!
-Rag- To wipe up the drips off the wall as you go
-Liquid Stitch 
-And a Blank wall to put it :)

 What I did:

**First I bought myself an awesome old school projector from the KSL classifies. (I love this thing it is my favorite purchase.) Oh and P.S. If any of my buds out there need to borrow this for your own projects let me know!
**Then, I found my image on google image search, printed it out on a transparency sheet from my home printer and projected that bad boy up on a blank wall. I played with the position and focus knob on the projector until I had it the size I wanted and had it as clear as I could get it.

**I pinned my fabric onto the wall using thumb tacks and got a tracin'

**Once the whole trunk and all the branches were on my brown fabric I took it down and cut it out placing it together together as I went to see what it would look like .

**After I was done with all the brown fabric it was time for the leaves. Since I didn't want to sit there and trace every leaf up on the wall. I found there were only two sizes and I counted how many of each size.
**Then I traced each size onto a piece of white paper, cut the pattern out, traced them onto the fabric and cut them all out sitting down comfortably while I watched love potion #9 (This is a total 80s movie that I had never seen before so I checked it out from the library. I loved it! It is such a fun cheese movie just like they all were then)

**Once everything was cut out I placed it all together to make sure I liked what I saw before I stuck it up on the wall. And lets just say I was in Love and couldn't wait to have it all up.

No craft is complete until little Maddux puts his little hands on everything I am working on.
Literally ;)

Don't you just love those puggy little hands projected up on the wall?

I was in heaven...it was so dang cute

He was pretty pleased too. :)

Seriously this boy is such a busy body and LOVES to help and see what mommy is up too

We are so going to be playing school with this projector when Dux gets a bit older. 

Doesn't that sound like a blast?

This boy will learn all his letter and numbers on this thing

I am a nerd

Have I ever Told you how much I love being a stay at home mom?

Welp that was a nice break now lets get back to the second half of the project

**I projected it up again but this time it was on the space that the tree would be going up (Maddux's big blank wall in his room) and it was to the size and position of right where I wanted it. This made it easy to put my fabric right were it was supposed to go using the projected image as a guide. Very helpful and saves lots of time...I promise

**Now to the fun part.
1. Dip your fabric piece in your liquid starch
2. Squeeze the excess liquid from the fabric so it isn't dripping. Put your fabric piece up on the wall smoothing it into place with your fingers (it will stick to the wall...if your fabric is heavier or is a really big piece you may need to tack it into place with thumb tacks until it dries but I did the whole big trunk without having to tack it at all, it stuck really well.
3. Get your sponge paint roller and dip it in the starch
4. Roll the painted roller on your fabric on the wall to make sure it is all smooth and there are no bubbles. Make sure to roll over the edges to make sure it is all sticking to the wall.

**After I got all the brown fabric up I took my sponge roller and rolled over the whole thing once more just to make sure it was smooth and on there really good. I didn't want this thing goin' anywhere until I said so.

**I did the same steps as above with each of the leaves. These went really fast because they were so small.
**Again I took the sponge roller and went over the top of the whole thing with the liquid starch just for a nice last coat to polish it up and make sure it was all stuck on there with no bubbles.

Isn't it looking so good. 

I loved it

But it needed a little somethin' somethin' more to it

so I added this little cutie below

don't ya just love him?

** I found this precious owl in the silhouette store and cut it with my machine onto card stock for a pattern

** I traced it all onto the fabric, cut out all the pieces and glued them to the main body with liquid stitch

**Lastly I dipped him in the liquid starch, placed him on the wall and rolled over him with the sponge roller.
**When your decal dries it goes back to the original fabric color and is stiff and stuck to the wall until you decide it is time to peel it off. (I love how un-permanent it is for renters like muwah)

 And Voila! the fabric tree is complete! 

What do you think?

I will be putting a saying above it with white vinyl so stay tuned for his completed room post coming very soon.

I am so in love.
M likes it to he is always touching it and smiling whenever he looks at it

It will be sad to take it down when we have to move one day. (luckily that is not for a while)

But the cool thing is that you can take it down without any damage to your paint or wall and it is so easy to do it again. 

I think Maddux is really going to love it when he gets older.

If you have any more questions you can email me or leave a comment!

This fabulous tree is linked to these fun linky parties:

Blue Cricket Design

Little "M"s ABC Wall

Now that Little Maddux is almost 9 months old and we have been moved into our new apartment for almost 7 months I finally got these suckers up on the wall! Yahoo!

...and I am in L.O.V.E!
When we first moved in his room was pinkish white and Ty's grandma said that we could paint his room so we went off to home depot and I found a mis-tint for only $5 and then we got another gallon at regular price but we ended up saving $25 and it was the perfect color we were looking for. I love the brown with the white trim. Thank you mom for helping practically painting the whole room for me. :)

Also I will get better pictures of it later but that dresser right there on the right Ty and I redid too! We got it done actually before Maddux was born so that was nice. We got it for FREE yup that's right Free. It doesn't get much better than that. When we got it it was a sold oak old brown color with gold hardware and I really wanted to paint it blue. So my mom and I went to Lowes down in St. George while our boys were golfing and again we found this PERFECT color in a mis-tint and I got a whole gallon for only $5. And we didn't even use half of it to do the whole dresser. We also decided to do rope pulls for the hardware and it is so fun for a boys room. We are also working on a project right now for above his crib that we will be using some more of that blue paint for. I will post pictures of it as soon as it is done. So make sure to check back.

So back to the ABC wall. I have wanted one of these ever since I found out I was pregnant with Maddux. This was my inspiration and I just wanted to do my own version of it. Well I have been collecting these bad boys from back when I was preggers. I bought some and my mom gave me over half of them for one of my baby showers. Isn't that soooo awesome of her?! She is amazing and she wanted me to have this wall just as much as I did. We got them from different stores such as Hobby Lobby, Walmart, Roberts and JoAnnes because we wanted different fonts, styles and sizes. We got them all plan and none of them had color on them so we could pick out the colors to match his room. As soon as we got them all. My mom and I got to work choosing the paint and the paper that we wanted to cover them with. I used some I had, some my mom had, and I bought some new.

...Then we got to work and painted some plain colors and Mod podged paper on the others. Little M's room is Blue and Brown with an accent of red if you cant tell. After we got them all done it was time to get them up on the wall. I first placed them down on the floor in an area that I measured the same as the space I had on the wall and I laid them down how I wanted them to look and took a picture and then I used that picture as a map for when I put them up on the wall and Wala! This is the finished ABC wall. We still have a lot to get done with his room but once everything is up I will take a picture of his whole room completed hopefully that will be within the next few weeks. I know most people get their nurseries done before the baby gets here but since we were moving just 2 months after he was born I couldn't do it before and then after the move and everything I am just getting to it but I am loving it and Maddux is getting to the age that he loves having colorful stuff on his walls too.

I also love that the ABC wall is cute for not only babies but he can have this in his room when he is a toddler and a growing kid. It will be so fun to teach him his ABCs from this wall and he can see them whenever he wants.

My favorite part is for all 27 characters up on the wall to complete the ABCs (the alphabet and the & symbol = 27 if you were wondering where I go that from haha) I only had to put 1 nail hole in that whole wall. Yup ONE! and it was for the O which is the clock. The rest of the letters were hung up with these bad boys....Command strips. My mom introduced me to these and I just think they are the best things ever invented.  If you have never used these...you HAVE to. They are awesome and you don't have to worry about all the holes especially if you are renting. I only had to get 2 packages of 12 and I got $1 off coupons online for each package so for both it was like $10 and so worth it.

....Now I just can't wait to finish the other projects for his room and get them up on here for ya'll to see.

This projected is linked to:

Little M's wall has been featured at: Creative Catalog, and Craft Gossip Home and Garden