The Mermaid – Part 2

I left off with the tail drying…needless to say, the paper mache process continued until there were 4-5 layers! This left me with this:

Then, I started decorating her.  I started with the tail.  I used the same paper mache technique to complete the bottom of the tail with pink tissue paper. Then, I cut circles from three colors of tissue paper to use for the scales.  They were glued on one by one until I had this!

Then I was onto the hair!  Lots and lots of curly yellow hair…the princess requested curly [made my job a little harder].

  And then the face…don’t absolutely love the face, but it is what it is!

The Mermaid – Part 1

It almost seemed like finding the liquid starch was going to be impossible…but I finally came home and called the parent company to ask them if they could tell me a specific location in my area that had it…and off we went.  It took 2 more stops, but we finally found it!

After coming back home, I started to mold the mermaid from balloons and newspaper.  Amelia helped by handing me pieces of masking tape.

Here are a few of the beginning stages of the molding process:

Amelia showing off the tail…

And holding the entire mermaid after sculpting the upper body.  A few more pieces of tape and we were almost ready to go!

Now for the Sta-Flo liquid starch…I could have used flour and water [which would have been much cheaper] but the humidity in S. Florida is way too high to get a really nice hard covering!

And one last shot after working on part of the lower body!  It will take days [and many many layers] before this mermaid will be finished and ready to make beautiful!

Will post more pics of this process as we go along!

The Mermaid Piñata

Oh Yeah…did I forget to mention that I will be making one of these.  And I will be enlisting the help of the birthday girl for this craft!  Am I freakin’ crazy or what!!!

Hopefully it look half as good as this one…

Mine won’t have a face like this one!!  No way…the plastic face just looks too freaky for me!  And her colors will be different!  And the design will be different…just basically using this picture as a model.  Will post mine when it is actually finished.

So Many Projects

I am in over my head right now with crafty projects…all in preparation for my little princess’s 3rd birthday.  In an effort to pull off an amazing party on a shoestring budget this year, I am making just about everything.

First, I had the brilliant idea to make pool wraps as the party favor…and I have to pull this one off on a budget of no more than $5-6 dollars per wrap!  And even scarier, this means that I have to sew…I have never sewn.  But, I got out the machine my grandmother gave me over a year ago and figure out how to thread the bobbin and then the machine!  And I am well on my way to getting these things done!  They aren’t perfect, but I can guarantee they will hold up.  Here’s a teaser of one of the girlie colored ones…not completely finished, but you can at least get the idea.  They still need to be embellished [I promise to post pics of the finished one eventually!].

And, after pricing cakes at all the local bakeries I have used in the past, I have decided to make the cake this year.  Anyone who knows me well knows that I do NOT bake and I do as little as possible in the kitchen.  I have enlisted the help of a dear friend who happens to be an excellent baker [actually does it for a living]…and the best part, I get to use her amazing kitchen!  There is no way I could pull it off in my galley kitchen with virtually no counter top space!  Here is the sketch I drew of the cake I have envisioned!

I ordered the fondant decorations from a designer on Etsy and a cake supply store on the internet.  I will have to make the fondant octopus by myself.  The frosting for the cake will be butter cream [homemade] and the mermaid will be a Barbie [still have to find the perfect one!

And because that isn’t enough, and I am so into photography, I am making an octopus stand in inspired by this one here so that I can take adorable photos of all the little ones on the big day.  It will double for the bean bag toss game!  Hopefully mine will look as good as this one:

I am sure there is something I am forgetting…but as you can see, I am busy crafting [but no time for the scrapbooks lately! – but I do have 16 Disney layouts to photograph and post – coming soon I promise].