Magic Wands

At work, I joke that I need a magic wand to make all the impossible things happen.  I even bought my (now retired) boss a wand when I went to Disnelyand once I realized all the "magic" she had to do at work.  LOL!  I think I'm gonna start a magic wand collection- what do you think?

So now that you've had a good laugh, I thought you might enjoy this project.  Every year I have to come up with something to hand out at my daughter's annual recital.  This year, I saw some of these wands at the Target dollar bin.  They did NOT come with the embellishments and flowers on it, just the wand with ribbon.  At first I was ready to just hand them out as is, but after I looked at them for awhile, I decided I couldn't let them go without pretty-ing them up a bit.  Here's what I came up with...

I am trying to use up some my stash so I was very free with what I added to each wand.  The must include on each wand was a shabby rosette.  I have an overabundance of these pretties, so I need to find ways to use them up.  Here I added them as a base and then layered other elements over them for different looks.  Here's the five varieties I came up with.  I really should have taken a photo of them without any embellishments so you could see the "before" shot.

Oki doki.  Trying to figure out if I have the strength to make tags for them now.  We'll see- I have another week.

The Wizard of Oz 2013

I know I've been a bit MIA lately, but I have a really good excuse!  May was CRAZY for me as I had ballet practices back to back, end of school stuff, ballet performance, mom's visit, mom's b-day, Akemi's b-day, Cultural Camp (watch for my next post), and finally the Big Island Taiko Festival 2013.  PHEW!  Not that I've been participating in all of these events, but coordinating amongst the fam was a bit hectic.

So I'm finally able to share some family stuff with you... If you are looking for some crafty stuff, you might want to skip this post.

This was a record-breaking year for the number of people that came to see Akemi at this year's The Wizard of Oz performance by Island Dance Academy.  Her BFF's and their family came to watch.  Even their 2 year old baby brother enjoyed the performance!

Grandma Helen flew in for the special night...  Can you believe my "un-crafty" mom as she calls herself made that lei for Akemi!!!  It's her first lei ever that she crochet'd.  I'm proud of her... I knew I got it from someone in our family!

Aunty Stef actually flew in and was able to make it to the performance too!  It was the first time she saw Akemi dance.

Wow!!! Even Uncle Kyle came!

Uncle Kyle also brought Aunty Veronica too.

Here's one of Akemi's friends... I think they started ballet at the same time.

Ok just have to comment on their costumes.. They had a cuter one but had to change out of it to this "animal" costume.  Still not sure what kind of "animal" they were supposed to be.  The costume had animal print AND a tulle skirt, AND black feathers.  Huh?

Anyway, I really love IDA's big productions that happen ever other year.  It amazes me what can be done right here in Hilo!  Those girls are so talented!!

Paper Flower Bouquet

I'm always looking for new ideas on what to make or buy for Akemi's ballet performances. We normally go 2 nights and I usually pick up fresh flowers for one of the nights. The second night she might get a lei or whatever I'm into at the moment. Recently, I got this new Spellbinder flower die set and I just love it! Had some leftover leaves and floral wire, so I whipped up these paper flowers in about an hour. The paper I used was Doodlebug and they are two sided, so just flipped the middle flower to the other side for contrast. I like it since its still in the same color, so it matches perfectly. Then added heart buttons found in one of the button packs from Ben Franklin, Luckily I was able to find enough for the whole bouquet. I think the heart buttons add something cute an fun to the flower. Ok, please don't judge but I pulled this out of a bag that had been sitting overnight, so my bow is all mangled! It looked nice when I first gave it to her, but you know how it goes after the event... Here's a close up of the flowers. If anyone has good ideas for next year's performance I would love to hear it!