An Up and Down Kind of Day plus The Ballet Slippers and Invitations for Lillian Annabel's Birthday Party

Well, it has indeed been an up and down kind of day. As many of you know our tutus (and some of our children's clothing) often disappear from our Etsy shop for a week or so at a time due to health issues with my grandfather and Uncle Bob (both of whom are in their 80's and suffering from advanced Alzheimer's and many other health issues). My mom and dad help take care of them (my Uncle Bob is my Gramp's brother who never married or had children so he always was like a second father to my mom and a second grandfather to us) so when they are in the hospital my mom has to remove the tutus from our Etsy shop until things are better. Earlier this week we had to take the tutus down because my grandfather went in for surgery. He ended up in the Intensive Care Unit afterward and has been there all week. Along with some other complications he had developed pneumonia and was having some serious heart troubles. Then this morning my Uncle Bob took a bad fall and broke two ribs and had to be rushed to the ER. While there, they discovered he also had pneumonia. So now both of them are in the hospital and neither of them are doing well. I am not telling you all this to be depressing (I know you probably aren't coming on this blog to read depressing news) but I just wanted to let you know that at this time it is impossible to know when the tutus will be back up in our shop, and more importantly to ask for your prayers for my Gramp, Uncle Bob, and for my parents.

Okay and now onto something a bit more lighthearted! Here are the ballet slippers and invitations I have been working on for Lillie's party. I only have two slippers left to add ribbon to and then I am done with those. Thank goodness! And I will never be attempting a project like that again - they were a major pain in the neck! For her party they will be hanging from two different branches that will be covered in tiny white lights but for now I will just show you one hanging from my branch in my dining room (which is about to get decked out for Christmas later tonight....or at least I hope I can get to it). I made sixteen slippers. Twelve to hang from the branches in honor of the whole "Twelve Dancing Princesses'" theme, and two sets of two to use elsewhere.

The total cost was only $5.50. I used fabric I already had for the main part of the slipper and then had to buy two rolls of ribbon for the ties at 50 cents a roll and then I paid $4.50 for an online pattern for the shoes off of Etsy. I had to improvise it a bit but it was nice to have something to go off of. My goal is to spend under $50 on her party and so far so good. I think I am at around $35 or so (for paper, glitter, ribbon and a little bit of candy and some fancy sprinkles and toppings for her cake and cupcakes) and I don't have much left to get. I had some more ideas I wanted to do but for lack of time am going to have to them go and just finish the banner I want to make and the cupcake toppers and then that will probably be it for projects).

The Twelve Dancing Princesses' Ballet Slippers

(these were inspired by one of my favorite pair of Joyfolie shoes that you can see Lillie wearing in the pictures on the right where she is holding the umbrella with Jon and wearing the black tutu)

I can't wait to add the little lights so it will look like an enchanted forest!

And here is the inside of her invitation I did in Illustrator.

Here is the outside of the invitation. I used to make these all of the time but forgot how time consuming they were. I only have one done and don't know if I am going to bother to make any more - I may just send out the inside part seeing how it is just family anyway and keep this full one for Lillie.

The insides, however, were as easy as could be. Once I finished them in Illustrator I just hit print and then cut them into squares and glued them onto chocolate brown cardstock and cut again and that was it! Super easy and only took a few minutes!

The inner part of the invitation slides into the top of the main part of the invitation and you just pull it out. I should have taken a picture of that but forgot - sorry! Also, in real life the chocolate color of the ribbon on the outer part of the invitation and the chocolate color on the inside print is a much closer match - not sure why it looks so different here on the computer screen. Maybe it was the lighting when I took the pictures.