New Year, New Look

Hello to all of my wonderful readers! After taking some time off from blogging for the Holidays, potty training The Little Princess, and then battling pneumonia, I'M BACK!




Santa was good to us this year!



That's a drum she's sitting on.

I'll spare you a photo of me sick. Instead, here's a picture of Bubba.



He just lost his first tooth!

I realize it's January 26th and it's quite a bit late to start talking about New Year's resolutions, but (and as my father says, "but" means forget everything I just said) I'm going to give you my two cents about New Year's resolutions. Personally, I never make them. Perhaps it the passive aggressiveness in me, but I'm not going to make a plan to change my life just because everyone else is. Besides, from what I've seen people who change their life based on the date on the calendar rarely hold to those goals. If you are one of the few who are still following through with your resolution, Great Job! You have more will power than most of the world. I prefer to wait until I am ready for a change, then I actually follow through. (I'll get off my soap box now.)
That being said (isn't that a fancy way of saying "but" and we've already discussed what "but" means), I did  a lot of research while I was sick on blogs and decided it was time to update my look. What do you think? I like it.

Now earlier I did say that today was January 26th, right? That means today is a very special day. After all January is a very special month. It is National Mentoring Month, National Thyroid Disease Awareness Month, National Birth Defects Prevention Month, National Stalking Awareness Month, Geek Appreciation Month, and many, many more. But most importantly, it is the month I chose to get married. Today just happens to be my husband and my tenth anniversary! Ten years being married to the most wonderful man in the world.


Ten years ago today.

I knew he truely loved me when I picked our wedding date and we booked everything before he told me that the weekend I chose happened to be Super Bowl Sunday! Then, his Pats were in the the Big Game! He didn't even ask to watch the game! (To all other football widows out there, you know that is love!) In ten years, while I haven't learned to love football, I have watched many games and this year the Pats are once again are going to the Super Bowl. Perhaps this means they will win again?
Wow! What a post, New Year's resolutions, the definition of "but," my wedding anniversary and the Super Bowl all in one post. Wait ~ no crafts? I thought you were the Crafty Princess? Well, yes, I am. BUT, occasionally I hope you will indulge me in a run on sentence, tangent filled blog post! More crafts to come, I promise!


Cheers!



New Year's Eve Poppers

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! We did here at The Crafty Princess house! My living room is still a mess from all the new toys, but I love it! Now to set our eyes on New Year's Eve. This year, Bubba is old enough to get the concept of a new year (he just recently turned six) and I plan on taking every opportunity to make this year's celebration special. First on the agenda, Poppers! Some people call them crackers, but that has a very different meaning in our house, especially when The Little Princess is around. (Hello, favorite food!) I've never made poppers before but I figured they wouldn't be that difficult. First, since there are four people in our family, I went digging for four toilet paper rolls. Literally digging in the trash. Lucky for me Hubby forgot to take the bathroom trash out for trash day yesterday. (Usually a bad thing but in this case I had four toilet paper tubes in there! Bingo! Hubby you are now out of the dog house!) 

Yup, mine look just like yours.

After removing all the little pieces of tp that were stuck to the tube I cut them in half.

Am I being too thorough with the photos?
Nah, you can never have enough photos!

Next I cut a bunch of strips of tissue paper to put into the poppers.

Oooh, pretty!

Now, after experimenting with different methods, I decided I wanted to have a bottom to my tubes, so I could stuff the tissue paper into them without worrying about the paper falling out of the bottoms while I was working with the poppers. (Here's where I get real high tech.) I cut a piece of tissue paper in the color I was using for the popper, in a square large enough to cover up the sides of the tube. Then, (this is the high tech part.) I used a glue stick to stick the paper to the tube. (What? A glue stick isn't high tech? Then why doesn't the glue stick to the plastic tube? Hehe. OK, I spend too much time with small children....)

OK, I really don't know what happened to the top half of this photo.
For some reason it won't load. But, you get the idea.



Next, I stuffed the two halves of the tube with tissue paper strips and a few pieces of candy. (What kind of candy? Reused Christmas candy of course. We don't need even more junk in the house!

This is when I started fending Bubba off from the candy.
"It's ten a.m.! You can have a piece after lunch!"
"Aww, Mom!"

Next I cut a piece of tissue paper large enough to wrap one and a half times around the tubes and just long enough to go from the end of the tube to a few inches past the bottom. (Confusing, I know. That's why I take pictures!)

I did this to add strength to the "pulling" part of the popper.
If you are using a different kind of paper you may not need to do this step.

 Then, I cut a piece of tissue paper long enough to wrap one and a half times around the tubes and long enough to connect the tubes together, leaving enough for the "pulling" part of the popper.

We're almost done. Let's wrap this up!

Please excuse the scissors.
At this point the tubes decided it would be a great time to get camera shy and roll away.

 Next, gently twist the ends so it looks like this.

Looks like a great big piece of candy!

Finally add some ribbon to tie off the ends.

Oooh, Aaah, Pretty!

Here are all the others I made. One for each of us in our favorite colors. You could easily make them in colors to match your party theme. 

Don't you just want to make a whole bunch?

These were a lot of fun to make, and fairly simple. (Seriously, it took longer to write the blog than make all four of these.) I was going to let Bubba help me, but he was too busy playing with his new toys. He has already asked if he can pop one though. I guess I'm going to have to hide them for the next couple of days!