Stenciling for babies ... sort of

I bought off the registry for a friend's baby shower, but then I wanted to get her something fun (and unique), too. I thought about doing a freezer paper stencil, but suddenly thought of all the leftover scrapbooking letter stickers that I have downstairs. I mean, you buy "stars and stripes" lettering for one particular page, and then what do you do with the rest? I know! You use it to create a negative-space stencil-type thing!

I found funny T-shirts to rip off online.

So: Step 1. Use stickers from your craft stash.

Step 2: Dab fabric paint on. This gives it a pretty funky, almost graffiti-esque look -- which is cool, but really I just needed to minimize seepage under the letters, because some of the lines in the letters were quite narrow.

Step 3: Allow it to dry. Remove the stickers (tweezers help). Iron to set the paint. Impress your friends.

Another cool thing would have been to use freezer paper to make the outline. A duck or something could be pretty cute.

Star Wars birthday party

Tom is turning four next week. When he was two, he was obsessed with trains, so we decided on a train party for him. When he was three, he liked race cars, but then a musician friend was able to come, so we had a music party. Now that he's four, we figure he can start being part of the decision-making process. Last month I asked Tom what kind of party he'd like.

He said, "A Star Wars party."

I didn't influence this in any way -- I swear to GOD.

The Star Wars stuff at the party store (and online) is mostly crap. Or expensive. I demand cheap crap! T-shirts were on sale at Michaels ($2 each), so I made another freezer paper stencil. Each guest gets a T-shirt.

The first stencil lasted for five shirts, which was just fantastic. Several of the smaller holes were closed up by all the paint, so I made a second stencil for the last two shirts. But it totally ripped to shreds while trying to iron it to the second one (I was in a hurry and not paying attention to how wet the paint still was). I didn't really want to make another stencil, so I fished the first one out of the recycling, and it agreed to one more shirt. I'm glad I didn't have to cut another one!

We're going to play games with lightsabers, so we needed, well, lightsabers. I used paper towel cardboard tubes, silver paint (which kept rubbing off, so I put a clear coat on top), and self-adhesive foam.

The blades are going to be those really long 2" balloons you can use to make animals with (which we had). This way they can pick out what color of blade they want, too. (Tom knows which character has which color -- a little spooky and totally makes me well up.) The balloons snug into these tubes perfectly. I know we'll have several pop over the course of the morning, but I've got a whole bag, so we should be okay.

Karyn is still deciding about cake. I'll post that when she's done.

X-wing fighter shoes

My son needed new tennis shoes. He really wanted some with Star Wars on them. But they haven't made those in years, and eBay has been really hit and miss (mostly miss) for me.

So I got these $6 shoes and made a freezer paper stencil, and this is what I ended up with.

I've only made a freezer paper stencil once before (for, um, an interesting T-shirt experiment), so I was pleased that careful cutting really did pay off here. The biggest problem is that it was difficult to center the stencil on the shoes; if I divided the stencil where I had originally wanted to, I would have created many unattached bits that would have been a nightmare to realign. Overall, though, it was pretty cool.

Tom's response: "Do they have lights?"