Brown Bear Lantern Animals

I've been making progress in getting ready for baby E's Brown Bear Brown Bear 2nd birthday party. The invites are made and sent. I saved one to take a picture and post for you. But, you know, I forgot. Hopefully we'll get a pic of it at his actual party (I really saved it to display at the party and then put in his scrapbook). My lovely friend JE helped me with those. Because she rocks.

So then I came across this cute raccoon on Pinterest.

http://mrs-dunn.blogspot.com/2012/05/birthday-season.html



 And then I thought, "I can do that! With all the Brown Bear animals!". Then I realized that *I* couldn't so much do it. I mean, not by myself. So I sent a text message to my dear friend, JE, asking (aka begging) for her to come help me create the animals. She's very kind and such a fabulous helper. Also, I was fairly certain that her creative-crafty side would find it hard to not come participate. I may have manipulated her a bit. But I love her. And seriously, they're so damn cute that it seems worth it. Also, I owe her. Big time. For reals.

So we set to work. I had bought 6 sets of Chinese lanterns (3 sizes of each color). So we could only do the animals of those colors. Because buying ALL those colors seemed like too much. And, after making these, totally would have taken FOR-EVAH!.

Here's the cute little duck. What you can't see is that he has a feather tail. Also, his legs are curly-q pipe cleaners (JE's idea). It's very cute.

 

I think the goldfish may be JE's favorite. He is adorable.

 

The frog kinda makes me giggle. He, too, has pipe cleaner feet. But my favorite part is his googly eyes (donated by the kid).

 

 

Before we look at this next picture, I am instructing you to 1. ignore the ridiculous mess that is my craft room. It's got all those summer activities stored in there, Christmas presents I've been buying, other crap, and the general sewing/crafting/scrapbooking clutter/chaos. I could lie to you and say it doesn't always look like that, but well, it pretty much always does.

 

Which leads us to 2. ignore how crazy I look. It had been a long day and I hadn't showered. I seriously looked in the mirror for the 1st time that day after JE left and was like, "holymother! How could no one have warned me??!". I could also lie to you and say I rarely look like that. But, well, that's probably how I look many weekend days, particularly if I'm not planning to leave the house. I do leave the house with piggy tails. Like, all the time. But I had at least brushed my teeth and washed my face. You're welcome, JE.

 

Pinky swear on no judgement? Okay. Now you may look at the rest of the adorable animals.

 

 

 

 

 

Today's Lesson: Look in the mirror before you invite someone over to your house. You can then decide that you either won't be photographed that day or that you just don't care that you look crazy. But at least it's informed crazy. Better to know that you look crazy than to be surprised by it. I think.