Ladybug Ball

I'm finally getting around to typing up a new post. First of all, on Thursday my husband Terry came home early from offshore. He was home in time for us to spend our 10th Anniversary together on Friday! WOW! Ten years already! He boiled some of his delicious crawfish (nobody boils crawfish better than Terry!) and Serenity played all day in her new pool. It was a good family day!

This morning Terry, Paige and Serenity and I went to the 10th Annual Ladybug Ball at the Southdown Museum in Houma. At Noon they released over 100,000 ladybugs and over 200 Monarch butterflies. All the kids crowded around when they cut open those ladybug sacks!

We had fun! Serenity won a teddy bear for her costume and her picture is online at HoumaToday.com. HTV was filming and took some shots of her, so she might be on TV too. Cool! Here she is lined up for the contest with Paige and all the other little ladybugs:


I tried for the first time to create an applique. I'm pretty happy with how it came out considering it was my first try. I made a few mistakes, especially on the legs, but Terry said nobody would notice them but me - and he was right! I used How To Applique The Easy Way by Kimberbell Kids to show me the basics. I got a fat little ladybug graphic from the Ladybug Ball website:



Then I blew it up in photoshop, printed it out, and traced it on some Heat'n Bond to create a ladybug top to match with Elayne's pretty pettiskirt - don't forget to check out her other pettiskirts on Ebay! I added "Angel Wings" by Growing Up With Rosy - a wonderful and cheap idea to "dress up" a tank top. Serenity's cute clay ladybug earrings came from Elisa's shop, Coffishop on Etsy, one of my favorite websites. Elisa makes the cutest jewerly and miniature desserts for dollhouses!

Here's a front and back view of Serenity's ladybug outfit!

We got lots of compliments! It was very simple and not nearly as hard as I thought. It was cheap to make too. The tank top was $4 from Target, I used less than a 1/2 yard of fabric, a pack of black & white buttons of different sizes from Wal-Mart for about $2, 3 iron-on appliques from Hancock for around $2, and a small amount of "ladybug" ribbon I got half off for only $2 a spool at Hobby Lobby. It probably cost more to put gas in my tank to drive to all those places than it did to make Serenity's ladybug top - LoL!

Watching the tweens dance while waiting to get her tattoo:

Getting a ladybug "tattoo" - I think she thought it would hurt!

Playing in a real fire truck! She didn't want to get out!

There were tons of things to do at the Ball. Face painting, a "tattoo" shop (it was air brushed on), bubbles, ladybug nail painting, costume contest, a fish pond (it was really just goldfish in a plastic pool for the little kids), story time, exploring a real fire truck, food, free ladybug cake (yum!) and lots more! It's a wonderful event for kids and we'll be going again next year!

Serenity's at the ladybug nail station getting her dots on.

Catching & releasing goldfish in the plastic "pond".

Playing with bubbles! The wind was blowing pretty good so it did all the "work" for you.

She was a little sick with a runny nose and watery eyes from playing outside in the pool on a windy day yesterday, but she still had fun.




Next post: Diaper cakes by Paige!