Murder Mystery Party!!

Normally this blog is dedicated to activities and projects I do with Little Boats.  Today I'm shaking things up!  Today is all about mommy and her ladies.  About a month or so ago I decided I wanted to have a get together with my lady friends, I have a couple of different "groups" and thought it would be fun to do something all together.  So after so hard thinking (about 30seconds) I decided a murder mystery party would be the way to go!  I had always wanted to do/go to one, so I figured this was the perfect time. So here is my Ladies Only Murder Mystery:

First I needed a story/plot/theme.  Jumped on my BFF, google and found an excellent site.  Its called Night of Mystery( nightofmystery.com).  Searched around on their site until I found this:

Happily Never After

An Enchanted Evening Filled With Your

Favorite Fairy Tale Femmes

BOOM! SOLD! So I made a list of my favorite people, sent out texts, emails and FB messages to see who would be interested.  Once I got a pretty good RSVP list (took a few days) I picked out the appropriate guest package and got to work!

One of the first thing I did was get my costume together, because as the host of this thing I didn't want to have just a last minute thrown together mess.  I was to play the part of Gretal the WoodCutters daughter.  First stop was GoodWill.  Was lucky to find all the pieces for the costume in my first try.  The day of the party I added a few accessories, like candy bracelets, gold painted ring pop and my first jail house tattoo (that whole pesky pushing witches in ovens thing……)

 

The next big thing I had to come up with was decor.  How to transform our little house into a evil queens palace.  Easy, GoodWill! LOL.  Actually I started with a color theme.  Because it was suppose to be royal, gold was a apples played a HUGE part in the theme.  I used two grey/silver table cloths and ivy (left over from the dinosaur bathroom) to create a stonewall backdrop for photos.  And like I said, GoodWill was a huge help in finding little things here and there (including my gold and red fine china-Christmas section!).  Food also played a big part.  Used pumpernickel for the tea sandwiches so they looked "sinister". My friend, the Evil Queen brought some poisoned apples. And we had mini-red velvet cupcakes for those with a sweet tooth 

given.  Add to that it was the Evil Queen from Snow White's joint,

After a month of planning, and one day of scrambling all over the place because I of course forgot to buy EVERYTHING, it was time to sleuth and PARTY!! Our cast included:

The Queen of Hearts

Contessa (Evil Queen)

Rapunzel

Red Riding Hood

Snow White

Cinderella

Bo Peep

Gretal 

Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty)

I started the night off with a quiz about the original Grimm Brother stories.  That was a fun ice breaker. Lots of "DISNEY LIED"cries!  The lady with the highest score won herself a Grimm Brother Story Book. After that, the game was afoot! 

After the mystery was solved and the appropriate person was detained it was time for the "award ceremony" Contessa won best dressed and Bo managed to solve the whole thing!

 



And that was our Fairy Tale Murder Mystery Evening!  Had a wonderful time!

RUBBER BANDS!!!!!

Little Boats recently discovered rubber bands.  He loves to wear them, stretch them and even "play" them.  So today when we got home I used a few things around the house so he could have a little rubber band board to play with.  Also this gave him an excuse to use a hammer so it was next to heaven for him.  Again we just used what we had around the house, anything in this project could be changed depending on what you had around your house.  

We used brads. We always seem to have an endless supply of tiny brads.  But thats probably because sometime in the last 10yrs we needed 2 brads and they only come in packs of Lifetime Supply.  You could easily use something larger, which would probably be easier for little fingers and better "sound quality"

We started nailing in a pattern.  I had a picture of a very cool folk type guitar in my head.  Little Boats quickly put a stop to that nonsense 

This was the best part (well, actually the BEST part is when you take off the rubber bands and they shoot and hit mom in the arm) seeing how far the rubber bands can S T R E T C H 

 Last, but not least, "playing" the board!  It was pretty cool to hear the sounds different designs made.  Little Boats really loved taking the bands off and on in different patterns.  

SHOPPING!!

Today we did something a little different.  Little Boats is really getting into picking out his own clothes and even playing a little dress-up.  So today I decided to take it a step farther and let him do a little of his own shopping.  Of course I wasn't about to spend some serious cash on a 2 1/2yr olds purchases, so we set out to one of my fav stores….GOODWILL! I gave him a little cash to stick into his wallet (thanks GG!) and we were off.  It was a huge success!  Here's a few pics of Little Boats first real shopping trip.  

Fillin up the wallet

This Frog costume was a big hit and you can't beat $4.99

SCARVES!!!

Pay the Lady!

In awe of his awesome purchases 

Such an easy and fun way to let him feel a little more independent.  Of course the purchases were all goofy, but it was worth a few bucks to see how proud he was when we got home and he showed me everything in his bag.  

Crack of Dawn Saturday Wings

Little Boats is a BIG fan of birds.  Points them out at every given chance.  Only kid I know that skips the monkeys at the zoo to get to the bird habitat.  Today he woke up begging to watch "Blue"-Rio.  Since it was Saturday, and I was struggling waking up I agreed.  Towards the end of the movie he told me he wanted wings to fly in the sky.  Okay, no problem, can't be hard to make wings.  So I jumped on my phone and looked up DIY wings.  Hmmm, a little harder then I thought, and way more detailed then I was willing to go at 8:30am on a Saturday.  Looks like I would just have to "wing it"-pun 100% intended.  So here's our "Crack of dawn Saturday Wings"

First supplies!  No way was I leaving the house to make these wings.  So I used what was around.

Ended up finding some old Baby Legs, but I'm pretty sure you could just use some old socks as long as the elastic was still tight.  Also I used fleece because I had the most of it.  Also the reason for the colors.  Again, any fabric, even old clothes, would work.

All I did was make "feather" shapes.  Actually its the same exact design I use when drawing water (upside down) or roof shingles, or a skirt…ect.

Little Boats practicing his cutting skills

Cut 2  out (2 wings!) of each color.  I suppose you could do a lot of measuring and designing.  But like I said it was early and I was winging it.

Originally I had planned on using the sewing machine to put it all together.  But Murphy's law required the machine to jam, so I finished with some fabric glue and TERRIBLE hand stitching.  

Finished Product!

FLYING!

Reach for the sky on the trampoline!!!  

Painting With Dinos!!!

Today we had a surprise "snow day".  It's Virginia Beach, so 2in of snow closes down the town.  So we had to get creative with our projects.  We decided on painting with dinosaurs!  Everything we used I already had in the house.  All of it can be replaced with anything you have laying around.  

We started with a small canvas.  About a year ago I went on a canvas binge when they where around 75% off at Michaels.  Of course I don't paint so we now have a pile of canvas and nothing to do with them.  Again you can easily just use paper or cardboard. Anything.  The dino footprint I just drew up and cut out of regular white paper from the printer.

I wanted to have the negative footprint so I sprayed the canvas with some gold fabric paint.  Again this was something I had left over from a costume that never was made.  

And then it was fun time!!  Nothing really step by step here. Just some plastic dinosaurs and tempura paints.  Any kind of paint would work.  We had a lot of fun using the different parts of the dinosaurs to make different patterns.  The brontosaurs was a fav because it has large feet and tail.  

And then it was time to CLEAN UP!  Well clean up time isn't so bad when you get to give the dinos a bath!  Used an extra toothbrush as a scrubby.  

**A little tip about painting with little guys.  We all know they like to goop the paint on by the ton.  No one in the world has the time or space to wait for all that paint to dry.  So I use a blowdryer to help it along.  Usually I use the low setting so the paint doesn't get splattered around if its on paper.  On this project it wasn't splattering, plus when I used the high heat setting the paint was drying with a cracked texture which went really well with the whole dino theme.**

Jack Frost!

Little Boats has really been into the movies Rise of the Guardians and Frozen.  So this morning after watching Rise yet again he told me he wanted to be Jack Frost.  So with some acrylic paint and old blue hoodie, I created him Jacks sweatshirt.

I know the acrylic paint won't hold up, but it worked for a fast fun dress up morning.

But what is Jack Frost without some snow!!!

Luckily Little Boats' Grandparents sent a bag of fake snow with his Christmas presents.  So with that and some blue sparkles we had ourselves a magical snowy morning!

Infusing it with a little magic!

And of course then it was time for clean up! 

It's been a few hours and he is still wearing the hoodie and responding to Jack, so fist pump for success! 

This is the amazon link for The Guardians books (Rise of the Guardians is based on these books)  The Fort Crew has been reading them at night for a few months now.  Big Boats might like them more than anyone else!! 

The Guardians