FashionPlaytes Blog: Rhinestones Make Everything Better

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By Chrissy Martin:

The middle of the summer can be the hottest part of the summer.  Cool things down with a party that has all things “ice” as the theme. 

Drink:  Serve punch mixed with sparkling water or lemon-lime soda and mix in some sherbet ice cream.  Serve a favorite drink with a frozen ice ring.  Use a bundt pan, put some water in it and mix in a few berries, lemon, limes, or other items to create a frozen iceberg to float in a punch bowl.

Food:  Think anything cold or cool.  Raw veggies and fruit, cold sandwiches, and cheese sticks.  Perhaps some frozen grapes or peas?  You could even make some black olive penguins.

Treat:  There are so many options for cool treats on a summer day!  Individual ice cream cups, ice cream sandwiches, Popsicles, ice cream cones or an ice cream cake are some ideas.  You could have the girls make sundaes or banana splits.  If you’ve got a way to make snow cones, you could do that.

Activity:  For the active crew you could do the slip n’ slide again.  How about adding in some water balloon fights or water squirter fights? You could put out a wading pool to dip hot toes in.  For the creative crew you could design marshmallow snowmen with large marshmallows, toothpicks, and other items.  How about a sandman instead of a snowman?  For the calm crew, throw on a movie that takes place in an area with ice and snow and serve some ice cream.

Chrissy Martin is a guest blogger for FashionPlaytes’ blog.  Chrissy is the founder of the blog Home.Kids.Life.  She is a stay at home mom of a 5 year old son and a 3 year old daughter.

It’s time for a new featured design of the week!  We are changing the tone this week and are featuring a skater, ballerina, chick tank top!  Amd6 created this design and we love the contrasting design aesthetics throughout the garment.  The black color paired with the pink underlayer creates a punk chic look that is softened with the white ribbon and, of course, with the pointe shoe applique.  This tank could be worn in the summer, or even in the winter with a cute zip-up sweatshirt on top!

Keep designing and expressing your personality through the numerous design options we have!  Your design might be chosen as the featured design of the week!  What do you think of this skater, ballerina tank?  We know we would love to rock it and wear it out!

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By Chrissy Martin:

If your daughter is like mine, then there is no doubt that she likes to play dress-up, paint her toe nails, and do all sorts of girly things.  Channel that creative side of your daughter by throwing a “designer” party where the girls get to design almost everything.

Drink:  Design your own drink.  Set out an assortment of fruit juices, sparkling water or lemon-lime soda and let the girls create their own drinks by mixing.

Food:  Design your own pizza.  Set out some English muffins, pizza sauce, cheese, and various toppings.  The girls can design their own pizza and eat them cold or have an adult bake them.

Treat:  Design your own cookie or cupcake.  Use store bought or homemade unfrosted cookies or cupcakes for the girls to decorate.  Set out a variety of store bought or homemade frosting and edible decorations (sprinkles, nuts, chocolate chips, coconut, colored sugar, etc).  Let their girls create and eat their own sweet treat. 

Activity:  For the active bunch you can host a fashion show where the girls model clothes they have raided from closets.  Let them laugh at the fashions you wore in high school.  Hold a relay race with two teams where one girl from each team gets dressed in a bunch of clothes, runs a certain distance, and exchanges the clothes with the next teammate.  For an indoor activity let the girls design their own clothes at FashionPlaytes.  If you’ll be throwing a FashionPlaytes birthday party this would be a great time to have the girls design the garment of their choice to wear at the party.

You can always add on your own ideas to these party themes and even use them for boys, with some modifications.  Whether you throw a themed or unthemed gathering, formal or informal party for your daughter and her friends, be sure to enjoy it yourself.  Get in on the fun or just step back, watch, and smile!

Chrissy Martin is a guest blogger for FashionPlaytes’ blog.  Chrissy is the founder of the blog Home.Kids.Life.  She is a stay at home mom of a 5 year old son and a 3 year old daughter.

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Even though school is out for the summer, that doesn’t mean that there can’t be some educational fun to keep kids’ minds active!  We found some fun educational sites that can really help your daughter get a head start for the coming school year.  Everyone loves a girl with brains!  We found a few sites that will not only teach her different subjects, but it will also entertain her as most of these sites involve playing educational computer games.  Our favorites were:

-   KidsKnowIt: Let’s just say we had fun, but we definitely channeled the feeling of being on the show, Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader? as we struggled over simple math and geography questions.    These questions definitely took us back to the elementary school days and made us appreciate how smart kids really are!  KidsKnowIt has several different topics that are school related as well as topics of interest to kids.  For example, they can play Astronomy games, Memory games and, of course, History, Math and all the other classic school subjects. 

-   BrainPop: Brain Pop mostly consists of school subject games, but it also has a Health category to teach your children about living a healthy lifestyle by eating right and exercising.

We hope that your kids have a great, fun summer, and that you have luck encouraging them to play some fun, educational computer games to keep their brains active! Let us know if they tried out KidsKnowIt and/or BrainPop! We bet they beat our scores… it might be time for us to go back to school!

With the heat wave we are currently having here, it is only appropriate to feature a design that is all about summer and the beach!  This surfer tank designed by Miki was designed in our dip dye blue which has been a summer hit!  The surfer girl design matches perfectly with the ribbon Miki selected, and the rhinestones give just the right amount of sparkle to complete the design.  We would love to wear this tank on a day like today!

What do you think of this surfer tank? It definitely makes us wish we were at the beach riding the waves!

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The 4^th of July is one of, if not THE biggest vacation opportunity of the summer!  School has been out for a few weeks, and it may be the first mini-vacation of the summer for you and your family.  And, let’s face it, after the 4^th of July summer goes by way too quickly!  Before you know it, you’re in Staples looking for the most “fashionable” folders and notebooks on your children’s school supply list.  Therefore, the 4^th is the perfect time to either escape to the beach for a few days, or to relax and spend time at home going to the local town fireworks.  Either way, the 4^th is the heart and soul of summer just as Memorial Day Weekend is the kickoff to summer!

Here is an overview of traditional activities that can be enjoyed as a whole family.  We also have a few ideas for fun activities that your kids can do to bring out the 4^th of July spirit even more!  Even though school is out, it doesn’t mean the arts and crafts need to stop!

-  Star Studded Door Hanger:  This is a festive, easy to make, homey decoration that you can use to decorate your door to greet your family and friends when they arrive for the 4^th.

-  Uncle Sam Hat Treat Holders:  There’s nothing like flattering your kid’s hard work than by actually using the crafts that they made!  Use these adorable little cups to hold snacks for guests throughout the weekend!  They are easy to make, and your son or daughter can get creative when decorating the cups, but try to encourage them to keep it patriotic!

-  Patriotic Pony Bead Necklace:  This one is for your little girls.  They can use their creativity to make different designs and patterns with the beads.  They will probably want to wear it all 4^th of July weekend and beyond!

-  Beaded Napkin Rings:  This is a very simple and fun craft that you can do with your kids.  You can use them to tie up napkins for a picnic or at the dinner table, either way it will add some festivity to the meal!

Lastly, here’s a fun quiz that you can do as a family to see how much you really do know about Independence Day, because there’s more to it than fireworks and great food!

We want to know, what are your plans for the 4^th of July? Let us know if you tried any of these fun activities.  Have a great and relaxing weekend!  We know we will!

This week we are mixing it up and focusing on bottoms, capri bottoms, that is!  We figured it was time to get away from tops and dresses and to focus on some capris, commonly known as The Phaedra on FashionPlaytes, that will catch everyone’s eye.  These bright turquoise capris, designed by emcat, have daisy embroidery, (one of our favorites) along with the Sky Flowers underlayer ribbon to give it just the right amount of flare and *pizazz*!  These capris are nothing short of styling comfort as you can dress them up or dress them down depending on the occasion! 

Have you desgined your own Phaedra capri pants yet?!  Send us your designs and keep checking our blog and our website to see if your design made it as the Featured Design of the Week!

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When you’re a kid, summer is a time for playing outside or in the pool, trying to stay up past your bedtime, catching the ice cream truck and, escaping the heat by going to the most popular box office movies of the summer! 

Here is a list of movies this summer that your girl will enjoy whether they are 5 years old, or coming up to the Twilight fandom age: 

-          Shrek Forever After – A fun and magical series that draws from traditional stories and beyond. 

-          Marmaduke – Who doesn’t love a talking dog with a personality?

-          The Karate Kid – This remake of an old classic will bring back memories of Mr. Miyagi for us older generation, whereas your children will get to see Will Smith’s cute son, Jaden Smith doing some high kicks!

-          Toy Story 3 – Another classic that warms our hearts and will definitely leave your kids asking to see the first two if they haven’t already!

-          The Twilight Saga: Eclipse – This is for the older girls, and we’re sure some of you moms out there, who may have read the series, or are simply aware of the good looks of Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner.

-          Despicable Me – This looks entertaining and is bound to be humorous if only because the main character’s voice is done by funny man Steve Carell. 

-          Step-Up 3-D – This may be for the older girls, but it will still be enjoyable and fun to see all the dance moves, in 3-D!  It will feel like they are about to dance right into your seats!

Let us know if you saw any of these movies and what you thought of them.  We know we will be making a few trips to the movies soon!

Here’s to a new week and a new design!  This week we are slowing it down and featuring an adorable, lounge wear sleep set!  This design created by duckey1 did not tire us out but rather caught our attention with the bright yellow and daisy appliqué.  It made us think of a warm, summer night lounging around before crawling into the cool sheets for bed!  The pink ruffles at the bottom of the tank top offers a splash of color that compliments the flowery embroidery by completing the lounge look.

Check out this featured design on our home page at Fashion Playtes.  We hope this design inspires you and your daughter to get creative, and to remember that you can still be *fashionable* even when it’s time for bed!  Send us pictures of your designs today and you just might see your daughter’s design on our homepage next week!

It’s a new week which means it’s time for a new featured design!  We came across this item designed by holiver161 and we just had to share it!  This design is a great mixture of spring and summer with the daisy embroidery and the dragonfly appliqué.  Of course, holiver161 did not forget the *rhinestones,* always a great choice when designing, and not to mention, one of our favorite design options!

Great news: Coming soon, we will be featuring our design of the week on the homepage of our site! Simply go to Fashion Playtes and you may see your daughter’s design being highlighted and recognized to inspire others’ creativity.  Remember to send us designs that you and your daughter have created together, and to keep checking our blog, facebook page and of course our site to see if you were the lucky chosen designer of the week!  Happy designing!