prepping for the bean's disney extravaganza

because i am extra like that, i decided that we had to have matching shirts for the bean's birthday extravaganza at disneyland.  we'd reserved a 2-bedroom connecting junior suite at the disneyland hotel and invited a few of her friends and their moms to join us.  the hub and the special friend had their own room down the hall, and we were a merry group of 10.  our plan was to play at the parks on saturday, have dinner at downtown disney and then relax at the hotel until brunch the next morning at 11.  pretty good plan, yeah?

after i polled everyone for their favorite colors, i started hunting for design ideas.  and then since my source for wholesale bulk shirts had moved to the midwest somewhere, i turned to amazon for our tees.  i originally wanted to do them in a heather gray, but because i couldn't seem to find everyone's sizes in the same color i ended up ordering plain white shirts.  i guess that ended up being okay anyway, because that way any of the vinyl colors would pop.  at least that's what i told myself.

the old lady helped me narrow down the designs for the shirts, and then once all of the shirts arrived i started cutting out the vinyl.  of course, for one reason or another i found myself finishing everything off at the last minute.  most of the shirts arrived on time, but i ended up having to reorder a couple of them because i'd mistakenly ordered v-neck instead of crew for one size.  and you know it wouldn't be me if everything went smoothly.

once i got rolling, everything seemed to flow pretty well and i was in a groove until i got to the old lady's shirt and the vinyl she'd chosen didn't want to stick.  i literally had one shot at it because i didn't have another shirt to work on, and i was SO PISSED when half of it just flat-out refused to adhere.  i was sweating it big time.  GAH:

so i asked her if she minded if i subbed in a silver metallic vinyl instead - and as i expected, she was totally open to whatever i could get to work.  i cut out another piece of vinyl and this time it pressed on perfectly.  phew.

and then the day before the big day, i got a bug up my butt to make the girls some little matching crossbody zipper pouches to hold their money and whatever else they wanted to put in there.  i found some embroidery files that i'd bought ages ago and hadn't had a chance to test out yet, and put my machine to work.  i threw in a cute little monogram charm and look how cute:

i'd already made special ears for them a week before, and so this is what each of the girls got:

and the bean's looked like this:

so fun!  props for the best group photos ever.  you'll see.