Scrap Pumpkin

This makes a fun little extra decoration or a card, it's completely up to you! The other fun thing is you can make it and so can your little ones.

What you need:
Scrap, Scrapbook papers
Your choice card-stock (for background or to be card)
Glue Stick
Black Sharpie
Scissors
Optional- Craft Glue & Black Glitter

If you are doing the card option you are going to want to start by folding your card-stock in half (we chose yellow, but it's your choice).

Another if...if your little one is doing this, you may want them to trace a pumpkin template to the background card-stock. Personally, I even do rough pumpkin it just makes it easier to fill in.

Your choice if you wanna just use hands and rip scrap paper into tiny pieces or let your kiddo practice scissor cuts and glue each little piece onto the pumpkin. Just remember you aren't going for perfect, just a fill in and it looks cute no matter what size or shape your scraps are, even if the pumpkin's shape isn't perfect it still looks adorable!

Either way you or the child chooses the process should look something like the picture above. 

For the card Riley, she just drew a pumpkin face with sharpie as soon as she felt her scrappy pumpkin looked good.

For my more decorative one, I went for the good ol' glue, glitter, shake & shake some more. Let it dry. Then I just added to a cute black frame we had.

 Cute, right!?

Blends right in with our little frame area & adds more Halloween to the mix!

GIVEAWAY! An Product Review: AlittlePaintYarn

First thing, I must admit I'm part of this little Etsy store. I'm the "little Paint" part and one of my best friends is the "Yarn" part. So a review would be completely biased, so I'll share some pics of the cute stuff my daughter had used & loved...an give you a chance to win your choice of beanie! Free Ship!

This start as just fun hobbies between two best friends. I made Riley her little letters for her nursery kind of out of annoyance that the price of plain ones at Babies'R'Us was so ridiculous and I couldn't find any that fit what I wanted in her room's theme.

Then Danielle made Riley the most adorable blanket to tie it all in! Just in case you didn't guess, it was totally used as the background for Riley's birth announcements. Since then she has gotten lucky to get a few more blankets made for her every time we get people asking where Riley got it from or who made it...so LIGHT-BULB! An we decided we should she'll our crafty stuff.

Riley's gotten spoiled from her Godmom since this process has begun, lots of cute hair things, some little dolls and of course beanies! She is one lucky little girl, so with that thought we figured a giveaway would only be fair to make some other little person (or adult) just as happy & it's hitting perfect beanie wearing season.

Go, poke around our Facebook page! Lots of stuff, an as time marches on we add more & more. We pride ourselves to being custom & handmade! Paint, yarn, whatever your needs are feel free to message, or email us.

Winner will be posted as soon as I can contact winner, you get to pick what size & style beanie you would like (Approx. $20 Value). Colors can be requested as well. We will even cover the shipping. (Sorry, this contest is open to USA residents only.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good Luck!

1920's Birthday Bash

This year I turned 29 years old…holy cow! I'm 1 year away from being 30!! In order to celebrate in accordance to what I believe were some of the best years in my life, my 20’s, I thought it would be appropriate to have a farewell to my 20’s birthday bash! I asked for all my dear family and friends to help by coming dressed in their ritziest 1920’s rags. It was overall a great theme! It made it a extra great time with good friends, family and some booze!!

To set the mood I made the invitations from a compilation of other invitations I saw online. I just goggled searched: 1920’s birthday invitations, roaring 20’s invitations and got some ideas, especially for the wording.

The invitations read:

The Roaring twenties are back

INSERT YOUR NAME HERE

Requests the honor of your presence at a

“Goodbye to the 20's” Birthday bash

Guys suit up & Gals show off the glam!
Wear your finest 1920's rags to the ritziest joint in town
On INSERT DATE AND TIME
INSERT LAST NAME Speakeasy
YOUR SHINDIG'S ADDRESS
Prohibition is in the air. Your discretion is paramount.
Please Assume Alias. Admittance By Password Only!
RSVP YOUR STUFF
Hors D'oeuvres, Dancing, & Drinks

…

To make the invitation I bought an 8.5 x 11 cardstock in ivory and a 12x12 black scrapbook pack.

A pack of back feathers, ribbon in 3 colors (I choose teal, purple and green)

I already had the wax stamp and was from my wedding invitations.

I printed 2, 5x7 invites on each ivory cardstock.

In order to figure out how to fit the black paper to fold just a little over I had a little trial and error.

I cut a small strip off the side, then in cut the remaining square in half and then a little of the bottom. Not sure if that makes sense so I made a little diagram, unfortunately I don’t remember the dimensions.

I just placed the ivory invitation on top of the black strip and folded the black strip to give it a black border and to cover most of the wording. I then tied the ribbon around and made a knot. I placed the feather on the knot and with the wax seal glued it in place, and voila!!

Invitations done!

Food?

What to feed my guest was the hardest part. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stick with 1920’s food since every time I goggled 1920’s food or meals always got some sort of deviled egg, cucumbers and black olive stuff. I’m not a fan of eggs, so I choose to just do a pasta since I’m sure my guest wouldn’t care as long as they ate something yummy, and it is way easier to make pasta, so Fettuccine Alfredo it was.

Now, the cake and desserts that was a lot of more fun!!

First, I want to say that my favorite piece from this table was the cupcake stand that I bought at Ross! It is so dang cute and it was only about $4.00 so I had to have it. My other favorite things are the little chalkboards mini tags that I used to label the food. I got them from Michael’s in their dollar bin section. It was a pack of about 12 so I only needed 1 pack, but bought 2 just in case. I also purchased a white pen from Michael’s that I used to write on the chalkboards (for fear of not being able to find mini chalks). You can find similar tags on Ebay but I’m not sure if they are the same thing, but they look very similar. I also bought a mini easel chalkboard from the same dollar bin, and my sister wrote a happy birthday message for me.

The Rosette Tablecloth was my ultimate favorite, when I found that fabric at the Fabric District in Los Angeles (that should be a whole other blog). I had to buy it and that was how I ended up deviating from my original color scheme, but it didn’t matter I love this fabric. I also purchased the chair covers and peacock feathers while visiting the alleys and it was a great bargain!!


I bought silver trays from Dollar Tree and I placed a round paper doilie on top (bought the doilies a while back also from Dollar Tree from their wedding section).

I made confetti flavored pink with white sprinkles cake pops (see here for about my a helpful cake pop maker) and I placed some on a bowl (also from Dollar Tree) and added some white river stones/rocks (another from Dollar Tree). The rocks allowed for the pops to stay standing. Since I made about 30 pops, I also placed some upside down on mini cupcake liners, and arranged those on a white dinner plate.

Cupcakes, Chocolate dipped strawberries, and chocolate mustaches completed the dessert table. To make the chocolate mustaches I purchased a Wilton Mustache Chocolate Mold and some Wilton Dark Chocolate candy melts, I followed the directions on the mold and presto!!

I used the same Wilton chocolate melts for the Chocolate dipped Strawberries.

I also had a Candy Buffet. I already owned clear vases, bought those awhile ago for another candy buffet for a baby shower for my brother and sister-in-law (that was shown in the blog about the Rosette Ball). To stick to the theme this time I went in search for 20's candies. I found a list of the candy to purchase through Old Time Candy. I ended up purchasing Mary Janes (those came in a cute box so I used the box as decoration on the table) Red Vines, Sugar Daddies, Dum Dums and Strawberry filled hard candy, all from the Dollar Tree (yes, I know I love this store). On that table we also added some pre-made pastries that I bought for the dessert table, but I ran out of room. The mini cinnamon roll bites were so good ($6.99 at Costco) and some cheese cake and raspberry filled tarts, I just couldn't not add them somewhere.

I did purchase Candy Cigarettes from The Old Time Candy, and they were a hit!! Wish I would had also bought the Charleston Chew candy!! Those were not as easy to track down in a store.

I also made some No Bake cheesecake and yogurt parfaits with fresh fruit and pre-served them on plastic shooters. The best part was the little appetizer spoons and forks that I bought for those (4in forks and spoons from Party City @ $5ea. pack of 40).

For the No Bake Cheesecake I used JELL-O® No-Bake Mini Cheesecakes.

Instead of cracker crust I crumbled a chocolate cupcake and added it to the bottom of the shot glass before adding the cheesecake. Added a slice of a strawberry, an dollop of cake frosting and chocolate syrup.

The yogurt parfait was just granola, vanilla yogurt, strawberries and blueberries. Alternating in layers, although due to limited space I think it was just one layer of each.

My cake was Chocolate with fresh strawberry filling!! I followed a rosette cake tutorial: here.

Unfortunately, we had to keep my cake inside the house, since we didn’t make enough space for the cake on the dessert table. Though, it was probably for the best so outdoor issues didn't ruin it. The Cake and the DIY stand looked pretty nice if I say so myself. My inspiration, had a price tag of $40 for the smallest one in a store, so I went DIY. I followed the instructions from this pin. The only slight different was, instead it was sprayed white and had added trim. The spray and trim were purchased at Michael's. I couldn't find the info on the their website, but it was in the same aisle as all the ribbon. I only needed 1 spool and it all came out to like $7.00 including spray paint, plate and wine glass (instead of candle holder).

For the table, since I wanted a dinner style party, I got 3 rectangular tables and placed them in a long line. I bought fabric to match the rosette fabric from the dessert table and used that as a table cloth. Since I host thanksgiving at my house I have charger plates galore, so I took those bad boys out, mixed an matched them and added my collection of wine and margarita glasses to add a glamorous touch. My mom made the floral centerpieces for me using fresh roses, star gazer lilies, baby’s breath, Irish bells, Hydrangeas, Blue Delphiniums and a peacock feather. I had 1 candelabrum from a while ago, and I found another at my local Swap meet for $2 and I borrowed the other from my sister-in-law.

I dangled fake pearl beads from the candelabras and placed candles (even citronella ones for the uninvited guest) and mirrors for decorations. I also bought mini wine bottles, and placed them in little wood crates I bought from Michael’s for a dollar. I added some gift basket shred and it looked cute.

For additional décor I bought 18ct black music notes form Party City to add to a canopy and the front wood gate.

If you noticed we had a few spots with great fabric hanging around, it worked out for a little photo spot. There's plenty of make your own photo booth props you can find online, just Google photo booth props, print them on card stock glue the prop into the foam paper, with the skewer in between and presto, they were done. I'm sure you can find some on Pinterest as well. We were also very lucky to have a friend show up later in the night and set up a full on real photo booth, he also had his own props and everyone had a blast. 

I also pulled out some of my vintage feel items from around the house and added a extra little sitting/photo spot. Always eye items you already have! (The trunk you see there is a family heirloom that my mother-in-law gave me when we purchased our home...after I had been asking for it for a year, hehe!!) You'll be surprised how well the items you find laying around work and way cheaper then buying more just to use for one party!

What I believe made the party, besides the booze, photo booth, family and great friends was a Rockola (aka jukebox) I rented. Unfortunately, it did not have much English Karaoke music, but since it is very versatile and it played music videos and plain ol’ music, and although a little out of era, we played Frank Sinatra (it’s still Jazz right?!) for a few hours until everyone was brave enough to make their own music request.

This was a very stress free event...other than trying to decided what to wear. Though figuring that out was a fun excuse to look at vintage pictures, watch "Great Gatsby" with my sister. Research is very helpful.

Pirates & Pixies Party

Our little pixie turned 4!

If your kid is still at the fun age where they are friends with any kid, no matter boy or girl, come birthday time it can be a blessing or a curse. Just kidding! But when talking to our kiddo about her birthday wishes we had a tough time at first. Hello Kitty was at the top of the list, but we really couldn't picture her little boy friends enjoying that so much. So we started thinking ok, well you are going through a Disney phase (for her 3 year we took her to Disneyland for the first time). Then followed that thought to, well your room is Disney Princesses & Fairies sooo that lead us to the pixie part. At the same time we were brainstorming she was getting more an more into pirates, so one day it just clicked! Pirates & Pixies!!! Or Pixies & Pirates, say it how you want. 

We wanted it to be a fun for adults and kids, told anyone and everyone to dress up. Though we had a special treat for each little one. All the boys got a hat, eye patch, mustache, and of course a hook. Most of the boys' stuff was easy to find, but the hook, oh that was a challenge. Knowing our group of little ones a sword just spell danger and hard plastic just as scary. Lots of searching and I found these foam hooks, the only thing is on Amazon the shops that had them would charge only cents for the item but a ridiculous amount for shipping. Well I found it again, but on Joann Fabrics' website! 1- the price balanced out even cheaper and 2- I found coupon codes all over the internet! Score!

As for the girls, I had a ton of fun! Halo Heaven was my shopping base. I recommend you like them on Halo Heaven's Facebook. Make sure you keep it in your feed because all the time there are specials! Let them know I sent ya. ;) From the site I ordered each girl their own wings to chose from, not 1 the same. I also ordered a ton of her flower hair things. My daughter opted to use it as a bracelet, but others added them in their hair. Bounce around the site because there are a lot of items! Even for Pirates. I ordered Riley her very own pirate hat, I mean it was her birthday after all. I found wands at Target already, but let me tell you I wasted time adding glitter glue to them thinking it would make them more sparkle, but it didn't. If I hadn't ran out of time I probably would had added tulle and ribbon to each.

Decorations were fun! A big toss up of Tinkerbell and her friends with lots of pirates. We had some items that she already owned an just brought them into the party for extra touches. She had a tiny wooden treasure chest, a Tinkerbell tent, a pirate telescope from Disneyland, and Disney Fairies Rescue Lantern.  One of my cousins was awesome and gave me some pirate stuff she had ordered off of Oriental Trading.

Although I had some stuff, of course I got more an we made more. 

There is never a reason not to tie your appliances in on the ambiance, so on the fridge in our room I added a photo magnet. We had the magnet already made but it was perfect! Riley was dressed as a fairy (photo by Natalya Fiore Photography)! We used that magnet to add a few quotes from the old Disney Peter Pan and some clip art, nothing fancy. 

"If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"

Check out your Dollar Stores and 99cents Stores, there we found some butterflies that were added around. I also noticed they had a lot of pirate themed party decorations there. 

Much like previous post, Vintage Theme Bridal Shower I made a banner. Click the link, find where I made the "Soon To be Mrs" banner, because this was the same. This time I used "2nd Star to the Right" (from Peter Pan). Once again Dafont gave me the text, same 6x6 scrapbook paper pieces, but this time used fishing wire instead of yarn. 

On the television we had playing Peter Pan on mute so speakers on top could play a mix of soundtracks, Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, an Jake and the Never Land Pirates. I found a few random additional pirate songs that I threw into the playlist. Above all that a project that the whole family got involved in. One of my worries was that the pixie and pirate tie in wouldn't work so I printed out a bunch of coloring pages. Disney Junior and some from googling. Try looking up coloring pages Hook and Tinkerbell. I got some older images to work with doing that. After all done, one by one cut off the extra white and glue sticked each to it's on color construction paper.

I made a couple of puff balls following directions All Things Mamma. There are lots of "How To's" out there but I wanted a no wire needed way and her's was closest to my idea of how to make it work. I used fishing wire again, and since I was worried about it slipping off the middle of my folded tissue paper I secured it with a little masking tape strip on each. Follow her blog, she knows what she's doing.

After a bit of image searching I made these two collages that I printed and framed. The frames I used were a rustic gold look to them so it matched fairy and pirate, though wood may work just as well. Originally I was thinking to put each with the corresponding dress up items, but they ended up on the mantel above the gift area. 

If you are lucky enough to live by a Swap Meet, go! You never know what you'll find. Riley has some great people in her life and one of them found these ceramic banks at a meet and they served as easy table centerpieces.

What's a party without fun and games!?! So we had a little plank walking and treasure dig. 

We bought a child pool which worked for both games, start with the plank. In the pool we had a skeleton, some plastic snakes and bugs, but you can always opt for water. On each end was a plastic crate turned upside down. Our board of wood was secured by some rope and just in case we had parents all around to grab any little one that felt like walking zig zag instead of straight. I was surprised that all the kids from ages 2 thru 8 loved it and wanted to do it again and again. 

On the first time across we gave each child a loot bag. Bags were just old fashion paper bags. Drew on each like a pirate treasure map, a big red X after a dotted line trail. On back each kid's name since boys and girls got a little different of a bag. Each was preloaded with chocolate gold coins, tattoos, stickers and random fairy or pirate items I could get my hands on. Each kid also got a coloring book, prints from Jake and the Never Land Pirates and this Treasure Map. It worked like a prize for making it across and that way they had their bag ready for the activity.

Eventually we made them stop "walking the plank." We moved the crates still attached to board aside and dumped a huge amount of fake jewels, bead necklaces (like Mardi Gras beads), pirate coins, and jewel rings. Check out Ebay store 4angels4us2u.partiesrus, lots of stuff and one of the best deals I could find. I got stuff for treasure dig and goodie bags from there. Dump a bag of sand (from Home Depot/Dixieline) on top of goodies, throw show beach shovels on top and done. We gave each kid 30 seconds on their own then let them have a free for all. Yes, the skeleton, bugs, snakes were all still there an up for grabs.

Didn't take pictures of our fabulous b.b.q. or fruit salad, but the sweets always steal the spotlight. So you know, to keep with the theme there were goldfish and if I had more time I would had made "canon balls." My idea for canon balls was chocolate cake balls from my Babycakes Cake Pop Maker. Also there were lots of cool turn your watermelon into a pirate ship ideas I didn't get to use.  As for the cake and cupcake decorations, once again internet shopping. Halo Heaven with BEST DEAL on pirate flags, Ebay was my Captain Hook and Disney's Fairies place. 

As for the fabulous Tinkerbell Candies, my guest blogger Yajaira made those! She found a mold and used candy melts (the ones we use for cake pop coating). Melt and pour. While wet laid a cake pop stick then let dry. Once dry she put each in it's own clear bag an tied shut with cute ribbon.

Another tiny detail was water bottles. Search online there is a lot of templates to make your own. All you need is printer, scissors/cutter and glue. The first time I attempted this I used craft glue, yeah not good. When it got cold and the bottle sweated the glue undried and made a mess. This time around a tiny bit of hot glue to each and no issues.

There is sooo much you can do with this theme! Have a blast, decide if you wanna try to throw some pixie dust in there. It was a great party for us and I am sure yours will be to!