Acoustic Guitar Cake

 

I respectfully ask that you not pin pictures of my children to Pinterest. Thank you!

Tenor's birthday is just a few days after Soprano's fortunately, this year, we only had one friend party to host. For Tenor, we had decided to get him an acoustic guitar this year as his big gift. What better cake to celebrate with than my Wilton guitar cake? My mother-in-law had given me this pan years ago, and I never had occasion to use it. I had to find the directions online but it was super easy to find and print the instructions for an acoustic guitar.

Other than trying to get really black icing (ugh!) and the weather being so hot the icing practically melted onto the cake, the whole thing came together easily. Happy Birthday!

A Pony and Pinwheel Party

I respectfully ask that you not pin pictures of my children to Pinterest. Thank you!

We usually do a family get-together for our younglings' birthdays each year but we have saved having a friend party for when they turn 10 years old.
Tenor had his Angry Birds party a few years ago. This year was finally Soprano's turn. She loves horses so that's where our theme started.
I found a paper pack at Hobby Lobby by The Paper Studio called Pixey Stix that gave us our color scheme.
I used that to make the invitations and thank you cards, a happy birthday banner

 

a pinwheel wreath for the front door,

and popcorn cones.

To decorate, I set up a display on the buffet in the dining room using Soprano's horse-loving American Girl doll, Saige, and her horse. 

I also used her other horse figures on the buffet, the dining room table (tablecloth from Target), 

Green paper Easter grass to create a base

and on the dining room window sill. I snagged some pink tins from the schoolroom to add color with my horse picks and pinwheels.

Horse picks created from Cricut Old West and paper straws

We also put the goody bags there. I found the idea for the bag on Pinterest and was able to get two different brown colored and white gift bags at a local craft store. I cut the eye circles using Cricut George and the muzzles with my Creative Memories oval cutters. I used Cricut Stamping for the nostrils and Sweet Treats for the bows (cut from Pixey Stix). I drew the ear template by hand.

Soprano loved helping to put the bags together for each guest. Inside we included: a manicure kit (from Michael's), a mini nail polish (from a summer collection at Wal-Mart), a notepad and pencil (Easter clearance), a horse sticker sheet, a small jelly jar of trail mix (I painted the lids with hot pink spray paint), a mini butterfly Perler bead kit (AC Moore), and a pony necklace we made. The 'filler' was a hot pink bandanna. On the outside, I pinned a ribbon that we personalized with each girl's initials. (The ribbons were clearance bachelorette party ribbons I found at Christmas Tree Shops.)

The evening's events started with a pizza dinner then canvas painting. I cut a horse shape from vinyl using Cricut Old West. We stuck the horse onto the center of a plain 12x12 canvas and let the girls paint over it. When they were dry we peeled up the vinyl to reveal the horse shape.

After the painting was done, the girls decorated their own cupcakes and then we opened gifts.

The rest of the evening included lots of nail polish,

silly pictures in front of our photo backdrop,

and a princess movie.

At that point, several of the girls headed home while the rest got ready for bed. In the morning, we had breakfast, played outside, and hung out until the parents came. It was exhausting but tons of fun!

Make a Card Monday - Ponies and Pinwheels Birthday Party Invitation

I found inspiration for Soprano's birthday invites and thank yous on Pinterest. I designed the invitation info in MS Publisher and then printed them on white cardstock. After they were printed, I cut the label shape with a Nestabilities die. I made the thank you cards the same way, just leaving the white die shape blank for Soprano to write her own message.

Details:
cardstock: pink cardstock mat (unknown), Georgia Pacific (white)
patterned paper: Pixey Stix paper stack (The Paper Studio)

tools: label die cuts (Nestabilities), Old West cartridge (Cricut)

Short Ruffle Aprons

For my sister's 50s Housewife themed bridal shower, we asked the guests to come dressed in their best aprons and pearls. Great idea, right? One slight problem as one of the shower hostesses I needed a super cute apron. I didn't have one!
Fortunately, I had a couple weeks before the shower to make one that would match my outfit. Any 50s housewife would have done the same, I'm sure.
I'm not a wing-it as I go kind of seamstress. I need patterns with detailed instructions and measurements so I found a multi-use pattern at Joann's with this adorable ruffly apron.

It called for 4 different fabrics so I got a large floral, a textured lace, a small print, and a stripe.

It wasn't too hard to do although I don't think the where they said to attach the ruffles hid the seam of the ruffle underneath but it's okay. It turned out so well, I made one for my sister as part of her shower gift. In her coral and blue wedding colors, of course. Her fabrics were a large floral, a small geometric, a small floral, and a stripe.

Now the only problem is that it's almost too cute to actually cook in!

Linking up to these great blog parties:

Sunday: Sunday Showcase at Under the Table and Dreaming; Show Me What Ya Got at Not Just a Housewife;
Tuesday: One Project at a Time at A Bowl Full of Lemons; Tuesday's Treasures at My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia;
Wednesday: Wicked Awesome Wednesday at Handy Man, Crafty Woman; It's Overflowing at Overflowing with Creativity; Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts;
Home Decor & Organizing at Organize and Decorate Everything;
Thursday: Delightfully Inspiring Thursday at Delightful Order; Thrifty Thursday at Thrifty and Fabuless;  Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Creek Cottage;
Friday: Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest; Flaunt it Friday at Chic on a Shoestring;

Angry Birds 10th Birthday Party

I respectfully ask that you not pin pictures of my children to Pinterest. Thank you!
 We've talked for a couple years now about having a big 'friend' party for Tenor's 10th birthday. We did a big party for his 1st birthday but all the other years, we just got together with the grandparents and aunts and uncles to celebrate. He's really been looking forward to a 'friends' party for awhile. But while we've talked about it for several years, I did not have my act together this year to spend months and months planning and prepping. :) We had to finish our school year, do our homeschool evaluation, my mother-in-law was with us for a visit, my sister was getting married, and we were headed to the beach! We were swamped!
All of a sudden we realized that to fit a party in pronto! That night, we decided to have the party in 2 weeks.  It was a toss-up between a Lego party or an Angry Birds party because both are huge hits in our house right now. The game ideas I saw online totally swayed us to do Angry Birds though.

Using some ideas I had already pinned and some super speedy internet and Pinterest searches, we came up with a game plan. I quick made invites using this neat (and free!!!) party printable set.
I popped the background image into Publisher, installed the Angry Bird font, and just added the pertinent info. We mailed them out the next day.

Then it was time for decor ideas:

Since the party would be boys from the ages of 7-11, I tried to keep it simple. :)

I printed the bird faces from The Party Animal, cut them out, and stuck them on the day of the party. I used old formula cans covered with green construction paper to hold straws ($1 at Michaels) and flatware (Dollar Tree). I found a pig face clip art online and printed up a ton of them for different things. I cut 'em out and stuck one on each can.

I printed the banner letters from The Party Animal. The 'appy' birthday idea was clever but we weren't sure the kids would get it. So When we printed it, I just printed an extra 'h'. To add color, I taped them on bright 8.5x11 pieces of cardstock. We strung them with yellow curling ribbon I had in my stash and attached them our badminton net poles. We splurged a bit on a pig tablecloth and bird napkins from Oriental Trading. We saved money by getting plain red plates and plain red and yellow cups from the dollar store.

I made a cute tissue paper red bird "wreath" that we hung on a stake in the front yard but I forgot to take pics. It looked kind of like this pig one.

That was it for decor. Not too bad. :)
We kept the snacks pretty simple too:
water and lemonade, chips, pretzel fish, and baby carrots, 2 flavors of ice cream, and angry bird cupcakes. I saw some online that looked super cute so I had to copy them. The hardest part of making the cupcakes was digging the exact amount of colored jelly beans out of the Jelly Belly dispenser at the grocery store. Those big plastic scoops are a little awkward when you're trying to get 1 more blue bean!

 

 

Favor bags included an Angry Birds eraser, a sheet of Angry Bird stickers, a bag of Angry Birds gummy candies, a slingshot, and 6 mini porcupine balls. I got plain red lunch bags at the craft store and then printed extra red bird faces from here. They turned out cute, kind of like these.

Next up, the most important part of the party... games!
We had a can toss game like here. (With more formula cans and pig faces.We borrowed the angry bird dog toys from my folks who had just purchased them the previous week for their doggy.)

We clipped a bunch of green balloons (also with printed pig faces) onto our laundry line with clothespins (like here). We had a basket of wooden handled slingshots and mini porcupine balls for the boys to shoot the balloons. (The tarp was to keep too many balls from getting lost in our firewood stacks.) Later the slingshots and balls went into the favor bags for the guests to keep.

I printed more pig faces and made up some point values using the Angry Birds font and taped them into our old living room window (that was sitting in the trash pile). The boys used suction dart guns to shoot at the pigs and point values.

On the driveway, I set up our giant bowling set (complete with a red bird face taped on the red bowling ball.) I forgot to get a picture of it though. You could do something like this if you don't have a bowling game handy.

We set up ladderball but it didn't get much use.

 Mainly because we had this....

 

Yup... Bass built a 5' slingshot with 2x4s and a beach water balloon launcher and some cable ties. I saw an idea online that he worked off of. It was kind of a MacGyver project but we tested it so that it would be sturdy and safe. The boys had a blast trying to knock down a stack of boxes and some pigs (more formula cans.) I found mini kickballs at the dollar store which worked great.

Even some of the moms gave it a try at pick-up time.

More party shots:

Introducing everyone

Snacks

Singing to the birthday boy

Present Time

 The best part.... a very happy 10 year old!

Linking up to these great blog parties:

Sunday: Sunday Showcase at Under the Table and Dreaming; Show Me What Ya Got at Not Just a Housewife;
Tuesday: One Project at a Time at A Bowl Full of Lemons; Tuesday's Treasures at My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia;
Wednesday: Wicked Awesome Wednesday at Handy Man, Crafty Woman; It's Overflowing at Overflowing with Creativity; Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts;
Home Decor & Organizing at Organize and Decorate Everything;
Thursday: Delightfully Inspiring Thursday at Delightful Order; Thrifty Thursday at Thrifty and Fabuless;  Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Creek Cottage;
Friday: Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest; Flaunt it Friday at Chic on a Shoestring;

50s Housewife Bridal Shower Part 5 -- Party Time!

I respectfully ask that you not pin pictures of my children to Pinterest. Thank you!

 Here's part 5 and the wrap-up of my sister's 50s Housewife themed bridal shower. Her wedding is going to have a vintage modern flavor with a coral and blue color scheme and lots of lace. I wanted to incorporate some of those elements into the decor of her bridal shower. We also wanted to use her milk glass collection to add to the vintage theme. (Check out more shower posts here: Pennants and Poms, Coffee Filter Wreaths, Lacy Mason Jars, and Games and Decor)

To sum it all up:
Theme: 50s Housewife
Invites (designed with free digital scrapbook kit elements, Macromedia Fireworks, and MS Publisher; free fonts: fontdiner.com Sparkly and Cherry Cream Soda; some of the personal info has been blanked out):

Games and Door Prizes: 

Prize for Best Apron (She won for borrowing an apron, hat, and beaded necklace from her 2-year old!) 

 

"Name that Famous TV Housewife"

and "1950s Price is Right"

Our lovely Bridal Shower Beauty --- modeling the product up for bid.

A few of our willing contestants with the  bride-to-be.

Yummy Food:
Dishes, Napkins, and Flatware on Server

Menu: Turkey and Ham Wraps, Veggies and Dip, Fruit Salad, Strawberries and Chocolate Fondue,

Cheese Ball and Crackers, Deviled Eggs, and Pillow Mints (all served in milk glass or on white platters with coral chargers)

Drinks: Raspberry Punch, Iced Tea, and Water

Desserts: Hershey Kiss Pretzel Treats, Hard Candy, and Couture Cupcakes

Decor: milk glass, lace, mason jars, coral and blue, gerbera daisies, 50s housewife clip-art, and pics of the happy couple

Fun: Guests in aprons and pearls, lots of laughing, lovely gifts, and a happy sis!

A gift for the groom? :)

My mom, my sis, and me! I made the apron for my sister as part of her gift and
loved it so much I had to make one for me.

The happy couple (and Soprano) in their aprons

 Linking up to these great blog parties:

Sunday: Sunday Showcase at Under the Table and Dreaming; Show Me What Ya Got at Not Just a Housewife;
Tuesday: One Project at a Time at A Bowl Full of Lemons; Tuesday's Treasures at My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia;
Wednesday: Wicked Awesome Wednesday at Handy Man, Crafty Woman; It's Overflowing at Overflowing with Creativity; Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts;
Home Decor & Organizing at Organize and Decorate Everything;
Thursday: Delightfully Inspiring Thursday at Delightful Order; Thrifty Thursday at Thrifty and Fabuless;  Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Creek Cottage;
Friday: Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest; Flaunt it Friday at Chic on a Shoestring;