Pleasantly Pink Baby Shower

I was lucky enough to do a baby shower with my good friend Dacia for another friend who is having her first girl after two boys. Of course we did all things pink in her honor.

This centerpiece I saw at the Party Dress which I fell in love with right away. We so tried to get an Edwardian umbrella like the one in the picture but they are super expensive from US sites and then ran into problems trying to get one here from the UK. Next time I'll have one.


The food was SO yummy!
These are stuffed strawberries which I found at Kraft, they were so good!


I found a really good recipe for a Caesar Club sandwich from the Barefoot Contessa at the Foodnet Work site. The original plan was to put the sandwiches in Glassine bags with a cute label but the bags ended up being to small. So now I have two dozen bags with tags and I'm not sure what to do with them, oh well I'll come up with something. (please excuse my misspelling)

We made these paper cones which were inspired from The Hostess With The Mostess, we filled them with candy popcorn.


I found these molds at Michaels and wanted to use them to see how they'd work out. We filled them with raspberry mousse and they were a big hit.

It's not a party if you don't have cupcakes.

We served chips and dips. The dips we put in the little party cups and the chips in Glassine bags.

We hung the tissue poms and paper lanterns from dowels that I painted white and stuck them in vases on a bed of rose petals.

sparkling pink lemonade

and the favors were mini cupcakes in a super cute milk carton container.

I LOVE to do a party and had so much fun doing this one with Dacia. If you want to see an AMAZING shower she did for her sister you need to check out her pictures here. WOW is all I can say.

Cocoa Party

I had a wonderful time at our annual cocoa party and even more fun planning and working on it. Our theme this year was a snowy winter wonderland. Inspired from This winter wonderland tablescape from Inspired Bride that we saw on Hostess With the Mostess (one of my all time favorite places for inspiration)

For the invitations we used the "Sweet Treat" cups from Stamp'n Up to add a little more snow to the invitation.



I saw this idea once on Martha Stewart quite a while ago and they turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself. I took styrofoam balls and sprayed them with spray adhesive and rolled them in fake snow.


We took the branch idea from Inspired Bride and sprayed these branches with the snow in the can and they "looked" great but when it came time to use them the snow started flaking off. SO, I should have used the instructions from Inspired Bride and spray painted them white- note to self. We also hung snow flakes from the branches for a more wintery feel. Love how they turned out!!



I am a huge fan of Amy Atlas and love her simple yet amazing table scapes she does. So in her honor, I tried.



We tried our hand at cake pops from Bakerella, they're really not too difficult and are super cute so if you ever need a fun new sweet to try you should really give these a go. (I'd do chocolate cake next time instead of yellow)



We also got together to decorate snowflake sugar cookies that turned out really cute. (and yummy)

We also had ordered powdered sugar doughnut holes (cause they look like snowballs) but didn't get exactly what we were hoping for so we improvised and rolled our glazed doughnut holes in powdered sugar.


After last years party we decided we needed something to counter act all the sweet things so I made a cheeseball and we found snowflake RITZ to go with it.


And to finish off the night we sent everyone home with more cakepops to enjoy later. We put these bags together using American Crafts Merry Mint paper and hung a snowflake in the window.


A big thanks to Dacia and Lynne for all the fun times we had putting this together and co-hosting. I can't wait for next years! Thanks again girls.

Monkey Baby Shower

It's finally happened! I've been so excited to do this baby shower for a good friend of mine. We've been talking about it and getting stuff together for a month at least and to see it all come together was so great.

This is the banner I made for her shower. She is having her fifth child and it's a boy. So what better way to celebrate than to have a shower for her, because having five kids deserves a party!
We served one of my favorites salads from the "Domestic Diva's Party Cook book" (all recipes at the end of the post), strawberries and cheesecake dip, hot artichoke dip with baguettes, and of course cupcakes. The punch was the Citrus Sunshine punch. It was all so yummy!

These are the favors we sent home with everyone. Chocolate sprinkles in these cute tins. Also the prizes for the games, salt water taffy in coordinating colors.

One of the games was design a onsie. We used fabric markers and stamps to create a unique onsie for the baby. Mom picked the winner.

The other game we played was guess what's in the bag. In each bag was a baby item that started with that letter. Here's what we had: B-bib A-applesauce B-burp cloths Y-yellow rubber duck S-socks H-hats O-onsie W- washcloths E- electrical plugs R-rattle


The results from the design contest

Sorry I didn't get pictures of the backs of these they were really cute as well.

It was so fun just to visit and get excited about the arrival of this new baby. We are so excited for you Lynne.
A big thank you to Dacia for all your help.

Bushels of Blessings Dinner

Big sigh! Yeah I made it through, it was close though. I thought for sure I would be moved by now and wouldn't be doing the Activity Days dinner, but here I am. Really though it wasn't that bad. I decided on the theme "Bushels of Blessings" and using apples. This wasn't quite as over the top as last year but I think the girls enjoyed it as did their parents.

I did digital invitations this time instead of my handmade and they turned out pretty cute.



I also use some of my digital stuff from fabulous Kristin Aagard's "Sweet Apple" collection, for my program cover. Love her stuff!!


Centerpieces I found these great tubs at Target in their dollar section for only $2.50 and that scrapbook paper was also in the dollar section and was perfect!



For a treat for the girls I made them each a caramel apple with chocolate and sprinkles. I also found these baskets in the dollor section at Target.



Kara from "Kara's cupcakes" did these super cute cupcakes and they went perfect with my theme, thanks for the help Kara! I used them for decoration on the food table, everyone was anxious to get their hands on these.

The food wasn't anything super fabulous, ham, funeral potatoes, salad, rolls, and apple crisp for the adults.

It all went really well and everyone seemed to have a good time. I only had one hiccup, the ham wasn't warmed through when it came time to eat so I just cut off the warmed outside parts. It didn't look very pretty but no one seemed to mind.

I'm almost positive this was my last activity days dinner but you never know, maybe I'll be in activity days again when I move.

(for those who don't know what activity days are in our church girls ages 8 to 11 meet twice a month for an activity and do work towards their "Faith in God" award, if you'd like more info please visit here)

Lady bug Party idea board

Because I am the way I am I have already decided on a theme and started collecting ideas for my girls birthday party this year (in October).

I thought I could go through what I've found so far and maybe that would inspire me more or someone out there would have some more fabulous ideas. I'll try and site my findings best I can.


First of course they will need party hats just for them and of course for the rest of the guests. I'm hoping to find some red polka dot paper and use black marabu and polka dot ribbons. I found this SUPER cute out fit at Miacarina. I think it would be perfect for Holland and of course Ellie would need something as well. I found a black and white pettiskirt at Halo Heaven for her and I'll make a T just for her too.

For the favors I've found lots of cute things. starting at the top ~ chocolate ladybugs, ladybug pencil and erasers, ladybug pen, two different kinds of ladybug stickers, ladybug note pad, ladybug bubbles, and of course a net to catch them in. I thought it would be fun to put the favors in clear pail with a cute label and some ribbons of course. (not everything here will be in the pail, just ideas) most things I found at the Ladybug Gift Store. Also found some things at Oriental Trading and Birthday Express
When I saw this cute red and black favor box the first thing that came to my mind was that it would be fun to serve the kids lunch in these. Stick a cute label on the front with their name on it and serve with a water bottle with a matching label. The oreo suckers I thought I could make look like ladybugs and put a wrapper on them and a cute tag. I've found lots of ideas for ladybug cakes but haven't decided what to do yet.
I'm excited to get started on the decorations. I think I can make paper ladybugs to put up, a banner, pom poms, balloons, and I want to design my own invitation and all the labels and tags and a door sign.

So that's what I've got so far. Any more ideas?