Princess Birthday Party!

My baby turned 3 last week. After I finished crying about the fact that my BABY was going to be 3, I went to work planning her Princess Party. She had been asking for a castle cake for 7 months, so I assumed she was serious. I wanted it to be fun and whimsical and not too character focused. It came together exactly as I  had hoped!

The dessert table was centered around the gorgeous cake my sister in-law's bakery, Treats on Washington, made. They amaze me every time with their gorgeous, detailed work!

I re-purposed a frame from Goodwill and prettied it up with some spray paint, fabric and added Princess Arielle's initial to it. The best part is, it is now hanging in her room! I covered some cardboard hat boxes from Jo-Ann craft store in scrapbook paper and topped them with a fun dress form jewelry holder.

The wands were part of the girls' party favors and were hand made by me and my good friend Liz. She saved me with some last minute crafting help!

The other part of the favors were the felt crowns. I had so much fun making these. The girls seemed to love them too. Apparently my little one wasn't the only one who went to sleep in theirs that night !

The activities included decorating their own cookies,

picking out and showing off their royal jewels,

getting the tiniest princess press-on nails I have ever seen (which stayed on a total of 6.2 seconds) and coloring princess pictures. All the while, music from Disney princess movies was playing in the background. I admit to singing along and dancing like it was my own royal ball!

As I watched my sweet 3 year old girl blow out her candles, I had to smile and wipe my eyes. She might not be a baby any more, but she will always be MY baby.

 

Quick run down of the who's, what's and where's:
Invitation: Made by me with princess clip art from Pretty Grafik on Etsy
Pom pom garland: Martha Stewart bought from Amazon.com
Dress form, crafting supplies and princess coloring pages: Jo-Ann craft store
AMAZING Cake: Treats on Washington in Boston, MA
Felt wand inspiration: Make things for Kids
Felt Crown inspiration: Curly Birds
Arielle's Princess dress: Amazon
Rock Candy and candy pearls: Sweet Indulgence
Sweet little blue bird: Middleburg Folk Art Studio (it is actually something I bought for her room when she was a baby) 

First Day: October 2012

The best part of this first day?? Craft night with my fellow Rhody Bloggers, at my house..in my newly revamped craft room!  These ladies rock in every way. 

Liz (my craft night hostess partner in crime) Learning to Juggle

Jen: Keekoin

Joanna: Baby Gator's Den

Megan: Baby Makes Four

Liza: Cira's Lyrics

Sarah: Soxy's Diamond

Carla: All of Me Now

Heather: Housewife Heather

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Link up with Nicole every month! 

Wild Kratts Birthday Party!

Nate turns 5 tomorrow but we had his party on Sunday. He loves the show Wild Kratts so we decided to run with that theme! There was a lot of Pinterest browsing for this party! I had a good time pinning away and, as you will see, used a lot of good ideas that I found. I decided to make Nate's invite myself in Photoshop. I found a couple of images online and then did the rest.

We had the party at an awesome playground called the ImPossible Dream. It is actually the only fully handicap accessible playground in RI! The had a room that is inside the playground and it was a perfect spot to have our party. I tend to go a little nuts for birthdays and I saw some friends on FB post about an amazing local woman, Stacie of Stace Your Face,  who does face painting. I noticed that she was especially good at animal faces so I booked her for the party! Of course the rebel birthday boy was all about being Spiderman instead of an animal, but I let it go. It WAS his birthday after all! Luckily all but 1 other child decided to rock the wild life look! I set up a "photo booth" and took a picture of each child right after they got their faces done! For the favors I made each child a Wild Kratts vest complete with attachable creature power discs!

My sister in-law owns a bakery in Boston called Treats on Washington and they made my son's birthday cake! It was a creature power disk with a cheetah on it. He was very impressed..and so was his stinker of a sister who took a bite out of the side before it was time to sing. Clever turning of said side away from the camera and walla, you can't even tell! Grr.

The kids had a great time. We didn't get to play the games I planned, but I suppose it was a lofty goal to get 15 kids to do anything at the same time! Instead, they ran and played in the huge enclosed playground and had a blast!

I am proud of the fact that I managed to get into 2 pictures this time! I had to ask someone to take them, but I stepped out from behind the camera for a minute so when my kids look back, they know I was actually there! Do you like my "snow leopard" shirt. I use quotes because I have no idea if that's what it is. I found it and A's cheetah pants while getting other things at Walmart. Gotta love trashy Walmart for its availability of $4 animal print shirts and $3 kid's cheetah leggings!

It was an amazing day and I would recommend this park to anyone. They are open to the public 7 days a week too! Now for a quick rundown of all of the party stuff:

Animal print balloons: Amazon
Birthday Banner: Made by me with animal print paper, sticky foam letters and twine
Cake Inspiration: A Mom Photographer's Crazy Life
Vest Inspiration (I used fleece and felt and just measured Nate to figure out the dimensions):Mom Endeavors
Cake Made by: Treats on Washington (in Brighton MA)
Amazing Face Painting: Stace Your Face
Animal plates: Walmart in the paper goods (not party) section
Photo booth: Made by hubby out of plywood and covered with zebra fabric from Jo-Ann

Pinterest Inspiration: Week 2

Week 2 Project: "Toddler Busy Bag/Book"  

AKA: Crap that can keep my 2 year old entertained for a 6 hour flight.

We went on a trip in January. It was the trip from H-E-double hockey sticks, but that is another post completely. My son is 4 1/2 and pretty well versed in technology. You could park him in front of of a TV or video game, or smart phone for that matter for hours on end. I don't allow this, but long flights are where I give up all rules and use whatever I can to retain my sanity. Needless to say, I wasn't worried about keeping him quiet on the flight. My daughter couldn't care less about TV. She will watch half an episode of Caillou and then wander off from lack of interest...or desire to upend something then walk away. I was most concerned about her on this trip.

A few of my friends had pinned "Busy Bag" ideas so I did more searching and found an Etsy store that makes "Quiet books". I started to work on the different pages with the grand plan of having it all neatly bound in a book by the time we left. These pages are time consuming! All made from felt and, while not difficult, just require a fair amount of time. Needless to say I didn't get them all into a book, but I did bring a clipboard with us and we played with one page at a time. 

I got 6 pages done: 2 pages of counting beads, 1 textures page with all kinds of fun embellishments on it, a color wheel page where the pie pieces are attached with Velcro for matching, a tic-tac-toe page, and a lift the flap button counting page. (All inspiration pins are listed at the bottom of the post)

 I also glued a ton of stuff to magnets and had a magnet board for her to play with. I used a small cookie sheet and a bunch of felt stickers, colored pom poms, some googly eyes and made a couple felt mouth options to make faces. This was also a big hit. Arielle loved playing with the "mag-a-nets" (as she called them) on the plane and while we were out West for the trip.

I made a few other things for the trip, but I will save them for another post. And let me just say, those busy books cost $70 on Etsy and are worth EVERY FREAKING PENNY! They take so much time to make that it justifies the amount they charge! Trust! Time is money people.

Number bead inspiration: Sweet Dreams Shop

Color Wheel, Tic-tac-toe page and lift the flap numbers inspiration: Sunset Blue Gifts

The textures page I thought of myself while wandering through the trim aisle at Jo-Ann fabric. I've always wanted a use for pom pom trim, and white fur!

Magnet board inspiration: Life: Styled

 

Be my Valentine!

I don't care how many times I have seen this on the Internet, I still love the idea of it! I took his picture, fancied it up in Photoshop and printed them at Walgreens. Easy and so cute. Of course, picture it with a lollipop in his hand. I tried to take a picture of it with the lollipop, but it blocked the words and, my procrastinating self waited until it got dark to try to get a pic of the completed card, so it looked like poo anyway. OK fine, it was bugging me not to put in the final...



 Arielle is still going to a home daycare (For a couple more months...more on that later...sniff) so I attempted to make her caregiver a cute card. I was ill prepared since I got the idea to do more than just a Hallmark yesterday. I love the picture of Arielle though. She did that to herself because she wanted to be a princess. I think she looks every bit the part...long underwear jammies and all.

Arielle helped make the cards for the 3 kids she is with every day. She wanted to show me where each button and pom pom should go....except she kept trying to cover the holes I had punched for the lollipops. I think they turned out exactly how she wanted. ;)

Last but not least on this day filled with hearts, a little Valentine's Day breakfast...actually made on Sunday since I have zero desire to attempt this on a school day!

Pinterest Inspiration: Week 1

I love me some Pinterest. Before this lovely site, I would bookmark the crap out of things and they would get lost in the reaches of my favorites, never to be seen again. Now all of my inspiration is organized so neatly onto boards. I know a lot of people just sit and pin their time away, but I actually make many of the things I pin or at least use them for inspiration for something else I want to make. I thought it would be nice to do a weekly post of my completed projects or recipes that I found on Pinterest. I actually finished this one in time for the first week of January, but as my lack of posting shows, life just got in the way!
Necklace Organizer: pinned from here

I found a towel bar that I liked. I wanted one that didn't scream, "I'm a towel bar" and that went with the decor in our room. I also bought some double sided shower curtain hooks. I love the way that it turned out and now all of my necklaces are hanging neatly instead of being on top of my dresser or hanging from the side of my earring organizer in 2 big clumps!