Stella & Dot

Happy happy Friday friends! The weekend is here, yay!
Last night I hosted a Stella & Dot trunk show for a friend of mine. I had so much fun making food and setting up a fun party for my girlfriends. Despite the harsh reality check in regards to my popularity, a few of us had a great time hanging out. We ate yummy snacks, and indulged in adult-only beverages. The kids slept at my mom's house and Josh was at work so I was totally free to relax and enjoy :) Here are some pictures of the par-tay...

My friend set up such a lovely display. Stella & Dot really has such beautiful jewelry.

 

 

(These pinterest inspired mini caprese salads were drizzled in Balsamic vinaigrette)

 





 

 

All in all, it was a fun night. Special thanks to Melinda for setting up all of the beautiful baubles, and to my sister in law Darcy for bringing a yummy appetizer. My sister lent me the cool beverage tub and brought some ice to keep our beverages nice and cold. She's the best sister around!

 

If any of you are interested in purchasing anything from Stella & Dot, here is a link to my trunk show. I will get credit for any items purchased with this link for the next week.

 

http://www.stelladot.com/ts/n0ri5

 

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

 

 

Pics of the Par-tay

YAY for b-day parties!!! We had such a fun time throwing our little Hayden her 2nd birthday party at our house. Family, friends, and LOTS of yummy food!! Hooray!!!

This little sign that I made using a canvas, pompoms, and a sharpie greeted our guests when they arrived. The party was primarily in the backyard, so I didn't want people to be standing outside the front door knocking when we wouldn't be able to hear them.

We had yummy funfetti cupcakes with some paper flags that Noah and I made with scrapbook paper and toothpicks.

In this picture below, can you tell which flags Noah made?? Ha ha, adorable!

We did a "build your own sandwich" buffet that was super yummy and easy. We just loaded the buns with meat, and put the other sandwich ingredients out so people could add what they wanted (the pretty butterfly picks were from the dollar bins at Michael's).

I bought this at WalMart...but not to use in the typical way. I needed bud vases for my mantle, and for $2.37, these glass bottles were the perfect option (my hubby was sad when I dumped the orange soda down the drain, but a crafty gal's gotta do what a crafty gal's gotta do)

I took off the labels with goo gone, and used nail polish remover to remove the dates and codes that were printed on the bottles. Then I simply wrapped the bottle in some thick cream yarn that I had and hot glued the ends on the back side. I added some turquoise to a couple of them for some extra pizazz. I think they came out simple & pretty, and they're the perfect size for my shallow mantle. Add a $5.99 bouquet from the grocery store and my "mantle-scape" was done :)

My backyard signs made their debut at the party. This was a simple last minute project that I think came out pretty cute. I got a scrap piece of wood at home depot for $1 and had the nice man cut it into 4 rectangles for me. I also bought some wooden stakes for $.30 each. When I got home, I nailed the stakes on to the back of the signs, painted them white, and then went to town with my craft paint. I used my bed bath & beyond cardboard coupon to trace the smaller rectangle on the signs (using what I had on hand, ha ha). Then, I free-handed some geometric patterns on either side of the small rectangles with craft paint. After that I just used a thick sharpie and wrote some fun party words. I should have sanded the edges (I think you'll probably get a splinter just by looking at these signs), but I was pressed for time so I skipped that step.

The pinwheels were from the $.99 store and they doubled as party decor and favors. It gets breezy in my backyard, so they were spinning round and round pretty much the whole time. As the guests left, they got to take one home with them. We still have about 6 left & my kids are pretty thrilled about that.

The flower princess bouncy house was a MUST-HAVE. The kids bounced and bounced ALL day long and it made for a pretty easy bedtime :)

The lemonade stand was the hit of the party, for sure!!!

Noah had so much fun and was hard at work for quite a while. People would give him a quarter, and he would give them a different quarter back as change. He even came inside to get a quarter so he could buy himself some lemonade, ha ha! We got some really cute videos of him in action, but the files are too big to upload and share. You'll just have to trust me, he was A-dorable in action!Happy customers :)

I put my candelabra to work as a candy centerpiece. Doesn't she look cute!!??

A while back, I won my first blog-giveaway ever on Miss Mustard Seed's Blog. It was a party pack from Snickety Snacks. 24 delicious sugar cookies with edible pens for decorating them. The kids had SO much fun doing this, and so did some of the adults.

My baby girl had SO SO much fun at her party. She ate like 4 cupcakes I think, and bounced her brains out. She got tons of fun gifts (hello kitty tricycle, cash register, baby dolls, Rody, an Easel, a tea set, etc), and had a smile on her face all day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET BABY GIRL!!!!!!!! You own our hearts forever!(today we're in clean-up & rest mode....and my husband and father in law are building a fence in our front yard....reveal to come at a later date).

Happy Sunday!

Sneaky Peeks 2

Ok people, here we are, the day before the big par-tay! Baby girl turns 2 tomorrow and it's almost time to RAGE! This first picture below further illustrates why I should ONLY handle the party decor, and NOT the food! Ha ha.

Here are the beginnings of my hand painted fancy signs for the backyard. Hmmmm, what will they say??

And last but not least, for your viewing pleasure, a healthy sampling of our JUNK FOOD! Yummy!I plan on taking a ton of pics so stay tuned. Hooray for pretty parties!

Sneaky Peeks.....

Just a couple sneak peeks at what I'm up to this week. We are having Hayden's b-day party on Saturday so the party planning mania has begun. We have a huge family and lots of friends coming so it's pretty much going to be a rager, ha ha! I am the queen of "last minute" so I thought I would try to get a jump on the cleaning and decorating this time so I won't have my usual last minute scramble. I still have a ton to do, but things are starting to look very festive in here :)

Little buntings for my little girl - {SWOON}

"Happy birthday to yoouuuuuuuuu!"

I made this little nest a long time ago (I just sprayed one from Michael's with white paint) and I finally have something to use it for, yay! Cutie-patootie.

& my sweet sister bought me this other springy nest at homegoods. A-dorable if I do say so myself ;)

We're getting all the supplies ready for the lemonade stand - sell sell sell - ha ha!

And I'm working on a mirror makeover too (unrelated to the party of course, but I wanted to show you my cute little helper in the pic). So, that's it for me this week. Cleaning, organizing, decorating, crafting, ETC...!

A boy and a dream...

Little Hayden's 2nd b-day is right around the corner and her silly willy big brother Noah had his own idea about what her party should be like. So, my 2 boys got right to work.

My hubby is such a patient man and really let Noah do a lot of the work. It's very sweet to watch them in action.

Next it was time for the little guy to help me make it pretty. Combine a boy's dream with a mommy's need to make everything pretty and you have pure magic! (please forgive me my cluttered garage....it's....yeah. It's.......there are no words).

In my efforts to amp up the cute factor, we needed fabric. I had this old white cotton curtain panel laying around so I put it to good use.

I snipped off those tabs, taped on some stripes, got out my craft paint and got to painting.

Wallah! Sunny yellow stripes! Do you know what it's going to be???? Drum roll pleae..........

Ta-daa!!!!! A Sunny lemonade stand for our young entrepreneur. Our boy LOVES lemonade stands and has wanted to have one for a long long time. Every time kids are having one at the park near our house, he begs and begs to have one of his very own. We figured, who better for him to serve sweet lemonade to than our loving family and friends at Hayden's party.

Hand painted stripes, pom poms, hounds tooth ribbon. Just {DREAMY} for this party planning, detail obsessed mama.

I staged it quickly for these photos, and no, the lemonade stand will not be a permanent fixture in our kitchen. For the party it will go in our backyard (weather permitting of course). AND, this is definitely Noah's lemonade stand and while his plastic toy cash register wasn't cute enough for these photos, it will most certainly be in full effect on the party day so he can "ring people up" and make change. He's classic that boy, classic! I plan to make little baggies of quarters for our guests to buy lemonade with (don't worry, we won't be making our guests buy their beverages with their own money, ha ha). I'll have tons of pictures of Noah's lemonade stand in action after the birthday bash, but I thought I would give you a peek at our recent masterpiece. Martha Stewart, watch out!! Isn't it cute!!?? I think I'm in love :)

Oh yeah - and to make the banner, I just cut squares from the left over fabric with pinking shears. I hand painted some yellow polka dots first, and then free-handed the letters with black craft paint. Next I used my glue gun to glue the squares to some twine. Then, I hot glued mini clothespins to the top of the posts so I could clip the banner on. Easy Peasy People! Cheers!!!