Yet Another Frozen Party

My daughter goes through a faze where every January she becomes obsessed with Frozen, so when it comes time to talk about what kind of party she wants, its a Frozen party! Maybe it has to do with our wintery Wisconsin weather!!! But she has insisted on this theme two years in a row! And of course I did not keep any of the decorations from my last year party.

It doesn't look all that difference from last year! This year I tried to use a little more purple for something different!

I sort of threw it together the day before, I have been sick a lot this winter (see my previous post on my tonsillectomy!!) But Ava loved it, so that's all that matters!!!

Having a birthday right after Christmas makes decorating for a frozen party so much easier. All of these trees are Christmas decorations of mine, and my mother and mother in law!!! I loved the table skirt tutu so much from last year I made yet another one this year (seriously it doesn't take long to make at all, maybe 2 hours!!! and its so cute!!!) But now the big question is, do I sell this one or do I keep it for next year if she decides its got to be another frozen party!!!??????? I think I am going to sell it, its a lot to tulle and takes up a lot of space!!

I didn't realize these balloons were so big, but they turned out awesome!!! They worked very well over the Kids table!

Simple wand favors and tiara headbands also double as table décor!

What Frozen party would be complete without a life sized Stormtropper wearing a crown and a tutu!!! Ava LOVED that we dressed him up for her party!!!! She thought that was awesome!!!!

Check out the awesome cake that my mom made her!! I love how it turned out!!! And more importantly, Ava loved it!!

My daughter had a great 4th birthday party!!! So that is the most important part! I am glad I could make her day special for her!!! And hopefully she picks something different for next year, because I am all out of Frozen party ideas!

Pink and Gold Winter Wonderland First Birthday Party

Back in February we celebrated our daughter's first birthday with a Pink and Gold Winter Wonder Land Party.

Since her birthday was early February a Winter Wonderland Party seemed appropriate, and being obsessed with gold and pink it was an obvious choice. I decided very early in January this was going to be our theme, so I was able to find a few after Christmas deals that completed the theme.

What's a long winter without a hot chocolate bar!!?? The hot chocolate bar was such a hit!

I decorated with a large gold "A" surrounded by several pictures of Ava's first year. We used our Keurig to warm up the water and displayed powdered hot chocolate mix in a glass jar with directions for those who might have needed them.

Our toppings of course included marshmallows, butterscotch chips, white chocolate chips, peppermint chips, and caramel pieces. I made marshmallow pops covered with pink and white chocolate and white chocolate covered spoons for mixing up this yummy treat. See how I made these in the past.

I had a lot of fun with the sweet table! 

I borrowed several gold and white Christmas trees from family members and made a couple pink feather trees by using a pink feather boa and wrapping it around a Styrofoam cone. I had a lot of fun making pom pom garland. I used various shapes of glass jars and modge podged gold glitter to the bottom half. I made a "Happy Birthday" sign with my Silhouette Cameo. 

Pink, gold and white sweets consisted of TONS of gold Rolos, white M&Ms, pink Hersey Kisses (a plus of a February party - Valentines Day candy!!!), pink marshmallows and white rock candy.

I also hand dipped Oreos in white chocolate and drizzled pink chocolate and gold sprinkles on top.

And then of course we have the pink smash cake!! It was not so obvious in person, but you can sort of see in the pictures I was going for an ombre effect in my frosting of the cake.

I spent so much time trying to brain storm a party favor for this party and I also procrastinated making party hats. The day before the party I had the brilliant idea of using a winter hat to cover both! Some how, I have no clue how I got so lucky, Target had the perfect winter hat on Clearance! Problem solved!

Most importantly, the Birthday Girl had a fabulous birthday!! She loved her cake! And loved all of the attention she got at her party! It also didn't hurt that she got like 5 baby dolls as gifts, her absolute favorite!!

I can't believe my baby girl is almost a year and a half!!! Where does the time go???

Thanks to the fabulous Danielle at First Moment's Photography for the fabulous photos from her first birthday party!!! Danielle does a fabulous job and it was so nice not to have to worry about taking pictures. I could just sit back and enjoy!!! If you are in Wisconsin, you should check her out! First Moment's Photography

Gray and Purple Owl Diaper Cake

Last weekend I hosted a baby shower for my sister. I am so excited as she is expecting a little girl in about a month, so our little girls will be about 5 months apart! And hopefully very soon they will be best friends!

My sister is putting together a purple and gray nursery for her little girl, so we used that as a starting point for the baby shower.

And NO baby shower is complete without a diaper cake. My mom and I put together this cute purple and gray owl diaper cake. It was REALLY easy, especially since we have a huge supply of diapers in my house right now!

Three years back, when my sister's made me a diaper cake for my son's baby shower, they tediously wrapped each diaper with a rubber band..... well as a mom of two, I don't have that sort of time!!! We folded each diaper in half loosely following these directions on how to make a diaper cake. It maybe took us 30 minutes to assemble the general structure of the cake, it was SO fast and SO much easier!!!

I easily decorated the cake with purple and gray ribbon and a cute little owl I made! I decorated the top of the cake with fabric flowers headbands that her little girl can wear!!!! These directions are all over Pinterest, but here are the headbands I made for my little girl.

Fishy 3rd Birthday

When my friend asked me to help her with her son's 3rd Birthday party I jumped at the chance! I love party planning and was very excited with the opportunity. It was also a good challenge since I am not great about that little B word.... Budget!! She gave me a $100 budget and I was actually able to stay within the budget!!

The theme was blue and green fish! I am so happy how it turned out and I hope Collin and his mommy are just as happy with it! 

I started with a back drop of streamers. So easy and I really like the look!!! I then cut out a TON (seriously no clue how many I cut out) of circles in paper of white and blue. And sewed and sewed and sewed them together into four strands of garland and attached it to the streamers. I then used my Silhouette Cameo and cut out green fish spelling out "Happy Birthday Collin" I repeated the process for making garland to line the shelf. I have to say I am really happy with how this turned out and this was really just paper, streamers, ribbon and lots of time sewing!!

I bought these cute but boring blue buckets from the Target dollar isle. But a little vinyl and they look like cute custom party favors!

Inside each party favor bucket was a custom made wrapper for Gold Fish, a sucker with a vinyl sticker cut from the Cameo and a small container of bubbles (because what kid does not LOVE bubbles!!!)

The birthday boy's mommy made this fabulously cute cake!!! And it was surrounded by more green and blue candy!! (Do you realize how hard it is to find blue and green candy :) ) I used my Cameo and some ribbon to decorate the glass jars.

Don't you love the cupcakes the birthday boy's mommy also made!! I tried one, they tasted as good as they looked!!

I also made some candy fish. I sort of have this strange obsession with liking to make these chocolate candies.... even though I don't actually like the taste of this chocolate.... but I find them fun to make... and I love how cute they turned out!!!

More circles sewed together and hung from the ceiling.

I made the pendant banner from scrapbook paper and washi tape. So easy to make! We added some cute blue and white striped straws (with a little fish attached of course) to some simple kids cups from Target.

I also made water bottle labels, but I didn't take a close up picture of them! I seriously love these little cups with the fish straws!!

Happy Birthday Collin! I hope you enjoyed your fish party!!

Wedding Season

I love weddings!I love going to them and I love helping to plan them! I would love to be a wedding planner (if anyone needs one, feel free to contact me :) ) My sister Kristin is getting married in 2 weeks, so we are in full wedding planning detail mode at the moment! After all when it comes to a wedding, it's all about the details!

So the next couple weeks will be all about weddings for me! Here are a couple pictures of my other sister Brooke's wedding from March of 2008.

The tables! We made the place cards, made tags for the hot sauce and added ribbon to tons of candles! Isn't wedding planning fun!

Dr. Seuss First Birthday Party

I spent a significant time planning my son's important first birthday party! I ended up going with a Dr. Seuss theme and am so glad I did!

This is the cute birthday boy in his birthday attire! Notice, he is wearing One First, Two Fish shoes!

For the decorations of his Dr. Seuss inspired birthday party, I stuck with bright red, blue and yellow colors.

I did many candy displays as part of the decorations. I made my son a red and white smash cake using red frosting and white fondant. For the guest I decorated 3 batches of cupcakes!!

I painted the ABCs in my bright primary colors.

We used lots of balloons, and had several of the Dr. Seuss books out for display, including some of the lessor known books that we ordered from Amazon!

This is the birthday sign I made using a lots of card stock, ribbon and a circle cutter.
I decorated board books with ribbon and each child's name for party favors for all of the little ones.

The guest book signing area. I used the Dr. Seuss birthday book, and some bright colored markers for the guest book. I also printed some bloopers from the birthday invite photo session to decorate the table. I used novelty drink glasses I got at a party store for flower vases and cut out circles using different colors of felt to complete the guest table look.

For an extra touch, I printed off a large image of the Grinch and my dad so nicely made a cardboard support for the back of it, and we put him poking out of the fireplace, "guarding" the gifts.
Now onto food!! I spent a lot of time researching this! We served "Pink Ink" lemonade out of crazy cups I found at the party store, and with fish straws I found online at Amazon.

We had red fish, blue fish cut out cookies!! And more of the candy displays!!!! (We had so many sweets!!!!)
More of the candy display!
Then we have the "Cheese Tree" This is a crafting cone covered in plastic wrapped, decorated with cubed cheese attached with tooth picks. This was a HUGE hit at the party!!
I asked my sister to be in charge of the Green Eggs and Ham. My original idea was just green develed eggs and a seperate plate of ham, but she came up with this clever way to combine the two!! These were also a hit at the party!!
I spent several hours making a "One Fish Two Fish" Jello bowl. This is maybe 8 packages of blue jello mix in a real (cleaned -never used) fish bowl. I put Grape Nuts on the bottom for "rocks" and then layered up the jello, letting it set in between. I added gummy fish to the various layers, and used rosemary to make plants. My suggestion if you make this, is to tone down the color of the blue jello with a clear jello. You can't really see in this picture, but in person you could see the items in the bowl.
The "Who Roast Beast" was roast beef from Arby's!!
We also had a "Foodles with Noodles" pasta salad.

Last but not least, we have a picture of the birthday boy enjoying his cake!!! He was covered in red frosting at the end of this!