Lollipop Invitation

Could these get any cuter??? These might be one of my favorite invitations I've ever made. I originally wanted to use real lollipops and have the invitation be a sticker on the face of it, but was worried about how they would mail and didn't want people to receive broken invitations, so I went this route.

Wedding Program Fans

I made these for a "country chic" wedding that was being held in a barn. The bride gave me her colors, told me her flowers were hydrangeas and that she wanted fans made but left everything else up to me. She didn't even want to see them until they were done and she came to pick them up! Talk about nerve wracking!! Luckily she loved them :) I made everything in MDS and they measured 8x8. The actual program was cut to 7 3/4 x 7 3/4 and the mat was made from Kraft card stock cut to 8x8. I ordered the fan handles off Etsy. I tied the dark green ribbon around the handle first then cut the tails into a little upside down 'V'. I then tied a bow out of the light blue ribbon and used a glue dot to adhere it to the dark green ribbon. I was very pleased with how they turned out!

Here is a group shot of the front.

 

 And the back!

Stamped Candle

You may remember this post from Trinity's Lalaloopsy party last year. Well, guess who had another Lala themed party this year?! Her mom lucked out because now there are actually decorations with Lalaloopsy on them. Everything at the party was super cute. I didn't want to show up without a homemade gift, so I decided to make Trinity something that no one else could buy her...a Lalaloopsy candle with her name on it! Candle making is very easy. You can do it one of two ways: either stamp on a piece of tissue paper or run the tissue paper through your printer (taped to a regular piece of paper) -- for this project, I printed the image. Then cut the image out, getting as close to the image as you can. Position it on the candle and then wrap a piece of waxed paper around the candle and pull it tight in the back. Hold the candle by the waxed paper that is left over in the back and use an embossing gun to slowly heat over the image. It will take 1-2 minutes, but gradually you will see the image magically melt into the candle. Be careful to not overheat. Slowly peel away the waxed paper and that's it! If needed, you can heat over the image slightly to fix any places that the tissue didn't completely melt. 

Football Birthday!

I'm finally getting around to posting about my son's first birthday party! This year his birthday fell on the day before the Super Bowl, so it was only fitting to do a football party. I made everything using My Digital Studio. I had a lot of party ideas saved on Pinterest, so it was fun to be able to finally put them to use!

Here are his invitations, which were made to look like football tickets!

This was the dessert table. My friend Carrie made the football shaped cupcakes! On the right is his baby flip book, made with MDS. It is 50 pages long and covers his entire first year. It was a big hit! Hanging behind everything were his monthly pictures, hunt with mini clothes pins. Also on the table is his hospital shadow box and birth print that I made. The cookies were green candy covered oreos piped with white icing to look like field markers. 

Here is a close up of the cookies and the baby book. 

Water bottle labels made with MDS. (as you can tell by the Christmas decorations, I had been working on party stuff for a while! My dining room table looked like a football party exploded!)

These were the favors. I ran the bags through my printer with a football play I found on Google. It's hard to read, but the sticker says "We would like to call a time out to say thank you". The lighting wasn't great in my dining room, but I promise you could read it. Everyone also got a pencil that had footballs on it and said "Slevin's First Birthday" that I ordered from Oriental Trading. 

Inside the bags were Hershey's nuggets that I had wrapped in labels that I made. Such an easy way to personalize favors :)

This was the entry to the party room. I made the chalk sign by painting a piece of thick cardboard with chalkboard paint.

This was the backdrop behind the foot table! It took FOREVER to hang all of those balloons and streamers, but it was so worth it! You can also see off to the right a chain that I had made from brown strips of paper and painted white "laces" on. There were two of those, but I forgot to get a close up of them.

Here is what the room looked like! 

This was Slevin's seat! I made his party hat from felt and little pom poms. I also made his sign using MDS. It says "Reserved for the Quarterback". You can see it better in the next picture.

And, as you can see, he wasn't too thrilled about people singing to him! haha

Deviled "football" eggs! Thanks to my sister for cutting all the chives for these!

Here is me and the birthday boy! :) I can't believe he is 1!!

These are his thank you cards, also made with MDS. I wrote a personal message to each person on the back. 

Surprise 30th Birthday

Friday my friend, Carrie, and I surprised our best friend Melissa with a party for her 30th birthday. It was held at a local restaurant, The Wooden Angel. I had never been there before, but the room they has us in was amazing! Carrie and I did candles and various shades of pink roses down the center of the table. It looked so great! We did rose petals and pearls on the cake table (which I don't have a picture of).

We put pearl strands in the flowers as well.

I was in charge of making the favors. I used My Digital Studio to create the little tags for the M&Ms (which were Valentines ones with the red sorted out--who knew there were so many red ones?!). These came together in no time with the scalloped punch. I tied the tulle off with some ribbon and pearls and that was it! I thought they turned out super cute!

Also, on a different note: this is the first post I'm doing from my phone using the Blogger app! Half of the problem with my lack of posting is the fact that all of my pictures are on my phone and I'm rarely on my computer. I don't know what made me check the App Store to see if there was a Blogger app, but I'm glad I did! Hopefully now you will be seeing more frequent posts as I will be able to blog while nursing Slevin at night! I have lots of orders coming in and have been busy working on all of the little details for Slev's birthday party :)

Better Late than Never!

Well, it's January 8 and I'm just now getting around to posting our Christmas card! I've been super busy with wedding and shower invitations (which I will post once those events happen--not until Spring/Summer) as well as planning for Slevin's first birthday party. I just got his invitations printed today and OMG I can't wait to send them out! I created them using Stampin' Up's My Digital Studio. It's by far the best purchase I've ever made. I'm also using it to make his baby book. So more to come on that.

Isn't he a cutie??

I also wanted to share the little gifts I made for my co-workers. Everyone is always looking for gum, so I thought these little gum snowmen that I saw on Pinterest were perfect! I drew the faces, scarves and buttons with sharpies and then used My Digital Studio to create a quick tag. One great thing about MDS is how it coordinates with other SU products. 

Thanksgiving Decor

Sorry for being MIA! Just a simple post today to show two of my new decor items for Thanksgiving. I have several card orders going right now, however, most of them are for showers/weddings for Spring/Summer next year, so while they are keeping me busy, I won't be able to post the final product for a very long time (I never like to post pictures of invitations until after the event)! I did invitations for a co-worker's grandson's birthday that is next weekend, so look out for those next weekend! :)

Anyways, here are my two projects:

First up is my "Thankful Tree". I took a clear vase, threw in some moss and a few twigs from my yard, then used my Stampin' Up Leaves #2 die to cut out leaves from various fall colored paper in my scrap bag. I plan to write things I'm thankful for on each leaf throughout the month. 

Next is this little pumpkin frame made from the oval punch and various scrap pieces. I sponged each piece with Close to Cocoa ink and hand cut the stems from Chocolate Chip cardstock. I tied some twine in a knot and adhered it to the solid colored pumpkins using a glue dot. The background is Kraft cardstock. I do wish I had spaced out the pumpkins a little more, but overall, I think it turned out cute :)

Click here to see a Thanksgiving project from a few years ago!

Halloween Decor

If you haven't already noticed, Halloween is definitely my favorite holiday. I'm not sure why...but I just love everything about it. I added to my decor this year with some homemade decorations that were super easy, super cute and super cheap!

First up are these yarn candy corns that I have in my bathroom. It took less than 10 minutes to make all three of them. You simply take a styrofoam cone and wrap it with yarn. I used pins to hold the yarn down when I switched colors. You just keep wrapping and wrapping, there's no right or wrong way! The top was the hardest part because the yarn kept sliding off the top. I would definitely recommend getting white styrofoam and not green just because a little bit of the top does show, but you can't tell at all unless you look really close up; however, I'm sure the green would make it much more obvious.

Isn't this adorable?? It's made from a small terra-cotta pot, a terra-cotta saucer, glass bowl from the Dollar Tree and a wood ball! I painted the pieces black, hot glued everything together and embellished it with some ribbon and an SU Spooky Treats rub on.

Do you notice the little glass block in the background?? Melissa's mom made that for me last year and gave it to me at my baby shower. It was one of the first things I put out this year and I'm going to be really sad to have to put it away!

Here is what my little chest looks like in my entryway. The lighting on this picture stinks, because it's so much cuter in real life. The banner is a printable that I found on Pinterest. I just printed, cut and stapled to a ribbon. The tree and Frankenstein light are a hand-me-down decorations from my mom, I got the frame at my baby shower and it has a picture of my son wearing a Halloween shirt, the middle frame is another Pinterest printable (a witch), and the bottles are two old Starbucks frap bottles that were spray painted black. The smaller one is embellished with a Spooky Treat rub on.  I finished it all off with some black cheesecloth.

The rest of my house is decorated with fall-like pieces, so they will be able to stay up through Thanksgiving. I need to come up with some new ideas to replace these ones now that Halloween is pretty much over. 

Enjoy your Halloween and Trick or Treat. Ours got moved to Saturday due to the weather forecast. My husband and I both have tomorrow off, so I'm excited to have a weekday off with my favorite two guys!

Halloween Party at the Rudy's

This past weekend I had two of my best friends, Melissa and Carrie, along with their husbands and kids over for lunch (Melissa has Mila who is 3 1/2 months and Carrie has Reese who is 9 weeks). It gave me an excuse to plan some sort of Halloween themed shindig, since it is my favorite! I kept it pretty simple and made Zuppa Toscana in the crock pot, garlic breadsticks, Italian sandwiches from Giant Eagle and then some miscellaneous treats and appetizers. Melissa brought a side dish and Carrie brough cupcakes for dessert. My favorite thing was my "pumpkin" cheeseball! Thank you Pinterest for the idea! hehe

I also had little gifts for the girls and their moms, which I couldn't just wrap up any old way! I got little Halloween books for the kids and candles from my neighbor who pours her own candles for Mis and Carrie. I thought they turned out super cute. Reese's name could have been spaced out a little better, but that's okay.

I used the Big Deal Alphabet set to stamp the names on tissue paper after wrapping the books and oval and circle punches for the pumpkins. The stems were cut and attached to the back and the little green squiggle is a pipe cleaner. I tied it off with some raffia. The candles were wrapped in small sandwich bags with half of a doily folded over the top. The stamp set was Holiday Best, which I colored with markesrs and I used the scalloped oval to punch it. I finished it off with a small piece of raffia and the tiny binder clips! Needless to say, they loved them! :)

Here is a picture of the spread. It's sort of blurry, but you get the idea. I wish I had taken more pictures.

And, about 30 minutes before they arrived, I couldn't figure out where to put the silverware. So I pulled out some old baby jars (I never throw them away, because you never know when one will come in handy!). I wrapped scrap ribbon around the top and punched out two more pumpkins. The baby food jars themselves looked cute, but I love adding extra details.

Halloween Baby Shower!

Okay, I'm a day late...I'm so sorry! I knew I never should have made a promise to post three days in a row! haha

Anyways, last year on October 23, I had my baby shower, which was all Halloween themed. Halloween is my favorite holiday, so it was a no brainer as to what my theme was going to be. With the  help of my amazing friend Melissa, everything turned out great! It was held at a local bed and breakfast that I had driven past every day for 4 years on my way to work and always hoped to have an event there. I absolutely loved planning it and was pretty bummed not having something Halloween themed to plan this year (especially since I've discovered Pinterest and there are so many cute things on there!).

First up are the invitations: The bear is from SU's Teddy and Train stamp set, while everything else is from a clear stamp set I bought at Michael's or Joann's, so is the paper. The bear is popped up with dimentionals and I used the criss cross card technique. These were extremely time consuming, but I absolutely LOVED then end result and they were a huge hit!

 I loved the candy corn stamped on the envelope.

All 50 of them!

This was what the room looked like. Melissa and I made the centerpieces out of supplies we picked up from Pat Catan's. They were also prizes for the games.

Close up of the centerpieces. 

These are the favors I made. They were baby food jars filled with various Halloween candies. I used my Big Shot to cut Halloween fabric using the scalloped circle die. I glued that to the jar lid, tied it off with some raffia and used the scalloped circle, 1 1/2 and 1 3/8 punch for the tag. Each one also had a button attached to the bow. These buttons came from a jar of antique buttons I purchased a long time ago at Joe and I's favorite antique store. All of the buttons were either orange, gray, black or white...except one blue one. Whoever had the blue button also won a prize!

Here are some pictures of the dessert table. I made all of the cookies, Melissa made the popcorn mix and my friend Carrie made the pumpkin cupcakes!

Witch hat cookies, chocolate dipped pretzels, oreo bombs, pumpkin cupcakes!

 

Are these not the cutest things ever???

 Halloween popcorn mix with candy corn and M&M's.

 Pumpkin cupcakes made by my great friend, Carrie.

You can also see the picks in the fruit. I used the Batty for You stamp set as well as the same patterned paper from the invitations to create those.

There was one aspect of the shower Melissa didn't allow me to know about/make on my own...the drinks. Her and her mom took the time to cut out pumpkin faces out of duct tape and attach them to orange cups. They were so cute and I thought it was such a great idea!

Speaking of Melissa, here is a picture of her and I. (I'm obviously the one on the left! hehe) Now, one year later, she has a little one of her own who is almost 4 months old! She's actually pregnant in this picture, but didn't know it yet. How neat is that?!