V's Carnival, Mustache, & Strong Man Birthday Party

So it was 6 months ago (May), but better late than never!  If you know my V, you'll know that she is quite the tomboy.  I struggle with finding any theme that she finds acceptable.  At some point, she pretty much always says, "Whatever, I don't care" AS LONG as it's not too girlie!

This year, we did a carnival theme-- aqua, black, red, and white, stripes and mustaches!  Last year, she was all about the 'staches.  So this worked.

We did a table runner of red and white striped wrapping paper (Party City) and Spritz brand (Target) mustache plates and red plates and striped aqua/white napkins.  I served corn dogs in cute aqua plastic baskets with red/white checked wax paper sheets.  For snacks, we had grapes, popcorn, soft pretzels with chive cream cheese for dipping, Swedish fish, cotton candy...

And I made these rootbeer float cupcakes!!!  They turned out soooo good if I do say so myself.  Got the idea from Pinterest of course.  

It's really simple, and I'm ALL about simple.  Mix a yellow cake mix as directed except substitute 1 cup of water with root beer & add one dram of root beer flavoring.  I used to be able to only find this at Joann's or specialty candy or cake making shops, but Michael's has recently started carrying the candy flavoring.

Make your favorite buttercream icing recipe (this is my absolute favorite recipe from The Repressed Pastry Chef) & add 1 dram root beer flavoring. Top with root beer hard candy or whipped cream & cherry & paper stripey straw cut in half.  If you are serving them right away, I prefer the whipped cream and cherry, but I knew these would be sitting out for a bit.

The stand came from Amazon.com (gotta love Prime).  I made these labels on Photoshop.  I got the strong man clip art online.  The cotton candy really held up!  I was a little worried, but I ordered it on Etsy from Candilicious Randolph.  Perfect!  I clipped them with colored clothespins onto a big strand of ribbon.  Eh, not the classiest presentation, but still turned out cute.

I designed the water bottle labels to match the cotton candy and popcorn labels:


 

 Activities were pretty lame, but I knew that they were probably going to be most interested in just playing.  We did coloring pages and make your own frame kits from Oriental Trading.  Ugh, never again.  Those things are the worst.  They probably just ended up in the trash anyways. 

I did the runner again down the center of the table.  In the center, I put this jar with tiny plastic top hats and clown noses.  The chalkboard label on the jar said "Wear Me".

They also did a ring toss for fun and ran around like crazy people outside.  For favors, I bought mustache favor bags on sale from World Market.  I bought mini whoopie cushions, fake mustaches, and candy from Party City.  I bought the circus themed rubber stampers from Oriental Trading, and these super cute pinback buttons from Distinct Designs Unlimited's Etsy Shop.

 


I love this pennant!!!!  It was adorable.  From Little Free Radical's Etsy shop.

I think it was safe to say that a fun time was had by all!

Night Owl 8th Birthday Party!

All I'm going to say is I'm the worst.  Let's move on.  I'm planning Q's French soiree birthday party next weekend!  But here is her 8th birthday Night Owl themed slumber party from last year.  I can't believe it's been like 2 years since I posted.  I'm SMH at myself.

She only had like 3 girls so I could go a little nuts with the favors and ideas.  Her colors were aqua, lime green, yellow, and navy inspired by a bunch of cute owl stuff I found last year at Michaels (dollar section!) in that color palette.  Here are the invites:

 

I bought the owl clipart from Miss Kate Cuttables.  I found a similar invitation on Pinterest (yes, I'm an idea poacher).

With the clipart, I made the favor tags and water bottle labels.  Feel free to use this label template for yourself!  Just click HERE to download a sheet of 5, and I like to print the labels on cardstock.  I cut them out and use clear packing tape to cover the ENTIRE label and wrap around the back.  It makes a waterproof-ish label.  Not like you could submerge in an ice bucket, but if water drips down the side, it doesn't smear the ink.  Please remember that these are for personal use only!

The cake was from a local bakery called Love & Buttercream.  Their cakes are good, but not as good as their FRENCH MACARONS.  Ack.  To die for.  Anyway, they matched the cake colors to the invites.

And I made owl cupcakes for Q to bring to school. Sadly, Q's school says no more treats from now on due to nut allergies.  :(  So no school bday treats this year.  These owl cupcakes are made with split open Oreos and Reese's Pieces!  Obvi, you could also use orange and brown M&Ms, but I didn't have to pick around colors as much with the Reese's Pieces.

  

 
Now to the favors.  Ok, I kinda went a little nutso.  Here's what I bought:

 

Row 1, Left to Right:
1.  Travel toothbrush & toothpaste (Dollar Tree)
2.  Fuzzy socks (Dollar Tree) & Hair Ties (Michaels-- 3/$1.00)
3.  Party blowers!  I bought the blowers at Dollar Tree & made the tags
Row 2:
4.  Back massager (Michaels dollar section) and stickers (local paper store)
5.  Cute small frame (Michaels dollar section)
6.  Owl erasers
Row 3
7.  Owl soap
8.  Notepad (Michaels) & pen
9.  Sleep mask (Michaels dollar section-- my fave item!)

Also, they each got a nightshirt that I designed and had printed at Overnight Prints:

AND (OMG, I know I went crazy) I found the most adorable Etsy shop, Gail Rene's Creations.  I picked out coordinating fabrics, sent them to her, and got these PERFECT owls back.  Gail is wonderful!  I had such a great experience.

We played owl bingo, they decorated pillow cases, and the girls watched "Because of Winn Dixie".  A fun time was had by all!  I think I like party planning more than my kids like their actual parties.  :P  No, it was her first slumber party, and I think she really enjoyed it.

Crafty Valentimes

I go in spurts with my Valentine's craftiness.  Some years I've bought boxed Valentines, sometimes not.  I was pretty early this year in my planning.  Q (she's in second grade) picked these out from Pinterest:

They actually turned out pretty good!  Here are ours:

Here's what we did:  1.  Take string (I used white embroidery floss & pink/red baker's twine), cut 2 pieces into 6" length and tie in knot about 1/3 of the way down.  2.  Tape to box at longer end.  3.  Cut scrapbook paper (I used one pack of Target's Dollar Bin paper) down to box size (ours ended up being 3.5" x 8").  4.  Wrap paper around candy using tape to adhere on back.  5.  Print out labels.  6.  Cut & stick labels on front (side without tape seam).  7.  Attach Hershey kisses on to string using small heart stickers (tape would work too).  8.  On back or sides, write To and From info.

Here's another site that includes a printable and uses Reese's miniatures.  She includes a color printable which would be way easier, but I didn't want to use all that ink, and I liked the patterned paper.  I didn't want to do the Reese's because of nut allergies in my daughter's class.

Next will be V's daycare Valentines!  She wants to do heart-shaped crayons.  I've been furiously scouring the crayon bins for broken crayons to melt down, and I don't know as if I have enough.  We may have to go with Plan B.

I'd Say I'm Due for a Bit of Ranting...

One great thing about my blog and Girl Land is that I don't really rely on either for making a living. It's always simply been a hobby that if I happened to make money from, it's simply a bonus. That's a segue into justification for my complaint of the day...

Have any of you ever watched Cash and Cari on HGTV? For various reasons, I've never been a fan. But definitely not now. Yesterday, at my place of employment, one of her producers thought it would be a great idea to bring their TV cameras in to have a "gotcha" moment with my fellow co-worker and friend, a great guy who does his job and does it WELL. They placed their estate sale signs illegally and the signs were taken. They came in to confront my friend because they apparently thought it would make for some great TV. You know what, Cash and Cari?? Maybe follow the rules like everyone else and read the ordinances and don't try to make people look stupid who are trying to make an honest living and don't have the luxury of being on TV. ARGH.

On a nicer note, I stumbled upon the cutest site the other day when I was looking for a couple fiberglass elementary school chairs for the new house called Bianca and Family!

The site is in French, but I'm thinking I may be able to muster up enough of my 6 years of French to maneuver around at least a little because I HAVE to have this metal cotton candy jar:

And these woodland animal paperboard suitcases:

And maybe even this wallpaper (I told you-- I'm on the precipice of caving in to wallpaper for the new house)!!!!


Le sigh. Thanks for bearing with me. :) The house is coming along. Framing starts next week. Yikes.

P.S. Although I'm not a C&C fan, I LOVE LOVE LOVE HGTV. Don't get me wrong. Sarah, Candice, Antonio, etc...I could watch them all day long.

Punxatawney Phil

V has strep throat and Q was home due to schools being closed, so we made a little craft from All Kids Network via Crafty Crow:


We used leftover light blue party cups for the sky, decorative green packing tape for the grass ($1.00 section from Michaels), and birds/bugs/flowers stickers from the dollar store. We didn't have popsicle sticks so used drinking straws instead. We were so glad he didn't see his shadow!

Got my craft room cleaned up a bit last week, and I took some photos. Hasn't been this clean since I first decorated!!! As you can see, my wall of creepy cute (or as my husband calls it, the "wtf wall") is coming along swimmingly. This may or may not be a raccoon carrying a kitten:







I will miss this space in the new house. I will have a craft room, but not immediately. Such is life.

Hope you all survived Snowmageddon 2011!

Ready for Snowmageddon?

V has strep. I'm still in my PJs. Getting ready to be snowbound here in MI tomorrow. I have no energy. What the heck is wrong with me? Just realized I never posted a winner from the last contest. EMILY ANNE, since you were the only person in the U.S. to enter, YOU WIN! :) I don't have your email though and I can't get on your Blogger profile, so get me your mailing addy!

I have done a few tiny crafty things in the last few days. I've had these God awful looking ice cream parlor chairs for like 10 years. I covered them in this God awful looking sage toile circa 2001, and they are all dirty and faded, so I decided to recover them since I've been HGTV-obsessed lately what with getting our house ready to be put on the market and all.


Took me the longest to pry out the industrial staples I used when I recovered before. Bought some upholstery-weight crisp-looking gray and lemon modish dot at Joann's for cheap. I think I bought 2.5 yards, but I could have gotten away with 1.75 easily.


So here's what it looked like after I pulled the fabric off-- basically plywood with a foam cushion:


I placed the whole thing on the fabric and freehand cut a circle about 2" larger than the base:


Stretched and stapled as I went:



And voila! New chairs!



Probably could have used a new coat of spraypaint, but I like the distressed cream, and I don't do spraypaint in the winter.

Here's what we're doing for Valentines this year. For V who is pretty much the only girl in her daycare classroom, we're using this idea from Design Mom:



The jungle animals came from Michaels and were under $4 after my 40% off coupon (for 12). I had the cello bags, and I printed Design Mom's .pdf at 130% to have it fit the cello bags. My mother and I went back and forth with some good ones for the crocodile and camel (think 'You're a crock of sh&t Valentine!" and something about humping for the camel). Niiiiiice, right?

Here's Q's which came from Alissa of 24*7*365:


Cute, right? Beats the cruddy selection of boxed valentines anyway.

Hope you all get snowed in somewhere good as opposed to bad! xo