Fairy Party

It's challenging to decorate with such a flowery theme in December because there's just not much available in the stores (unless you are looking for red and green.) I found this light up gerbera daisy garland at Amazon.com. I found the figurine in the centerpiece at the dollar store, the tea pot is one I have in my collection and the tea cups I purchased about 4 years ago at Birthdayexpress.com, but I haven't seen them lately.

The canopy is from our bed, so I just thumb-tacked it up to the ceiling and it was the perfect size. The table is a small table we use up in the playroom covered with a purple tablecloth and a couple yards of sparkly star organza fabric.

Sprinkling pixie dust on her friends as they arrived.

Our first activity was to make fairy wreaths. I wrapped the flowers around pipe cleaners using floral tape. 

Fairy nests (phylo dough "nests" filled with M&Ms)

Tinkerbell's cake. My idea was to use sparklers for candles, but the ones that I had on hand were not working at all, luckily I had these other long candles on hand.

The girls had fun decorating their own cupcakes.

I found plastic stemmed desert bowls at Party City and just hot-glued some artificial rose petals to the edge to make it look more like a flower.

Here is the way I set up the photo corner. I had fun taking pictures of all the girls. After the party I used the Photoshop brushed (Obsideon Dawn) to give them a sprinkling of pixie dust.

Drinking all the last bits of tea.

Fairies drinking tea.

All kinds of fairy-sized goodies.

Top tier is chocolate covered strawberries, then flower shaped lemon tea sandwiches. On the bottom, I made triangle shaped chicken tea sandwiches.

I found these glow stick fairy wands at the dollar store. They were fun to use while watching the new Tinkerbell movie.

Fairy Cake

Tomorrow is my daughter's 8th birthday party and she decided on a fairy theme this year.

I searched all over for ideas, but the ones that caught my eye were covered in flowers...so I asked my sister-in-law (our family cake expert) for some help. She is amazing with flowers, isn't she? She made all these up, so all I had to do was make the cake, frost it and arrange everything. It was great fun!

I looked at some of the Tinkerbell cake toppers in the cake decorating section, but they seemed kind of cheesy to me and not very well made for sure. I found this while out Christmas shopping. It's a Hallmark ornament, so Natalie will be able to keep it and use it at Christmas time!

Fairy Invitations

I got a late start with Natalie's birthday invitations, but I think they turned out pretty darn cute! This year I am really gonna try to keep things simple, we are only going to have a few girls over instead of the usual 10-12, which should cut down costs and ensure I keep my sanity through the remainder of the December birthdays and into the Christmas holidays.

 I used my Fiskars scalloped border punch along the bottom edge. To decorate the envelopes. I stamped the girls' names with celery colored ink, then added glitter over the top. 

This fairy invitation has a fairy dust velum overlay. What you can't see from this photo is the white sheet is mounted onto clear acetate, so it looks like it's floating. The bottom layer is a background paper with silhouettes of TinkerBell.

Here's another look. Special photoshop brushes courtesy of Obsidian Dawn.

A Whole lotta love on Valentine's day

Breakfast

Heart shaped pancake w/ whipped cream and a cherry on top!

LunchHeart shaped PB&J w/ heart shaped pretzles and heart shaped melon.

Dinner

Heart shaped pizza!

This is how Natalie's homemade valentines turned out. We made 22 of them!

She really liked making all the faces too.

I got my Scrapbooking Mojo back!

After months of birthdays and holidays...and just being a busy SAHM, I finally pulled out my scrapbooking pages again! The urge to scrapbook had been building up, but I've always put it off because it tends to make a royal mess of my dinning room table (yes, there is a table in my scrapbook room, but that's a subject for another day).

Saturday, while looking for Valentine paper at my local scrapbook store, I came across some glittery paper and embellishments from K & Company that is perfect for the fairy pictures I'd been dying to start on. There really isn't that much in the way of pre-made embellishments with fairies (unless you want Tinkerbell...then there's a ton to choose from). So I bought the paper, layed it out on the table and presto change-0...looky what I made:

There is another flower stem in the photo (by her head) that I should photoshop out, but other than that, I think this turned out cute. The banner under the picture says "the fairest flower."

Here is a close up of the embellishemnts I put together. The stars are from Natalie's old ballet tu-tu and I added the glittery flower stickers by K & Company.

Here is another page I got done...I even managed to write a caption too!!!

This tag is from My Mind's Eye (bonjour collection). I added the glitter to the letters and dressed it up with more flowers. I have 3 more pages in the wings, but I need to go get more background paper.

How to get more mileage from your 12x12 cardstock

Many of you already do this, but it's worth mentioning as scrapbooking paper can sometimes be spendy. I don't do this when using regular cardstock (unless it's a large photo), but if I'm using expensive paper, I like to get the most out of my paper. For the above layouts I used lots of glittery paper which sells for about $1 a sheet (12x12). I tend to mount all my photos on coordinating cardstock, so rather than have all the back go to waste, I cut 1/2" to 1" borders out from the edge of the cardstock and use the inside piece for another photo. Here's what I mean:

Here is the glittery green cardstock cut to fit my 5x7 photo.

If I cut waway 1/2 inch, I can then use the middle to mount a 4x6 photo.

You can't even tell the back is cut out!

Here is a look at how many photos you can mount with one piece of 12x12. I have one 8x10, two 5x7 and two 4x6 photos from just one piece. If I didn't cut out the middle, it would have taken two and a half sheets of cardstock.

Here is the back where you can see the cut outs.

Sweet Shoppe Party

Sugar and Spice and all things Nice...

Well, we just had another successful birthday party...this one had a candy theme:

I set up my kitchen counter to look like a candy boutique.

Here are the cupcakes...with a giant cupcake on top!

Mmmm lots of sweet things to eat.

For activities, the girls (looking very cute in their pjs) made bracelets with cupcake and ice cream charms, made their own custom lip gloss and decorated gingerbread men.

Here is Natalie and her gingerbread cookie.

Fresh out of the box...Natalie has a new doll to love.

Make a wish...

After watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the original version) it was time to go home...but not before filling up a sundae glass with candy. I found these pink breast cancer awareness edition m&ms and they were perfect!

It was a whirlwind of fun...now I think I'm going to crash!

Paper Confections

Birthday season is about to begin around here and I've been a busy girl.

Here is my daughter's 7th birthday party invitation...a lollipop. The swirl is made with glittery pink card stock cut out with a Sizzix die. On the back of the lollipop, it reads: "Sugar and Spice and all things nice...that's what little girls are made of."

A bouquet of yummy treats!

On the back of this tag are the party details.

Bon-bons anyone?

Disney Princesses on Ice

Last night I surprised my daughter and took her and her friend to see the Princesses on Ice.

Here is Cinderella as she arrived at the ball in her beautiful pumpkin coach.

Before leaving for the show, I made these to surprise the girls...shhh! I found some lip gloss and an Ariel towel (the kind that expand into a washcloth when you add water to them) at the dollar store. I packaged them up with a princess lollipop in some tulle along with this tiara card signed by her favorite princess...Ariel!

At intermission Natalie looked down and noticed this package on the floor beside her. She really thinks it's from Ariel...and totally bought my story that Tinkerbell magically delivered it.

Here are Ariel and Flounder!

Ya wanna make a 6 year-old cry? No? me neither, but if you keep them up past their bed time to go trick-or-treating then the next night take them to a late princess show and have the nerve not to purchase the overpriced merchandise at the souvenir stands, it's possible that they might cry...at least Natalie might...Just a warning for you!