My House of Giggles: February 2014

This is a completely random post.

whatever.

As I was climbing up onto a chair to pin up balloons and tissue poms for this party, I thought about how many times I'd done that over the past few years and decided to take a walk down memory lane :)

Ok..so I might be a little out of control with the mantel thing.

Just sayin'

Our plain jane little painted fireplace mantel has been dressed up and undressed more times than I can even remember. The thing is, I really love doing it :). Such a nerd.

And this is how it looks these days....Betsy Frederick still has her place of pride on the mantel. I, surprisingly, haven't got sick of her yet. She makes me happy, with her big long eyelashes and bright cheery colours.

Have a great weekend!

It's party time in our house again :)

Our tiniest man turned one today!!

I simply cannot believe my baby Rory is already a year old. And yes...I happen to be one of those over-sentimental types who mourns every past stage before being able to move onto the next. Still not quite ready to admit my baby is a one year old. It'll come. Just give me a day or two ;)

I had so much fun planning/collecting/crafting stuff for this woodland/gnome party. I figured it was one of my last shots to have a "cute" party theme ;) You know....not so BOY boy boy. You know I love my boys more than words could ever express, but sometimes this girly momma just craves a little "cute" :)

That's fair, right?

So, I decided a woodland/enchanted forest/gnomes/toadstools party was in order. There's just something about a little garden gnome that makes me smile. Throw in a toadstool or two, and I'm positively giddy ;) hah.

The boys and I took some pics of our little birthday "gnome" sitting on a tree stump in the backyard and I doctored the image up with PicMonkey for the invitation. I added a little felt gnome for fun.

I had a lot of fun doing up the party table! Lots of greenery and woodsy things :)

Here's the birthday boy himself! (Wearing Didda's cap!)

I made these little gnomes and toadstools out of Sculpey III polymer clay to use in the favors. It was a liiiittle bit fiddly since they were so tiny, but I enjoyed sitting in front of the fire and working on them.

I plopped them into a mason jar with a bunch of rocks/pinecones/branches and called it a party favor ;) Random, I know, but they did the trick.

The baby guests at the party received these little finger puppets (from IKEA) to take home instead of a jar full of choking hazards ;)

I kept the cake very simple this time around, and just made a 3 layer chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream. I added Cadbury Flake bars as logs on top, as well as crumbled them around the top and sides. After I had added some whipping cream to the chocolate cake, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to eat any of the cake (Rory is still nursing quite frequently and doesn't do well when I eat any dairy), so I made another dairy-free cake on the side :). Don't judge. I LOVE birthday cake!! Especially the leftovers the next day!