40th Birthday

Pool Party

Cake Wreck Recovery

I look at a lot of pretty party blogs and think, "Man, these mamas have got their stuff together!"  They probably aren't scrambling to hide junk in their bedroom as guests are coming up the walkway. They probably aren't yelling at their kid with empty threats of,  "Stop CRYING or I will cancel your party!" They probably even get in a shower before putting on a perfectly tasteful strand of pearls. 

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they're more like me than I think, they're just not 'fessing up to the madness behind the tissue poms. I know all the party blogs and Pinterest boards can make even the best hostess feel a little deflated and insecure. Is it enough? Are mustaches in or out? Where can I get chevron paper straws for my mason jars?  Trust me, I get swept up in the trends, too.  It's fun! And I love throwing parties. But truth be told, it is ugh-lee up in here up to the very last second.  I am a sweaty, smelly stressball making mad dashes to get everything ready: setting up tables, finishing last minute touches, cleaning up after a tornado of chaos, etc. I'm going to expose the ugly truth about the behind the scenes craziness that goes into those perfect parties you see in the blogosphere with a little story to make you feel better if everything doesn't go just right at your next soiree.

Sooooo. Y'ever have a baking day like this?

This triple decker beauty was for a party I was hosting later that afternoon. Like in 2 hours guests would be arriving.  Crap!  This was going to be a gorgeous flower covered centerpiece on the buffet table for my kiddo's tiny Spring Fling party.  I don't know what went wrong because I bake these kinds of cakes all of the time.  I DID forget to grease the sides of the cake pans, which gave me some torn up sides. And then one of them cracked down the middle. And then it all just crumbled and fell apart when I tried to stack the layers. Yikes.  What's a hostess with guests on the way to do?

STEP 1: Head to the grocery store! My Vons had some simply decorated, double layer carrot cakes for $9.99 a pop. This juuust might work.  I picked up two of them and rushed home to Frankenstein them together.

STEP 2: Stack the cakes.  I happened to have a cardboard cake round and some plastic drinking straws to cut up and insert in the bottom cake as supports.

STEP 3: Scrape off the "carrot" globs.

STEP 4: Scrape off the coconut flakes, fill in the separation between the stacked cakes and break up the crusted over frosting.

Then get ready to go royal icing transfer CRAZY:

This was the original idea for the cake I wanted to make, only it turned out a bit larger than I initially planned.  I had premade all of these royal icing flowers, so I just started pressing them into the sticky frosting, layering the smaller ones on top to cover any gaps. This was going to work! Crisis averted.  Almost.

Top view

Back view. Ok.  Hold up. This is not cute.  Of course I didn't have enough flowers to cover the whole cake. (Did I mention the store cakes were a bit larger than I had originally planned for?)  Luckily this wasn't for a client and my party guests like a good laugh! And I could turn this side towards the wall to hide it. Thankfully it all worked out in the end.  Whew!

From disaster to delightful in 20 minutes!

Halloween Invites

Here are the sweet and simple Halloween invitations made for Baby Sugar's preschool friends. I picked up these baby pumpkins for $.69 a piece at Trader Joes and attached these home made invitation tags printed on regular card stock from Staples.  They are backed with spooky black and silver scrap book paper from Michaels, hole punched and tied together with a sweet black bow.  The invite is attached by inserting a simple straight pin through the satin ribbon and pressing securely down into the flesh of the mini pumpkin.  The perfect surprise to stash in a preschool cubby. Stay tuned for pics from the party. Enjoy!

Grey and Yellow Shower

Yellow and grey.  How much to I love this fresh, sophisticated palette?  I've been waiting for an opportunity to use it and my dear friend Jo-Ann's baby shower was the perfect choice.  My partner in party planning crime, Ryam, along with hostess extraordinaire, Loren and I pulled this intimate gathering together on a limited budget and a short timeframe.  Read on for more details about how we did it.  Enjoy!

Our dessert table - very pared down.  We let fabrics, texture and pattern along with a few stand out sweets make a statement.  The sweet lacy backdrops were drapery panels found for  a steal at Ikea and our charcoal and white houndstooth runner was a just some pretty cotton yardage from Jo-ann's.

The centerpiece of our table.

Pewter roses and lemon yellow dots.

"C" is for baby Cash

Cookies play double duty as cupcake toppers.

Lemon cream cheese baby cakes.

Vintage babydoll carriage.

Hand-dipped vanilla meringues.

Sunny lemon drops

Lacy caramel corn cones.

Since we were having a smaller gathering of only sixteen guests, Ryam had the great suggestion that we set a long banquet table instead of separate rounds.  We laid out some inexpensive white bedding sheets from Ikea as table cloths and layered it with sweet yellow and white polka dot yardage from Jo-ann's as an inexpensive, no-sew runner. More easy breezy sheers suspended from the pergola.

Hand painted flower pots and fresh flowers.

Dollar Store plates and glassware.

Little Red Riding Hood

Another year another birthday for my sweet baby doll. (This is sweet baby doll's cousin rocking the glasses and a mean snarl.)  We pulled off a fairy tale party featuring Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf and it was everything I'd hoped for for Abby's fourth birthday. I wanted to share the resources and cost saving tips that went into the details and personal touches that made her party not only beautiful but a ton of fun.  Enjoy!

Set the scene:  I love to welcome party goers with a little preview of what's in store inside.  This chalkboard greeting and wildflowers lining the walkway are a sweet way to welcome guests.

Party themed front door wreath.

This five minute rustic wreath was created using bits and pieces from my favorite resource; The Dollar Tree.   Cover a plain Dollar Tree wreath in burlap (left over from the kids' tables) and wrap with a strip of gingham fabric.  Arrange some loose moss, faux moss covered stones, red berry sprig and sweet little bird (all Dollar Tree), a pine cone from the park (um, free) in an asymmetrical design, fire up the hot glue gun and affix.  Tie a loose gingham bow at the bottom and you've got a sweet little front door welcome for $5.

The Dessert Table

I love to put together a dessert table and because this party was based on the classic fairytale I wanted to somehow incorporate the book in the table design.  So I created this wall backdrop by color copying pages from an inexpensive edition of Little Red Riding Hood that had lovely, old-fashioned illustrations on every page.  These were attached directly to the wall using removable sticky dots (no wall holes!) picked up in the scrapbooking section of my craft store.  Easy, inexpensive and a lot of look for a little cash.

The "Once Upon A Time" scrolling banner is made from hand cut letters (you could also use a Cricut) on three pieces of poster board from the Dollar Tree, which are two for a dollar.  Total cost: $2.  Again, a little elbow grease and even smaller investment.

 

Birthday Banner.

The birthday cake: Little Red Velvet.  What else?

Sweet woodland scene.

Platter of LRRH cookies.  More details here.

My thrift store score repainted to its current glory.

Abby and Elvis share a birthday so we make sure The King makes an appearance every year.  Check him out in all his incarnations.

Big Bad Elvis - Year 4

Big Top Elvis - Year 3

Buckaroo Elvis - Year 2

Original Recipe King - Year 1

Individual salad jars.  Just add dressing and shake.

What big eyes you have deviled eggs.

The backyard was where all the action was.  I've finally given up on the adorable (and ultimately expensive) take home favors that just get left behind on the table (grrrr... don't get me started). Instead, I made these no-sew riding hoods and wolf heads, which did double duty as  party decor and take home swag.  They really made a huge impact on the space by simply hanging them on clothesline from the pergola.

Little red riding hoods for the girls.

Wolf hoodie and nose mask for the boys.

The best part? They actually wore them!

The fateful meeting.

The kids' tables were covered in sweet red and white gingham and rustic burlap runners with mason jar centerpieces using flowers from Trader Joe's (my favorite floral supplier!).  Kids lunches were individually packed in picnic baskets (Dollar Tree) lined in contrasting fabric from Jo-Ann's.  Red, white and polka dot balloons and handmade pennant banners finished off the space and really gave it that sweet, old-fashioned feel.

Kids' table and lunch baskets.

Upturned baskets for floral risers.

PB & J, granola bar, apple, juice and sugar cookie.

My doll (right) and her doppelganger.

Now on to the fun.  This is where I get a little anxious.  Because the bulk of my energy and time goes into what the party looks like, I tend to pay less attention to the fun factor. Then I start to freak. Do I HAVE to have a bounce house?  If I don't, what will the kids do for fun?  If we have games, will they participate? Who's going to MC? What if we run out of things to do?  Oy.  The pressure.  I decided against the bouncer (the birthday girl's not a big fan plus they overrun the entire backyard) so here's what we came up with instead:

Abby's playhouse has an adorable tiny kitchen and rocking chair and it  gets little-to-no action all year long.  Fortunately, her party guests are less jaded.  We slapped a "Grandma's House" sign above the front door and let the kids run wild in and around it.

 Scattered fake food for scavenger hunt.

After lunch we held a scavenger hunt, scattering tons of plastic food (from the toy department at Ross - two 84-piece sets at $14.99 a pop) all over the backyard in plain sight.  They used their picnic baskets to "Pack a Picnic for Grandma" and collected as many fake french fries and ice cream cones as they could lay their tiny hands on.  No winners, no losers, just super simple and super fun! The kids loved it!

The spoils.

Onto the craft portion of our party. I saw these packages of Dollar Tree foam flowers when it came to me:  Make Grandma a Bouquet of Wildflowers. Each flower was hot glued to a wooden craft store dowel painted green, which then had a foam leaf slid onto each stem.  (Leaves were  cut from the unused green foam flowers, yielding 5 per flower.)  

These plain flowers were "planted' in the yard for the kids to pick and then take to the craft table to decorate with curled pipe cleaners, foam flower shapes, pom poms and glitter glue (all from The Dollar Tree).  I was nervous about this one because past craft tables have gone completely ignored, but the kids were totally into it.  Maybe the lack of a bounce house had something to do with their interest?  Either way - Hooray!  Success!

Little red cult members decorating their flowers.

Decoration station.

Now THAT is a wildflower!

One of my all time favorite elements at the party - the photo booth! Hang a boldly patterned or colorful curtain and set up a stool for your subjects to sit and strike pose.  Have a basket stocked with silly props and costumes and encourage the kids to ham it up. Cheap, easy and makes for sensational photo ops.

What big EYES you have!

Truly frightening.

How much do I love a good old fashioned sack race?  SO much!  

I originally wanted to play musical chairs, but the kids are so competitive right now (and such poor losers!) that I didn't want to risk the tears that might ensue, so I thought the sack race would be a good alternative.  And yes, I wussed out again with no winners or losers.  Just get yourself across the finish line.  And you know, the kids didn't even care.  

These great red and white striped sacks were purchased from our local party supply store for a great price - half a dozen for $5.99.

And because I'm a glutton for punishment I thought we'd take another swing (get it?  swing?) at a birthday pinata for a grand finale. I couldn't find a wolf pinata at our party supply so I had to make do with this pony one.  Slap a wolf mask on him and voila! Good enough!  

And like all pinatas, apparently, this one was made out of concrete and was  totally unbustable.  After all the kids had had AT LEAST three tries a piece, I let my husband have at it.  It took him about twenty whacks (resulting in only one shattered overhead lightbulb) before our wolf-pony gave up the goods.

Never. Gonna. Happen.

Her face says it all.  Happy Birthday Abby-doll!