Party Guest: Bollywood Bling Party

I am so excited to share this amazing party with you. One of my blog readers, Birdie of Bird Crafts, created this amazing party. She and her husband were celebrating their 6th wedding anniversary and she went all out!

An amazing amount of thought, time and effort went into this event. Birdie lives in the south of France (yes I said France) ans she had  planned to hold outdoors but as Mother Nature has a tendency to do she decided to do her own thing – instead of sunshine she brought a windy and gray day instead,

Birdie was flexible though and set up indoors instead.

Graduation Lei

Graduation season is here.

Just last week we were in Utah to attend our son Clark’s college graduation. We were outside taking some photos when I spotted something.

My kids are now use to me going up to perfect strangers asking to take pictures of their food, their outfit, etc. so it was no surprise when I stopped this new college graduate and asked to take a picture of his lei.

He was actually wearing three leis!  A traditional flower lei but then he also had a candy lei and a money lei.

The candy lei was made out of plastic wrap and candy bars and tied in between each candy bar with ribbon – so cute.

But the lei I liked the most was the money lei – what graduate wouldn’t love a money lei!!

Dollar bills were gathered up and tied in the middle and then attached to a piece of ribbon.

There were also little bags of Hershey Hugs and Kisses tied in between the dollar bills.  So fun!!

Everything was attached to some curling ribbon.  I am going to have to remember this one next year when Tessa graduates from high school!!

Cookie Bouquet – Part Two, the Assembly

Cookie Bouquet – Part One, the Cookies is here.

The next day, after the cookies had dried over night I was ready to put the bouquet together.

For supplies you will need:

A container. I used a piece of green florist foam inside of a white gift bag that I had added black dots to to resemble dice.  I cut off the handle of the bag and turned the upper edge into the inside of the bag to reinforce the bag a bit.  You could also use a vase, a box or just use your imagination!

Filler: You will need some kind of filler, shredded paper etc. to place in and around the cookies once they are placed.

Cookies: Go here for directions.

Misc. Decor: In addition to the cookies I used other items that related to the show – Guys & Dolls.  All the crapshooters in the show wore red carnations in their labels so that was the perfect flower to use to fill in and around the cookies.

I also found some great chocolate bars wrapped like dollar bills at the dollar store!  I hot glued them to bamboo skewers.

I also bought a deck of cards at the dollar store along with some dice.  I used different card hands “full house” etc. and glued the cards together in a fan shape and attached them to a bamboo skewer too.  I also hot glued on a few dice for a finishing touch!

I didn’t end up using the red and black ribbon but it would look cute tied around some of the sticks.

After putting your foam into the container start inserting sticks into the foam.  Be sure and vary the height of your sticks to give it some variety and interest.  I put the larger items in first (candy bars,etc.) and then filled in with the smaller items such as the cookies.

I made a little printed sign for the front cutting the shapes out on my fun Cricut machine and attaching it to a lollipop stick.

Fill in around everything with your filler and you are finished!

Who wouldn’t love their own personalized cookie bouquet!?

Guys & Dolls Cast Gift Ideas

This was the 11th  Spring musical our family has been involved with at the high school!  I’m not sure what I am going to do with myself when Tessa graduates from high school next year!

I have put together a lot of flower bouquets during that time.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, flowers can get a little old after a while so it’s fun to come up with something different.

Candy bouquets make a great gift.

And even a Candy Bar Cake is a great idea.

I am always on the lookout for a new, fun idea.

One night, after one of the performances, I spotted this!

How cute is that?  A flower bouquet made out of playing cards, dice and dollar bills.  The perfect flower bouquet for Big Julie (he’s a really big gambler in the show – I mean really big!!!)  I had to stop him and ask if I could take a picture. Found out that my creative friend Laurie made it for him!  Way to go Laurie.

I decided I wanted to do a little something for all the members of the cast.  Forgetting that it was a rather large cast (50 kids) I decided to make dice shaped cookies for everyone.

It turned into a little bigger project than I anticipated but they did turn out so cute!!
My kitchen table looked like this for several days!

I also made cookies shaped like hearts, diamonds, spades, clovers and some lips for the Hot Box Dolls.  I wrapped two cookies in a cellophane bag and then attached a little card.  I used playing cards for the backing.

We had given Tessa flowers the previous weekend after the show so for closing night I wanted to do something a little different.

I decided to try my hand at a cookie bouquet for the first time.  I learned quite a few things through the process and decided I needed to take an icing lesson from my friend Dawn next time she makes her amazing shortbread cookies but I think it turned out pretty good for my first try.  I made one for Tessa and one for the shows director.

I’ll do a separate post to give you a little more detail on how I put it together etc.  Stay tuned!

I helped the kids put gifts together for all the adults involved in the play – music director, choreographer, orchestra conductor, set designer etc. too.  They received their gifts in these cute white gift bags that I turned into dice!

Hope this post got your creative juices flowing!  Stay tuned for more info on the cookie bouquet!!

Tween Birthday Party

Today’s featured party is one I consulted on.  It was the 12th birthday party for my sweet next door neighbor Molly.  When her mom, Katie, contacted me about helping with the party she told me the party theme was “blue and peace signs.”  Not your everyday birthday party theme but we can work with that! 

Katie wanted to do cupcakes and a candy bar.  White cupcakes with all kinds of blue toppings looked very festive and made a great centerpiece for the table!
 

Oreos dipped in white chocolate with blue sprinkles were also very popular!  Katie used the peppermint Joe Joes from Trader Joes – so yummy!
 

The candy bar consisted of lots of fun candy.

Since Katie conveniently lives next door to me so we used my collection of white and clear glass containers to give a cohesive look to the table.  We grouped the candy into color themes – there was the blue and white/silver candy…

 

the blue and yellow candy….

 

and then the bright, rainbow colored candy….

 

We almost forgot the red licorice!
 

There were cute little Chinese take out boxes for the girls to fill with their candy and fun little smiley faces and peace signs to decorate the table.

 

The table looked darling!
Anchored in the center of the table were some balloons to help carry out the Blue/Peace theme.

 

What would a party be without balloons!
 

Other fun decor included this clothesline full of photos of Molly through her long 12 years!

 

When the girls returned to the house after a few games of bowling they munched on pizza and treats from the candy/cupcake bar.

 

The girls answered some questions to see who knew the birthday girl the best….

 

and played some other fun “tween” girl games like two truths and a lie!
 

Of course music and a little bit of dancing made for a fun party!

The girls each went home with one of these darling party favors.  I’d been looking for an excuse to use these darling Jones Soda labels I had seen over at Karyn’s shop – Pixel Perfect Boutique.  

 

Katie emailed Karyn some photos of Molly and some words that decribed her and Karyn personalized the labels.  Aren’t they cute!!!  What a fun party favor!

  

Thanks to Katie and Molly for letting me help with the party and Peace Out Molly – we love you!!

A special thanks to Karyn of Pixel Perfect Boutique for helping us create the perfect party favor!

Little Princess Tea Party} Party Favors

This is part three in a series of three.

One of my favorite things to do for party favors is to allow the party guests to create them for themselves!  This helps to keep the party guests busy!

The Marketing student in charge of the party had purchased some cute foam crowns from Oriental Trading.  They came complete with stickers and  other decorating material and they kept the little guests busy while everyone arrived.

 

 

All the little girls and some of the big girls looked darling in their princess crowns.

Since a princess isn’t a princess with out a scepter I created edible scepters for all of the little princesses!

 

I just placed a large marshmallow on the end of a sucker stick and then dipped half the marshmallow into melted chocolate.  I just added some pink food coloring into white chocolate melts but you can also purchase pink ones.  I added some white sprinkles and a pink M & M on the top (thank goodness for Breast Cancer Awareness M & M’s)

I placed the sceptors into a small plastic bag, tied it with ribbon and added a cute little card.

My favorite line in the show Little Princess is at the end – “Every girl is a princess”.  Using my digital scrapbooking program I made these cute little pink cards.

 

They made a nice little memento too. 

As a fundraiser they had also created darling little autograph books for each of the party guests.  The books had photos of the characters in the show and they could collect autographs during the Meet & Greet after the performance.

A highlight of the tea party was when some of the performers made a special guest appearance!  The evil Miss Minchin put them through a lesson in posture for all to enjoy!
 

A party fit for a princess!