May the 4th be with you! - Star Wars Day

Hello Everyone! This is my 300th post! WOO HOO! It has been a long ride! Thank you all for joining me in my journey!

Days like today make me giggle. Today is the unofficial day of Star Wars, Star Wars Day! It is May the 4th...

May the 4th be with you!

 Here are a couple of my Star Wars posts from my son's Birthday party a few years ago.

The Party: Lego Star Wars Party 

(click for more party decor, food and more)

The Invitations: May the Force be with You!

 (click for more party decor, food and more)

Have a happy 4th of May! Remember tomorrow is ... "Revenge of the Fifth"

More Birthday Party Invitations I have created:

Boy Birthday Invitations:
- Minecraft Birtyday Party Invitations
- Harry Potter Hogwarts Invites
- Lego Bionicle Mask of Light

- Lego Starwars Light Sabers

- Iron Man Mask Brithday Party  Invites

Girl's Birthday Invitations:

- Fashion-ista Pink and Black Designer Purse

- Angelina Ballerina Birthday Party Invitations


Party Coordinator @ Party Time Tuesdays

National Dance Week Celebrations - Dance related creative Projects

Happy National Dance Week!   

April 25 - May 4, 2014 is NDW, a week to celebrate dance and promote fun fitness! So I have compiled a round up of all my dance related projects. 

Paper Crafts:

Trinity was a hula dancing girl before she started ballet "Hula Kids"

This is the name plaque for my daughter's bedroom door "Trinity's Studio"

Birthday Party:

My daughter's love for ballet all started with Angelina Ballerina. Of course she had to have a Angelina Birthday Party, these are the invitations. At witch we surprised her with her very first ballet lessons... that was the beginning of her love for ballet. 

Her party was a smashing hit where I dressed as a dance madam and taught all her friends a quick ballet dance they preformed for their parents when they were picked up. The guest gifts were handmade tutus and hair pieces, we had a child sized Angelina Ballerina to pose for photos with, everything was frilly pink and of course there was the Angelina Ballerina Cake, handmade by me!.

 

3D Projects:

 As a piece of her room decor I created this shadow box "I Love Ballet"

A few years of dance and she wanted to be a 3D Paper Doll Ballerina for Halloween.

 I hope you enjoyed this dance round up of our lives... here is a quick photo of another crafty dance project that I have not blogged about yet.

My daughter was cast as the Scarecrow in her ballet class's version of the Wizard of Oz. I had to craft a straw hat that was pretty with girly flowers on it to match her costume. I also added burlap patches to the tutu for her. It was a 99cent Only Store sun hat and the flowers were extras from the pony tail hair piece ordered with the costume.

Please see more of our costumes in the following links:

Angel Warrior with Articulated Wings
Jack Skellington  - Disney's Nightmare Before Christmas Puppet Costume

Parks and Recreation's Leslie Knope Wedding Gown Tutorial

Moon/Lunar Fairy - with articulated wings

Tron Lightcycle
Peacock Princess with articulated tail
Iron Man - 3D
3D Paper Doll Ballerina
Literary Work of Art

Certified Helmar Educator

Honeydukes Candy Display - Harry Potter Party Post #5

Hello fellow crafters, DIYers and Harry Potter enthusiasts!

Honeydukes is one of the candy stores in the Harry Potter series. We decided to have a candy store instead of a pinata and all the chaos that comes with it. HOWEVER, with almost 40 kids waiting to "buy" their treats the chaos showed up anyway... LOL! I am still posting these photos, I know it's been a couple of weeks since the party... okay three weeks. I have been so busy! I promise I won't leave anything out and after this I will have wedding posts to compete so stay tuned! At the end of this post there is a list of other Harry Potter Posts of rooms and projects created for this party.

The Honeydukes sign letters were cut out of green cardstock on the cricut, glued on with Helmar Acid Free Glue and then highlighted with a pearl puff paint. The background was pink Cardstock with pink distressing. The green Moldings for the windows were pieces of Green cardstock that the letters were cut out of for the sign. I glued them in longer lengths and used Scotch removable double sided tape to adhere it to the cabinet.

 The Menu:

Acid Pops (link for recipe below)

Bertie & Botts Every Flavored Beans (Jelly Belly)

Ice Mice (gummy mice)

Creamy Caramel Charms (caramel candy)

Dragon Fluff Eggs (large marshmallow Easter egg candys)

Flaming Breath Disks (Cinnamon Disks)

Bite Sized Basilisks (gummy worms)

Better Butter Nut Bars (A peanut hard candy)

Gringotts Coins (chocolate coins)

Marshmallow Poles

Smarties (makes you magically brilliant ya know)

Lemon Pucks (a lemon disk that was sugar free for some kids)

Rooted Beer Barrels (root beer barrels)

Licorice Wands (black licorice would be best... but the kids like red better)

Buttered Beer Disks (Butterscotch disks)

Chocolate Frogs (made myself with a mold and printed the boxes)

Unicorn Horns (twisted lolly pops from oriental trading co.)

Pixie Sticks

Jaw Buster Bombs (jaw breakers)

Mad Eye Moody Pops (Halloween candy found this time of year at Oriental Trading Co.)

No Melt Ice cream (bubbles shaped like ice cream)

Bitter Blood Balls (sour cherry balls)

Wormtail Teeth (Peter Pettigrew's name as a rat, these teeth were 

gummy rabbit teeth from Oriental Trading Co.)

Swirly Sticks (Old Fashioned twisted candy sticks)

We had so much candy, 24 different types, we could not display it all in the cabinet so we added an extra display.

Mad Eye Moody Pops were added to the menu to represent this character at our party. These were found at Oriental Trading Company.

Acid Pops were egg shaped Tootsie Pops on clearance from Easter. We dipped them in honey and rolled them in Pop Rocks! This was a great way for my little ones to help with the projects. The idea was found at the Pastry Affair blog.

Ice Mice were also available (direct from the books) these beauties I randomly found at the $1 store in the end of April! Needless to say they added a great discussion piece to the display but we had a ton of them left over. LOL!

No Melt Ice Cream posed the biggest challenge (mentioned in the movies) then at the $1 store I stumbled across summer ice cream bubble containers... I knew then!!! This was perfect for it.

Making chocolate frogs I found the mold on Amazon.

I hand cut 50 Bertie & Botts every flavor beans boxes with an exacto knife . I used Helmar  Acid Free glue to adhere these shut. Quick and easy... well at least the gluing part was. I used Helmar 450 Quick Dry to adhere the flags together and glue the tops of the boxes closed.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and idea post for a Harry Potter Hogwarts Party. I hope you received some inspiration. Have a wonderful day.

PS - For more posts about this party please see the links below:

Eats and Treats:
The Three Broomsticks - Butterbeer, Polly Juice Punch and more
Honeydukes Candy Display - 24 different candies
Owlery Cupcake Tower 
The Golden Snitch Cake  

Fun and Fancy:
Prisoner of Askaban Wanted Poster Photo Booth
DIY Olivander's Wands DIY

Party Decor and More:

Gringotts Display

Potions Cabinet Details DIY
Video of Helmar DIY projects for Harry Potter Party

Invitations and Printables:
Owl Post - Hogwarts Acceptance Letter Invitations mailed Owl Post 
Publications - DAILY PROPHET and the QUIBBER props 

 Pin It

The post party bliss... a fashionista pink and black party

It feels so good to cuddle up with the hubby after the party festivities are all done and just enjoy the memories from the day. Watch a little TV and pass out on the couch with a smile of satisfaction on my face.

I love throwing a good party. From the first impression of the invitations to the last memory of the kids taking home the goody bags. Everything in between especially the cake!


This will be a long post about my Darling Daughters Birthday party... so if you love to hear about the process I go through then grab a cup of tea or coffee and fallow along with me. There will be ton of visuals so it might not be as long as it seems... hehe.

It all starts about a month before the party when it takes me about a week to get my kids to decide on a party theme. Then another week to design ad make the invitations to match the party supplies they have picked out. Trinity went with a Fashionista theme. Here are the supplies.


So from this what better way to say fashion then making some purse invitations?



When ever their birthday falls on a schooldays I also make cupcakes for the kids to take to class. These were fun using the ribbons around the black paper wrappers.


From there I have about a week where I am decorating the goody bags and making the decor for the party, planning games and finding screaming deals on the prizes. This year I made a few wall decorations a manikin bodice, some perfume bottles, a shoe and a chandelier. My favorite was the chandelier... probably because I glitzed it out with some glitter and it was 3D!!!




And the goody bags were designed so the girls could put their names on them when they walked in to the party. There was only a few stickers and a lip gloss in each one. As they did a craft or played a game they each got a prize. The prizes were necklaces, bracelets, or rings from Clair's. Don't worry I got a great deal on them all, 10 for $10 and some were even less when I got sets for a $1 and I broke up the sets into more then one gift, Christmas clearance helped also. HEHE.


Now I am down to the week of and the days before. At this point I am seriously designing the cake and getting all the supplies for it and balloons and streamers.

I new the cake had to be pink and black but I was stumped on the ideas for it. I had the opportunity to speak with the Mother of a friend of mine, who by chance decorates cakes for a living. She drew up a sketch of her ideas and I just loved it. She turned me on to a recipe for Modeling Chocolate and WOW... no yucky fondant needed!


I baked the cake and froze it two days before the party and spent the day before icing it and creating the elements for it. I also baked over 60 mini cupcakes and decorated them as well. That night I cleaned a bit and again the next morning too. Then an hour before the party I put all the pieces on the cake and set out all the food and made the punch.


There are so many little details I that I put on here. I just love doing that. Here on the front I recreated the TL logo out of black modeling chocolate and then sprinkled it with black sugar crystals to mimic the glitter on on the front of the purse.


Here is a pic of the back side and if you look closely you can see there is a clasp for the pearl necklace and a flower behind the purse.


The other detail I love are the little pearl candies all over. There are pink and cream ones in several places.


We had 14 girls attend (over twice the amount we ever have) I guess that is due to her being in school this year vs. just friends of the families. The girls showed up and we had a movie on in the background to help them have something to occupy their minds while we switched from one craft/game to the other. We made bracelets, decorated necklaces, Designed and colored fashion outfits, they all got nail stickers put on, we played a game of limbo, broke a bottle of nail polish... J/K it was a pinata shaped like a nail polish bottle. Ate cake and ice cream, opened presents and added bling strings to the girl's hair. Whew!!! What a party it was and we all had such a blast. Thanks to the few Moms that stayed and offered to help, it went off without a hitch... and the hubby was off the hook helping make jewelry and do nails... LOL.

Over all the party was a hit and I even heard some of the girls say that this was the "best party ever", "I am having so much fun" and "this is the best day of my life"... hehe. I loved that last one, mostly because it wasn't my daughter that said it and it was just one of her guests.

Trinity had a wonderful time and was so thrilled that everyone came. She was enjoying being little miss popular.

Happy Birthday to my darling daughter, Trinity! I can't believe she is six already!

I hope you enjoyed seeing into my crazy and creative mind. Have a wonderful weekend. Oh and if you have any birthday posts, please feel free to share... my son's is coming up in May and he is already set on a Star Wars theme. Hehe.


~ Grace ~

More Birthday Party Invitations I have created:

Boy Birthday Invitations:
- Minecraft Birtyday Party Invitations
- Harry Potter Hogwarts Invites
- Lego Bionicle Mask of Light

- Lego Starwars Light Sabers

- Iron Man Mask Brithday Party  Invites

Girl's Birthday Invitations:

- Angelina Ballerina Birthday Party Invitations

Lego Bionicle Birthday - Invitations, Cake, and Kids

I am not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing that my kids are accustomed to getting what ever style of birthday they want. It started when they were infants and I was choosing what I wanted the parties to be like. I love to be different, turns out that has come back to bite me in the patootie! Now they are old enough to choose, and they don't always choose what I am motivated to create. Well, it's their birthday... their one day a year... shouldn't I give them what they want?

This year my son asked for a Lego Bionicle Mask of Light birthday party... and of course there is no party supplies to be found for the Mask of Light. Most parents would have them choose another theme. But my kids know better... they know now that Mommy can make it happen even if I can't buy it from the store. This year was especially hard. I tried to convince my son to change his mind, because we were in the process of laying 450 sq ft of hardwood floors the two weeks before his party. But he had his sweet little hart set on the Bionicle Mask of Light. So after 12 - 16 hr days of working on laying and cutting and designing hardwood flooring... this is what I stayed up late at night working on.

THE INVITES:

These are layered with navy and gold paper. I used the computer to print the text and design. Cut it all out... folded it and layered. The text info pulls out of the bottom of the card. Notice the gold is raised and the mask vents on the side are folded down to give it a 3-D look. Here are some picks for you to check out...



This next pic you can see how the text sheet just pulls down. It is pretty simple mechanics to make it do this... the hard part is telling everyone that is how it opens... LOL.

THE CAKE:

This was layered with two 1/2 sheet cakes. The bottom layer is a 1/2 sheet and the top was carved down into the shape of the Mask of Light. The both layers of the cake were iced and completely decorated before assembling them. Then the piping was added around the Mask to join them together.



Tristan was so happy with the result. He is always so proud of his Mama and the things I create. I love my little man so much! So much, we put trick candles on the cake... I have a pretty funny video of him and about 3 other kids trying to blow them all out.



THE CLASS CUPCAKES:

I created the little topper of the cupcakes on the computer... they were 1" square. I printed them so that the image square was upside down touching the top of the text square. This way when I cut them out I cut them 1" x 2". Folded them in half over a toothpick after adding some mono adhesive to the back of each topper. The kids loved this! It was supper easy and more of them got excited about his party coming up later that weekend.



Thank you so much for checking these out. I was thrilled to make them for my little man.

More Birthday Party Invitations I have created:

Boy Birthday Invitations:
- Minecraft Birtyday Party Invitations
- Harry Potter Hogwarts Invites

- Lego Starwars Light Sabers

- Iron Man Mask Brithday Party  Invites

Girl's Birthday Invitations:

- Fashion-ista Pink and Black Designer Purse

- Angelina Ballerina Birthday Party Invitations

The Angelina Ballerina Ballet Birthday for my Beautiful 5 year old

Welcome all you Angelina Ballerina Fans!

 Last weekend my daughter had her fifth birthday party. I cant believe my Baby Girl is five now. My outlook has to change about her because as my Aunt informed me, "Five is a big girl! Not a baby. Melanie (my cousin) has a baby. She wears diapers." So I may have to give up the title for "Baby" Girl... my Aunt does have a point... hehe. Anyways. The party was a blast and Trinity loved every minute of it. The cake I made for her as Angelina Ballerina. This was her theme she wanted as she is extremely into all things ballet at the moment.

The next photo here is of me and her and thanks to Miley Cirus' line of clothes at walmart I was able to create a Ballet Grand Dame. I know that seems crazy but the low waisted tutu attached to a tank top with a pair of black leggings underneath was just what I needed to go under this gray top I had. I thought the girls a little ballet dance to a rhyme and we made dancing ribbons as a craft.

This other photo is Trinity being stubborn with her toes where my DH and her were posing he was trying to get her to point her toes and be as graceful as a ballerina... NA she was in a playful mood and would not comply. He is the one that took the pic at the top of this post and did a great job helping me with the party and all the set up.

These are the tutus I made for all the girls... seven of them to be exact. I was able to create these with a no sew pattern and embellish them with some ribbons.

This is a picture of the Angelina Ballerina New Ballet Party Class. They had a wonderful time and it truly was a memorable event. Don't they look great! The life size Angelina Ballerina was made by me and the hubby.

I hope you all enjoyed these. I had a blast making the tutus and the dancing ribbons... but that cake. That was HARD... LOL. Glad you took the time to peek into the craziness that is my mind when it comes to my kid's parties. What can I say. It is the memories that last a lifetime that drives me to be like this.

Check my post with our 3D Tutu Angelina Ballerina Birthday Invitations. They were so much fun to make and I just love how well they turned out.