Ladies Only: Craft Night!

With the exception of December, I’ve been holding a craft night on the third Friday since school started.   It has been a really fun excuse to get some girlfriends together and just work together on our many projects.  I’ve also had fun thinking of different ways to “tweak” my spread.   Here are the different months of what my spread looks like.  August is the first month and I went a little nuts with the food and had so much left-over that I have since scaled back on the treats.

AUGUST

 

SEPTEMBER

 

OCTOBER

 

NOVEMBER

I really love having an excuse to use the season as a theme for an “event”.  I’ve just had the ladies bring their own projects that they need to work on, but I’m wondering if I should have the option of a pre-designed craft for those ladies who don’t think that they are as “creative” (though we all know that’s not really true).  What do you think, would you rather go to a free-for-all craft/scrapbooking night or something where a specific craft is taught?

Heart-Shaped Valentines Place Cards!

I am getting really excited for Valentines Day!  My awesome neighbor next door and I are going to put together a Valentines dinner for a few friends, and their children (in the next room over, of course).  I’m so happy to finally have a girl who likes to craft and host parties like me for a next door neighbor!

I’ve been putting together part of the table arrangement and I’m really excited about the place-cards that I designed.  They’re super easy and cute too.

   I made a template so if anyone wants that, just leave a comment with your contact info and I’ll send you a pdf or jpeg.  Your choice.

Baby Girl’s 1st Birthday!

First of all, I have to say that a birthday for me is generally not a one-time event…it can easily be a couple of parties to make up the whole “birthday”.  I think this comes from being in a family that would have a party on each of the grandparent’s side and then our own little celebration on the day.

I was so excited to have a girl (not that I don’t love my little man) I have always wanted to go all out on the girly theme…so that’s exactly what we did.

For the beginning of our celebrations, we were visiting family in Utah for Christmas and my baby girl’s first birthday is four days after Christmas, we decided to have a party while we were there.  I made royal icing roses before we left for our trip and kept them in a shoe box lined with tissue paper until it was time to use them.

I also insanely decided to make a banner for her the day before we left too just for some more pizzazz.  No I don’t have a machine to help me cut out letters so I did it the old-fashioned way…printing out letters on my computer and then cutting them out by hand.

I did do one clever thing with the banner though and that’s to put eyelets in all of the holes I made.  This way, my banner is totally re-usable and if I so desire, I can trade out letters for a different color or whatever! I glittered each letter with fine white glitter which was a nice little mess but I think it gave the sign another needed dimension.  I also added the circles with little faux flowers with “gemstone” brads in the middle as spacers when I realized that it’s kind of tricky to read when there’s no spaces (this came from looking at a note my 4-year-old was writing as I was making this that had exactly the same amount of space b e t w e e n  e v e r y l e t t e r and I realized I was doing the same thing).

I decorated the cupcakes the night before the party (which was Christmas) while everyone was watching a movie so they were totally ready the next day when we were ready to set up.  I choose to do them in lemon and filled them with raspberry and then chocolate with chocolate pudding (I hid them in the laundry room…it seemed to work to keep them out of little children’s prying fingers and little lips).

All I did was what I call the classic “twirl” with a large star tip, sprinkled with sugar crystals, plopped a rose on top and finished with a leaf for a little more color (I was considering monochromatic but I think it would have been a little less appealing with a bright pink leaf).

I arranged the cupcakes in the shape of a “1” a little trick I learned from my friend Charisse.

That party was very fun.  I love having parties with family, they always keep things interesting. :)

For the real day which was three days later and the day after we got home from a VERY long drive.  We set up the sign over my girl’s chair and then I made homemade buttermilk pancakes for dinner.  After dinner she got to open a gift from us.  Not too elaborate but I was exhausted!

 

Our little birthday girl!

Hubby also brought her home some roses…she didn’t get it but maybe someday she will.  The vase I had was a little short so I had the brilliant idea of filling it with river rocks…I really like the effect.

The next celebration we had with our friends who live here in AZ.  I actually did make a cake for this with some of the better roses left from her UT party.  I also colored a bit of icing and made the darker roses for some higher contrast.

Here’s a view from above…

I need more practice I know but I thought it was pretty cute.

I really thought the one candle on the top was pretty funny.  I could not find one single “1” candle at any store I happened to go to.  I wonder if everyone was putting 2011 on their cakes that week or something!

Making Plans…

I haven’t been too crafty as of late….well, at least that anyone would notice, mostly I’ve been running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off, mopping 1,400 plus square feet of tile, painting, organizing,cleaning, vacuuming, and mothering two children…that’s all.  I really need to get my craft room into a state where I actually can get all of the boxes off of the ground and I can actually get some projects done.  Believe me, I have plenty. 

I need to make some kind of black-out curtains for each of the kids’ rooms (and mine if possible), refinish chairs, a bed, a nightstand and a table, make pillows for the loft and figure out what colors I want the other rooms in this house to be.  I hate, absolutely hate the color the main floor is and I can’t even figure out why I hate it.  It looks okay in some lights but it seems like a muddy dingy brownish-yellowish kaki in most lights.  I don’t mind it in the morning but I hate it by nightfall.

I have gotten a couple of things done so far.  Besides painting the loft a lovely shade (or two) of green, I painted the nursery and the downstairs powder room. I also did hold a cookie exchange (where I completely forgot to take any photos at).  It went pretty well I thought.  Even if the main level of our house lacks much furniture and echoed like crazy as children ran around and adults visited.  I had great fun myself.  We did pasta on the menu.  I made penne, linguini, and angel hair and had marinara, pesto and alfredo, as well as meatballs, roasted squash with tomatoes, steamed broccoli, salad and other veggies to munch on.  I even tried making a fruit punch drink which resulted in my teaching one of my friends that the best way to get fruit stains out of a white shirt is to pour boiling water over it while it’s still wet.  It is almost magical how it works!

Of course, I had too much food and we ended up eating the same thing or a variation of for about a week.  I learned that Spaghetti noodles cut work great in chicken noodle soup…so good in fact that my son even wanted the leftovers for breakfast the next day. :D  We also pulled off a birthday party for my daughter in Utah when we were there for Christmas.  Which took a bit of extra planning on my part.

I am so looking forward to the New Year.  I want to finish lots of projects, make my home a place of peace and rest.  A comfortable place where my kids would rather be than at the neighbor’s house :). A real home that my family and even my friends want to be.  That is my goal for the New Year.  To be a better mom, wife and housekeeper.  It’s not the most glamorous goal but that’s what it is!