Steph's girlie bday party

Okay so I LOVE sewing but I really really LOVE throwing parties and showers... especially for people I love! This homeschooling mom of 4 is super special to me and a HUGE inspiration. (As well as a venting buddy ;) Of course she deserved every special detail to make her girly bday night a blast!

 

 what better way to celebrate with some cheesy 90's movies and jammies, than PINK!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

(BTW the Pioneer woman's chocolate shot glass desserts were AMAZING... a little tough to make but sooooo worth it. it's in her holiday cookbook... here's the link)

 http://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Woman-Cooks-Step---Step/dp/0062225227/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425351173&sr=8-1&keywords=the+pioneer+woman+holiday+cookbook

 

Happy birthday Steph!!!!!

Gracie's FROZEN dress and Birthday

I know I'm a little late with this... Apologies... Considering Gracie's birthday was in MAY. Thanks to Pinterest and everyone's lovely blogs and ideas I was able to come up with great ideas for Gracie's birthday and dress. We ended up doing her birthday at the pool since we were living in an apartment at the time... that limited decor and space a bunch which I think was a blessing in disguise. (I'm a little crazy with birthdays...)

 

Okay, so before there were all these lovely patterns and fabric choices I had to be super creative with Gracie's FROZEN dress and if you have a 4 year old (or any age daughter), I'm sure yours either has an Elsa dress or is BEGGING for one... like mine did. Here's my crack at it... I used a dress pattern I had with elastic in the back. Since the shear material didnt stretch so well (and it was summertime) I decided to ixnay on the sleeves. Instead I made finger"less" gloves...

 

Isn't she sooo cute! I used a super cool freezer paper teqnique I found on Pinterest. first I cut snowflakes in freezer paper using my cricut. then ironed on the negative. After it adhered I used Martha Stuarts sparkly teal paint (can be used on fabric) to paint on the snowflakes. Peel the freezer paper when its dry and voila, snowflakes!!!

 

I found a Scandanavian type laser cut frame at Michaels, super cheap BTW used the same Martha Stuart paint for the frame below and photoshopped Gracie into the "Elsa" scene for the invite (see below). I ended up using Evite, so this was the pic on that.

 

 



Now for party favors and decor. I used silver floral wire for the Elsa and Anna crowns as shown below. The Elsa ones were with white sparkle foam and a template I found online. I just used sticker jewels, some tulle and pretty ribbon and there you go. Anna crowns: I used the same wire, wrapped floral ribbon as I inserted fake flowers. Tied ribbon at the ends for pretty flower crowns.

For the boys, I made Sven and Olaf wear/thingies... I used a Sven (deer Antler) template and brown foam to make antler crowns. For olaf I got the smallest width elastic and made orange cones out of orange cardstock for noses.

the standing Elsa and Anna below are just printed from paper. (sorry, I'll try to find the link)

 

Okay, so apparently I'm the worst person at stepping away for a minute to take pics of all my hard work... Here's some pics of our activities (pin the nose on Olaf and throw bean bag snowballs (round ball bean bags made from white flannel material). I just painted these on white foam poster board.

 

Oh and this is the coolest activity, so mix a TON of epsom salt in HOT water (you have to keep adding salt and stir to get a thick consistancy), paint on dark paper and it makes ice crystals as it dries! SOOO cool!

Another activity we did (I don't have pics) is snow globes out of baby food jars, we put water and glitter in the jars. I glued small trees (found on etsy) on the inside of the lids prior to the party. The kids decorated the outside of the jars with FROZEN stickers. they had a blast with this.

Of course the main dessert was snow cones.

Here's the birthday girl ;)

 

and cake pops!

 

Here's one of the take homes... "SNOW Dough" (homemade playdough with lots of blue food coloring and glitter) Blue for elsa and white for Olaf

 

 

BTW a little trick for the banner. Instead of buying super expensive sparkle cardstock I just spray painted sparkles on blue cardstock. worked the same with the cricut! Enjoy!

 

Cole's Harry Potter Birthday Party

So sorry to do this but I need to post pics and don't have much time at this moment to go into details... I will edit this page later with the invitations, (which came out amazing and arrived exactly how they would in the book), and other details... It was a crazy day so I don't have pics of everything (so mad at that) but This'll have to do...

 

 

If you haven't guessed the students (ie: guests) walked in to Ollivandar's to make their own wands!

 

Sorting time... (I used felt, an old box and sharpies to create the sorting hat...) each student was given a shirt (iron on tie and crest I created in photoshop, word and from internet images) to represent based on which house they were sorted into as seen below,

You can kind of see the house pennant banners and each table was assigned to a house, much like the movie (book) You can't see hte decorations and banner for each house as its in the front of the tables...

 

Time for potions class... I found a bunch of spells from the book and movie online (and in the book) copied those into this book with a spell I specifically made one for the birthday boy with several ingredients (the last being vinegar) to make the potion foam at the end:

 

I think it was something like this... (Again, I'll fix this later)

• ground dragon eggshell - baking soda
• cornish pixie dust - blue glitter
• ogre hair - pieces of thread
• kool-aid (can't remember what this was but it made the vinegar smell less pungent)
• vinegar (i think it was water from Gringott's underground bank) can't remember

everything was in marked baggies or viles (thank-you Martha Stuart halloween clearance) the reaction was totally worth it! The kids thought it was awesome when the potion bubbled up and went over! (plastic cauldron also thanks to halloween clearance items!)

of course we had a candy cart (bar) with all the candies that were in the book... (including chocolate frogs with Hogwartz professor playing cards... (found the chocolate mold online and used green Wilton melts to create green chocolate frogs although the movie is regular choc so that would work)

Here's my notes prior to creating party stuff... 

Decoration:

• 9¾ sign
• Brick wall - Need sponge and red paint for shower curtain (may have red paint)
• Pictures of Owl’s in windows or just owl’s
• Shop Sign – need Paper from Alex’s work – draw and paint sign (or have Cole color)
• Cauldrons – All Sizes – Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver – Self-Stirring – Collapsible
• Apothecary “Dragon Liver, sixteen sickles an ounce, they’re mad…”
• Eeylops Owl Emporium – Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy
• Broomsticks with Nimbus 2000
• Robes,
• Telescopes,
• Strange silver instruments
• Barrels of Bat spleens, Eels eyes
• Spell books (look in Chamber of Secrets), quills and parchment  (I USED ELECTRIC TAPE AND FAKE FEATHERS ON REGULAR PENS TO CREATE QUILLS)

• Gringotts (bank) – need fake/choc gold coins
• Words engraved in a silver door:

Enter, stranger, but take heed

Of what awaits the sin of greed,

For those who take, but do not earn,

Must pay most dearly in their turn.

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours,

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there.

• Ollivander’s table
• Candy Trolley
• Lemon drops
• Chocolate frogs
• Bertie botz every flavor bean

Food:

• Large sticky choc cake with Happy Birthday Cole In Green icing
• Golden snitches (I USED GOLD CAKE DUSTING POWDER FROM MICHAELS TO CREATE THE GOLD ON THE SNITCH CAKE POPS... WISH I HAD A PIC, THEY CAME OUT SO CUTE!!!)
• Pumpkin pasties

Maybe stuff

Side room

• Need privet drive sign
• Need to make letters to Harry Potter (look online)

Mr. H. Potter

The Cupboard under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

• Hang letters with Fishing wire

to take “surprised” pics for flying car thank-you

“the daily prophet”

“Muggles seen stowing away in flying car”

Muggle day at Hogwarts a success!

Birthday Student, Cole would like to THANK all his friends and family for joining in on the festivities at Hogwarts in celebration of his 8^th birthday!

Rener's Recipes: B+L+T-L+M+E = YUMMMMMM

Okay, weird title, I know... I was starting off with the traditional BLT, then a Pinterest recipe with poached eggs caught my eye... already planning on BLT with the fixin's but wasn't about to let my poached egg craving go on standby... so here's a little creativity that worked out AMAZING!!! New family fave and totally making this when visitors come....(hint, hint...)

Ingredients: 
- {B} bacon (you already know this recipe is NOT on the Dr. Oz thumbs up list, but hey totally worth the calories.. I promise (just run a few laps afterward, you'll be good ;o)  
- {T} Tomato (sliced thin, sandwich style)
- {M} Sliced Mushrooms
- {E} Poached eggs
other ingredients (important, however not worthy of making the title acronym)
- Wheat buns
- Mayo (not nasty miracle whip)
- Dried basil

Recipe (READ whole recipe prior to cooking as you may have to overlap steps in order to time correctly):

1) Cook and drain bacon set aside when done (pref in micro to keep warm) DO NOT CLEAN or wipe out pan, just drain excess fat but leave whatever is stuck to pan...

2) Use hot greasy pan to fry mushrooms

3) When bacon is almost done boil water for poached eggs. Once boiled poach eggs while cooking mushrooms, (runny poached eggs are best so try to time accordingly)

4) When eggs are almost done toast burger buns

5) Spread mayo on toasted buns, lay a slice of tomato on the bun, line up a few pieces of bacon, place a scoop of fried mushrooms on bacon put poached egg on top and sprinkle dried basil on that sandwich it up slice and enjoy!