30th UnBirthday Mad Hatter Tea Party

 It's Friday!  I love Fridays!  (Who doesn't??) Do you know what I was doing last Friday?  Throwing a suprise party for a friend's 30th birthday - that's what!  A Mad Hatter 30th Unbirthday Tea Party.  That's what the birthday girl wanted - she mentioned it to me a year ago (on her 29th birthday) that it would be fun to have a Mad Hatter Tea Party for her 30th.  I'm kind of proud of myself for remembering LOL.  For a few years now I've thought the whole Alice in Wonderland theme is full of cute and fun ideas and I've tried more than once to convince my daughter that it would be a fun birthday party for her.  I even had some ideas Pinned already.  

 And let's face it - what better way to spend an afternoon than having a tea party with these crazy ladies?
So my friend and I started plotting and had the birthday girl set aside some time for a "craft day."  First on the list - hats!  About a week before the party my friend and I got together to make fun little Mad Hatter type hats for everyone.

 The guests got black and white with some sort of variation on the heart (Queen of Hearts) theme for the ribbon.

And the birthday got one a little bigger and brighter.  We used this tutorial for the hats and it worked like a charm.  We used plastic cups and the fabric still attached to it with the hot glue just fine.  We didn't use the cup lids for the tops of the hats - we just traced around the lip of the cup and cut a piece out of an old cereal box.  Then we attached it all to alligator clips so they would stay in our hair.  If I were to do it again I probably would have gone with headbands.  I think the hats would have stayed in place on our heads better with those.

This little guy was the only kiddo not old enough to be in school while we were working on everything.  He wasn't a fan and made it very hard for his mommy to do much.  Luckily he was in a much better mood on the day of the party and the entire time we were setting up he had that cute smile plastered on his face while he happily played in the playpen (phew!).

 On to the party details!  I'm so pleased with how everything turned out.  It came together very easily and with very little expense as I tried to use what I already had or make most things ourselves.  The only things I bought specifically for the party (other than food, of course) were the mismatched tea cups and saucers and the little tea pot from the thrift store.  To get the biggest effect for our efforts we kept the decorations confined to the dining table and the food display.

The clock came directly off my kitchen wall ;)  I already had it taken down and the hands off all ready to pack up and it made the perfect base for the centerpiece.  Add in a few colorful flowers, the misdirection sign posts and mismatched tableware and the bright eclectic look was pretty easy to pull off.

 Each table setting was different from the rest.

And aren't the key adorable?!  I ran across them at JoAnn's a couple years ago in the dollar section with the intention of framing them somehow but haven't done it yet.

 Can't forget the Cheshire cat!  He hung out above the pantry.  We also thought about doing a playing card garland hanging from the chandelier, but we ran out of time.  We had also planned to have the Very Merry Unbirthday song playing in the background when the birthday girl arrived, but we forgot to download it and our hurried attempt to YouTube it and play it on the cell phone wasn't quite as effective.  Oh well.  ;)

 On to the food!  All tea parties need lots of food in teeny tiny portions, right?  We grabbed random tea cups and mugs to use for the food display.  The giant tea cups are actually flower pots that I use for decoration once in a while.  And the Happy Birthday plate was one I made years ago on one of our Saturdays with The Girls at a paint your own place.
The menu included: southwestern egg rolls, pigs in a blanket, buffalo winge, fruit skewers, individual 7-layer dips and chips, miniture chocolate cupcakes and tiny caramel tarts.  The teapot was filled with cold sweet tea and we also had pumpkin hot chocolate to drink.

Total success!  Our friend was very suprised (yes!  it's hard to keep a secret like that!) and we had so much fun no one wanted to go home.  We ended up crafting after all, just to prolong the our time together.

Horse Party Invitations

 I've managed to find a little breathing room this week in among work, keeping up with the house and all the moving preparations.  October is fast approaching and with it comes Birthday Month in our families - there are at least 10 that we actively celebrate with close family and friends and several others that I acknowledge with at least a note all within about 18 days between the end of September and the middle of October.  It's intense.  So I took advantage of some extra time this week and dug into the actual party prep for my daugher's birthday.
I thought I would go ahead and share the invitations I finished yesterday.  (I'm always so excited when I finish things, you know?!)  The last few years I have been leaning more toward the digitally designed invitations so I could just get one all laid out and print out as many as I needed.  This year Kaitlyn wants another slumber party and I limit the guests to only three so I decided to make them a little more "scrapbook-y" and three dimensional.  She was very quick to select horses as her theme this year and a few weeks back she sat down with me and we looked at all kind of ideas on Pinterest.  It was a lot of fun.  In the process we narrowed her theme down even further to a western/cowgirl style in pink and brown and that was all I needed to set myself off an running.

 I'm all about using what I have right now and I was happy to find this great chocolate brown and two tone pink polka dot paper in my stash so I used that for the background.  I then proceeded to find some fun western fonts and a font of horse dingbats that I was able to use for the horse silhouette (and will be repeated in most of the other printables/decor for the party).  The rest of it just kind of flowed from there.

The invite reads:

Wanted

your presence at

Kaitlyn's 11th Birthday

so put on your boots and mosey on over for a 

Slumber Party

The Caldwell Homestead

(address)

The shindig begins at 6:00 PM and you can round up your cowgirls at 10:00AM Saturday
(date)

Give a Holler:  Alayna (phone number)

Don't forget your bedroll!

I printed that onto cardstock then tore along all the edges and inked them to give it a weathered/distressed look.  Then finished it off with a pink ribbon and the horse silhouette which I had mounted with foam tape to give it some dimension,

Kaitlyn is very happy with the invitations and I'm starting to get kind of excited for the party myself.  Four more weeks to go...


Linking to:
DIY Projects and Receipes with the Party Bunch

Deployment Survival Kit

 Ah military life.  Every once in a while it really hits home how hard it can be on families.  We haven't had a deployment in a while but one of my good friends just bid goodbye to her husband for 6-9 months.  The day he left we knew she would have a hard time, so we went over for a Girl's Night of hanging out.  We didn't go empty-handed either.  Another friend and I had a lot of fun putting together a Deployment Survival Kit for her.

Seriously, we went overboard.  It's all my friend's fault for picking a giant bucket for the container ;)

We decorated the container (yes, it's vinyl lettering) and whipped up some fun tags for all the items in the basket.

Inside the basket:
-countdown blocks
-wine glass that reads "Deployment Survival, One Sip at a Time"

-tissues "to wipe away the tears"
-gourmet chocolate "because chocolate just makes everything better"
-decorative toothpicks "to help you pick out the good in every situation you encounter"

-flashlight "to remind you there is a light at the end of the tunnel"
-margarita "for when you just need a DRINK"
-duct tape "to fix whatever is broken"
-lollipop "because deployments suck"
-hand sanitizer/soap "to clean your hands after doing all the manly work"
-paperclip/binder clip "to help you keep it together"
-bottle of wine "for when you feel like wine-ing"
  (some of you that know me are probably thinking, "wait, what?"  No I don't drink, but some of my friends do and I'm ok with that)
-cute pens "to sign your Xs and Os"
-nail polish "remember to take care or even better pamper yourself"
-yellow ribbon "to show the world you support your soldier"
-disguise (I did printable photo prop but it would have been cute with those eye glasses w/ mustache ones too) "for when you just want to hide out"
-coffee drink (energy drink would work well too) "for when you need the energy to make it through the day"

-flag "to remind you what the sacrifice is for"
-notebook/magnetic To Do list notebook "to keep your To Dos in order"
-nuts/trail mix "for when you feel like you're going nuts"

-bubble wrap "to help relieve some stress"
-sewing kit "for when things are falling apart at the seams"
-rope "for when you reach the end of yours, this will keep you going a bit longer"
-Hershey Kisses "until you can kiss your soldier again"
-yo-yo "to remind you there will be ups and downs and it's OK"
-manicure/pedicure kit (or just nail clippers/file) "for when you hit a snag"

-funny/motivational quote (excuse the language - it's not how I usually express myself but it fits her perfectly)

Rather extensive list, right?  Completely over the top. (no surprise - that's how I often do things!)  Five to ten items would have been plenty.  For any of you that want to use the idea, now you have plenty to pick and choose from.  ;)

Craft Room Pretties!

Happy Friday!  We're two weeks into the new year and already at the beginning of another long vacation, which I'm happy with, if only because it gives us the opportunity to make some fun plans as a family (sometimes I wonder who is in charge of the school calendar and why they insist on SO MANY long weekends).  But before I change my focus to having fun I thought I'd do a quick post on what I've been working on the last couple of weeks here at home.  In the spirit of my Word for the Year (see my OLW post here) I've been trying to make a real effort to turn my intentions (thoughts/plans) into action and be more aware of how I choose to spend my time.  I have also found myself with a lot more wiggle room/free time in my daily life (probably from not being up to my neck in Girl Scout Cookies as I was this time last year.  I'm sure this state of affairs is only temporary) the last few days - and it's been great! ;)  Not only have I been able to tackle a few deep cleaning chores, but I also spent some time almost every day trying to get my craft room decluttered and reorganized.

 

Look!  Isn't it pretty?!
Wait, wait.  I need to show you a couple of Before shots so you can get some perspective.  This is mid-December when the room was buried under all sort of Christmas, Girl Scout, Etsy orders, school projects, and all manner of other things.

And this is the room this morning.

 Just in case you might be looking for a little organizing inspiration of your own, let me walk you through what I've done.  In the black dresser I have:

 The top drawer with my Most Used small items like pens, scissors, and tape.

 The second drawer - which until two days ago was stuffed full of ribbon (I'll show you my solution for that one later, once I get it finished) - now holds packing/shipping stuff and a few larger items.

The bottom drawer has some crafting supplies that I don't use as often.  Though that big space on the right seems like it needs to be filled with more than just the hole punch.  I'll have to think about that.

 Under the printer holds printer paper, ink cartridges and more craft supplies (my CuttleBug die cut machine is in that blue bag)

 I love those craft storage boxes.  I have three of them, but I wish I had a lot more.  There is an inner tray on the top for smaller stuff.

 And plenty of room in the bottom for bigger things.

 And under the Silhouette I have all the vinyl, transfer tape, and more random craft/scrapbooking supplies.

 On the other wall is the scrapbook cabinet my husband built for me.  I keep my tool tote on top (even though I rarely use most of the tools in it since I haven't done much scrapbooking - though I fully intend to change that soon).  I bought the green bucket yesterday.  I had a smaller one there before but it was overflowing with the things I like to keep handy like my Ipod and headphones, phone cases (I have one for exercise, one that I put on when I'm painting so I don't ruin my good one, etc) and gift cards I haven't used yet.

 I also have this card sitting up there.  My mother-in-law sent it to me for Mother's Day a couple years ago and it's been on display ever since.  It serves as my reminder that I'm my own toughest critic and that it's ok to let things go because from the outside my life looks entirely different than how I view it.

 Inside the scrapbook cabinet is my paper (of course) and the things I use most often in my daily life or want easy access to whenever I get the time to work on it (like my One Little Word album).

 And I finished it all off yesterday with those large black and white photos - which I love!  I have had the photos printed for months now, just sitting in a closet.  Yesterday I spent the day shopping, with one of my main goals being to find frames for those photos (another one of my intentions - to get some of my photos off the computer and displayed where we can all enjoy them).  Found them for $15 each at AC Moore - score!  The photos are each 16 x 20, so I thought that was a great price for frames that big.  And thankfully I didn't have any problem talking my husband into helping me hang them up as soon as he got home.
Yay!  I now get to declare my craft room completely decorated!

 Don't be too jealous - I still have some clutter hiding in the craft room. SHHHH! LOL  Most of those boxes will be gone as soon as I finish up my final paperwork and drop offs for disbanding the GS troop.

 And I still have ongoing crafty messiness in my "other craft room" (as the husband likes to call it).  Bet you can't wait to see what I've been working on for Valentine's Day! ;)