One Lump Or Two?

When Maryjane of The Beehive Cottage posted these pictures of her granddaughter's 7th birthday party, I just knew I had to help show it off!

Isn't this little tea party darling? I love the heart doilies on the backs of the chairs! The tablecloth and dishes make a lovely tea party table.

Little heart shaped sandwiches, goldfish & grapes make the perfect tea party food!

This little pink metallic tree centerpiece is just right!

Here's the birthday girl, Miss Hailey Mae. Now that is a big cupcake!

Visit Maryjane at her charming blog The Beehive Cottage. She has lots more pictures of Hailey's birthday and pictures of her darling trailer!

Pooh Birthday Cake

I made two birthday cakes for Henry's (BFF Karyn's son) 1st birthday over the weekend. It was fun because I used the same cake pans that I did for my son's 1st birthday almost 8 years ago!
Here's Henry's little smash cake:

When it comes to birthday parties, Karyn's family has a really neat tradition. Once a month they gather at a different family member's home to celebrate all of the birthdays in that particular month. Finger food, drinks & of course cake & ice are served. It is a fun and informal family get-together.

This month there were two birthdays to celebrate and some months they can have as many as 5. A decorated birthday box is set out on a table for each person who is celebrating a birthday and throughout the party anonymous monetary gifts are put into the box. This allows family members to give as they are able and not feel pressured into giving a gift.

Blog Award

Donna at Party Wishes gave me this lovely award and I passed it on to a few of my favorite party blogs.

You can read more about it at my other blog

Party Madness

I just came from Living Locurto where Amy has blogged about the Mad Scientist party she threw for her son's 6th Birthday. I love everything she did, especially the amazing cupcakes! Aren't they to die for??? I just love looking at how creative other people are with theme parties.

I started planning my son's 9th Mad Scientist Birthday Party in October when I was able to find so many cool props and goodies on clearance after Halloween.

The contents of the goody bags are done & now I just have to decide if the goody bags will be red BioHazard bags like you find in the medical field or a big black heavy-duty latex glove (like a Mad Scientist would wear). Your thoughts?

This has been one of the hardest parties I've planned for one of my kids. The theme is really easy to work with and I have tons of ideas - the problem is the "cool" factor. As my son turns 9, he is very conscience of wanting a birthday party, but of not having anything "babyish" or "uncool" at the party (that's a direct quote from the Birthday Boy himself!)

I have all of the experiments, decor and food planned out for the party. This week I've been working on the invitations. The invitations that Amy designed are so great. Be sure to check back to Amys' blog tomorrow when she will blog about the experiments the kids did at the party!

Carnival of Parties!

In honor of her one year Blogaversary, Kendra over at My Insanity is hosting a carnival of great parties. Stop by and check out her daughter's cool Kim Possible party. While you are there, scroll through her blog to see all of her other AMAZING party pics. You can also link up to other moms who throw equally spectacular parties for their families & friends.

It's not a party unless you are there, so let's go!

Let the Planning Begin!

I mentioned back in November that I was planning on a Mad Scientist party for my son's 9th birthday. Since his birthday is at the end of February, I decided it was time to get the party planning in full gear!

I first ran across these great scenes at BrucesWork.com. Bruce is actually a Senior Concept Artist for Oriental Trading Company and designed these. For those not familiar, Design-A-Rooms (also called Scene Setters by another company) are decorated plastic sheets that you attach to walls & doors with tape or tacky stick-stuff (not the technical name!). These decorations can instantly change the look of a space. In my case, I plan to use these Mad Scientist Lab Design-A-Rooms to decorate for Coco's party.

This scene will appear on the front door as the boys arrive:
Here's a picture of all the elements:

This picture is from Bruce's Works website and really gives you a feel for just how big these decorations are:

The best part is that they are actually Halloween decorations, so Oriental Trading has them on sale right now! I think 9 year old boys are going to love this!

Holiday Cookie Swap Invitations

Here are pictures of the invitations I made for my Holiday Cookie Swap. You never know where you will find inspiration - I actually got the idea from a bridal shower idea book!

The recipe card slides right into the pocket of the apron. I used holiday scrapbook paper mounted to pre-cut blank invitations (purchased in a set with matching envelopes at Michael's) for the apron and added eyelets & cording accents. The pocket of the apron also has a button glued on (used shank remover to cut button shank on back).


Since the invitations had a few 3-D elements, I hand delivered all but one of the invitations.

I made the aprons before the recipe cards - big mistake! I just could not find a holiday recipe card template that had pastel colors, so colors don't exactly match. I found the recipe card template for free in a google search and had them printed at Office Max. What a difference professional printing makes and it only cost @ 30¢ a card!

I'll post pictures of the recipe book favors soon!

Holiday Cookie Swap

The Holidays have come and gone & I feel like my life is finally getting back to order. In December I hosted my first ever Cookie Swap. The party was so much fun and everyone was excited to exchange cookies. I found so many great ideas for the swap at a website devoted strictly to cookie swap parties: Cookie-Exchange.com.

After reading the forums over at Cookie-Exchange.com, I decided to include a few of the suggested "rules" in my invitation. I asked that everyone bring 6 dozen homemade cookies with flour as the main ingredient (I didn't want someone spending hours making a yummy cookie while another person dipped Nutter Butters in melted chocolate).

I'll post a picture of the invitations later in the week. The invitation was worded like a recipe and was printed on a recipe card. The recipe card was then inserted into an apron I made from cardstock and eyelets.

Before the party I asked everyone to email their cookie recipe to me. Getting the recipes in advance allowed me to make sure we didn't have duplicates and to prepare a recipe book favor with all of the cookies recipes. Actually, my intention was to give out recipe books, but I procrastinated and didn't have them finished in time for the party! Just think what a nice surprise it will be when the girls receive their books in the middle of January LOL!
As each guest arrived, they put their platter of cookies on the cookie table. Then we socialized and munched on an appetizer buffet that I had prepared. About an hour into the party, I handed everyone a Christmas coat box lined with wax paper and we lined up. Everyone walked around the table and took 4 cookies from each platter (we had 19 different cookies in all!). After everyone went through the line once, they went back and picked 4 more cookies to equal the 6 dozen cookies they brought to swap.

Here's a picture of the swap:

Some of my lovely guests:

Here's Ronda (in the blue) from Ronda's Rants:

This is a party that definitely become an annual event!