Superhero 4th Birthday Party

A year ago when my little Princess turned 3 she had so much fun that she began planning her 4th birthday.  This time she didn't want anything to do with the pink girly frills of her 3rd birthday. I guess it was too much pink for her.

She wanted a Superhero party.  No pink, no teal, she wanted Thor, Batman, and Wonder Woman.  She requested traditional colors and lots of super details.  For a 3 year old she sure knew what she wanted.  And since I love throwing themed parties, I was happy to oblige.

Even though I began thinking about her party a year ago, the procrastinator in me waited until the last minute to pull it all together, but I managed to scrape up everything that she and I wanted to incorporate into the party.

The Favors were felt capes.  They were so simple and inexpensive to make, I spent about .75 per cape and it took me about an hour to make 16.  Well worth the cost and time, the kids (and Adults) loved them.

I also set empty paper bags out for the kids to fill when we broke open the Pinata.

The girls LOVED their costumes, but they love any excuse to play dress up.

The cake was covered in dyed Frosting, I procrastinated so much that I couldn't find colored fondant in time

The "building" that I used for the backdrop were big picture frames (from the hall upstairs), empty cereal boxes, and other boxes I had been collecting.

We covered them with Kraft shipping paper that I found in the mail section of the dollar store and cut out squares of construction paper for the windows.  Over-all the buildings cost me less than $2.

Instead of doing a Candy Buffet, we opt'd for an Ice Cream bar, you can see all fixins there to the right.

Yesterday Zoe told me that her favorite part of her Party was the Pinata.

Hearing that made it worth the DIY, at less than $10 and 1 hour to build, we filled this bad boy with Halloween and Valentines day candy. 

Cue evil Laugh!

HA, we are going to have to come up with a stronger way to hold the pinata.  The string ripped through after the 5th kid hit it a couple times, so we had to wrap the whole rope around it to hold it up until the kids actually could break through, BUT they loved it all the same.

I think that the "photo booth" was my favorite part, and It almost didn't happen. It was so funny to see people lying on the floor in their super hero poses, flying to "save the day".

Check back later in the week for a Photo booth tutorial and a Pinata DIY

Happy Celebrating!

Cupcake Impossible Wedding Edition

Last weekend I had the honor of being a part of my cousin Addie's beautiful Destination Wedding in Orlando Florida.

First off it is important to mention that Addie is my crafting better half.  She is a crafting genius and when we get together on a project it is nothing but spectacular

Just kidding, but seriously she did her wedding up DIY style and did a phenomenal job. She really out did herself with this one.  To check out her DIY visit her on Instagram @mymintwedding and #werethetaylors

Since she was on an budget I offered to do her cake, Duh.  I love a challenge. When I opened my mouth to offer her my services I didn't realize how big of a challenge this was really going to be.  Months went by and I was optimistic about everything.  Then back in October I decided to throw in the towel on my little cake endeavors.  Well I had one more job to do and as the weeks flew by I began to get REALLY nervous.

Here were my challenges:

Challenge 1-
I had to fly any tools I needed to use across the country in a single suit case that also held my clothes and SHOES for 4 whole days...the shoes alone could have taken up an entire suitcase, and don't get me started on the make up and hair care products.

Challenge 2-
I had to bake 150 cupcakes and 1-tier of a cake (for cutting)...in a "hotel room", well to be fair it was a condo, so there was a full size stove and oven.

Challenge 3-
I had to complete it all in one day, pausing for a nail appointment and I had to make it to a bachelorette dinner and party that night.

Challenge 4-
**This was probably the biggest of all the challenges:
Storing them for 2 days and making sure none of the bridal party ate them at 2 am after hours of drunken shenanigans.

How did I do?

I think I did alright.

We used a few tools I flew across the country. I couldn't find the frosting tips my cousin wanted for the cupcakes (for less than $15 a piece after shipping) so my handy hubby custom cut me a couple round tips.  Thank God, he saved the day.  Of course I forgot a whole lot of things that I wanted to bring but what I forgot we bought at a dollar store that was conveniently place just a 5 minute walk from the resort. Hooray.

Batch #1 of 3 before they went into the oven, notice the disposable cupcake tins

We had disposable cupcake tins to cut back on the amount of dishes that needed to be washed and we even scored three hand mixers from "The 3rd Busiest Walmart In the WORLD".

Yup you read that right, we accidentally went to the 3rd Busiest Walmart in the World.

Picture this, I fly into Orlando, I arrive at Addie's resort condo 2 hours after landing, exhausted from 13 hours of traveling my type-A personality kicks in and I decide that I must bake the 1-tier cake before I go to sleep.  Addie, Sam and I jump in my rental car and hit the streets of Orlando just past Midnight.  After a short drive we spot the familiar glow of a Walmart sign.  Oddly the parking lot is PACKED, like Saturday afternoon packed.  There are people congregating in the parking lot, in front of the doors, near the McDonald's.  A pack of  (what we assume are high school boys) are roaming the aisles asking everyone "where da party at".  It really seemed like we had arrived at the Walmart during some kind of special event.  Little did we know we were standing in the middle of THE 3RD BUSIEST WALMART IN THE WORLD!!!!

That was the most touristy thing I did the whole weekend...Wait that's a lie, we went bar hoping in a party bus, but that is a story for a different blog entirely.

Where was I, Oh yes, we scored 3 hand mixers from Walmart for $6 each!  NICE!!

They really were worth only $6 too because I completely broke one of them half way through my marathon baking session.

By Sunday I was sweating bullets that the cupcakes were dry and the cake was sweating.  But NOPE! everything was perfect.  I got all good reviews and even had a few job offers, and business partner offers.  Not sure if I'm ready to fully go into business but it was good to know that I still got it!

Addie hand made these toppers

They cut the cake

Then assaulted each other with it

This guy liked them so much, he ate 4!

Happy Baking!

My Mad Tea Party Dirty 30

I have been the worse Blogger in the world. Between the shock of turning 30, our big trip to Disneyland, and starting marketing work shops, I have been a busy girl. But as I was perusing my picture gallery I found all of my Birthday party pictures and felt the sudden urge to post them on my blog.

My cousin and I had an amazing time sewing, hot gluing, building, and painting anything we could get our hands on for an entire week straight to get my house ready for this ridiculounesss.  We made almost everything you see.  The decor, our costumes, the cake and most of the treats, even the roses were hand made.  I think crafting is my favorite part of any party.  I hope you like the pictures.  Maybe I will make some tutorials for this stuff, but I cant make any promises ;)

My baby girl wanted to have her own tea party so we dressed her like Alice

This is a mix of homemade cupcakes and Decorated Little Debbie snacks

Ok, I didn't make THESE roses...lol.  My wonderful husband had them sent to me.

The teapots were actually reused from the baby shower I did a few years ago and decorated with a little ribbon and gears found at Hobby Lobby.  I also bought the tags, used printable clear stickers for the words, then decorated the edges with a rubber stamp.

The silver chargers are actually from my Christmas decoration stash.  My hubby wasn't too happy that he had to climb into the attic to get these and some lights, but it was worth it.

Best Husband Ever, he dressed like a steampunk version of the Cheshire Cat

My cousin Addie and I, She pulled her White Rabbit costume together in 1 day for $25...Impressive!

This is the entry to the rest of my house, we spent all day hanging lights, and my daughter's plastic tea set from the ceiling. We painted an old closet door that we don't use with the rest of the paint from my daughter's ceiling which we had sitting in the garage for 3 years.

Roses were made from pages of an old book and Zoe painted them red

These were made with acrylic paint and foam board from the dollar store

Hanging out with my 3 favorite girls.

Tweddle Dee and Tweddle Dum, I love these girls and their take on the twins, so cute!!

Happy Crafting!

Our Big Disneyland Vacation

Every August for the past 5 years we have had our family vacation.  Sadly we couldn't make our normal trip to California last year and vowed to make this years trip the best ever.  I had been dying to go to Disneyland but we wanted to wait until the girls were old enough to really enjoy their first time.  With Madi being 2 we finally decided that she and Zo were big enough to know what was going on. I was probably more excited about this trip than anyone in the family.  I was finally taking my baby girls to the Happiest Place on Earth.  And unlike our last two trips to Disneyland (the first time we took Donnie was a complete surprise to me, orchestrated by David's parents and I left with an engagement ring on my finger, and the second trip was a last minute decision during a beach trip).  This time I had lots and lots of time to plan every aspect of this trip. I could go on and on about the details of this vacation, all the crafts I made, and everything that I learned this past week, but honestly it would go on for pages, so instead this post will just highlight the the vacation itself (mostly with pictures) and I will be writing a series of posts about all of the super cool money saving tidbits I picked up, ways to make your vacation sparkle, and a couple cool things I learned at the park this time around.


First stop was Downtown Disney, we actually went there the night before our first Park day to save precious time.  In our opinion the best part of Downtown Disney is the Lego store.  The amazing Lego Engineers built some really ridiculous lego statues for this store and I keep reminding Donnie that his love of Legos can someday turn into a dream career! If you have never been there it is worth spending 15 minutes to check it out.

                          

One of the great things about the Lego store is that they had bricks to play with out side of the store, you can build a Duplo tower or a car and then race it on the track.  Its free to build (and then leave for the next kid to play with).

Before our vacation  I took a few of the kids stacking rings and sewed them together for the girls to hold on to as we walked through the park, they loved them, it made them feel like they were playing follow the leader and they also had a bit of "freedom" to walk around without actually holding an adult's hand.

 David, Disneybounding as Goofy, hanging out with Goofy.

Day one was Disneybounding day, I was Ariel, David was Goofy, Donnie a Stromtrooper, and I will let you just guess what the girls dressed up as

My little Princesses and their castle

Scribbling in her autograph book as she waited patiently to meet Tinkerbell

 Silvermist is my new favorite fairy, when she saw the autograph books that I made she called me Tinker Fairy!  Hooray...I'm a Tinker Fairy!!! 

Here she is, Tinkbell herself, at the Teapot house she tinkered! What a great experience!!

Little miss Diva had had enough of picture taking!!

 First ride of the day was a dream come true for Zo, she had always wanted to ride a carousel.

Here we are in the morning of Day 2 on our Mickey and Minnie day.

Grandma and Grandpa joined us on day two.  The kids had even more fun showing them around California Adventure

Mommy's favorite Classic princess

Madi loving her Bahpoo

Donnie got to build his own lightsaber (which he had been saving up to do all summer) and was happy that they had purple.  He was testing it out while we sat and relaxed for a minute.

Not taking a nap started to take it's toll

 There are 3 main things that I go to Disneyland for (beside the obvious magically happy time) Turkey Legs, Churros, and FIREWORKS.  No Disney experience is complete without watching Tinkerbell fly over a sparkling castle, listening to the tear jerking music and message about dreams coming true.  Makes me cry every time.  When I asked David what his favorite part of our vacation was, he told me that it was when I took this picture of him holding our baby hearing her screams and laughter when Tinkerbell appeared in the sky.  The Disneyland fireworks always reminds me that all of my dreams HAVE come true and that just being in that magical place is a dream.  I am so happy and feel so blessed that we had the opportunity to share this experience with our little family, I pray that we have many more family vacations just like this one because family time makes us stronger (but more about that later).

This was my last picture at the end of day 2, both girls knocked out in the stroller, one missing a sock and the other missing socks and shoes!

I have literally hundreds more pictures that I will be methodically sharing over the next week or so, but so far these are my favorites.

Have a Magical Day,