lily's arts and crafts birthday

we celebrated lily's 8th birthday party with a simple "arts and crafts" theme this year.
lily helped me make the invitations.  since it was an arts and crafts party, i wanted the invitations to be all handmade.  we didn't want the traditional "roygbiv" color scheme so we chose pink, orange and green.  we stamped little muslin bags and then made a cute flag banner with all the party details to go inside the bag.  we then finished off the envelope with some cute washi tape.

when the guests arrived they started on their first craft: painting wooden necklaces the necklaces were finished with a neon pink cord (sorry no photo) (original craft inspiration here)

the second craft and my absolute fave!!!: fork dolls i think i had more fun making these than the girls! (original craft inspiration here)

aren't they just sweet?
we then moved onto floral monograms (original craft inspiration here)

and the last craft was edible!   the girls created their own masterpieces with edible markers on iced sugar cookies (original inspiration here)

happy birthday lily!

if you'd like to see lily's 7th woodland-inspired birthday party, click here

mustache love valentines

when are you too old to exchange valentines?
never!

luckily my 11-yr old son feels the same way and isn't too embarrassed to hand these out to his 5th grade class today (he very well may be the only one who is handing out valentines).  he's okay with that.

he didn't want anything too kiddish and is still obsessed with facial hair so we came up with these cuties (i saw the stamped bag idea on etsy).  we hand-carved the heart and mustache stamps and stamped on plain muslin bags.

 and then filled each bag with a simple mustache cookie

i think his classmates will like them.

happy valentine's day!

lily's owl birthday

yay!!!  lily's 7th owl birthday party is being featured over at the party wagon today.  i am so excited!  remember the inspiration i showed you here?
here's a little peek of the cookies i made for the party.  check out the rest of the party here!

don't you just love her cute little boots?

the great cousin camp out 2012: invitations

it's time again for our annual cousin camp out and another reason for me to send out cute invitations!  i found these adorable invites from cracked designs.  tara did these for her son's birthday party.  as soon as i saw them i knew they would be perfect for our camp out this year.  you can check out tara's son's adorable party here.
so i asked tara if she could tweak them a bit for our annual cousin camp out.  what do you think?

love the little bag!

each muslin bag fits into a kraft envelope and then sealed with this cute sticker

are you a child of the 70's?  were you glued to the tv like i was watching those great bigfoot documentaries?  i have been looking for the perfect ones to show at the film festival.  if you have any suggestions, i would love to hear them!  i know the adults are going to love watching them; the kids, i'm not so sure...
i'll be back with more camp out inspiration soon...you'll be surprised how many bigfoot goodies are out there!

lily's 7th birthday: inspiration

i started planning lily's 7th birthday a year ago (yes, it's weird, i know). she wanted an owl party. the owl party has now morphed into an owl/woodland party.but i didn't want a traditional brown, green, red color scheme.

the inspiration and colors came from a set of vintage camping plates

the colors are unexpected but they work so well together




i also wanted a really beautiful, quirky, vintage-y invitation. suzanne of SHE Paperie was the perfect gal to design it.
the only instructions i had for suzanne were the four colors, an owl and a pennant.when i saw the proof, i gasped and screamed! she is GOOD!
i want to be a paper designer just like her in my next life...
here's a little sneak peek:


there's more owl party inspiration on my pinterest board here

can't wait to show you more details of the party...

easter: the aftermath

we had a wonderful easter but i didn't manage to take many photos.

i did get a few snapshots of my cute bunny cart centerpiece

(tutorial via martha stewart)

i found these cute candies at the dollar store

the colors are so charming

then on tuesday morning when i woke up i found this...

hmmm...i still don't know who the culprit is...

easter place settings

when i received these adorable little chicks for my birthday, i knew exactly what i wanted to do with them.


i filled pink milk glass egg cups with rice, added sheet mossand made a little name flag








they are so cute and easy!
original inspiration came from here