Red, White, Turquoise/Blue Party

My sister and I hosted a bridal shower luncheon for our cousin this past month.  We had so much fun putting it together!  We went with a red and white and turquoise party.  I used red and white chevron for the background print for the invitations and also for the table runners.  There were so many small details.  Here's a quick summary of a very fun party:

We were having 16 people to lunch so we extended the table to seat everyone together.  We had clear glasses and red gobblets.  We had adorable pennants that tied all of our colors together, along with turqoise, and red and white polka dot tissue poms.  We did 3 smaller flower arrangements down the table.  We used red roses and babys breath. 

 *One of my favorite features of the party were the individual cupcake stands.  At each place setting, everyone had their own cupcake on a stand.  They were red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting!
*We also served strawberry daiquiri's and had adorable turquoise and white striped paper straws.
*For the food table, we used small wooden chalkboard signs to label each food item.
*We had a separate water station that highlighted the beautiful glass etched pitcher I made with my silhouette!

*For the party favor, we made lavender and orange body scrub.  We packaged them in mason jar's and covered the lid with blue fabric and tied with red ribbon.
*I decided to make some adorable "streamers" out of napkins.  You use a ruffle stitch and sew the napkins longways together.  They turned out really cute and festive, especially with decorative napkins.
*I also decided to make a burlap banner that said Congrats!  I used the same instructions for making the happy birthday sign in this post.  I think the sign really finished off the food table area.
*We also had several small glasses and mason jars filled with babies breath around the tables.

It was such a fun party and so pretty!  We love hand-made!!

Wax Paper Gift Bag Tutorial

I was making goodie bags for my daughters birthday.  I really wanted some of those cute wax paper bags that you can buy online.  Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to order them before the party, so I decided to make my own.  These are so versatile and turned out so cute.  I will definitely be doing it again.

Here's a quick "How To", to make your wax paper goodie bags:
Step 1:  Get your roll of wax paper and cut it into long rectangles about 8 inches wide and 16 inches long.  This is variable.  You can make the bag whatever size you need for what you are putting in it.  These are just the measurements I made them.
Step 2:  Fold the wax paper in half so it should now look like a square (mine were about 8 inches by 8 inches).
Step 3:  I decided to stamp a Thank You on the front of each bag.  I used black ink and a cute stamp that had some little butterflies on it.  The stamp will smear if you touch it right away.  I stamped mine and let them dry overnight.  They didn't smear after it dried.  So stamp all of your bags.
Step 4:  After letting your stamps dry, take the bag and sew a straight line along 3 sides of the bag.  You could use different color thread, whatever you want.
Step 5:  Fill up your bag with whatever you want.
Step 6:  Sew across the  top of the bag so it is now sealed on all sides. 

 That's it!  You've got an adorable, custom made, wax paper goodie bag!

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Burlap Banner Tutorial

The month of May also brought my daughters birthday!  I used some of the similar colors from teacher appreciation because it ended up being the same week- turquoise and yellow.  We did a pool party with pizza.  I used the tissue poof balls, and paper flowers.  I added new runners and decided to add a burlap Happy Birthday banner.  I love how it turned out!

 

This sign was super easy to make and was a great addition to my birthday decor!  I used a light/white burlap and black paint.  I think this will be very versatile.

 Here's a quick "How To", to make your own burlap banner:
Step 1:  Cut your burlap into rectangles.  Mine were about 6 inches by 8 inches.  (Be warned, burlap is messy)
Step 2:  Taking the long side (that's 8 inches), fold over the burlap about 2 inches and iron flat.  Your square should now look square (about 6 inches by 6 inches).  Repeat for all of your rectangle pieces.
Step 3:  Sew a straight line a quarter of an inch from the edge of the fabric that you've folded over.  Repeat for all of the burlap squares.  You want to have a casing that is about an inch and a half.  This is where you are going to run the string through to hang it up. **If you don't sew, you could hot glue this piece down as well.

Step 4:  Using Freezer paper, cut the letters of your word out of the freezer paper.  Don't get them too close together because you need to cut out the space around the letter.  I used my silhouette to cut out my freezer paper.  I did about 4 letters per sheet and used the same settings as cutting vinyl and used my mat.  It's a little tricky getting the letters all cut out right but once you iron the paper onto the burlap, it turns out perfect.
Step 5:  Turn the burlap square over so the folded side that you've sewed down is facing down.  Iron the letter/paper  onto the Burlap square.
Step 6:  Put your burlap squares onto a towel or cardboard or something that paint can bleed through onto.  Carefully paint your letters.

Step 7:  Once it's dried, remover the freezer paper.
Step 8:  Take your string and feed through the pocket/casing you've made on your burlap squares.  I attached a safety pin to the end of my string which made it easier to feed through the pockets.

You're done!  You can do this with any word or phrase.  I love my burlap banner!!

Teacher Appreciation Thank You Gifts

Here's a few of the extra goodies we made for Teacher Appreciation Week:

 Cookies in the CD Holder:  Did you see this on Pinterest?  We got this idea on Pinterest.  These are the paper CD holders.  We got cookies donated from this awesome bakery in town.  The cookies fit just perfectly in the CD window.  We tied them with twine and put on an adorable Thank You tag. My friend Taryn made these tags.  They had a chevron background.  So cute!

 Thank You Pot with Gifts:  To go along with our "Grow" theme, I had the kids in our class decorate this pot for our teacher.  I collected money for the group gift and then filled the pot with all of our gifts.  I wrapped it all up with cellophane and a bow. 

Apple Oreo Pops:  We got this idea online too, but we did learn a few things that were not mentioned online.  You take the top off the oreo and then need to spread some of the chocolate inside and then push the stick into the white filling and chocolate.  Replace the top and let it set/harden.  Then you can dip the whole oreo on a stick into the chocolate.  Once it comes out, put in the pretzel stick for the stem and an airhead cut into a square for the leaf.  they turned out so cute!  We made 50 for all of the staff at our school.

 Hugs & Kisses:  This was the easiest but I think they loved it.  I used clear cellophane bags, added a handful of hershey kisses and hugs, and a tag.  The tag said, "We love our teachers and staff!  XOXO"

Teacher Appreciation

Wow.  2.5 months.  That's the longest I've gone without blogging.  But you know when you've waited a little bit and have a bunch of stuff to share, but it seems like so much and there's just never enough time because now it's so much, well it was like that :-)  But I have several months worth of crafts and some cute ideas to share!

May was beyond crazy and April was spent prepping for it.  First up was Teacher Appreciation Week.  My friends and I were in charge of it for the whole school.  We did a catered lunch for the teachers and staff of the entire school every day for a week!   Our theme was, "Thank You For Helping Our Children Grow."  Here's how some of it turned out.

We decorated the teachers lounge.  The room is very ugly and cluttered.  We did the best we could :-)

 Adding some burlap to the back of the wall really helped our food table.  The poofs, bunting, table cloths, signage, and centerpieces all went with our theme and color theme (yellow, white, turquoise/blue)
 

 
The centerpieces were small rose bushes wrapped in burlap and blue ribbon.  We had little signs that matched and had our theme on it.  The table runners were yellow with small blue polka dots.

 

 My friend Taryn made this adorable sign that went with our theme.  It was black vinyl on white paper.  She also made the adorable paper flowers that we used all over. 

 I was also the room mom for my daughters class. I delegated our door to some other mom's since I was busy decorating the rest of the school.  I think it turned out soooooo cute!  The kids faces were on the apples.  Love it!

 
Here's some of the decor from the front of the school.  There were grass and flowers by the front office.

 
We had signage and paper flowers going all the way down the corridor where everyone walks  into the school.  My friend Taryn did these signs!  They were awesome. 

 In 25 years, no one had ever decorated the outside of the school for the teachers.  It turned out soooo cute!! 

 It was a great week and I've already got new ideas for next year :-)

Some Gifts

I finished two fun gifts this past week for 2 of my girlfriends! 

One just had a new baby.  It's actually been a few months and I've been trying to get this to her but finally decided to mail it off so I had to take a picture before it went.  I absolutely LOVE this toile minky print!  It's been hard to come by (at a reasonable price).  I've saved a little for myself just in case there's another little girl in my future :-)

And my other friend had her birthday!  I've continued my theme of giving table runners.  This friend requested this type/color.  I added the monogramming!  I love that this is exactly what they are selling in Pottery Barn right now but I made it :-)  Hemstitch is still very 'in'.

Typography Wall Art Tutorial

I finally finished this long awaited project- some new wall art!  I actually have a couple to complete but here's the first one.  I saw an adorable version of this on Barn Owl Primitives. (if you don't want to make your own, I highly recommend getting yours from her.  awesome stuff!) But the price was a bit steep for me so I figured I could make it.  Here's a tutorial on making wall art:

-I used a blank paint canvas.  I got it at Michael's with the 50% off coupon for about $12 for a 2 pack.

-Instead of using Vinyl and transfer paper (like silhouette recommends), I place contact paper on my sticky mat and use my silhouette to cut out the letters.
-If you want your letters to be white, just leave the canvas as it is.  If you want the letters to have a color, then paint/spray the whole board now.
-Measure the board and using a pencil draw the lines of where you want the letters to go, or at least the spacing.
-After cutting all of the letters on the contact paper (I use the same cut settings as the vinyl), I peel the letters off and stick to the board.  This method makes the edges a bit fuzzy.  It will lay down flat but it will kinda peel up a little after you paint.  I like this look.  But if you want perfectly crisp letters, you'll probably have to use the vinyl.
-Once you have all of your letters positioned on the board, take it outside (or some place safe), and spray paint it.  I just used the cheap kind from Walmart, nothing special.
-  Once it is completely dry, peel off your contact paper letters.
-I wanted a kinda vintage look so I took soft sand paper and sanded over the whole canvas.  I love how it turned out.  I could probably even do some more sanding.  I'm just afraid of getting too much.  But this definitely helped finish off the look.

So, total price for canvas ($6), a huge roll of contact paper ($6, but I'll be able to use for lots of projects), and a can of spray paint ($2)-  $14, and I still have plenty of spray paint and contact paper left!  Not too shabby!!

I'm going to use this same method to make some wall art for my boys room.  I'll let you know how it goes :-)  And I'll take some pictures as I go next time to add to this post.  Hope it helps!