What I Heart Today: Party Food!

I'm going to share with you the good, the bad, and the ugly.  I'm going to be honest, planning the menu is not my strong point.  I tend to get these separate ideas in my head but not pay any attention to whether or not they go together.  A perfect example of this is what we call in our house "random frozen food night" or RFF for short.  This is when I go to Trader Joe's and pick out all of the frozen stuff that looks good.  Like mac n cheese bites and gyoza.  So that's where I'm coming from when trying to put a menu together, therefore my menu was a little weird.  There were two things I absolutely had to have:
1.  Glitter Balls by Martha Stewart

 

2.  Fruit sushi inspired by Elle Belle Creative

The glitter balls turned out great, they're essentially a sugar cookie.  I took a shortcut though, you're supposed to put two cookies together and add a filling in between to make them into balls but I made my cookies too big and decided to just serve them as single cookies.  They were very visually pleasing and a great way to incorporate the color theme.  The fruit sushi on the other hand... was a big flop.  Looked cute, tasted gross.  I have a bad habit of not tasting new things ahead of time and of course once the day came around it was too late.

That's the start of my menu, more to come tomorrow!

What I Heart Today: Printable Invite

Hope everyone is back from a great weekend!  I'm going to be breaking down my daughter's first birthday party into separate posts so I can talk about each element.  To start with the whole party was inspired by this great fabric by Ann Kelle, it's an understatement to say I'm obsessed with Ann Kelle fabrics, the next two parties I'm working on were also inspired by her fabrics.

Once I found the fabric I made it into a birthday dress which led to...

...this invitation

And that's how this whole thing started!

What I Heart Today: My First Printables

Last weekend was my daughter's first birthday party, what a big deal!  I've been working on it for months, planning every little detail.  I've been pouring over children's party blogs like tomkat studio, Kate Landers, Bird's Party and Anders Ruff, those ladies are all very talented and design such inspiring events.  I thought I'd start out with something just a little bit easier.  Children's dessert tables seem to be all the rage these days so I thought I would have a go at it.  At the same time I designed my first line of printables (which you can find in my Etsy store).  I've decided to break down all the details in to their own posts, so today I'm going to give you a peek at the before and after photos.

Party space before transformation...

Finished party space!

 

 

Thanks for joining me I'm linking to Bird's Party Blog!

What I Heart Today: My Design Space

I'm ready to admit it.  I'm ready to share where I blog, design, and create, and it's a mess.  No matter how much I try to organize I've realized I work best in chaos.  So here it is...

I should feel really lucky, I have an entire bottom floor to myself to design, blog, and create!  I just have no idea what to do with the space.  The two major things holding me back are budget (I don't really have one) and wood paneling, that's right the whole bottom floor is covered in real cedar paneling.  The mess of a creation you see in the background mostly has to do with my daughter's birthday party which we held last weekend (more coming soon!).

Well, at least I've gotten it over with.  My dirty messy little secret is out!

What I Heart Today: Felt Garland Tutorial

It's been really, really hard to get back in the swing of things after wrapping up the holidays.  I finally got all of my decorations packed up and put away today, it's official Christmas is over... may the let down begin!

But for me it helps that I'm moving out of Christmas and right into my daughter's first birthday party, yikes!  The pressure, I almost can't stand it.  But you know how it is, all the pressure that's on me is actually coming from me :)

Today I'm publishing my very first tutorial.  It's a simple one, just thought I would post it in case you need an idea for a simple decorating project.  Let's take a look at how to make felt garland!

To start with you'll need to cut out felt circles.  I made this felt garland for a little somethin' somethin' to spruce up my bathrooms for my daughter's party, my party color scheme is pink, orange, and yellow.  I made my pink and orange circles the same size and my connector color, which is yellow, is smaller.  I cut my circles freehand but if you're more of a perfectionist than me you can find something to use to trace a perfect circle, cut it out in cardstock, and use that as a pattern.

I originally took this next photo to show the invisible thread I've heard everyone recommend you use.  I started out with invisible thread but for some reason it kept snapping so I switched to white thread on my next strand of garland.

Line up your first felt circle centered under your needle.

Right before you get to the end of your first circle, throw your next circle under your needle for a continuous stitch.  I played around with leaving a space between colors and that works too, it's just hard to control how long the space is without the machine getting away from you.

Do the same thing for each additional circle, sew as long as your garland requires!

 

Voila! You have a great, fast, adorable decoration!  Please excuse my photography, this was taken before I started on my New Year's resolution #2 which is to learn how to use my fancy shmancy camera.

What I Heart Today: Amazon Moms

If you've not yet heard of the Amazon Moms program you're missing out.  To start with it is FREE to join, just visit http://www.amazon.com/gp/mom/signup/welcome to sign-up.  What do you get?  Well you get a free 3 month amazon prime membership (that's free 2-day shipping on all amazon items eligible for prime shipping, books, DVDs, baby gear, everything!) and for every $25 you spend in a single purchase in the baby store you get an additional free month of amazon prime shipping.  How do you easily spend $25 in a single purchase?  Order diapers, you'll get 15% off of diapers and wipes through the amazon moms membership and if you sign-up for subscribe and save (that's having your diaper deliveries scheduled) you'll save an additional 15% for a total of 30% savings.  I signed up for amazon moms and now have my diapers delivered every 3 months, so every 3 months they show up on my doorstep via free 2-day shipping and I'm now paying the same for 204 diapers as I was paying for 144 diapers at Target.  It's the greatest!

What I Heart Today: Manifesto for a New Year

Welcome 2011! And welcome everyone from blogland, I've been so slow in getting back to work.  But what I have to share with you today should make up for it.  A manifesto for a new year from the spa at The Parker, Palm Springs (have you noticed my obsession with Palm Springs yet?):

We believe in the American country club experience: mixed doubles, a long steam, and a stiff cocktail.

We believe in inner beauty. But, do what you can on the outside.

We believe in old-world etiquette and new age simplicity.

We believe you can swim right after you eat.

We believe we should trust those seeking enlightenment and doubt those who claim to have found it.

We believe the earth is three-quarters water, and your body is three-quarters water, and... this is purely coincidence.

We believe in good sport as well as fitness: Pétanque and Pastis, Pimms Cup and Croquet, Snooker and single malt whiskey.

We believe you are only young once... but you can be immature forever.

Happy new year and I look forward to sharing this next year with all of you!