Adoption Party

I waited 15 months to have this party!  I even skipped having a 1st birthday party for her so I could focus on this.  I wanted to celebrate her adoption!  As with most parties- I had this planned in my head for a long time.  And I bought her shirt and her bow before she was officially Zoe.  Some things you just know!

Our church has a great patio where we could have the party.  It really took a village to pull this off.  I’ll try to thank everyone who helped because we really couldn’t have done it alone!

Here’s the party girl!

I think this picture was after the party was over- June in Texas- I was super sweaty!  But don’t mind that.  My friend Julie wrote this chalkboard for us.  Zoe’s bow… it looks like a dinner plate on her head.  I love it!

 

My friends make adorable children!

  

I hired some models to stand at the entrance of the party.  Every good party needs models.

Bella and Zoe enjoying the AC!  Bella is Rene’s beautiful daughter and Rene is the photographer who took all these photos.  check out her company Roots Photography and hire her immediately for your family photos!  She also takes our family photos AND we are going to Portugal together.  Rene has the biggest heart ever!!!  She didn’t think it was enough to take pictures so she and her husband also smoked all of the meat for lunch!  

 

My salsa is NOT world famous- but a couple of weeks before this event we had VBS.  I made the salsa for the VBS workers and they were practically drinking it with a spoon.  It’s as if they had not eaten in days.  So I made it again the next day and declared it famous.

Good signage at a party is important! 

My friend Anna did the flower arrangements.  I had collected the tea tins they are in for about a year but at the last minute doing flower arrangements made me want to cry.  I can do lots of things but flower arranging is not one of them! 

I made the little straw flags for the arrangements.  Well, originally I was going to make them for all the drinks but I didn’t have time for that!

The fans and lanterns were left over from my sisters wedding.  The paper was some wrapping paper I found in my stash- I had picked it up from the dollar spot at Target years ago.  The tea tins are from my favorite kind of tea.  If you are a tea lover, check Harney & Sons brand out.

A friend of ours came and fried things with his giant fryer.  This stuff is delicious and I even had him fry some apples so it would be healthy.

 

My mom had this fabulous cake made.  It tasted as delicious as it looked! 

I got her shirt from THIS SHOP on etsy.  I had purchased a “5” shirt for Cason’s birthday and asked if she could do a custom one for Zoe.  She did and it’s wonderful!  You can’t really tell but it says Zoe Cate on the side and a big Z on the front.  They are the softest, best shirts everrrrr.  I highly recommend them. 

I got her bow from THIS SHOP.  I’m pretty sure I need to buy all of these bows.   

The kids had a great time!  My friend Michelle brought the washer pit for an activity and the sand volleyball courts served as a great way to keep the kids occupied while the adults sat in the shade. 

I had so much fun planning and hosting this party!  I hope you enjoyed the virtual tour!

There were so many people that came to help decorate and organize.  Sabrina, Paige, Lauren, Anna... my mom and sister are always a huge help for these crazy parties I want to throw.  Thank you, thank you.

Mid-Century Side Table Makeover

 

 

About a year ago a friend found a dresser and a side table at a garage sale and it was exactly the kind of dresser I had been looking for to use as our entertainment center.  Of course, I didn’t document the before picture but if you look to the left of this adorable boy, you can tell how it turned out. 

So after the dresser was done the side table sat in the garage for a year because we didn’t have time to get to it.  I had a vision though…

 

A friend sanded it for me to save some time. 

I painted the doors and drawer white and stained the wood all the way around and the legs.  Staining furniture was apparently new to me because I did it wrong a few times and had to re-do it.  Even with the unprofessional stain- I really like how it turned out! 

Here’s a picture of the bedroom that it goes in.  This is before I had finished the side table but you can imagine how great it looks :-)

Fun, Easy, Affordable Art... That doesn't look like it

This story is pretty typical for the way things go around here.  

It's not necessarily how i WANT them to go but it's just how it works.  

I start a project.

It's super cool in my head.

I get mostly finished.

Life happens.

1-7 years later I finish the project.

This particular project is special because when I was painting the bathroom that this art is in, I got a phone call about a baby girl that needed a foster home.  I was literally holding a paintbrush talking to my foster agency and thinking "We aren't ready for a baby, when would I ever finish this bathroom?"

Well, baby Z came to live with us a few days later and she's never leaving.  Which means I may never finish the bathroom, but she's worth it!

So here's the project.  

I had this canvas that I believe my sister painted for her college apartment.  it's super cute but I needed it hanging the other direction and I was hanging it on a dark wall so I always imagined that it would be light in color.  I had this idea for a project in my head when I was working on the bathroom.

In March.

March 2013.

To start I pulled some colorful pages out of magazines and cut them into strips- about 1/4" in width.

I cut approx. 1,459 more than I needed- but I didn't know that.

I had printed a pattern that I wanted on 11x17 paper so I knew the size that I needed to create.

My plan was to use mod podge to take the strips and glue them to the canvas then cover the mod podge over it for a thick clear coat.  

I was out of mod podge and instead of waiting to buy more I just used some glitter glue I had laying around.  But it was lumpy.  So that wasn't a great idea. 

 

I traced the pattern I printed onto contact paper and cut it out- then I applied the contact paper on top of the magazine strips.  The glue over them kept the stickey from ripping the magazine paper when I pulled it off.

You can kind of see the clear contact paper on top.  

 

Then I took it outside and sprayed the entire thing white.  I used the whole can of spray paint.  I wanted it really white!

See how it's rough where the design is... well, I didn't count on that... and I'm not sure how to fix it yet.  But I will work on fixing that sometime.  

When it was all dry I pulled off the contact paper to reveal the beautiful design below!

Here it is hanging in the bathroom.  You can't really tell from here but some of the edges are not as crisp as I would like so I'm going to try and touch them up somehow. 

But, given my history, I went ahead and hung it in the bathroom and I'll get to finishing it in the next 2-5 years.  

I have 37 other projects to work on!

Everything Design- Graduation Announcements

  I love doing graduation announcements.  It's like Christmas cards in May.  

It's easy to make nice cards when you have seniors that look like these.  So great! 

Do you need some custom cards made?  Contact me for more info!

Spy School Birthday Party

I would love to say it was super easy to put together C’s 5th Birthday party because I do this sort of thing all the time.  BUT when it came time to plan, I was buried in life and work and I had a hard time getting all the details in order.  To be honest, the only reason I did a big party was because it’s my business- and it’s good for my portfolio.  :-)

Here we go.  C is into spies and I decided on a “Spy School” theme.  The kids came and went through some basic training and earned their certificate at the end.  It turned out to be a lot of fun!

We had the party at the church so I had one sign downstairs to lead everyone up.

And this was the welcome sign for the door.  I had just gotten a new printer so I can now print 11”x17” signs! 

For the invitation- I made a little “folder” and had these pages cut apart and paper clipped in the folder.  I ran the envelopes through the printer and printed “top secret” on the outside. 

Banner above the present table at the entry

We had nametags for everyone to work on when they got there.  On the back, they got a sticker for every training mission they completed.

Here’s our nametag table setup.

We are about to get a bit out of order- because these pictures are seriously hard to re-arrange. 

I’m not type A so it doesn’t bother me…. hopefully it won’t bother you. 

  

So we had a series of missions they had to complete.  One of them was Language school (okay, so I needed another mission, I stretched it a bit)

We taught the kids how to say hello in a few languages and count and some other things.  I’ve watched Dora a few times so I know some Spanish and I almost failed French in college and I’ve been to Portugal twice so I’m pretty sure they learned a lot. 

Actually all they did was ask when dinner was.  #fail

       

Speaking of dinner, the spies in training came to the cafeteria at spy school for dinner. 

I found these adorable paper cafeteria trays online and HAD to have them so that actually determined the theme of the whole dinner. 

Here’s all the kids eating with their cute cafeteria trays. 

The kids are cute too.

 

Here’s some of the very simple food.  I usually like to do homemade food with new recipes and lots of ingredients… but I just didn’t have it in me this year.

 

 

The Cake!  I just got a simple cake at target with sprinkles on the edge and added the rest of the decorations myself. 

You should have heard the Target baker when she was taking my order- “is that all?” “would you like anything else on the cake?”  “anything at all…”

One of their missions was to dress up in disguises and we took some fun pictures. 

Disguise table.

The kiddos had fun!

C with his sweet aunt Caylin who came all the way from Houston for the party. 

Another mission- driving school!

 

I didn’t get any good pictures of this one.  They were moving too fast!

Everyone’s favorite mission- Laser training. 

 

I was hoping it would be everyone’s favorite activity because it looks just like an awesome spy movie and it took Mike an hour to put it together.  But it turns out it was their favorite because there was candy at the back and they just loved to go through the maze and grab candy. 

Over and over and over.

     

I even had a spot for the grown ups to relax since they work so hard. 

 

My family sure did enjoy it. 

It’s a good thing I didn’t PAY them to help. 

For the last mission of the day they had to pop balloons and find the secret message and it took them downstairs and look for the next clue and the next clue.

I just thought these pictures were funny.

 

Then they had to stay on the sidewalk and shoot out the dynamite before it exploded. 

And then they got goodie bags.

At the end everyone got a diploma in a very official ceremony.