Adorable Parties

2011 Halloween in progress

2011-10-15T13:19:00.000-07:00

Our invitations!! I used photos from 2 yrs ago and thought it was perfect!

Added a little orange background and found a wedding invitation set at Target on clearance for $6, included the ribbon, fancy wrap in the middle, the small cards and the envelopes - awesome deal!!

Our revamp of last years Goodie Bags... This year they have orange nail polish with the glow in the dark and the black/sparkle polish, RIP caps too!. Added BathnBodyWorks handsoap in the halloween designs, a special lipstick and eyeshadow.

Ideas to come... chocolate covered oreo cookies, caramel apples, graveyard cupcakes, candy bar, chocolate covered cherry mice and some burger sliders and fries.

Recipe 1 : Chocolate Covered Oreos... they went from Sparkle Pops to Mummy's lol

Chocolate Melt, Oreos (halloween ones of course), sticks, bags, ties, - in the end the sparkles and toppers never made it, so I switched to Eyes from Target in the boxed cake section and green chocolate melt.

My awful sparkle pop

My 1st pan of Mummy Pops lol

I'm starting to love them and Amber thought they were cool.

My Mice Capades... Devil and Angel Chocolate Covered Cherry Mice...

First - your marichino cherries, chocolate chips, nuts and melts chocolate

Second - melt chocolate and dip your cherries (side note: white ones need to be dipped twice!)

Now to add your noses and eyes

Add some nuts for ears or just swirl some melted chocolate on (did that for the white ones)

Then you have your little creatures... nicely frozen.

SOOO many more ideas can't wait to update ya as we go :)

Aice in Wonderland

2011-04-18T10:14:00.000-07:00

The Entry Way to Amber's Wonderland

The Mad Hatter greeted everyone and arrows were all over with sayings from the movie

A teapot of cards and the Queens themselves

Whats a party without the Queen pointing to have someone head taken off!

I found HUGE playing cards and put them up on the wall

Our own TeaParty - found tons of teapots and cups/saucers at the Goodwill store

Each place setting had a little chocolate treat that said Eat Me, a key and lock, and their own teacup cupcake

My homemade centerpiece... tons of glue and a little craftiness from Michaels :)

My cheshire cat drink bowl - I LOVED that thing... hand painted it - but once it got wet, it melted... next time, better paint!!

Gift bags : Alice in Wonderland movie (blockbuster went out of business and I got lucky on the $2 price), crazy lollipop and a pair of key earrings from Etsy!

Close Up of the centerpiece

Handmade Trees for the rose garden - Michaels wedding section had them and I added the ribbon and the flowers

LOVE these - had images from the movie posters put on canvas and hung them around the room

2010 Halloween

2010-10-07T17:35:00.000-07:00

Our invitations: Coffins with white chocolate fingers inside and the invitation on the top

I bought 15 unfinished coffins at Michaels and spraypainted them black (misting the inside) and then covered them in cardstock (one special one for her best friend).

On the inside I ended up putting red crinkle paper and chocolate fingers wrapped up and tied.

The invites themselves are both cardstock with a little saying printed out, and believe it or not, the webs,spiders and skull are confetti that I glued on

Almost finished and then a little twine to hold it all together :)

The party favors are Martha Stewarts Vampire treat bags, I added one piece of red tissue to hid the contents and the rest came with the packaging :)

My favorite gift set yet - glow in the dark, black and vampire red nailpolish with red syringe pens (all off ebay!)

When I set it up on the table - I had tons of tattoos and makeup for them to play with and TONS of toy bat rings.

I ended up making our Vampire Bite Cookies ahead of time to freeze them, I think they turned out great!

*Notes - I doubled the batch, used a Wilton lips cookie cutter, you see the mini they suggested, I think I would have used a snack size if I did it again and just made a sugar cookie - its really cinnamon but the kids tested them and they taste ok :)

Prep Time: 20 min.
Bake Time: 7-10 min.
Decoration Time: 15 min.
Difficulty: Easy
Yield: Makes 24 bites.

1 ½ cups flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ cup butter, softened
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
Red food coloring
¼ cup red decorator’s sugar
24 pieces MILKY WAY® Minis
1 tube vanilla frosting
Plastic wrap
Electric mixer
Large bowl
Medium bowl
2 cookie sheet pans

1. Combine the flour, baking soda and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Set aside.
2. Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the egg; beat well. Slowly add the flour mixture into the dough until blended. Add enough food coloring to tint the dough a bright red. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and refrigerate at least 2 hours.
3. Preheat oven to 375°F. Line the cookie sheet pans with the parchment paper.
4. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to 1/4-inch thickness. Use a cookie cutter to cut out 24 lip shapes. Otherwise, you can form the dough into 24 balls and flatten each slightly to create free-form shaped lips using your hands to pinch and shape the dough. Transfer these to the prepared cookie sheets. Re-roll the scraps if necessary.
5. Sprinkle the cookies with red sugar. Bake 7-10 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from the oven, and immediately press a MILKY WAY® Minis into the center of each cookie. Cool completely. Use vanilla frosting to pipe fangs over the candy.
Tip: If short on time, consider using store-bought refrigerated sugar cookie dough. Begin by kneading 2/3 cup of flour into the dough, then roll and cut according to the above directions. One roll of cookie dough makes approximately 18 cookies.

Calories per serving 138
Total Fat 6 g
Saturated Fat 4 g
Trans Fat 0 g
Cholesterol 20 mg
Sodium 62 mg
Carbohydrates 20 g
Dietary Fiber 0 g
Sugars 13 g
Protein 1 g
Vitamin A 0%DV
Vitamin C 0%DV
Calcium 0%DV
Iron 0%DV

Now that we have our Halloween Dishes set in stone... Made our menu up for the Halloween party - Vampire Bites, Mummy Brownie Pops, Krispie Zombie Treats, Hairy Snot Balls, Worm Bait, Grandmas Gummy Teeth, Sour Spider Webs, Skeleton Bones

The dinning room...

Our Vampire Bite Cookies...

Worm Bait...

Hairy Snot Balls...

Our Bat Cupcakes...

Mummy Brownie Pops...

Krispie Zombie Treats...

And our decor inside... LOVE the spider :)

The outside of the house - our graveyard and more!!

2010 Bday Skating

2010-04-25T17:13:00.000-07:00

Our topsy turvy cake she saw on one of the cake shows and I went and got it made for her... nope we'll stick to walmart cakes from here on out :)

Our chocolate lollipop tree... simple chocolate mold off ebay, a little melted chocolate and lollipop sticks and you have it ready to go!

Ambers invite - yeah I went digital and when they arrived from walgreens, I got out my cardstock and a little black ribbon and did them up.

One of my neat little ideas - I got chocolate shaped candy lipbalm off ebay and found these little numbers on there too - they come flat and you fold them and tie them off, the stickers I printed off with photoshop and labels.

Of course I got into the digital thing a little too much and got candy bar wrappers for her...

Then I found these for 2.10 - the sites not around anymore or I'd post it. They were a huge hit in the center of the table.

My big treat bag was these - Candy containers! I got clear plastic paint cans, printed off labels at home, went to a candy store and bought in bulk (it was cheaper than I thought - make sure to go to a mom and pop shop, their even cheaper and they will order anything you want!)

I did alot of treats since there couldn't do anything but skate at the party and the package deals was soo cheap for them all the skate.

2009 Halloween

2009-10-31T16:30:00.000-07:00

I bought Flergs graphics and started learning how to use Adobe Photoshop - LOVE IT!! I was able to put together this invite and glued it inside my coffin shaped invite. A little cardstock glitz wrapped around the middle, two hole punches and a ribbon finished it off.

My one new treat was me Brittle Bones - this girl has like a million ideas too!!

We had blood bags and ear wax chewies from Oriental trading, cupcakes, chips and the more for food

I spent most of my time ghouling up my ghouls lol

We even had a buttler handing out teeth...

Our mad scientist kitchen - from oriental trading - and on the counter was tons of stuff for them to make with caramel apples.

2009 Bday

2009-04-25T17:01:00.000-07:00

Another digital masterpiece - off ebay - had them sent to walgreens and shipped to the house.

Ambers ice cream cake - they did what ever we wanted at Dairy Queen.

Mike showcasing our bowling ball pins sippy cups

They had a ball! I suggest bowling parties all the time now!

Ok - so I bought these mini bowling pins and filled them with gum - you can see it in the picture above and how big compared to the sippys (far right lower of pic)

I bought the pink sippy's at Noveltybowlingstuff.com

I got these darlings bowling bag purses from Bowlingshirt.com

2008 Bday Hannah Montanna

2008-04-25T16:19:00.000-07:00

My first attempt at digital invites - I had a girl on ebay do them up and then I added them to badge holder and a lanyard - like they were getting invited to a concert

They played rockband, did karaoke in the Hannah room - took pictures in front of the huge Hannah posters I found on ebay.

Halloween 2007

2007-10-31T16:00:00.000-07:00

So as she got older and appreciated it... I got a little more involved...

and so did the invites lol - I got a couple paper cut outs off ebay (hat, cat globe and kettle) and used glue dots to adhere them. Then printed the invite on white cardstock (believe it or not the green bubbles are on the printed cardstock and not an add on) - then I attached it to purple cardstock.

We had a fortune teller section behind the purple wall - neighbors girl came over and told each girl a fortune - just had her keep it pg13 lol

Streamers - balloons - signs and more were all over the house - where ever I could find a spot! They even had these cute things to fill out when they came in - as I didn't know all the numbers for their parents.

This big guy is my favorite and he just passed away this year (2010) - he's a puff ball with streamer legs that you could angle any way you want. I love making them look UP at decorations!

Ok I love these witches hat cookie - there's a surprise in the middle - I bought store made cookies and had them frosted black. I then took cones, filled them with mini m&m's and then put them on the cookie (upside down) and finished them off with cans of orange and purple frosting and a few sprinkles. I made mummy finger hotdogs too.

my favorite popcorn in a bag trick - easier than everyone fighting over a bowl of popcorn - brown paper bags, rolled down and ready to go!

The gang and two tv's for them to watch both movies - one was a premier and the other was a dvd. I just spread them out and let them have fun!

And our huge cake to feed all 24 kids lol

2007 Cheetah Girls Bday

2007-04-25T15:47:00.000-07:00

These are the simplest to make -

1. Brown cardstock, cut along the edge to make a ruffle effect

2. hole punch with slits (double) to slide ribbon though

3. cheetah print ribbon glued on the edge

4. light brown cardstock with invite printed on it (made in microsoft word) and then stamped with doggie prints

Gotta love walmart - they can add any thing to a cake - they added the image of the invite right onto it! Then did a cute leopard print around the edges!

I didn't go all out at this part (we were moving soon) - we did a shoe pinata in the basement and I made these marshmellow pops - simple marshmellows on a lollipop stick, then dipped in melted chocolate and sprinkled on real quick - took no more than 15mins to make and a couple to bag them up :)

Halloween 2006

2006-10-31T15:58:00.000-08:00

We did a triple feature movie night - made an 8x11 cardstock invite and added a little admit one - that I printed from an image off the net and just cute along the lines to make it 3D.

Yep - you guessed it - our walmart cake - they custom did it to her colors and added as many ghosts as we wanted.

If you blow up the picture you can see a couple things... I learned to invest in things that I could keep using (yes I still have those plates :) I did chocolate chip cookies and dipped them in chocolate, a few sprinkles, marshmallow mini eyes and a little frosting for the month. Our goodie bags were Frankenstein shaped bags filled with movie candy - spree, m&m's and more!

2006 Bratz Bday

2006-04-25T15:40:00.000-07:00

Ambers slumber party bratz invites... I made the image in paint shop from a graphic i fell in love with, printed it out on cardstock, put it on purple or pink cardstock - through a couple butterfly punches and a organza ribbon at the top... the girls loves them!

Streamers, table covers, hula necklaces (dollar store!) and balloons covered our kitchen...

Target again - dollar section had these cute little pink purses and I knew we were going to need favor bags - bought them months ahead and stashed them... filled with candy rings, gum, hair stuff and more.

We ended up making lip balm - dollar section at target has these cute mirrors - on ebay I found some little circle containers to put the lipgloss in and a little Vaseline and koolaide you have tons of lipgloss!

Walmart makes the best cakes - I've done tons of other bakeries and walmart rocks!

Easy popcorn for everyone without passing the bowl - just roll down brown paper bags and fill em up - this also absorbs alot of the grease too!

Found these cute bubble bath ice cream containers at target (love their dollar section!!)

Best advice - if your doing nails at a party with young kids get this nail dyer spray - spray them outside and the nails dry instantly - then they can run wild!

We also bought inflatable microphones and guitars for when they watched the Bratz movie and could play along. And when they are all done - partying and rocking out - they crashed!!