Crystal and Akiko

Crystal's "Festival du Bebe" Baby Shower - Part 2

And the fun continues!

We had such a good time at the shower, it really was worth all the time, energy and creativity!

Again, a huge thank you to blogger Hostess with the Mostess at www.hostessblog.com - she has the most amazing ideas for fabulous parties!

I would also like to give a huge thank you to Performing Dance Arts (PDA), located in Woodbridge. Without their help and support, we would not have been able to host such a wonderful shower for such a wonderful person. Thank you so much!!!

Here are some more pics of different things we did for Crystal's baby festival :)

Here is the banner that I made. The lettering and butterfly cutouts were done on the cricut with the storybook cartridge. Perfect for the theme!

 
 
 

Awww...how cute!!! How old is Crystal in this picture? Write a comment with your guess!! (If you were at the baby shower then you already know...so leave it for those who dont know! This should be interesting!!)
 

 

What baby festival is complete without a CANDY BUFFET?
 
 
 
 

Dig in ladies!

 
Cupcakes!!!!!!!!!!
 

 

The guest of honor in her own butterfly wings!!!
 
Here I am, a quick 5 second breather before the gift opening storm!

 

GIFTS!!!!
 

K - this diaper cake is TOO CUTE!!! Kristina, you did an amazing job on it! I love the colors and the cute caterpillar on top!!!
 

And here is the lovely Crystal getting ready to cut the cake! This cake was so delicious...thanks Teresa for all your hard work! you did a beautiful job with this cake!!
 
 A little display :)
 
Yay to baby festivals!!!

Crystal's "Festival Du Bebe" Baby Shower - Part 1

I told you I had a CRAZY post coming up....this is it!!!

This past Sunday was the FANTABULOUS Crystal's BABY SHOWER!!! Myself, her mom Teresa and her friend Paola planned the party together. It was an absolute hit!!!

First of all, I must give huge props to blogger Hostess with the Mostess at www.hostessblog.com  - she has the most inspirational ideas on the most amazing parties! The Festival du Bebe idea came from her blog - thank you so much for your creativity!!

Everyone loved the butterfly theme, including the guest of honor. We didn't leave any detail unchecked.

Also a big thanks to everyone who contributed to making this shower such a success! As I say, it wasn't a baby shower; it was a baby FESTIVAL!!!

This was outside of the entrance...

 
 

Here is what the room looked like..
 

the centrepieces!
 
 
 
The party favors were Rattles!! I really wanted to do rattles, I was amazed at the lack of rattle favors out there! I will be posting a how-to video on these bad boys soon :)

 

Paola made the stunning guest book, which doubles as a baby scrapbook for Crystal's new baby! All the guests signed the pages of the guestbook. How creative!!

 
 
 

Crystal's special chair! Another fabulous addition from Paola. Nicely done girl!
 
There is sooooooooooooo much more to post! Check back on friday for the rest of the fabulous baby festival!!

Sabrina's Secret Garden Victorian Tea Party Bridal Shower!!

Yay!!! I am posting! My goodness, I have been trying to get to this computer for weeks to do a post. My life has been turned upside down for the past month with different events, and one of them was my beautiful sister Sabrina's bridal shower.

We decided to go with a secret garden theme, because she LOVED that book as a child. She was obsessed with gardens and the magic that they provide. What goes best with a garden theme? A tea party of course! My sister loves very romantic stuff, and the victorian era is a perfect reflection of that. Just wait till you see what we put together....

This is a long post so be sure to give yourself some time to look at it!

Here is what she first saw on the front door

 
In the entrance

 
And this is the gate to enter the secret garden!

 
 
 
Here is what it looked like from the bottom of the stairs looking up:

 
And here is what it looks like at the top of the stairs

 

Heres in the stair well

 
I got Ka-jillions of vines, flowers and butterflies from the dollar store. They helped us transform my moms home into a secret garden.

  I ordered the skeleton keys on Ebay, and tied ribbon on them from Michaels.

 

 

Arent These birdcages adorable? They were on sale for $1.50 at Michaels! I just couldn't resist...
 

They hung from the light fixture over the table
 
 

A small portion of the table. All the dishes came from either goodwill, my aunt wendy (she brought all the teacups - they were my grandmothers!) or from fabulous friends who donated to our good cause. Thank you everyone who made this party happen!!
 

 

 
All the napkins were wrapped in lace or ribbon and tied with a little butterfly. All the napkin rings were different!

 
This was my seat :)

 
Mmmmm.... Lemon mini Cupcakes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the table with a picture of Sabrina when she was a little girl. We were in Scotland and she was walking through a walled garden. The Secret Garden Book was her guestbook!....and that little girl in the bottom left corner of the pic? that is me ;)

 

These were the favors. Amazing fresh lavender in organza bags. The Lavender was from Shanna's garden! (Shanna is the Maid of honor)
 
 
Time for tea!

 
 
 
 
 

The Bride!!!
 
The Bride and MOH

 

The Bride and Me!
 
mmmm...look at all the food! We were all so stuffed. Lots of mini sandwiches, fruit salad, veggie florettes, cupcakes, cookies, brownies, along with coffee, tea, cranberry/perrier and delicious mint water.

 
 
 

Phew! I think that was everything! LOL - I hope you enjoyed it! If you want to throw a tea party and have questions on how to do it, dont hesitate to email me!

Happy Belated Halloween

Handing out candy to all the cutie-pah-tooties didn't help my excitement for Halloween 2011, when it'll be our sweet potato's first Halloween...<squeal>  In the meantime, we still dress up our furry babies in the same costume every year...lol

Presenting, for the 4th year in a row, Spidey & Miss. Lady Boogie.....

   

 
Lemme just say, it was definately appropriate weather for cute doggy eskimo kisses....brrrr....I melted when they started doing this.

My El Cheapo $6 centerpiece...haha  Wrapped some vases I had in gauze and plopped in some flowerie stuff from the dollar store.

 

My favourite decor in the house, where the goodies are!!!  Well...whatevers left of them that is ;)

 

Surprised a friend in the hospital with some home baked Halloween goodness.

 

 
RECIPE:
Paper (SU!):  Cajun Craze, Basic Black, Old Olive and Wicked Fun Designer Paper
Stamps (SU!):  Wicked Cool
Inks (SU!):  Cajun Craze and Basic Black
Punches (SU!):  Large Oval and Scallop Oval

My mom is a Silpada Rep (LOVE THEIR JEWELLERY) so she saves all her boxes for me so I can use them for gifts.  By the way, I just held a Silpada Party and received $900 in FREE jewellery....WHAAAT!!!  Get my mom to represent your next party.

Oh ya...went to see Paranormal Activity 2 with my brother, Akiko and the hubbies.  Wow!!  So maybe I tinkled a few times....what?????  I'm pregnant okay?!  hahaha

A Spooky Thanksgiving

Wow....I must say it took me a lot longer this time around to snap out of my turkey coma! Is this going to be a recurring trend?

I hosted Thanksgiving at my house this year for the first time, with a whopping 12 people! (Okay, I know some people host 30 or more people, but that was a lot for me!) How many people did you have over for turkey feasting? Leave a comment and let me know!

Everything turned out amazing. The turkey was delicious (phew!), and we all ate till we almost passed out! - Well for some that was literal - but we definitely had the 3 F's: Family, Food, and Fun!

Since I knew I wouldn't have time to decorate for Hallowe'en after thanksgiving, I combined my decor. Which is why this year, I had a Spooky Thanksgiving :)

My table Pre-Feasting

My glittery skulls!

 

Who says a scarecrow and a gargoyle can't get along?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you like my new twigs? They are wooden flowers! Neat eh? We got them from Bouclair - one of our new favorite stores!

 

 

 

 

And I absolutely love my red Sunflowers....

 
Some SPOOKY decor

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving! From my family to yours :)

 

Ben & Corey's Game Night

It was our hubbies birthdays this past week.  Being 2 days apart and pretty much having all the same friends, it's always a combined party.  Seems like we have parties coming out of our ying yangs lately...hehe

I went with a game night theme and it worked out perfectly!  We had different stations set up for yahtzee, black jack, uno spin, wii, rockband and cranium.  It was so hilarious to watch people play, what a great time.  I made up signs for each station and plopped them in some frames I already had.  Here are the signs I printed.

  

Akiko and my mom are laughing histerically at the yahtzee station and here's the tidy cranium station before it was destroyed with 15 players....haha....sooo much fun!!!!

  

Now lets talk Decor!

I made playing card flowers and plopped them around the house.  Love how they turned out and sooooo quick and easy.

 

While Judge Judy and I caught up on some lost time, I wrapped some square vases and tealight holders I have in red & white tissue paper then added some black punched out circles to create dice.

 
We hung up some streamers and a banner I put together in about 5 minutes.  So easy.  I printed and cut monopoly money and bingo cards and picked up a pack of playing cards from the dollarstore.  Ran all of them through my sewing machine and voila....a custom banner that cost me $1 =)  Okay...maybe the cutting took me   h o u r s   u p o n   h o u r s.....

 

Now for another banner.  Using the Accent Essentials & Zoobaloo cricut cartridge I put together this banner for the boys and again ran it through my sewing machine.  Badda Bing Badda Boom!  Kinda went a little wonky since I didn't tie it tight enough =( 

 
Akiko and I decorated my house with all our board games and Akiko's awesome red stones.....loooove them.  Here's me and my little girlie furball.

 
More cute pics of my furry children...

And the best part....The Food Table!!!!!  I covered the table with twister, decorated it with more games, dice vases & tealights and my card flowers.  This area was me and my little sweet potato's favourite hangout....tee hee  Btw, Akiko is the best at decorating platters with scrumptiousness =)

 

  

 

CAKE and the birthday boys.

  

And PARTY FAVOURS....wohooo.  Everyone went home with a drink, a little treat and a game.  And here are the custom labels I made for the drinks.  Label making makes me happy....haha

 

 

 

  
lifted the label layout from HERE  To see the label bigger, click on the picture.

We are so lucky to have the friends and family that we do.  Everyone had so much fun that the last of our party-ers left at 4:00AM.....now THAT'S a party!!!!!

Did I forget to mention that in total it cost me $20 to decorate????  That's what I'm talking 'bout...whaaaat!!!

Hailey's Twilight Birthday

Team Jacob or Team Edward?

It was Hailey's 11th birthday party on Saturday, and when she told me she wanted a Twilight birthday I drooled in delight - what could be more fun than planning a party around vampires and wolves?? With red, white and black as the color scheme, I quickly jumped into action and planned a twi-hard party in just 2 days. phew! But what fun it was!!!

I have to give huge props to blogger http://www.hostessblog.com - she gave me TONS of ideas in the short little time that I had!

Here is what I did:

I used crystals from my wedding and scattered them on the table tops

I got the red globes from the dollar store!

 

I went a little crazy wtih the streamers...but they looked so cool!

MMM....treats!

I just put drops of red food coloring on the "blood cakes" with twilight tags on them. There seemed to be a lot of Team Edward cupcakes left over...... I guess it was a Team Jacob group!!

These awesome drink labels I got from the blog I posted above, she includes a downloadable pdf version of these labels. Thanks!! They were a hit!

I incorporated each book. Bloody feathers for new moon....

....apples for twilight.....

...and a ripped ribbon for Eclipse!

The girls had a great time, with Twilight theme bingo, Kiss Taylor Lautner (THAT WAS HILARIOUS!) and Twilight Scene it! Game. They also had facials and manis/pedis while watching Twilight (well, attempting to, but after so much cake/cupcakes/licorice/popcorn they were off the walls!!! Oy....)

There's Hailey trying to Kiss Taylor blindfolded....I think she is a bit off!

And there they are with their masks on! Hailey is in the front with the chocolate mask, or as she called it, the "Poo mask" HAHAHA!

Stampin Up! How To Video: Inspirational Felt Magnet

Felt Embellishments & Inspirational Magnets

This project took me quite some time to post on the blog. It is something that I have been wanting to do for a very long time, but I had to do my research. I am very excited to tell you all about felt die-cutting! That's right, you can die-cut felt! And I am going to show you how....along with a really, really cool project ;)

This project contains several techniques: felt die-cutting, sewing, stamping, eyelet setting, and more! Its a a lot of fun to do, and would make a really great gift. I originally wanted to use my sewing machine, but I can't figure out what is wrong with my bobbin :( So I hand sewed everything instead. It didnt take too much time, but if anyone tries these techniques on a machine PLEASE fill me in on the deets!

Enjoy ;)

PS - I apologize for the poor video quality, I am in the process of switching programs to create more clear and better vids....stay tuned!

 
 
 
Please try it out yourself and let me know how you like it by posting a comment!

Easter Goodness

Happy Easter!

Today for Easter Dinner we had my future in-laws over for dinner - I made my very first Turkey! It was DELICIOUS, I am actually quite proud of myself!

I stayed up really late last night making the veggies, and decorating the household. I didnt have time to go and get decorations, so all my decor was whatever I could find in my house!

Corey contributed to the decor this year with some very interesting egg tales...

Here are some pics of the Easter Goodness:

I used Easter eggs from this year and last on a serving plate for my centerpiece

Everyone got their little treat bag :)

They lost a comrade!

Here is Corey and I ;)

Ouch!

That's one rotten egg!

 

Turkey Basting!
 
 

That's one good looking Turkey!....mmmmmmm

I was up until 1am cooking butternut squash, mashed potatoes and candied carrots and snap peas...well worth the work!
 
 

I just had to post this pic of my cute little Tobi nugget :)
 
 

Happy Easter!!!
 

The Perfect Pair

Soooooo happy Akiko loved her bridal shower - phew!  Of course she has the WICKEDEST bridal party, so every single detail was thought of...brag much? haha  Kinda sad it's over though, making the decor really fed my crafting urges....your turn Mr. Bunny Wabbit...bring it Easter!!!

Coming up with a theme for her shower came to me quite fast, they met dancing so why not decorate with their dance shoes as "The Perfect Pair".  I got the idea HERE and was the perfect fit.  So of course I had to make banners and pom pom's in their wedding colours (I luv you cricut).  My black ink pad grew legs and went on vacation so I doodled everything on the banner by hand.  I ran out of ribbon after cutting out the hearts so I ran them through the sewing machine and Voila!

We brought our BESTEST pumps and decorated them with Bree's little pom poms - soooo darn cute!

The Perfect Pair Banner AKA "in-between-classes decor"
   
 
   
  
 

Gluten Free Cupcake Yumness!  What girlie party would it be without cupcakes?????  Mmm...de-lish!  I designed the cupcake toppers on my puter, printed them and punched them out with my wide oval punch from stampin up! then sandwiched extra long toothpicks in between the punch outs. 
 
 

Now I SERIOUSLY had to get creative with these bridal shower favours.  30 of them at a cost effective price???? hmmmmm  I wanted to keep the theme consistent so decided to do something for feetsies.  Every lovely lady left with a Moisturizing Foot Spa package....ohhhh yeah!  Each baggie contained a soft fluffy pair of socks, a bottle of cocoa butter foot moisturizer, two large bags, 2 rubber bands and a Spa Recipe Tag (read the tag to find out how the ingredients work together).  I couldn't find small enough containers for the moisturizer at a decent price, so I bought salt & pepper containers, punched out circles to cover the top and designed the bottle wrapper on the puter.  Time consuming, but finally gave Oprah and I some time to catch up =P

Bridal Shower Favours

 
   

After all this prep, it was the day before the shower, I was totally packed and ready to go decorate when I realized....whaaaat?  no card for the Bride????  How could I?  So I whipped up this simple card with my FAVOURITE little birdies - looks like I was a little intoxicated when I was stampin "for your shower" hahaha

Akiko's Bridal Shower Card from moi
 
 

Here we are!!....how ridiculous are those pom poms?????  Akiko's creative sis, Bree, slaved over those!

 

What a lovely day it was - now onto the Jack & Jill  =)  Psst.....don't forget about our giveaway going on...and come Tweet with me....tootles