1st Birthday Garden Party with Birds

I can't believe my baby is 1!!! Seriously, where did the time go?!?! We celebrated Sadie's birthday with a Birdie (because everything is birds for her-her room, her clothes...) garden party.
This was the 3rd party in our house in 2 weeks AND between parties phase 1 of our kitchen remodel which involved new tile floors, painting all the cabinets white, and converting the pantry to an office space. Hello!? Call me crazy!!!

The day was perfect!!! Since I kept calling it a garden party I expected it to rain and ruin any chance of setting up outside so I was so stoked when it was a gorgeous sunny day and all the plans I had of being outside worked.
Where to start?!?! I'll start with the order that I did the projects and prep work. Like I said I planned for this to be an outside garden party feel. We were borrowing my dad's white canopy to provide some shade so I knew I would a want to break up all the white and of course girlie it up. Flower garland totally screams garden party right?

Supplies all from our local Dollar Tree:
lots of fake flowers in party colors
grosgrain ribbon
Hot glue

Bad photo, just keeping it real!!!
To make:
Pull apart flowers so you're left with the fabric part, toss the stems and centers.
Lay out ribbon on a protected surface
Squirt hot glue on ribbon then press flower into glue.
For spacing I just guessed so that the petals would either touch or overlap some. I didn't worry too much about a pattern because I didn't want to take the time to count flowers and do the math. UGH!

To hang the flower garland backdrop I just looped the ribbon around the canopy support and secured with a safety pin that way I wasn't poking holes in the canopy fabric. The flower garland provided a beautiful backdrop for the table and then as you can see from the first photo we placed our birthday girl in front of it for cake time.
Now on to he fabric garland. Easy again just time consuming. If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen when I was working on this.

Still keeping it real! This was the beginning of kitchen remodel too, this house was so trashed!

Supplies:

4 fabrics in party colors, 1/4 yards each
twine
scissors

To make:
Cut fabric into 1/2 inch strips.
Loop or knot fabric around the twine in chosen pattern. From the photo on the left I placed the middle of a fabric strip under the twine bringing the two ends around the twine and through the fabrics middle and pulled.
Continue until you've reached your desired length. I had plenty of fabric to make the garland that was on the front of both the food table and the Sadie's high chair tray with strips leftover (I'll show you where else I used a few strips soon.)
For paper decorations I headed to Etsy and found a party package in the right colors and of course had birds! Yay!!! Thank you Studio DeLamour for the beautiful printables. Just a tip if you ever use party printables: Print almost everything on full sheet sticker/adhesive backed paper. You can do that if you print from home or at a copy center (what I did.)

You can see some of the party printables here in the set up of the food table. The menu was Salad with grilled chicken and fruit salad. Since it was a garden party I wanted to keep it light. The jars with the salads in them were a great find a few years ago at The Christmas Tree Store, they came with the chalkboard label.

 

There are various salad toppings in Ball jars and a selection of dressings in squeeze bottles with labels from the party printables.

It wouldn't be a party here if I didn't serve Sweet Tea!!! Pink lemonade sounds very refreshing for a garden party. See the straw flags-printed on sticky paper so they went on in a breeze!

 

How cute are these Birdie watermelon pops?!?! They are super easy too!!! I used a cookie cutter on slices of watermelon then inserted craft sticks. Cute!

 

Now here's were I used the left over fabric strips. I just folded a strip in half and glued it to the back of the cupcake toppers from the printables when I glued them to the sticks. Do you see more matching printables? on the kisses!

You know about my love of Marshmallow pops so it should be no surprise to see them on the sweets table. I used straw flags on the marshmallow pop stick to add a little pop, HA! I wish I had a better pic of the birds nest cookies but when I realized this was the best I had the cookies were all gone. These are similar to haystack cookies.

Birds Nest Cookies:

Ingredients-

Chow mien noodles

White chocolate/almond bark

egg shaped candy (hoarded from Easter)

1. Melt Almond bark in large bowl in microwave following package directions.

2. stir in chow mien noodles

3 drop by spoonful onto cookie sheet or wax paper and shape into nests by pressing spoon into the middle slightly.

4. add egg

Whoa this is a super long post. Oh well, it was for a super sweet 1st birthday!!! One more thing before I go...This last photo is now a birthday tradition. We did this for Nolan's 1st birthday and I loved the photo that I have done it every year for him and now we will every year we celebrate Sadie's birthday.

Thanks for stopping by At Home with Sweet T!

-Tracy

 

Make Dinosaur Footprint Marshmallow Pops

I've been on a marshmallow pop kick lately and really, can you blame me, they are easy and yummy. As I was planning Nolan's Dino Party I knew I would be making something fitting for the celebration but wanted to do a little more than just a marshmallow on a stick dunked in candy melts. I checked out Pinterest but didn't find anything that looked easy or that I could easily adapt for his party.
My first plan was to use a tulip shaped cookie cutter to cut the marshmallows before dipping in the chocolate. I think a tulip shape resembles a dinosaur footprint don't you? Well the marshmallows were too thick for my cookie cutter or the cookie cutter was too small, however you look at it-it didn't work. :(
After a few trys and full belly I finally got the shape that I wanted. Here's what I did:

I started with these Kraft Jet Puffed S'moremallows because they were flat and square.

 



Make cuts as shown. Cutting out two triangle shapes where the "toes" are. (Do dinosaurs have toes?) and cutting off the other two corners. The marshmallows are more rectangle-ish than square so I tried to lay each marshmallow down the same way before making any cuts so the footprints would look similar.

 

Insert a sucker stick as far as you can, aiming to go up that middle toe. Then dip in melted candy melts. Once I figured it out, it went quick. Lissy, my 12 year old, helped make these. I'd cut and she'd dip.

 

I hot-glued some foam into the bottom of 3 containers and then poked the marshmallow pops in the foam, which made a nice display.

 



There are some pretty elaborate marshmallow pops out there. For my little guys party these worked perfectly.

 

Thanks for stopping by At Home with Sweet T

-Tracy

Dino Party

I know it's been a long time since I have posted.... I'm back with a PARTY!!! We celebrated Nolan's 3rd birthday with a dinosaur theme recently. I wanted to share all the party details here with you all.

Let's start with one of my favorite parts of the party. Here's how I set up the table.

 

Those cool Dinosaur hats came from the Dollar Tree!! I don't remember what I was even shopping for when I spotted those babies but my daughter had to hold me back from buying all the hats they had. Of course she was right we didn't need 49 hats, 6 worked perfectly. Down the center of the table are more party favors with candy inside. Easy peasy baby food jars with spray painted lids, glued on dinosaurs, cute and fun! The green partyware is also from Dollar Tree. The dinosaur stickers throughout the party decorations were found on clearance at Michaels, I liked them because they were more kid friendly and not scary for our 3 year old.

 



 

 

Ok, so yeah I'm silly but my favorite thing from the party was this idea!!! See the T-Rex holding the fork. I think I'm pretty clever for that one, don't you agree?

 

 

What's a party with out lots of SUGAR!?!?  I mean seriously, sugar overload here at the dessert buffet/hutch. See those dinosaur footprint marshmallow pops on the top shelf? Come back later this week and I'll tell you how I created those.

 

The ladies at the Walmart bakery came through for me again. I ordered the icing to look like grass, then just stood some plastic dinosaurs in the icing.

 

These are my favorite favorite cookies ever ever!!! If you're from the Indy area do you remember Roselyn's bakeries? Their iced cookies they made for every season? Mine don't come out looking the same but the taste, mmmm takes me back, oh they are so good. Do you dare taking a Dino Bone cookie from the Dino plate?  Yes I really cut a dinosaur in half and glued the top to a plate. He's cute and scary at the same time.

 

Cricut + Cardstock + ribbon + dino stickers = A super festive birthday banner. I always hang the birthday banners from the balcony, this time we went a little higher to make it all fit but I'm not sure I like it. It wasn't as noticeable. We celebrated his birthday a little early so I left the banner up through his birthday.

 

About 2 weeks before the party Nolan and I made dinosaur eggs using the recipe I found here: http://www.survivingateacherssalary.com/diy-make-your-own-dinosaur-egg-dig-tutorial/

We used recipe 1. I didn't take any pictures of the making or the finished product, oops. Here are the kids digging them up out of the sand box. It was a fun activity that kept them busy between eating and dessert.

I made a quick Dino hair clip for Sadie. It's just an plain hair clip that I covered with a ribbon using hot glue then hot glued a small plastic dinosaur. I may have gone dino-crazy on that detail but a girl has to accessorize right?

 

 

Daddy did it again, I'd consider him an expert watermelon carver. hehe. 

Happy Birthday little buddy!!! Hope all your wishes come true.

 

Nolan used all the left over stickers and the stickers that I removed from the containers and things to make thank you cards.  He told me what to write then added some design of his own. Frugal yes, but a thoughtful and important lesson to teach him to say thank you!

 

The dinosaur theme was fun and overall the party came together well. I don't know how you all plan parties but I tend to come up with way more ideas than I have time to complete. I love planning and hosting parties. The clean up not so much.

Thanks for stopping by At Home with Sweet T

-Tracy











Craft Party

Over the Labor Day weekend I hosted a craft party. Invitations were sent out over Facebook to a few family and friends. I intended to have a small party because I don't have a lot of work space. Well,it was a very SMALL party of 2. Yep, my only guest was my sweet sister in law (SIL). The plan was to get rid of some extra scrapbook and craft supplies so re-organizing my "studio" would be easier. Oh well, I still had a great time crafting and chatting with my SIL. Since the beginning of September is the unofficial start of FALL, I wanted the party set up to feel fallish. We love homemade Chex Mix here so I made a double batch, one for the family to snack on and one for all of my party guests, lol. I also found a great recipe online for carmel apples. I mean what's a fall party without carmel apples. Oh so yummy!!! Here is how I set up the snack table:

Of course, I served sweet tea! The other glass container is Apple Cider, mmmm. I purchased a roll of brown kraft paper at the Dollar Tree and covered our work space and the snack area with it. Then, I cut small strips of the kraft paper and tied them around some Ball jars and tall glass containers with string. The carmel apples are on paper doilies. The Chex mix is in paper bags that I cut short.

My SIL brought a few projects to work on. Her family recently had a photo shoot while on vacation so she printed some of the pictures in wallet sizes and made the photos into tags. She said she always forgets to get a card to go with gifts now she can just tie on her cute photo tag and ta-da, done. Great idea!!! I worked on a few projects. I made a Fall banner that needs a few more finishing touches then will be ready to show later this month. I also, finished wrapping cardboard initials in yarn to put in our entry...that is not a quick task! I was able to make a few cards for upcoming birthdays and holidays. As always, I had hoped to get more projects done. I'm just a slow crafter or maybe I was chatting too much. I was so disappointed about the small party that I forgot to take pictures of us crafting. I haven't decided if I will host another craft party again or not, the idea sounds great. -Tracy