Princess & Toy Story Valentines

This year my 6 wanted to do some super cute, slightly different, Valentines for her class party. Her teacher isn't big on candy or the after effects on the kids, so I spent A LOT OF TIME on Pinterest pinning Valentine ideas. I originally liked this one but found it oddly difficult to find wild animal toys! So I looked through all of the stuff I've hoarded while on sale and came up with a SUPER cute idea of using Princesses and Toy Story toys I found at the dollar store!

There are only 20 kids in her class (THANK GOODNESS) and I actually had almost ALL of the small toys needed (I'm a dollar store/aisle hoarder) so all I had to pick up were the Valentines!

She loved them and while I was organizing the supplies she went through and wrote her name on the backs of them.

The next day I put her to work opening up all of the dolls.

I put the doll in the bag and took one Valentine for the front of the bag and the Valentine she signed for the back. It worked out SO perfectly that they matched AND matched the princess in the bag!!

I matched them up with the top one facing front

and the back of the signed card facing out back.

She enjoyed playing with the dolls ;)

Then I stapled them together with the bag in the middle, twice on each side, and one in the middle so the doll didn't slip out. Next, I cut off the rest of bag along the top of the Valentine.

The final product :) SO super cute and easy!!

It turned out SOOOO super cute!!! She is so happy with them too!


And since the boys would probably be NONE TOO HAPPY to receive a Sleeping Beauty doll, we did the same with some Toy Story toys! There are 10 boys and 10 girls in her class.

I'm so happy with how they turned out and can't wait for her party on Tuesday to see the kids faces!

Linking up to these lovely parties!!

Valentine's Day Party!

Last year since Valentine's Day was on a weekend we had all the kids, I took the opportunity to have a little party for the kids ... and play with all the fun ideas I pinned ;)

I let my oldest invite a friend over and I invited a friend of mine and her 3 kids so we had a full house lol. But she brought a bottle of wine, so it was ok ;)

I made these cute cupcakes with the Valentine's Box mix you see in the stores, nothing fancy, but the kids enjoyed it ;)

I used the red flutes I found at the dollar store to hold some red vines, pirouline, and chocolate covered pretzel sticks! I LOVE chocolate covered pretzel sticks, they are SO easy to make and totally customizable to any occasion. Dip in chocolate, sprinkle with sprinkles, done :)

I also made cake pops!! It was my first attempt so I didn't get the sprinkles on before the chocolate melted. Minor Cake Pop Fail. But they tasted good so that's good enough!

I took a tray, covered it with a napkin, and put out some store bought frosted heart brownies.

I also made some Love Juice! Nearly as cute as my pin/link, BUT the kids liked em and it went with the decor ;)

To complete the setting, I put out some Hershey Kisses and some yogurt covered Whoppers.

The kids had a GREAT time and so did my friend and I ;) With Valentine's Day on a Tuesday this week, I'm not sure what I'll be doing for the kids or for the hubs but I sure have a lot of PINspiration to look at! What are YOU guys doing??

Linking up to the super fun parties in my side bar!!

My Favorite Posts of 2011

So the holidays came and went and I didn't post a THING.

I really meant to! I got busy with holiday events, making decorations and gifts, and just trying to enjoy being with my people, being present. That's one of my goals for the upcoming year, but that's another post.

So I started looking around on here and seeing what I have and what I haven't posted yet, and I thought it would be fun to post a recap of my favorite projects and look back on what all I've done.

Last January I posted a tutorial on a cute wreath made out of old T-Shirts! I love this wreath and can't wait to show you how I changed it up to make it part of my Valentine's decor! Check back soon for that post!

Back in May, I posted my most popular (AND most pinned!) tutorial is my Rosette Bracelet :) I STILL love these, love wearing them, and making them for gifts!

This was a quick little post on a sweet, cheap and easy photo gift idea! It's great for Mother's Day, Father's Day, Grandparents, birthdays, it's great!

I also posted the CUTEST little tutu and painted pearl shirt outfit (with tutorials). I just LOVE this for little girl gifts :)

This was a quick little post about an adorable outfit I found on clearance and added some FLAIR to. SO cute! Still want to do this to a few things of mine!

In this post, I prettyfied some dishtowels for a housewarming gift for some friends.

One of my PERSONAL favorites :) A tutorial on my jewelry organizer! I still use it and I LOVE it!

Then in June, I did a 6 part series of posts about redecorating my teenage daughters bedroom:
Part 1: Prettifying a Lamp Shade
Part 2: Easy Throw Pillow Makeover
Part 3: Easy Inexpensive Curtains
Part 4: Freezer Paper Stenciled Pillow & Mod Podged Lamp
Part 5: Painting Furniture

In July, I posted about my daughters 6th birthday party, a Tiki Tiki Pool Party including a tutorial on how I made the banner!

I also posted about a white board weekly calendar I made for myself. I can't tell you how much I rely on this thing that cost me absolutely nothing to make :)

Then I took a break for the summer ;) But in October I came back and posted about the AWESOME tutu costumes I made for my girls in 2010, complete with a tutu-orial :)
Part 1: A Darling Devil
Part 2: Witchy Woman
Part 3: Zebra's ROCK

And my last post was about my super awesome Halloween Wreath :)

I haven't posted as much as I would've like to, not even HALF of the projects I've done, so I'm hoping to make more time in the day to post more regularly in the new year. Here's hopin ... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

A Tiki Pool Party

We just recently had my daughters 6th birthday party and it was a Tiki Tiki Pool Party :) I spent weeks looking for ideas and I think it turned out pretty well!

We were going to have a pool party so I went into dollar tree hoping they would have something I could use for a theme there. I was PLEASANTLY surprised! Most of the stuff came from there. And beyond that, I just went with hot pink and blue :)

I used this tutorial for the super cute poms hanging from the chandelier. I made them a little bigger though.

Because we're trying to work with a TIGHT budget and have no oven at the moment, I got the cupcakes at the Savemart. I TOTALLY lucked out and they had blue and pink ones the day before the party.

The pink ones had Hannah Montana rings on them.

But I decided I could work with it. I took off the rings, stuck in a drink umbrella and BAM! Cute tiki-ish cupcakes ;)

The banner. I made this out of a dollar tree door hanger. I just took the pieces apart, used my cricut for the letters, and hung them on some twine with clothes pins :) I LOVE how this came out :)

Beary Lil Swimmers :) I saw this idea and decided to tweak it a bit. I filled cups filled with blue jello and stuck in some little teddy grams! So CUTE!

OH and I found these cute free printables and used them to make tented cards with cute little names for the food!

My personal FAV. Crackers with sliced turkey and a little circle of mozzerella for the "pearl" ;)

The drink table. Blue gatorade and bottled waters with blue koolaid drink mixes.

The bigger (less cutely named) foods

The party favors. I used a pail and filled it with goodies! They kids each got a lei, package of chalk, bubbles, pool balls, and flip flop sucker! The kids LOVED them! I used another set of free printables on the front. I printed them on cardstock, cut them out and wrote "Thanks for coming, we DIG you!" then stuck it on with Zots :)

It was a great party and I'm VERY happy with how it all turned out :)

But let me tell you ... I'm REALLY glad it's over! I get so stressed out over these parties and everything that goes along with it. I forget how that feeling every year until it comes time to start planning again ;) I'm glad Teen is foregoing the party for taking her a couple of friends to Six Flags for HER birthday! LOL!

Linking up to these parties!