Let's be adventurers- Mommy edition

(Image source)

This week I have been feeling the itch for a little adventure.

I'm not really picky.

It could be a day at the beach trying to paddle board for the first time.

(image source)

Or an overnight trip to this cute little bed and breakfast I have been dying to go to in this fabulous little hippy town.

(image source)

You know I wouldn't turn down a trip to Greece, my dream, either.

(image source)

In reality the hubs and I got to take a semi-spontaneous overnight night trip just last weekend with some of our favorite people.

We went scalloping.

Have you ever gone?

It is so fun and rejuvenating.

We were on the water for two days straight snorkeling and having adult time.

We went out to a nice dinner and leisurely had drinks while listening to an hilarious one man band in perfect outdoor conditions.

It was amazing and it reminded me of our newlywed days.

That being said, I missed my girls like CRAZY and I would much rather take them with me on my adventures if someone could just invent a pill or something that took the place of a nap!

If I am being completely honest, sometimes I loose sight of how great I have it and I get antsy.

I start to worry that the adventurous part of my life is done.

Each day starts to feel REALLY monotonous and boring.

Each of these emotions are all really normal I imagine, I am not trend setter ;), but they are really sad.

I hate how it is in my nature to always feel unfulfilled, you know that the grass is always greener somewhere else.

 

(image source)

So my goal for this weekend is to enjoy the small things, water my own lawn, ya know.

I am going to giggle a lot.

Go outside.

and sew.

3 things I adore and I can do any boring ole' day :)

I am going to be greatfull.

Because my life is SO good.

But, don't you worry, I am not going to neglect my adventurer needs.

The best mom is a fulfilled mom.

SO, I am going to plan a little trip for the near future 

and when I feel antsy I am going to think about it and smile,

then get back to the moment I am living in.

Peace

a few of my favorite decorations * A BIRTHDAY BASH *

Today I am going to share a few little projects I did to make the house feel extra special on Zadie's big day.

She stayed with her grandparents the night before the party so I wanted the house to really make her excited from the minute she opened the door.

Since the theme of the party was "A Few of Zadie's Favorite Things"

we HAD to decorate with balloons because they are definitely a favorite of my baby girl.

I just picked up a helium tank at Target add blew up as many pink and blue balloons as I could.

 

We also used a few outside to make the house a little easier to spot.

I made a simple pendant banner to go over the food table and covered wall behind/ beside with pink streamers in a hombre design.

I used this tutorial to make the hot pink tissue paper pom-poms.

I hung them from the ceiling all over the room with the food and in a cluster above the drinks table. (first picture)

The cupcakes were decorated with a mini pendant banner hung from bakers twin and skewers.

I placed the party favors around the cupcake stand for a little extra color.

To make these I simple painted the lids of clean baby food jars, added some gumballs, and tied a sweet pink ribbon around the top.

I wanted to use Mason jars SO BAD for the kids drinks but I didn't think glass cups would mix too well at a two year old's party. 

All I could find at the store were cups with zoo animals all over them, that did not quite match the look I was going for so I covered those bad boys up.

I got the pattern for the cups by tearing one apart, laying it down flat on a piece of paper,and sketching the design.

A piece of scrapbook paper cut by the pattern and glued to the cup did the trick.

Adding the blue straws was the perfect touch to round out the color theme.

The kids (or parents) wrote their name on the cups with a sharpy.

It worked out perfectly!

Well guys, if you are getting tired of the party post I totally understand.

I will be back very soon to the regularly scheduled programming ;)

There are only two more party posts to go...

Next up: the food and games.

Lots of love 

linking to these great parties!

a few of my favorite things (the outfit) *A BIRTHDAY BASH*

No birthday is complete without a new outfit, right!

After I won this super cute organic cotton fabric from simplifi fabric I knew Zadie needed a birthday oufit out of it.

I really wanted to showcase this sweet fabric so I decided to make Dana's circle skirt.

I really loved how quick it was to make and how stinking cute it turned out!

There was still plenty of material left over after the skirt and I  really wanted to make something that had her age on it, mostly for the pictures, so I decided to made a crown.

Luckily I remember this fabric crown tutorial from The Little Giggler that even has a FREE PATTERN.

This was another easy to follow tutorial that was finished in one nap time.

To bad she decided to not cooperate for the pictures.

This is what the majority of the pictures looked like from the shoot.

This makes me laugh out loud every time I look at it!

I love my little drama queen.

And here is a picture of the birthday girl at her party in all her glory.

(This is not pee on my shorts, I swear ;) It is my war wounds from a water gun fight!)

Can you tell this little goose was having a good time!

This is what a sugar high looks like y'all :)

What this mamma loves is:

The crown went into the dress up bin and is worn fairly often still

and she wears the skirt once a week!

xoxo

Linking to these great parties!

a few of my favorite things 2 * A BIRTHDAY PARTY *

Up next on the diy menu for Zadie's birthday is this cupcake stand.

I think my crafting theme for this party was keep is simple-sweet

(an old saying from my cheerleading days- don't judge. ;)

If you missed my last post about the painted glass vases you should check it out.

I let you know in that post that the color theme for the par-tay was turquoise and pink.

This cake stand does not exactly fit in the color theme- but I thought it was close enough

and these plates... yes i said PLATES

were far to cute to pass up. 

I have seen similar ideas to this cake stand on other blogs where all the supplies were bought at the dollar store.

Unfortunately I do not have a dollar store near my house that I feel real safe going into...*insert* ghet-to 

One of the few negatives to living downtown in my city.

If you choose to buy your supplies at the ole' dollar tree you could definitely save some mullah,

But seeing as I only spent a whopping 10 bucks on this cutie...

and I didn't have to paint it...

I'll stick to Target :)

I used two large and one small plastic plate from Target.

Then I buggied (totally a verb) over to the candle section and bought two glass taper candle holders.

When I got home I whipped out my handy dandy E600 and glued those bad boys together.

(I tried hot glue at first and it was NOT strong enough!)

It goes a little something like this:

large plate

glue

candle stick

glue

large plate 

glue

candlestick

glue

small plate

Wha~LA!

This little cutie was born.

Here is how it looked at the party

Just perfect.

Much love

Linking to these great parties!

a few of my favorite things *A BIRTHDAY PARTY!*

I mentioned recently that my oldest goose just turned two.

Young birthdays are sort of tricky for me because Zadie can't tell me what she wants the theme of the party to be.

I mean, she LOVES Curious George, but the idea of a yellow and red theme didn't really appeal to me.

Plus all the game ideas I came up with for that theme were just to old for Zadie,

and a birthday is meant to celebrate the birthday girl so we should be doing things she enjoys right?!

cutie putooty!

So the decision was made- it would be a day all about Zadie.

I went with the theme "A Few of Zadie's Favorite Things"

The color theme was pink and turquoise...

and it turned out PERFECT!

The next few post I am going to share some of the things I made for the party.

Today I want to show you a super simple project that I am in. love. with.

I wanted to put fresh flowers on the food table but I didn't have anything to put them in

luckily I had two glass bottles just lying around ;)

I used this tutorial and it was so informative!

I mean glue and food coloring...

I like that supply list.

And if you don't mind an itty bitty picture,

this is what they looked like on the table.

A little bottle with big impact!

<3

Play time :: clean painting

I decided to start a new little feature here on this ole' blog.

It's called Play Time because, well, everyone love to play right!

This is a space were I will share what I have been up to with my girls.

You know, a few ideas to help you keep your little's entertained and learning.

I'll also tell you the age my goose was when we tried the activity,

just in case that helps you any :)

***  ***  ***

18 months +

We love to paint in our house...not walls 

(although we have painted EVERY wall in our house at least two times in three years!)

instead we love to pretend that we are artist!

This is generally a pretty messy process. 

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a mess when we are having a good time

But this way of painting was a nice break!

I just put a couple of squirts of paint into a large ziplock bag.

Then I layered it on top of a white sheet of paper (for contrast) and taped it down.

It was so easy to set up.

The goose was a a little wary at first but that soon passed.

Soon we were practicing shapes and colors,

having a great time.

Can't you tell :)

I think as she gets older this would be a fun activity to use to explore how some colors are created by mixing two color, or even a fun way to practice letters and numbers.

The possibilities are limitless!

Have fun playing!

erasable weekly calendar { Tutorial }

Today was back to school day where I live.

Thank goodness that doesn't effect me anymore/yet!

Oh I hated those first day of school nerves when I was a teacher.

As a mother,  I am TOTALLY not ready to send either of my children off to school.

They  need to stay with this mamma for.ev.er.

(Today I feel that way. Tomorrow I may be willing to pay someone big money to take them ;)

I know back to school means busy. busy. busy.

I made this little beauty a couple of weeks ago and it has been a life saver.

a weekly calendar

erasable

cute

Yeah, I'm loving it.

You want to make one too?

First go find a frame with 7 or 8 openings.

If you are lucky- you'll find one on clearance like I did. Whoop!

Take the mat out of the frame and cut the burlap about one inch larger than the mat on all sides.

Fold the burlap over onto the back of the mat and glue down (I used hot glue).

Be sure to snip your corners so they don't end up to bulky.

Your mat should look like this from the front once you are done.

Take your scissors and cut from the center of each frame to the corners.

Fold each piece of  burlap back and glue. Trim the excess burlap off.

This is what your mat will look like when your done.

Pretty pretty :)

Use a picture (the size of your frames) to cut out the scrap book paper.

I used the paper that came with the frame- you know the one with all the random smiling people- to tape my scrap book paper to.

Paint the frame white.

Put it all back together and Wha-La ~

You have a cute new calendar!

I hope this helps make your busy school year run a little more smoothly :)

Much love