Monday, November 21, 2011

Fallish Mini Album

Got envelopes?  Make a mini scrapbook album. 







See that tab?  (above)  It opens the envelope and forms a pocket.  I love that, because I like to keep tickets and receipts, but they are often ugly, and I don't want them on the page.  But, I think in thirty years it might be fun to see what things cost.






Document all of your Thanksgiving traditions with one.  Put favorite recipes in the pockets.  I think this would be a cute format for your December Daily album.  Or a smash book.  Go make one!


Monday, November 7, 2011

Vintage Circus Shower

                        The vintage circus shower for my sister was inspired by an Anthropologie catalog.


This was one of my favorite parties ever.  I love this theme.


Jordan and my dad made the sandwich board sign.  She and I both painted the letters.  (That was a lot of painting, but I love how it turned out.)


An easy decoration for any party is to display the invitation. Especially if the invitation is handmade and really, really cute. I found this frame at Goodwill with the intention of painting the dark bronzish colored frame and purple flower "painting."  I forgot a before pic, but you can imagine.  I spraypainted it red and covered a piece of cardboard with fabric to frame the invitation.  The invitations were a collaboration by all the sisters and my mom.  The tiny banner said "It's a Boy!" (It better be.)

Aunt Mandy made the cake.  Awesome!  (And it tasted good, too.  It really did.  Like I ate four pieces good.  And they were three layers each.)

Jordan found these buckets at the dollar store.  Wish I had a before pic.  She painted them to look like the thingy the seal stands on at the circus.  So cute!

Jordan cut the circus tent shape with the good ole Cricut machine.  (That thing came in handy for this party, especially, because we found a circus-themed cartridge.)  We made scratch-off tickets according to a recipe using paint and liquid dish soap that we found on Pinterest.  We made one mistake, though.  If you try it, make sure you write on the ticket BEFORE you laminate it.  Then paint.  I laminated first and the permanent marker scratched right off with the paint.  Which meant we did not know who won the prize.  Not good.


We did manage to give away some prizes with the Bebe bingo game.  All the gifts were given a number sticker.  As the expectant mom opened gifts, the number was called out for guests to mark on their cards.


Aunt Sandy made these cards for guests to record wishes for the baby.  These are made with thick cardstock scrapbook paper which can be made into a mini album later.



Can't have a circus without candied apples, right?  Jordan cut the leaves out with the Cricut and stamped "Thank You" on them.  How cute is that?  These would be precious teacher gifts.  My mom and sis-in-law said they were not hard to make using the box of mix from the grocery store.  You will need a candy thermometer, though.  The apples tasted really good, too.  They were a huge hit. (I didn't even get one cause they were all gone.Still mad about that.)


Jena made the diaper "cake".  Yep, there's diapers in there.  Jordan made the "Congrats" banner with the Cricut and she made the tissue balls.


My sister's friend, Heather, made the cake pops.  German Chocolate and Red Velvet.  Can you believe this was her first time ever to make cake pops??  She got the idea from www.bakerella.com. I love how they were displayed in the porcelain popcorn bucket.


I made the tiny banner and added it to this thing I thought looked like a popcorn cart.  I think maybe it is made to hold potted plants.  My mom found these tiny popcorn cartons that we filled with caramel popcorn for guests to take.


OK, so maybe we shouldn't have called attention to the ugly ceiling of the building where we hosted the shower, but the pennant banner sure was festive.  Everyone had their hands on this one, because there was so darn much of it. We all helped make it.

Hope you enjoy this as much as we did!



















Confessions of a Stay At Home Mommy