We celebrated our little girl's second birthday a little early this past weekend. I was hoping to not be in labor or have a days-old newborn for the party, and it worked out well. I thought I'd share some pictures and ideas that worked well for us.First, the theme. My daughter loves Elmo. I thought that would be a fun theme to work with, but I'm not a big fan of spending tons of money on licensed-character things. I decided to use the Elmo things she already has to decorate and fill in the rest with red and aqua. So all the plates, cups, napkins, etc. were red, not Elmo. It was inexpensive, and I think it turned out very cute. To decorate, I made red and aqua tissue paper flowers and picture garlands made from pictures of the past year tied onto twine with red and aqua ribbons.
The menu: Since I'm very pregnant, and we wanted to go small, we planned a family and close friends party right around dinner time. Elmo's favorite food is pizza, so we jumped on that idea. Instead of ordering a bunch of pizzas, we chose to do a make-your-own pizza bar. I made a bunch of pizza dough (using this recipe - scroll down to find it) and formed it into individual-sized balls. Then we listed a bunch of topping ideas and sauces and prepared them the day before. We had marinara, alfredo, and barbecue for the sauces. Then I had pepperoni, ham, bacon, roasted chicken, black olives, green bell peppers, fresh onion, caramelized onion, wilted spinach, artichoke hearts, pineapple, tomatoes, mushrooms, and an assortment of cheeses for toppings. People just grabbed a ball of dough, spread it to their desired thickness, and topped it with whatever their heart desired. We baked them in the center of the oven at 500 degrees for 7-9 minutes. They were delicious! Everything was very easy to do ahead of time, so I had literally no cooking or prep to do the day of the party. I just opened air-tight containers and dumped them into the dishes.
For dessert I did red velvet cupcakes (from a box) and cream cheese frosting tinted aqua (3 packs of cream cheese and 2 sticks of salted butter softened whipped with 1 tablespoon of vanilla and 3/4 pound of powdered sugar). They were topped with Elmo Oreo balls (recipe here and inspiration here). This was a fun project. I had a good friend over to help me a week or two ago, and we froze them until the party.
For favors I used little tin buckets I found at WalMart after Valentine's Day for 30 cents. I made chocolate-covered pretzel rods decorated with red and aqua sprinkles and chocolate-covered Rice Krispie treats. Easy and delicious.
Everything was simple but fun. Hannah had a blast which is absolutely most important. I'm so thankful our sweet boy held off until the party was finished. Hope you find some good ideas and inspiration for your next party.
My niece graduates from high school this May. She spent all of her 12 years of school in the same small private school, and she's saved an assortment of t-shirts from all of her years and activities. One of the graduation events is a banquet where each graduate displays memorabilia on a table for family and friends to see. My sister asked if I'd make a quilt of her t-shirts for the table, and I was thrilled to do so. I finished this afternoon during a rare moment while my family was running around without me. I'm in love with the result, and I can't wait to get started on the next t-shirt quilt in the wings - a quilt for my cousin made of his shirts from races he has participated in.
Next I painted the inside of that taped section with the wall color to seal the tape and let it dry.
The widest stripe in the room is chocolate brown. When the base coat of wall color was dry, I painted the entire stripe chocolate brown. When it was dry, I removed the tape and was shocked at how little it ran. After all that work I was thrilled with how little touch-up I'd have to do.
It's important to mention that you really need to wait until the paint is completely dry before beginning the next color. I let mine dry overnight. Next was the red stripe. I wanted it to be one inch inside the chocolate brown stripe, so I lined up one inch wide painter's tape just along the chocolate stripe edge. For example, the top piece of tape pictured is lined up with the top edge of the chocolate line.
The next step is to paint just inside the tape with the chocolate brown paint since this is now the base color.
When this was dry, I painted the red.
Then I removed the tape revealing a one inch chocolate border on either side of the red.
To finish, I repeated the taping for the navy stripe. I wanted the navy to be a much thinner line, so I used 1 1/2 inch painter's tape along the edge of the red line. This way the navy stripe was one inch wide. So I taped, painted the red in between, let it dry, then painted the navy blue stripe. The result is the picture at the top.
And here it is hanging on the stroller.
Here's the stroller satchel I made. It's got two large pockets (for wallet, keys, etc.) and one small outer pocket for my cell phone. Simple, yet practical.
