O-Fish-Ally One Birthday Party

We just went through the fastest year of our lives I think in our household. I feel like we just learned we were pregnant with our little guy, and now it has been almost two weeks since we celebrated his birthday. I went with a Goldfish theme once I saw the cute idea for "o-fish-ally one" on Pinterest from a variety of sources.

I went with really simple ideas, and I actually held it at my parents house out of town. I really did not want to drag too much extra items there. I'm sure they appreciated that as well. Although, I am pretty sure they would not have minded at all. I ordered invitations from the Etsy shop called Print Pop Party , and I also ordered the party set. I took a banner from Target, and attached the cupcake toppers to it since I was serving cake.

I made simple goldfish lanterns with a little bit of tape, cardstock and a paper lantern set from Amazon.  

I made a Goldfish bar for the kids, and it was only my kids so they snacked on the goldfish the entire week. :) I bought the all at the Pepperidge Farm outlet, and found flavors I had never seen before. The new family favorite is the saltine flavor.

The cakes were from a delicious bakery in Rehoboth Beach, DE called Pasqualini's. I wish I could order all my cakes there. They were so amazing, delicious, and priced very well.

I ordered a high chair banner from SeacliffeCottage Etsy Shop. I just added simple balloons and tied goldfish that I cut out on my Silhouette Cameo machine to the balloon strings.

The birthday boy wore an outfit from the TutifulBowtique.

She was an amazing person to work with and did an amazing job on the outfit.

 We also ate delicious chocolate covered marshmallow from Crumbtastic.

I had the kids decorate a wooden block set for their brother with sharpies and a set from SpudWoodWorks. It was a great birthday present from them to him.

I made a simple guest sign in sheet that I will frame for Rory's wall in his room. 

Lots of cute ideas, but I kept it sweet and simple. It really was the most stress free party I've done yet. Thanks for stopping by!

Frozen Party Favors

For Wynn's party it was mostly adults, and it was not the type of party to hand out plastic toys and candy necessarily. I thought it may be fun to have Wynn make the favors for her party guests.

We were already making handprint ornaments for Christmas, and had some extra salt dough left. We were using the recipe found here.

Wynn and I cut the snowflakes out using a snowflake cookie cutter. Then we used craft paint, and Wynn painted with the white paint and a foam brush.  Then I added some simple dots and stars with a smaller brush in some turquoise craft paint.

I placed each snowflake ornament in a blue paper favor bag from Target. I put them in a basket with Frozen colored snowflakes from the Target Dollar Spot. Then added a foam snowflake and wrote in sharpie the phrase. It was on a table by my front door with one of my favorite pictures of Wynn and a cherry snowman. It worked out to sit everything there and so my mom brain would not allow me to forget to hand them out as people left.

Frozen Birthday on a Budget

My goal for Wynn's 5th birthday party was to keep to a strict budget. I usually go crazy with parties, and it is easy to do so when you do not keep track of expenses. There are so many great ideas out there, and I decided to try my best to keep everything under $125.  

Decorations:

 I made this centerpiece from a bottle from Michaels, fake snow, a few straws, a long lollipop like stick and scrapbook paper. It is possible to make these several at a time.  It cost around $1.50 a piece if you are looking to make something similar.  I traced the wooden five I purchased from Michaels. You do not always need a Silhouette to cut out a shape :)

Clockwise from the top left: Target Favor Bags ($2), Walmart tableware for 10 ($8), Michaels foam snowflakes ($2), Tinsel ($1), Michaels glitter letters ($3), Michaels Christmas tree on clearance ($5), Walmart cup, snowflake boxes and ornament ($3), Michaels wooden 5, gems and cupcake liners ($3), Michaels wooden frame ($2), Etsy food labels ($2), and Michaels scrapbook paper ($1).

I had never done hot chocolate in a crock pot before, but I used this great recipe.  Everyone enjoyed their hot chocolate. I decorated around the crock pot with some leftover stuffing I had in my basement to resemble snow. I purchased a set of paper cups from Target and added everyone's name to the sleeve for the cups with stickers. I used printable food labels purchased on sale from Etsy for $1.50.

I wrapped the whipped cream with a piece of scrapbook paper.  I had cinnamon sticks, peppermint patties and snowman marshmallows for toppings as well.

 I love the line "we finish each other's sandwiches" from the movie. Wynn loves chicken salad and I used a basic recipe that was new to me. Everyone said it was delicious.

I wrapped small Gatorade bottles in scrapbook paper for a more Frozen look and called it melted snow.  Wynn said that this was the "Frozen" colored Gatorade.  

Food Cost for a party with 9 people (which includes Wynn): $65. The cupcakes were purchased from Wal-Mart, and added some edible snowflakes I purchased on Etsy.  The total cost for this party was $97, it was $28 below my budget.  I will be sharing the party favors tomorrow.  

The birthday girl had a great time!

Bow Tie Brunch 1st Birthday Part 1

This past weekend we celebrated two very special little boys. I picked a pretty simple theme for their party. I wanted the colors to be red and navy blue, and then I thought bow ties would be perfect with it.

The chalkboard prints were ordered from the Etsy shop Kays Custom Boutique, and she was a pleasure to work with. I printed them at staples and bought frames for them from Michaels. 

The burlap covered number 1's came from Hobby Lobby, the cake stands were from World Market, and the red boxes were from Target.  I wrapped foam board from Staples in fabric from Jo-Ann Fabrics. Then I cut out some cardstock to create the large bow ties.  The garland is from Shop Sweet Lulu.  

All of the signs were made by Nico & Lala.  I had make your own yogurt parfaits.

I made two quiches. The one of the left is the Pioneer Woman's Cowboy Quiche, and the other one is a simple spinach quiche I found in a cookbook.

We had waffles in cups with syrup. Ty and Davis loved the waffles without syrup of course.

My mom made beautiful fruit kabobs, and everyone enjoyed them.

My favorite part was the mimosa bar. I printed off mimosa juice labels from the blog Under the Table and Dreaming.

I purchased stemless Libbey champange glasses from Amazon, and added some bow tie stickers from Michaels to them.  The polka dot runner was from Wynn's 2nd birthday party. I was glad I was able to reuse a few items from that event.

We had some delicious doughnuts, and I placed them on a suitcase I purchased from Elizabeth and Co's tag sale.

Little milk jugs were filled with various types of milk, and they are from Shop Sweet Lulu.  I put the mini cereal boxes in some large paper ice cream cups.

All of the printed items were from Nico and Lala. We ordered the delicious cupcakes from a local bakery called Snickerdoodles. 

This was Ty's smash cake. He made it seem like he did not even touch the front of the cake. The bow was still intact with several minutes of shoving the cake into his mouth ticking by.

Davis' smash cake was the opposite color scheme wise. He loved it too. That is until he shoved some of it in his eye.

We also had these beautiful cookies by the Etsy Shop The Green Apron and they were so delicious and so pretty.

Here are Rob and I with our dynamic duo. We love Ty and Davis so much. They seriously are a joy to have and are such fun little guys. They certainly had a great time at their party. I will share some more details from the party sometime this week.

Budget Friendly Pumpkin Party & Giveaway

I wanted to put together a budget friendly fall party for Wynn and her friends. I purchased most of the items from either the Dollar Tree or the Target dollar spot.  I put everything together in less than an hour as well. Quick and cute!  It ended up being Wynn and I partying together at this one. Our house came down with several illnesses at once, and so this meant we were not up for visitors. Ty and Davis enjoyed climbing all over the place and banging on the table. 

I am sharing this along with several other wonderful bloggers in the Delightfully Wicked Halloween Hop. I have shared a link to their blogs as well, so make sure you check them out when you have a chance.

I used our long preschool table we had redone and decorated it in our play room. The first item I laid out was a green plastic table cloth. I folded it in half so it still had a bright green color. I purchased it at the Dollar Tree. I also thought the boys small tractor fit in the decor.

I turned these tissue paper flowers into pumpkins by simply adding a green stem out of cardstock. I hung them from the ceiling. I bought the tissue paper flowers from Michaels. I plan on using them at another party later in the month. They were $2 a piece.

I added a cute face to the paper cups with a black marker. I topped the cup off with a green straw to resemble a stem.

I set out a few treats that fit the pumpkin theme well. I purchased some Kraft pumpkin shaped marshmallows, Brach's fall candy mix and some Little Debbie pumpkin snacks. It was easy to display most of these items in glass containers I already had. 

I made place settings very simple. I took a roll of craft paper and cut out squares for place mats. I took the same black marker and wrote names and pumpkin vine. I took the orange plate and attached the same green pumpkin stem from tissue paper flowers to the plate.

I had one simple craft available for the kids. Wynn made a pumpkin bag.  It would also be helpful for them to bring home their extra treats that they wanted for later. All I purchased was some orange paper bags, and I was able to utilize paper for the face from my drawer of paper I already had.

I decorated the chair backs with pumpkins Wynn made last year. I also added a burlap banner from the Target dollar spot on the wall. I purchased some pumpkin boxes for the kids to use for additional little Halloween related items I purchased for them from the dollars spot as well. I will be hanging these out to the kids when we Trick or Treat with them later this month since we were not able to have them over this time.

This is being shared as a part of the Delightfully Wicked Halloween Hop. Be sure to check out the other great ideas being shared today.

Check out the entire Delightfully Wicked Halloween Hop below:

Delightfully Noted

Itsy Bitsy Paper 

Life is a Lullaby

Michelle Paige

My Own Home Blog

Occasionally Crafty

Uncommon Designs

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Thank you so much for stopping by today. Enjoy your day and good luck in the giveaway!