{DIY} Embellished Invitations

Printable invitations are a great budget saver for any party! I'm over at Piggy Bank Parties sharing some simple ways to embellish your printable invites for a custom look to WOW your guests.

Head over to Piggy Bank Parties for my tips!

{DIY} 4th of July Recycled Bottle Decoration

I love to collect fun bottles and glass jars! I'm always thinking what can I make out of this?

Today I'm over at Piggy Bank Parties sharing this fun & easy tutorial! Head on over and check it out!

{DIY} Tutu Party Backdrop

I had alot of fun planning my daughter's recent Piggy Ballerina Party! I loved being able to combine the silliness of  cute piggies with pretty ballerina inspired touches. One of my favorite party decorations that I created was the tulle backdrop for the sweets table!

I loved that background and wish I could have kept it up forever, it was so pretty! Today, I'm going to show you how easy it is to make one!

Supplies:
curtain rod 
(2) 3M adhesive wall hooks
tulle...lots of tulle (appx 4 yards)
(2) fabric flowers (optional)

I love 3M Adhesive Wall Hooks! I tend to change my mind ALOT about where I hang things and these removable hooks have saved my walls from many many holes! When I decided to use an inexpensive curtain rod to attach the tulle to, I knew the removable hooks would be the perfect solution to hang it up!

While it wasn't difficult to cut the tulle, it was a bit time consuming...but well worth the effort. I used 3 different colors of tulle and alternated strips on the curtain rod. I cut the tulle into strips approximately 3-4 inches wide. I didn't measure  and just eyeballed it. Then I tied each strip onto the curtain rod.

I just kept cutting and adding strips until I achieved the right amount of fullness...you may like more or less. I used somewhere around 4 yards of tulle total. To make things easier, I only cut the tulle once (the width) and left the length just as it was. I figured I could always trim it shorter if needed, but I found the length to be just perfect!

I originally intended to cover the ends of the curtain rods with a fabric flower. However, in my party day rush I completely forget. Luckily they weren't very visible, particularly with my pretty poms from Pom Flair covering a little of it up. But you can certainly add a flower for extra color and to finish it a little more.

There you have a very simple to make tulle background that will be perfect for any girly themed party!

Piggy Ballerina Milk Bottles

One of my favorite decorations for my recent Piggy Ballerina Party was the ballerina milk bottles!

Today, I'm over at Piggy Bank Parties sharing the easy tutorial on how to make these cute bottles! Head on over and check it out!

{DIY} Halloween Party Hats

I'm over at Piggy Bank Parties today, sharing a tutorial for some festive party hats! I featured these hats in the Halloween Challenge and now I want to show you how easy they are to make!

Head on over to Piggy Bank Parties for the tutorial!

{DIY} Halloween Paper Plate Garland

October will be here in just a few days, so this weekend will be spent digging out the Halloween decorations from the attic and putting them up. I love to put out everything on the 1st of October so we can enjoy them all month long. And also to make it worth my husband's time spent digging everything out ;)

So this week I've been working on some simple and cute decorations and I want to share one with you. This is a very easy and inexpensive garland made from paper plates!

I put it together in about half an hour...my kind of quick & easy craft!

You will need:
paper plates in 2 sizes
ribbon
adhesive (I used a glue dot runner)
cardstock
foam glitter sheets
hole punch

I found these paper plates for 97 cents a package!

I used a drinking glass to trace circles onto my foam glitter sheets and cut them out. For the letters, I printed them onto cardstock and used a spooky looking font.

I cut out the letters out and then glued them to the glitter foam circles (I used glue dots).

I punched a hole on each side of each paper plate. It's a good idea to use one punched out plate as a guide for the rest so that your banner will hang evenly. Then I glued the circles onto the smaller plates.

Last, cut your ribbon into small pieces (my pieces were about 6" long). Then loop each piece through the punched holes and tie into a bow, so that you connect each plate together.

Now you have a fun little Halloween banner to display! There are so many cute Halloween paper plates out there so you can really coordinate this to your decoration scheme. It would also be a fun party decoration using coordinating party plates!

Booooo-tiful ;) (groan...I couldn't resist)!!!

I'm linking this up at these FABULOUS parties...

{DIY} Football Party Garland

So thrilled to be sharing my first post as 

a contributing writer over at Piggy Bank Parties!

Hop on over to Oink! The Blog of Piggy Bank Parties 

and learn how to make this super easy & fun 

football party decoration!

{DIY} Photo Collage Banner

Today I'm sharing a super easy and inexpensive party decoration that I made for my daughter's recent birthday party. It's a Photo Collage Banner that is perfect for any birthday party, no matter what the guest of honor's age!

What you will need for your banner:

• cardstock: 2 sheets plus additional for photos (1 sheet for every 2 photos)
• scrapbook paper: 2 sheets of 12x12
• small alphabet (or number) stickers
• 1 chipboard letter & 1 chipboard number (child's initial & age)
• coordinating ribbon 
• mini clothespins (one for each photo)
• glue dots
• large bowl for tracing circles 
• 2" circle punch (or small cup)
• scissors
• photos of your choosing (4x6)

To begin, cut your cardstock to approximately a 5x7 (one for each photo), so it's just a little larger than your 4x6 photo. Using the glue dots, mount pictures onto the cardstock.

Next, use your alphabet stickers to spell out the age on the bottom. You could use a number instead, but I just liked how cute the spelled out word looked. But if you are making this for an older child or adult, then you are probably going to be better off with numbers!

Clip a mini clothespin to each photo and put them aside for now.

Using your large bowl as a template, trace two large circles out of the cardstock. My bowl & circles are 7 3/4" across.

Using your 2" circle punch (or a small cup as a template) cut out 2 small circles. I love to use every inch of my paper, so I just used my scraps.

Attach the chipboard letter and initial to each circle (you could use a large sticker instead).

Next it's time to make the rosettes. Besides my daughter's pictures, this is my favorite part! I just love how festive paper rosettes are.

Take a sheet of your scrapbook paper and fold it accordian-style.

Fold the paper in half and cut into two equal pieces.

 Take each of those pieces and fold them in half.

 Using your glue dots, seal the open end to form a half-circle. Repeat on the other piece.

 You should now have two semi-circles.

Using your glue dots, attach both halves together and use additional glue dots to seal up the center. You should now have one very pretty paper rosette! Repeat to create the rosette with the other piece of scrapbook paper.

Now it's time to put it together! Use your glue dots to attach the small circle onto the center of the rosette and then attach the rosette to the center of the larger circle. I seriously don't know what I did before glue dots!

Cut your ribbon long enough to hang all your photos, plus 4" on each side. It's helpful to lay out your ribbon and place your already mounted photos along it to make sure you have enough. Attach the extra 4" of ribbon to your large circle using...glue dots of course! You will be attaching it to the back side so make sure your ribbon pattern (if any) is facing correctly.

Now your fabulous party banner is ready to be hung! I used rolled up packing tape to mount it to my walls, but I know not everyone is comfortable with tape on their walls...LOL! So use whatever method you prefer to adhere the banner to wherever you want it displayed.

Once you have your banner hung, clip your photos on and your decoration is ready to party!

I hope you enjoyed this fun Photo Collage Banner tutorial and are inspired to make one for your own celebration!

{DIY} Tutu Cake Stand

We recently celebrated my daughter heading to Kindergarten with a Kindergarten Rocks! party.  To go along with the theme, I made a rock star cake which I displayed on a cute cake stand dressed with a tutu...perfect for your glam rock star divas!

Today I'm going to show how to make this simple, but fun & rockin' cake stand!

You will need:

1 spool of tulle 

ribbon (not smaller than 5/8")

hot glue

glue dots

cake circles (3-4 in size needed for cake) (more info below)

wrapping paper or scrapbook paper

large can (more info below)

The first thing you will need to do is make a Cake Board using cardboard cake circles from the craft store that are glued together. Please follow my recent tutorial for detailed info here. You will follow the directions up until the ribbon. There's no need to attach a ribbon since we will be doing that with the tutu!

Next, measure your ribbon around the perimeter of your board and cut to size. I found this cute rock star ribbon at Walmart and based my cake design on it!

For the next step you will need to hot glue your tulle onto your ribbon. Place your ribbon with the design down, pleat or bunch up the tulle to give it some "pouf", apply a generous amount of glue to the ribbon, and then hold your tulle until the glue has seeped in and adhered. Do this in small sections at a time.

Be very careful not to burn yourself with the hot glue when it seeps into the tulle! I did the first few times until I figured out how to hold it towards the top while pressing from the underside of the ribbon. It took me just under an hour to complete the gluing on a 10" cake board and I used close to 3/4 of the spool of tulle. 


I started out not cutting the tulle off the spool and just unrolled it and pleated as I went along. But I found that the tulle kept getting in the way. It seemed to work better when I cut the tulle into large pieces and worked with it a piece at a time instead.

Once your skirt is complete, you can trim the top edges to neaten it up if you like.

Now it's time to attach it to the cake board. You can use hot glue if you want, but I chose to use glue dots so that I could remove it and save it for another use later. Plus it was just too cute to throw away ;)

In the next steps, you will create the base to attach your board to.


I made a very inexpensive base for my cake stand by using an extra large tomato sauce can from my pantry. Make sure the scale is right for your base. In other words, don't put a 10" cake board on a little bitty can of corn ;) Also be sure that the can is FILLED so that your stand will be sturdy enough to support your cake. Then wrap your can in coordinating wrapping paper or scrapbook paper.

Finally, attach the base to the board using either hot glue or more glue dots and you ready to put your cake on!

With the right ribbon, this would easily make a pretty stand for a princess party as well! Perfect for any glam girl :)

I hope you enjoy making this fun tutu cake stand

 as much as I did!

I'm linking up to these great parties: