Spring Easter Celebration

I was so excited that I was able to host Easter this year (I rotate hosting with my family)! I love spring and all the beautiful colors. I have a long going love affair with gingham, so I knew I wanted to use it for our Easter celebration. Piggy Bank parties has a beautiful printable gingham collection that was just perfect! It's also available in the spring version, which is beautiful for any spring celebration!

Everything was very budget friendly....I used gingham fabric left over from my daughter's birthday and various containers I had on hand. I made or printed out almost all the decorations!

I found this free cute print from The Hands on Housewife!

The place settings included more of the printables and the egg napkin rings I shared with you last week. I found the placemats at Dollar Tree a couple of months ago...perfect!

I was so excited to find these adorable mini GINGHAM take out boxes at Michael's. I added a party tag and filled them with some goodies for everyone.

I served brunch as our first course and we had our main meal (which included my husband's awesome eggplant parmigiana) in the afternoon! But I took no pictures of the main meal LOL!

Of course dessert is my favorite so I made cake...two cakes to be exact! One for the kids...

And one for the grown ups...

Despite the fondant carrots on top...it was actually chocolate cake with mocha buttercream filling!

It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed hunting eggs and spending precious time with our loved ones!

 I hope your Easter was sweet and fun!

Valentine's Day Parties {Round up}

I decided to keep things simple for Valentine's Day this year and am planning on a "sweet heart" breakfast for my girls instead of a party. But I wanted to share a few of the pretty Valentine's Day celebrations done by my sweet Piggy Bank Parties crew members...

Mariah of Giggles Galore always puts together the sweetest parties and her Valentine's Day Kissing Booth Party is no exception! Check out all the adorable details over at Giggles Galore!

You can always count on Cineca of Dreamin' N Details to rock the cute details of any event. Her Valentine's Rustic Love party does just that! So many sweet details & I especially love that frame backdrop!

I love that Aimee of Aimee Broussard Events created a special Valentine's Breakfast for her sweetie! Don't miss the beautiful personalized placemats that she "whipped up"...they are super FAB!

Mayra of In Flight captured the soft romantic aspect of Valentine's Day with her Vintage Valentine Blush inspiration shoot! I really love that she shows how easy it is to take a beautiful romantic theme and also make it kid friendly!

I work with such a talented crew of creative minds and we recently collaborated on a Vintage Valentines Inspiration shoot! In addition to the fabulous ladies mentioned above, the collaboration also featured projects from Do & J Driver (the creative force behind Piggy Bank Parties), Tara the Shindig Diva, Jenny of Crossing the Bugger-Dixon Line, Dorothy of Life is Sweet in Michigan and me! The crew was also joined by two fabulous sponsors...Lynlee's Petite Cakes and Sweet Temptations! We had so many fabulous ideas that they had to be split into two posts...check them out...Vintage Valentine's Inspiration!

I hope you enjoy a Valentine's Day full of LOVE!

Snowman Playdate

I had one of those last minute whims to host a Christmas playdate for my girls! I wasn't sure I could put anything cute together in a day's time, but I was inspired by Piggy Bank Parties! Do of Piggy Bank Parties recently put together a super cute Mrs Claus Cookie Party in 24 hours and shared lots of great tips on how to do it (be sure to check it out). So I decided to GO FOR IT!

I made ONE shopping trip to Walmart and then used items from around the house for everything else. I had recently won a wonderful gift certificate to Shindig Parties to Go, so I ordered Amanda's super fun Snowman printable set! The colors are one of my favorite combos...pink, blue & green! 

I was fortunate that I had many things left over from my daughter's birthday party this summer, which featured pink & blue polka dots. Everything matched the printables perfectly! The snowflakes and bells were left over from other projects.

I printed out one of the larger signs & framed it!

The table was set using more items left over from my daughter's birthday party. I threw some fake snow on the table, a few snowman printables, some more snowflakes and put all our craft supplies in the center of the table. And yeah...that's the same burlap runner I used at Thanksgiving!

I bought all pre-made snacks for the party since I knew I would have no time to bake! 

The girls loved their hot cocoa with festive marshmallows! They come in so many fun flavors...peppermint, chocolate & gingerbread!

I love cake pops, but there was definitely no time for that! Amanda of Shindig shared this AWESOME idea of using Lindt Truffles to make the pops! I added some fondant scarves to mine! 

I completely forgot to take pictures of lunch, but I promise I fed the kids actual food! I made cream cheese & jelly sandwiches cut out with a snowman cookie cutter...snowman noses (baby carrots)...crackers & juice!

For a fun activity, we created Snow Sock Dudes...a super cute project from The Purple Pug. The only supplies I had to buy were the socks...I had everything else at home already!

We all just LOVED our adorable snow dudes. Although my sister-in-law dubbed them "snow dudettes" ;)

For a party favor, I made little packets of Snowman Soup! This cute idea was pinned about a million times on Pinterest. I used one of my snowman printables and then typed up the cute little saying. 

So I threw this fun little get together in less than 24 hours...and the cost?? Well I'm going to break it down for you

Piggy Bank Parties style!

Food & drink: $23.60
Decorations: $0 (if you were to purchase the printable set it would be $9.00)
Paper cups: $1.00
Craft supplies & goody bags $9.47
Total....$34.07


I used sooooo many things I already had on hand which kept the cost way down! Although it was just my daughters and Goddaughter, there was enough supplies and food for 7 children. I could have saved a few more dollars and bought less treats, but there would have been no leftovers and well...where's the fun in that?

Speaking of leftover treats...they are calling my name so I'm outta here ;) Wishing you a beautiful holiday!

Giving Thanks

Happy Friday! I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday full of family, friends & lots of yummy food! I certainly did and am sharing a few pictures from our day...

I used turquoise, gold, cream & some burlap for my colors. I spray painted two deeply discounted pumpkins for my table.

My little pilgrims from Publix (a grocery store) will always be on my Thanksgiving table!

I made simple place cards from leaves we collected and burlap, tied with a ribbon.

Some Dollar Tree vases filled with inexpensive carnations and decorated with burlap and ribbon were part of the centerpieces. I used extra leaves to fill in the table as well.

The kids had their own table. I covered in with brown kraft paper, paper plates & cups and used free printables from Shindig Parties to Go to decorate them. 

I made each of the girls' a feather headband.

I realize I took NO pictures of all the food we made (and there were LOTS), but I remembered to take picture of (most) of the desserts ;)


Like these DELICIOUS Bailey's Trifles...

Turkey cookie pops for the kiddies...

The birthday cake for Grandma, which was a pumpkin cake with Brown Sugar Swiss Meringue & candied pecans...

Mini pumpkin pies were a big hit!

But of course, though I loved the decorations, the food & the sweets...the best part of the day was spending time with my family!

My beautiful girls...my oldest daughter (left) and my Goddaughter...my youngest refused to both wear her headband and be in the picture!

But none of it would be possible without the loving help of my best friend...my incredibly wonderful husband!

And now that Thanksgiving is over...

time to get my Christmas on!

Wishing you all a FABULOUS WEEKEND!