Styled! :: a new series

Happy Monday, everyone!

Since I really want this blog to showcase the areas that intrigue me in my everyday life, such as parties and design, I am going to start doing this little segment, Styled! about twice a month.

Sometimes when you start looking at amazing parties others have thrown, it's easy to get overwhelmed and think "I could never do something that awesome". But when you start breaking them down, it's really just a bunch of very simple ideas done differently and beautifully. One of the easiest (and in my opinion, one of the most important) things to do to accomplish this is to begin thinking of how you style your food/treats. This means how they look, how they are displayed, and how they are housed. So twice a week I am going to show you amazing ideas I find around the web, some (hopefully amazing as well) treats that we create here, as well as some tips and tutorials on how to create some of the things you see at parties.

Are you excited yet???

I am! Because, really, when you take something SIMPLE, like offering caramel popcorn at a party, and ditch the typical bowl and choose to instead pass out your treat in comic book cones, like I did below for a party, don't they just make everything more fun??

Or sometimes, it's just the idea of taking an ordinary dessert and turning it into something really special, like jello with lemon strips.....

.....or turning your everyday rice krispy treats into rainbow wands.

Turn an ice cream bar into something memorable by serving your treat in something unexpected, like mason jars....

Or serve an ordinary drink with a fun straw and toy!

All simple ideas, just styled differently!!

I can't wait to share more with you guys!

Thanks for reading :)

xo,

Rachel

 

Happy Weekend

Um, where did the week go??

We have had a super productive week on the DIY front, and I can't wait to show you some reveals next week! I have been super busy with work and trying to entertain these adorably crazy children of mine, but I promise to get my head on straight by Monday :)

In the mean time, check out my Family Room Pinterest Board to see where my head really is....our next project, of course! This room is open to our kitchen/dining area and has really been a thorn in my {designing} side. I CANNOT wait to get this project under way. I've already started to go through our toys (for the gazillionth time) and am beginning to think a garage sale just might be in order..... It's gonna be a busy summer!



Happy Weekend

Starting the pillows!!!



House on the Left :: Color Dipping

Hi everyone!

We are FINALLY almost, super close, nearly D.O.N.E with our banquette area.

Phew. I mean, seriously, we have been without a dining table for two weeks.

I am putting the finishing touches on the area this weekend, but until then I wanted to show a little sneak peak that shows ones of the new trends out there {and a personal favorite of mine}, Color Dipping.

Here are some beautiful examples that certainly served as an inspiration for me:

via

This one is my favorite, and I am kind of making it my mission to find this style chair to duplicate this look in an area of our living room.

via

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Pretty simple, but WHAT a way to bring in a pop of color!!

Here's what we were working with:

These lovely {and by lovely, I do mean ugly} chairs came courtesy of our dining table that we bought for our kitchen nook. Since they have such a traditional look, I really wanted a more modern paint job to jazz them up a bit. So, color dipping it was! To contrast with a lot of the dark we have going on in other areas of the room, I wanted the chairs a soft cream color. Since we loved the paint that we used for the table so much, we decided to use that for the accent color of the chairs (the 'dipping' part). It's not quite the splash of color as seen above, but for this space it is perfect!!

First we started with the cream, and then lots and lots of taping. Tedious  "make-sure-it's-straight" taping.

The chairs already look a ton better, right??

Then came our accent color. Of course (as you can tell in the pictures), with that came drips and plenty of things for me to later touch up :)

This was definitely an exciting time, because I could see my vision start to come to life.

Next, I finally got to take off the tape! (and touch up, of course)

..........and just in case you need to really appreciate the beauty of a before and after:

And to think, when we bought the table at Goodwill, I considered just leaving the chairs there since I was sure there was NO way those ugly things would stay in my house :)

And now, there is no way they are leaving!!

Hope everyone is having a great day!

xo,

Rachel

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Graduation Party

Hi!

I have been helping out one of my friends plan for her son's kindergarten graduation party at his school.

I pretty much knew instantly what I wanted the theme to be:

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!

Based on the popular kid's book, this theme is PERFECT to celebrate a child's first year in school learning, what else? THEIR ABC's!

Let's start with a little inspiration for an amazing Chicka Chicka Boom Boom party:

1. Decorate your party to mimic the adorable border of the book with pink and orange lanterns.
2. This party couldn't be complete without some adorable (and yummy!) coconut cake pops.
3. Magnetic alphabet letters make the perfect party favors!
4. These coconut cups would be perfect to give as favors or to drink out of.
5. Serve your guests treats in these Polka Dot cups .
6. Look at the amazing statement these large, orange balloons create!
7. ummmm.....I just realized I used this picture twice :) oops! I have three kids; I can't even think straight anymore.
8. This fabric pulls that pattern of the border perfectly, and would be a great tablecloth, napkins, or backdrop.
9. In the book, the letters "wiggle, jiggle free". What better way to showcase that, than with jello abc's?
10. These DIY ABC crayons would be perfect for favors or to use somehow with as an invitation
11. How adorable are these coconut tree candy holders? I am in love
12. Wow your guests with this amazing Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Cake!
13. These orange gumballs would make any little guest happy.
14. Decorate using alphabet letters, like this alphabet garland.
1. Clearly, I did not proof this photo! But, I still love these coconut tree cookies
15. Have your guests sign a copy of the book, like we did below.

Not pictured?? The Scholastic movie version of this book playing in the background. We have this movie and our whole family is HOOKED on the song.

As fabulous as all these ideas are, unfortunately, they are just not possible for this graduation party, because

a) the budget is super small for a class of 22.

b) their school doesn't allow sweets. (or food of any kind)

Basically, we just needed some decorations, activities (1 craft and some games), and some goodies to hand out.

So, with that in mind, I knew we would just have to get creative with stuff that you buy cheaply and in bulk. So for parties, that meant Oriental Trading. So our jumping off point, looked something like this:

All items are from Orientaltrading.com. From left top:

1. Palm tree cardboard wall hanging: this would be the base to one of our games. Cut out some alphabet letters, and you have a "pin the letter on the tree" game.

2. Coconut cups. Still love them, but too much of the budget would be spent on these

3. Hand print art...perfect for our craft! We decided to do hand tracing instead of paint.

4. Palm tree pens

5. Leaves......cheap, easy decoration!

So from there, we got to personalizing our selections. I am big on the idea of taking cheap, easy party stuff that you can buy from big box stores, and changing them to make something personal and charming. It's the only way we can afford any of the parties we do.

First, I created some easy, 2" circles that help tie in our theme. Although we ended up using them for something else, they would look adorable on a straw, like above.

We took cheap, little bottles of bubbles (also from Oriental Trading) and created some labels to go around them. This INSTANTLY made them fit right into our theme. Since we printed these up at home on regular paper, the labels were free :)

We decided to use the circles on the pens, that way there would be no denying that they belonged to the party.

Simple paper goodie bags got an upgrade with this paper label that I created. Inside were the pens, alphabet stickers, and some little graduation toys found online.

I totally forgot to take a picture of the banner we created, but it basically looked like this picture I used as inspiration. Also, I didn't watermark this image on purpose, so if you like it (and it works for you), feel free to save it and print up for yourself! 

All the students are going to be asked to sign a copy of the book to give to the teacher to keep in their class library. Inside the cover is written:

"Thanks for teaching us our ABC's.

From the kindergarten class of 2012."

How adorable is that?! They get to leave their legacy at the age of 6 :)

I had a blast helping out with this one; I can't wait to see the pictures of how it all turns out :)

Hope everyone's week is going well!

xo,

Rachel

Monster Truck Party :: Reveal!

Hello all!!

I know I haven't posted in awhile, but hopefully tonight's photo overload makes up for that :)

Jason had his little "staycation" this past week, so we were able to get started on a few projects this week, so hopefully soon pictures of that will be up as well! Aside from that, we are slowly trying to settle into the new "normal" that is NO SCHOOL.

 Blah :)

So, FINALLY, here is the Monster Truck Party we have been obsessing over for the past month:

This picture is what the kids first saw when they entered the "party room". This was one of my favorite memories of the party; all the kids came in exclaiming, "WOW! MONSTER TRUCK WHEELS!" I honestly do these parties for reasons like that :)

The Birthday Boy seriously bugged me every single day until the party for one of these pouches. When the day finally came, he couldn't wait to hand them out to all his friends!

It's always been a tradition for Jason to make the cakes for the parties, and he did not dissapoint! A little boy's dream cake, right??

The Blowouts everyone voted for!!! And yes, I realized that AFTER I took this photo, that the GraveDigger is still backwards...oooops :) 

Every party has one "element" that is my favorite. For this party, hands down, these favor boxes were it. I loved how they turned out! And look at how great the tape turned out! I told you I would find a way to use it :)  Best part? The boxes were all the extra from the Care Bear party cookies, so they were FREE! 

From Dreams to Reality!

Remember the plan I came up with a month ago? It's always fun to see how all the "plans" actually pan out: 

Not too far off, right??

I hope you had as much fun looking as I did creating this party!

xo,

Rachel

Behind the Scenes :: Monster Truck Party

Hello!

Today I want to do a little "behind the scenes" action from our Monster Truck party, because I know a lot of people may wonder how I get to some of my "after" moments.

I'd like to say that there was a method to my madness; some kind of event planner "secret", but really I just get crafty with whatever I have around, making stuff out of {literally} junk. To say the least, there are plenty of "make it work" moments :). And with that, comes a lot of creative ideas. I promise you, the moment's I am most creative are born out of the times that I am completely stumped on how to do something!

The first project that I want to show you are the track mark tablecloths that {with a little assistance from me}, the birthday boy made. The idea was born from something I came across when researching ideas for the tires we bought. You can see that post here.

I loved the idea of creating track marks for the table top. The tires we had just seemed too big to make the marks; the smaller hotwheel toys too small, but J's larger Gravedigger toy was just perfect ........

of course, looking back now, I kinda wished I went bigger :) Isn't that the way it always works!

I love this project because it was a great way to get Jameson involved. And it was a super cheap way to create something custom for the party. The tablecloths were from Oriental Trading, and pretty cheap. I was worried that the paint wouldn't stick to them, but we had not trouble at all. The paint was brown tempura paint {poster paint} I have seriously had since I did his 2nd Birthday Party!

Jameson got really into it, and really thought about how the tracks should go. He had a blast! Afterwards, before it could dry, we washed off all the paint off his toy.

Easy-Peasy, right???

The second thing I did was create stands that would not only hold and display some of our trucks, but actually prop them up so they would look like the were heading towards each other. I did this the day before, with no concept in mind, just knowing I would have to find stuff around the house.

And enter the oriental trading boxes that half the party supplies came from! Those boxes + wrapping paper {which I needed anyway} + the roll INSIDE the wrapping paper = some awesome stands!! I love this project because it was F.R.E.E.

This is where that creativity I talked about earlier comes into play. I had NO idea what I was going to do for these....as I made it and pushed the roll into the box, something about the height sticking out made me think of the leftover tape I still had.....and boom! We have flames :) And to think I almost wrapped these babies up in paper! The stickers were an after thought because (1) the fabric wasn't as tight to the box as I wanted, so these secured them a little and (2) they were right next to me on the counter from where I had left them after making the pudding desserts! And the fabric?? I I only thought of it because I thought the front looked too plain.

Here's a sneak peek of them in action:

In a room full of Kindergarteners, almost every boy there was able to read the words "Gravedigger" and "Grinder". ha!

My last behind the scenes moment is how I craft some of the dessert and candy displays.

Once again, anything I can find around here or the dollar store!! Add a little crinkle paper, and you have one good looking piece to put on your table :



.....and if you're one of my lucky guys, you get a little bit of loot, as well :)

Hope your day is sweet as well and that you found some of these tips helful.

xo,

Rachel