Pirate Party Pt.1 - invitations

So I have a TON of photos from this party! I figured the best way to show them would be to break them down. The first post I am doing is the invites, because I loved them so much! Here is a list of what you will need:

Jones soda bottles (all washed and labels peeled off)
medium size corks (I got them at Hobby Lobby)
sand (play sand or any other natural color)
thin rope or thinker twine
invitations
hot glue gun and sticks
funnel (to pour sand in bottle)
After all your bottles are cleaned out and completely dry, pour a bit of sand into the bottom of the bottle. You can do as much or little as you like, I did about a little less than an inch or so. Next roll up your invites super tight so they have room to fit in the mouth of the bottle and tie one end of the rope around it. I wanted to go with a treasure map look for my invites, and found these super adorable ones for sell on etsy here. Or there are lots of different ways you can make your own. Another way I did for my son's friend party was done by printing the party info onto a tan piece of cardstock in pirate lingo (like "Ahoy Matey" etc.) with some cute pirate font and burned the edges of the paper for a weathered look. Those also turned out pretty cute. Either way, you can't lose!

Anyway, after you tie your invitation squeeze it in the bottle and leave some of the rope hanging out of the top. Cork your bottle. Then wrap the remaining rope around the cork and hot glue it. This is so when your guests pull on the cork, the invitation will come out too, instead of having them try and tip the bottle upside down and pull it out with their fingers. Ta-da! You now have a super fun and easy invite that your guests will enjoy as it sets the mood for your big pirate adventure!

Elmo Cupcake Tutorial

So I was doing some Elmo and Cookie Monster cupcakes for a friend a little bit ago and decided that I would share how I do them with my friends and family because they are so super easy and one of my most ordered cupcakes! So you all should feel extra special and take this to heart! Here they go...

First you just do a dollop of black frosting on the botom half on your cupcake, just a small one will do. The you take either the back of a knife or a spatula and spread it into a flat semi-circle(ish) like so You then take one of your decorating bags and use a tip 233 from wilton (or any other brand). Fill your bag with red frosting, this will make his fur Then pipe along the top half of the semi-circle covering the rough edges by gently squeezing and releasing pressure on the bag. If you have never done this before you may want to practice on some wax paper or something before you do it on your cupcakes. It should look something like this Next you pipe along the bottom covering the other rough edges And here we have Elmo's mouth Then you just fill in the top of the cupcake with the same technique Still with me? Now for the finishing touches... Just pipe 2 large dots next to each other with white icing for the eyes using a tip 4 or 5 if you want. Then pipe an orange dot for the nose, I like to make it in more of a tear drop shape because his nose isn't exactly round. The last step is just to pipe 2 small black dots with icing on the white dots to finish his eyes And val-aw! You are done!Do you like? And how easy is that! Now you can go make your own little Elmo's to enjoy.

Pirate Valentines

So some of you may remember the valentine cards that Mason and I made last year for preschool, if not here is the post. This year instead of letting him pick one out of a list (to save myself hours of cutting and gluing) I just had an idea and asked him if it was okay, as long as it was "pirate" themed we were good! So I googled a bunch of ideas and found one cute and simple.

I went to the local scrapbook store and bought some pirate treasure map paper, red card stock, and chocolate gold coins.Then I downloaded a cute pirate font and an image of a map compass and printed these. After they got trimmed down it was time for the gluing... I took over that part, but Mason did help put the coins on.Here is the finished productEasy peasy! I thought that they were pretty cute, they were cheap, mason liked them, and I didn't want to kill myself by the end so it was a win-win! Hope you all have a great VD!

Christmas Crafts

We have some shelves in our living room that I took all the decorations off of and was going to decorate put some Christmas decorations up there. I had it all pictured in my head and was going to make all of them, but they sat empty for most of the month! Such a procrastinator! But I am not a complete loss... I did some of then earlier this week! I had bought a nativity from the Wood Connection while ago and some vinyl from a gal that lives out here to put on some wood plaques.

Here is the first craft, and the easiest! I just put the vinyl on a 12" tile that I picked up from Lowes. So easy, but I love it so much.

Next I bought a 12" by 48" board also from Lowes and had them cut it down. I painted it off white and sanded the edges and parts of the board. Applied the next set of vinyl and done! The last one I did was just as easy but a little more time consuming because there were more pieces. Just painted them all black, and the star off white. Then sanded the figures a bit to give them some texture. Glued the star to the stable and tied some raffia on the manger.
I put some vinyl also on the wall to kind of fill in some empty wall space, I usually have a picture in the spot so it should cover it if I choose to leave it up.

SO there are my Christmas crafts that I have done this year... not everything that I wanted to get done though. Hopefully next year I will be more on the ball and get the rest done BEFORE the week of Christmas!

Letters to Santa

This year I ordered some cute little "Letters to Santa" that I thought would be fun for Mason to fill out and mail to Santa.




We watched a fun little Playmobil pirate movie online, then right after it brings up the advertisement for the toys... smart thinking on their part! Also Mason has been working hard on his name, his "S's" are getting there.

I was in the mall the other day and saw a cute mail box for Santa letters in Macy's, PERFECT!

Mason was so excited to mail his letter! We will have to see if he has been a good boy and what Santa brings him!

Soda Pop Cupcakes

I don't usually blog about cakes anymore, but I just had to add this one because I thought they turned out pretty cute and was super easy! So it was our neighbor's birthday yesterday and her hub wanted to do something Dr. Pepper themed because she is so addicted to it. I googled some Dr. Pepper cake recipes and found quite a few. I tried out two, one was much more moist and held together better. But after it baked, you couldn't taste the soda. So I think that I may yet try another recipe if I ever have to make something like this again, but they still tasted pretty yummy though!

First bake and cool your cupcakes as recipe follows. Next take your 12oz Soda cans and rinse them out. Then cut them in half. You can do this 2 ways. First I tried squishing the sides and cutting it, but when you pushed the sides back out it left some crinkles. So then I just poked a hole in the side and cut around, which worked much better in my opinion.
See the difference with the crinkled edges

After you cut the can in half, trim the edges nice and even. I also cut out the Dr. Pepper logo from the top half of the can.
Then I hot glued the logo to the can.
Next, just drop your cupcake inside the can. It's the perfect fit!
Then I just did a swirl on top of the cupcakes with the frosting. Trimmed down some straws and stuck them in the side and topped them off with a cherry! Straight or bent, I think I like the bent straw better!
I also made some with out the cans for the little kids... When the kids got their cupcakes they tried sucking on the straw to drink the cupcakes, it was pretty cute!

I hope you enjoyed this post and let me know if you ever try these at home, I would love to hear about your results! Also if you love cupcakes as much as I do, then enter Utah Loves Cupcakes free cupcake giveaway, I sure did! But hurry because it ends tomorrow night...

valentines fun

Mason had his first Valentine Party this year at preschool, so exciting! So I found all these cute Valentine printouts on this website Skip To My Lou and let him pick out which one he wanted to do, of course he picks the one with the most cutting and gluing! So I printed and cut and glued, then Mason got to help with the rest:


Assembly process


Mason wrote his name on all the valentines


Pretty Good!


Stuffing with candy


The finished product!

They turned out super cute and lots of fun for all the kids, but next year I think we will probably just do the store bought ones.

I also let him make his own Valentine cake




Looks so yummy


Who needs a fork!