Halloween Fun

Happy Halloween! We had a great time and here are a few pictures from our Pumpkin Carving Party...  I kept it very simple this year but wanted to still make it special for the little ones so starting at 9:30 pm the night before the party I made a few last minute decorations.  (The pictures aren't very good...my husband had an "accident" with our camera, so we no longer have one ...tears )

The frame in back was a great frame I picked up at a garage sale for $2, I had a smaller frame from Drew's birthday party that was orange and fit perfectly. I placed in it the great pumpkin my husband made me and it was the perfect backdrop.

I had picked up a few packages of these great Jolee's three dimensional Halloween stickers and was able to use them to make most of the decorations. I love crearting dimension. I added a sticker onto toothpicks to make some great Halloween toothpicks for the appetizers.

To hold the silverware, I spray painted a can orange and tied some ribbon I picked up at the dollar store around the center and topped it off with a spider sticker.

 I made some great food labels the same stickers, scrapbooking paper that I picked up at a garage sale. I got two complete tablets of amazing paper for fifty cents...score! I had some white glitter letters already that I used to create the labels.  To keep with the simplicity, we just picked up a few pizzas, and had some pasta (spider legs), salad and a few appetizers. It was perfect. 

To finish it off, I created some treatbags and cupcake toppers. I used some pumpkin doilies as a garland ...so easy and I left it up for Thanksgiving. :) We played games (apple bobbing, donut eating contest, ping pong ball toss. I found some great spooky eye ping pong balls from the Dollar Store). Finally we carved our pumpkins of course!!!

My Big Bad Wolf

Pucker Up Lemonade Party

It was my niece's birthday a few weeks back and she's my little party planner. We've been talking about having a lemonade party for almost a year and she was so excited when it was finally her time. We were able to re-purpose many of the decorations we used for Andrew's construction party.

I loved how the stripes turned out and my brother-in-law added a wood slat roof...LOVE!

I accented with some plastic lemon slices from Michael's and flower garland that I picked up from Tai Pan Trading company.

Does that Lemonade sign look familar? It's one of the construction signs from Drew's party. Yeah for the re-usable letters!

I picked up these amazing felt citrus stickers by Jolee's and attached some extra glitter paper for some adorable cupcake toppers.

The cupcake wrappers are doilies... I love this trick and how beautiful they look.

My Sweet Birthday Girl. She loves lemonade... I love her!

For favors, my sister and I made lemonade kits... it had everything a kid needs to create their very own lemonade stand, cups, lemonade mix, wooden spoons, chalk and paper for the sign. I found these great strawberry felt boxes and we added some change in them to get the business started. I made some citrus hairbows to tie it all together.



Candy Bar



Was able to restring the fabric pennant banners and remove the blue and viola new decorations!



Halloween Treat Bags

Well it's been a while since I've blogged. We had a major deployment at work and I've been working late days and nights sometimes 17 hour days. With school back in session the commute has almost doubled The good news is .... I carpool with the hubby and I found a way to be productive during that time.



My mother-in-law taught me to crochet!!! Whoot Whoot!

I found this great free pattern for the adorable and FREE happy bat bag crochet pattern on Red Heart. I added my own special touches the google eyes instead of buttons amd put the buttons on the handle. I then used the same pattern and various colors of yarn to create the other bags. I'm going to be giving them out to all the kids at the Halloween party we are having and I'm obsessed with making them!

To make the bat wings, I just printed out a clip art graphic and then cut it out and pinned it to the felt and was able to use it as a pattern.

Each bag takes about 3 hours, so I've been able to complete about a bag a day. Until I can find a glue gun that plugs into the car, I do that part at home when the lil one is fast asleep.

 

 

Everyone is So Creative!

Happy Friday! It's been a really hectic week and next week is gearing up to be awful so I'm very excited to enjoy the weekend... 

Throughout the week as I've really enjoyed seeing every else's creativity here are some of my favorites...

Hungry Happenings  displayed this hysterical roach covered popcorn on Tip Junkie...they are chocolate so they only roaches I would tolerate and would be perfect for Halloween or April Fool's Day or pretty much any day if you have a little boy. :)

Me and My Boys featured this Birthday seat link up by Freshly Completed

This is adorable! I LOVE it! 

Burton Avenue displayed this adorable spider web garland on Southern Lovely. I love the detail of this!



Spider Cap! Yes Please!



And of course I love me some Pinterest....here are some of my favorites this week:

Polka Dot Cake?!? LOVE!

Grilled Swordfish

I love when my husband grills anything. It's his hidden (not anymore :) ) talent! He can cook just about anything and it's always delicious. Tonight we decided to grill swordfish and it was absolutely delicious so I had to share! Plus I love using my Savona Woodworks serving board. They make such beautiful and unique boards that are like little works of art. If you are interested you can check them out here: Savona Woodworks 

My husband and I  have this thing...I'll marinate or season and he'll grill and then we both get to share the credit!

Here's what I did (Not that much): 

Got Three Swordfish steaks and patted dry with a clean paper towel.

Brushed each side of the fish with Extra Virgin Olive Oil, lemon juice & Add a dash of salt and pepper. I have an obsession with garlic salt so I used that but regular salt would be fine too.

I topped each steak with a slice of lemon to place on the grill, the lemon slice not only looks super cool, the lemon juice cooks right into the meat and is SIMPLY delicious!

I let it marinade for about 30 minutes and then let Brian do his magic: He grilled on each side for 3-4 minutes and placed the lemon on the top each time he flipped. Brian's grilling tip of the day, don't rotate the meat too much, just once is fine. It keeps the meat tender and oh so yummy!

And because it was just so cute, I had to show you what Andrew was doing! Yes, we had to plate and serve the plastic vegetables too! So adorable!

Here are some other great things Savona Woodworks offers:

How cute is this little guy?

SERIOUSLY! I WANT ONE OF THESE!!!

Happy Fall!

It's no secret that I LOVE fall! I love the cooler weather, the colder nights when I can snuggle up in my blankets, the great comfort foods, the beautiful landscape and of course the holidays! Today, when I drove thru the Starbucks drive-thru I was happy to discover that my Pumpkin Spice Latte was back! Oh how I missed it! (Even if it is $4! ) I know it's not quite fall yet and the tempurature outside is still 100 degrees but the site of that drink on the menu made me want to start decorating for Halloween. My husband stopped me before I brought the boxes in from the garage but I was able to start my first Halloween craft of the year.

At a trip to Dollar Tree  (There is a new one by me and it's big and beautiful!) I found these great mini baking cups. They had spiders, ghosts and pumpkins and I needed all of them! I made three topiaries and painted the wooden dowels. I put them in a bucket that I already had and added fog (or cotton balls).

 I finished each flower off with a ribbon and the whole look off with a sticker that I got from Michaels!

Yeah!!! I love the holidays!