make it rain

I had the pleasure of throwing a baby shower for my friend, Alaina last week. She and her husband just (and I mean just, like, a week ago) moved into their new house, and were excited to have friends over to see the house and celebrate their soon-to-arrive son, Zaiden. They were also nice enough to leave the blue paint in the dining room for the party, even though they were itching to get rid of it. So considerate. ; )

I made Alaina go out for lunch then head upstairs without peeking, so I had all morning and afternoon to set up our little rain-themed shower. Let's get started with the pictures!

My big, puffy cloud with tinsel rain was definitely the star of the show. 

Thank goodness for craft stores having Christmas stuff out in September.

I finally invested in a craft punch, and cut out a million circles out of magazine pages (you know I love 'em).

(Also, this is one of my wedding tablecloths. Nice, thick, durable fabric, 

but no iron exists that can tame them.)

Meringue "clouds"

Lemon Cream Cheese Cake Pops

Babybel Cheese Umbrellas!

How do you even eat rock candy? Bite it? Lick it? Seems painful. They sure are pretty, though.

Most paper umbrellas look like tropical parasols, so I made my own!

Here's the Martha Stewart tutorial.

Vintage blocks from my grandma's and the chevron runner I made

Most of the food and the signs were in circles to go with all of the cut-outs I made. 

All of the guests signed this cute book I found about a rainy day.

More vintage blocks. They're so pretty.

I found some neat verses about rain.

Gift table (before the gifts)

"Rainbooties"

I also made the cloud onesie and burpcloths on either side. 

Hershey's Kiss "Raindrops" for every one! 

The blue strips that the favors are nestled in were a contribution from my very thoughtful husband. He brought me a box of 10 ft. long blue plastic strips from work. Apparently they're the backs of extremely long stickers used in some part of the window making process. What others would see as trash he saw as decor for his wife's rain party. What. a. guy. 

I hung a bunch of them from the ceiling to make a photo wall, too.

Thanks for letting me indulge my imagination and take over your house, Alaina! Hope you felt loved and appreciated. 

And a HUGE shout out to the lovely Jess Harbold for taking such beautiful photographs! Someday I'll make it big in the party business and I'll have you to thank.

Party Credits

Party Styling: Kara Hallead of Kara's Domestic Life

Photography: Jess Harbold

TWO parties for TWINS turning TWENTY

My baby sisters turned 20 last week! Our family usually makes a big deal out of birthdays, but for the past three years theirs have been kinda lame. And since they're still living at home (while they're not at college) this'll be one of their last chances to have a party. (You know, before you grow up, move away, and no one every throws you a party again.)

Sooooo, Mom and I threw, not one, but two parties; the second of which was a surprise. Saturday we had all of the family over, and Mom made some delicious Thai food. I just pulled a few simple decorations together to make it fun.

I raided their facebook pics for full-length photos of Grace and Faith together. 

Then I printed them in gray scale, cut them out, and mounted them on card stock. 

Super simple.

Magazine bunting! I made many, many feet of this, and I let the girls take a bunch of it to decorate their rooms at school.

Leftover bunting triangles taped down the table as a runner. 

The food was incredible. Mom made Khao Soi, Fried Rice, Barbecued Pork Lettuce Wraps, Guotie (Potstickers), Sticky Rice, and Nam Prik Ong. Pretty much a smorgasbord of all our favorite Asian dishes. 

(Don't ask me how she's able to prepare six dishes plus sauces and fixings all at once. 

I freak out when I have to make both an entree AND a vegetable.) 

Oh, and she also made a Caramel Brownie Cheesecake and a Berry Trifle. As one does.

The best part about this decor was that it was 100% free! Black and white printouts, card stock, tape, skewers, twine, and an extensive magazine stash. Talk about party planning on a budget!

The next night, we had Grace and Faith's boyfriends kidnap them and bring them back to...

A GLOW-IN-THE DARK, BLACKLIGHT EXTRAVAGANZA!

Now, the pictures, of course don't do it justice, (even the high-budget blacklight parties I researched for this didn't have very good pictures) but I'll share them anyway.

 These are in daylight, and before any of the food.

More bunting and face cut-outs! The faces glowed sooo well in the blacklight.

The puffy paint on the bunting was glow in the dark and showed up really well at night.

We set up the Wii outside, projected against the house, and had all of their friends come early wearing neon and white. We surprised them really well, and were just about to start eating when it started raining! We whisked everything inside and set the blacklight stuff up on the family room. Turns out, blacklights work WAY better inside. Outside it just sort of diffused into the air. Plus, we found out that bugs are extremely attracted to them.

We had to throw out a whole batch of punch cause it was full of bugs. 

Once we were settled inside we made the best of it and had a sweet Just Dance party.

So, what do you need to throw a glow-in-the-dark blacklight party? Here's a rundown:

- Get all of your glow sticks from the Dollar Store, don't even look at a party store - total rip off. 

- Those "construction shirts" in the neon yellow-green glow amazingly. Just look at Faith dancing in the picture above. 

- Walmart sells a great fluorescent tube blacklight that's ready to plug in for only $10ish. (Sorry, I can't find it on their site.)

- It's amazing what you can do with a ream of neon paper. 

Happy Birthday, Grace and Faith! Can't believe we're all in our 20s now! And I can't believe Jaina slept the whole time with that party underneath of her!

sausage, spinach, provolawesome!

Whipped this up the other night. Can't say I'm not proud of it.

It was a Spinach, Sausage, Provolone Pizza, and it was incredible.Got the recipe from one of my favorite magazines, Real Simple. Here's a link to the online recipe.

Zach giving his thumbs up.

Tried any new recipes lately?

oh valentine

I've always loved "scrappy" crafts; collages, decoupage, ransom notes... I'm a sucker for pretty slips of paper, and I tear apart most every magazine I get ahold of. I've even been known to furtively rip out pages in the doctor's office, shhh. So for my homemade valentines I like to go scrappy.

Back in Victorian days the ladies were really into the collage thing. They would sit around gabbing in parlors while they cut apart old magazines, books, and cards. I read somewhere that it was even a thing to trade your really good scraps, as in, "I'll trade you this wicked dove for those dope violets." The Valentines back in the day were especially cool.

This one's kind of intense. Is he seriously touching her boob?

I'm sure this card would've been "tradeable".

I like finding these online, printing them off, then doing what they would've done; cut up old cards to make new ones. I made a bunch this week, using all stuff I had around the house and pictures I've saved for a while.

 Perfect project to do on the couch with your hubby.

It takes a lot of patience. And very sharp scissors.

I went through my old scrapbooking stash, and found some fun paper. A couple stickers, a little glue, and - ooh la la - Victorian Style Valentines.

I was in such a scrapping mood after that, I dove into my favorite resource: magazines. I buzzed through and found all of the mostly red pages, and started folding paper hearts. Here's what I came up with:

I used this pattern to make the hearts. It was fun to try to fold strategically to get the berries, flowers, or gorgeous Persian rugs to show up on the front. Here's what I finally figured out. The purple bar on step three is what will make the front of your heart. Also I taped down all the back foldy pieces once each heart was done.

I even swiped the string off of a Valentine's present I just got. Ha! Completely free holiday decor. I love it. 

This post is featured on My Life, as Mommy & Wife's blog hop, Spread the Love.

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AND on Bower Power's link-up Lovely Crafts Linky Party.