Just Make Stuff

Three Irish Boys...

I have been a grading machine this week and have never gotten around to taking pictures of a few small projects to share (despite the extra hour of sunlight), so I thought I didn't have anything to share around here tonight.

But then I remembered I had an old post draft that I never wrote...like fall 2015 old. I was going to share it last year around St. Patrick's Day, but I never did. 

So back in fall 2015, I hosted a little lunch for my mom's best friend's daughter's third baby boy. I actually just shared his first birthday build a fort kit gift a couple weeks ago. I loved the chance to host showers for his brothers too in 2012 and 2014. This time we went with an Irish theme since they all have awesome Irish names. 

The decorations were super simple, but I loved the chance to put together three hearts into a shamrock and have some Bells of Ireland for the flowers. I sprinkled green fabric hearts over the table too and had fun wrapping up the little favors. 

We had a simple lunch with a salad and a make-your-own baked potato bar. I somehow got through my entire life without eating a potato skin from a baked potato. However, once I tried it I was completely hooked and a baked potato has been my go-to easy dinner ever since. I follow these instructions to bake potatoes and they really are perfect.

So glad I remembered to finally share this little Irish themed shower...it really was one of my most favorite celebrations to host.

Decorated dessert cups...

There is one last detail of Mac's graduation party that I haven't shared yet. Dessert. He asked for Oreo cupcakes, but with over fifty people to feed I knew we wouldn't be able to store that many cupcakes in the fridge. So I used the same idea I used with our Homecoming picnic dinner this past fall. 

Instead of cupcakes, I actually ended up making individual trifles. I made an Oreo crumble crust to sprinkle in the bottom, layered some chunks of chocolate cake and then used a cream cheese & cool whip mixture for the top with even more Oreo crumbles. 

Then I punched some circles that I quickly stamped with a dotted background stamp, then used foam tape to adhere a glittery punched star. 

Even though there were a lot to make (we ended up with around ninety) it was really easy to put everything together. 

It's definitely an idea I'll be using over and over again. Right now I'm thinking they would be cute for a first day of school snack decorated with a punched patterned paper apple.

Mac Wall...

I only planned one homemade-ish decoration for Mac's graduation party. No banners, no crafts...just a bunch of mylar gold star balloons from the dollar store and covering the empty wall in our dining room with photos from Mac's high school years.

It went from his first day of high school to his last day of classes senior year. That nervous first day photo in the corner still makes me want to reach into it and hug that kid.

I gathered forty favorite photos from the last four years, edited them into black & white squares and had them all printed as 8x8 photos from Costco. while I arranged the order of the photos on the dining room table, Sean made sure a long piece of blue painters tape was level on the wall so we had place to start, and then we stuck each one up with more painters tape on the back.

Mac was less than thrilled, since he decided several of the photos were, "Sooo embarrassing, Mom!", but I knew it would be fun for all of our friends and family to see. 

All the photos were then tucked into the other only idea I had for Mac's graduation that I'll share tomorrow.

Not the usual thank you notes...

Mac's graduation party was the largest celebration we have hosted in four years and the largest by far that we have ever cooked a meal for. Mac requested a spaghetti and meatball dinner, so Sean and I made the sauce, meatballs, salad dressing and croutons, garlic bread and assembled ninety desserts. We started prepping on Tuesday and worked every day until Saturday, an hour before the party, when the electricity went out.

As we went outside to see if it was an isolated incident at our house, we heard the transformers blow at the local power station.

Uh oh. (except add bad words)

Saturday was the start of a heatwave and apparently everyone had a little too much power going. 

Sean went to the grocery store to get more ice and I started pacing on our front porch as I made phone calls. My sister and her husband, our friends, Mac's dad, his sister and brother-in-law and my brother all came to our rescue. Thankfully all the food was cooked and just needed to be warmed. We had already borrowed several crock pots to serve from, so if we could get them plugged in we figured we could still feed everyone. We gathered a generator, a gas can, an extra ez-up, more coolers with ice and extra hands to help.

Then the power came back on just minutes before the party was supposed to start. My brother helped Sean and I get everything ready to serve, Mac and his dad greeted everyone as they showed up and we had ourselves a party. 

Up until now, I think our best worst party story was when the police showed up several years ago. No electricity and almost sixty people to feed now wins the nightmare hosting story contest...may it never, ever have more competition. 

I made notes to send to everyone who helped us. Hopefully you'll never need these, but just in case, here's a sheet you can print...electricity thank you notes.

Senior Prom...

Mac went to prom this past weekend with the same group of friends he went with last year. And, just like last year, I made some decorations. This time the dinner was hosted at someone's house (and the prom theme was Midnight at the Oasis) so there was lots and lots of teal, purple and magenta patterns sewn into table runners and a banner to hang up. Then there were spray painted jars stuffed with flowers. I had a little too much fun with all of this.

Thankfully Mac had lots of fun too.

We have everything (ten feet of a two-sided banner, two seven-foot table runners, one three-foot runner and one smaller one-sided banner) that we won't need again and would love to see someone be able to use. So if you would like some (or all) of it, please leave a comment and I will email you to find out where to send it. 

Last week...

For eighteen it was cake batter pancakes and scalloped tissue paper...nineteen was a marble cake with cream cheese icing, big painted numbers and ombrè paper mobiles. Mac appreciates the details, so it makes it extra fun to work on them.

This time last week we were putting all of this together for a little family birthday dinner for Mac...granted "little" still meant over twenty people.

Party Planning...

Earlier this week we brainstormed this year's 4th of July party menu so grocery shopping could be done. We always have hot dogs, baked beans and potato salad, but I also like to check my Pinterest boards for a couple new ideas and couldn't remember what couple new ideas I tried last year. That's when I realized I really need to start keeping track of parties...since I often run into this issue with the different parties we host each year.

I should know better, because my Thanksgiving book is surprisingly helpful each year. Each party I always write lists, menus and notes anyway, but now they will be cuter and I'm saving them to refer back to. I also made a little spot to jot down anything I should change in the future. 

I'll share each one as I make them. Here's the first one, barely in time, if you're hosting a celebration this weekend...Download 4th of July Party Planner Page

Sparkle addict...

I shared a couple weeks ago that I am more and more drawn to this glittery gold stuff and now I have reached a new level of sparkle.

Mac went to prom last weekend with a group of classmates. They were having dinner at a nearby restaurant and I could not resist putting together a couple of centerpieces, some sequined fabric and grabbing a big bunch of gold balloons to try to make it a little extra festive. 

Sean spray painted the mason jars gold for me and helped me cut stars out of glitter paper to adhere double-sided to super skinny dowels from the craft store. Then there were the piles of white flowers...I will never tire of pretending I am a florist.

Metallic + sequins + glitter = I officially don't know myself anymore.

Cup of cheer...

Our street had it's eleventh holiday progressive dinner last weekend and this time around we hosted the dessert house. I decided I had to use pretty much all the ideas on Pinterest and put together a hot chocolate bar. We hung snowflakes from the ceiling and put our table in front of the sliding door in the kitchen. I added a print and gathered everything I had in my kitchen that matched the colors...oh and I needed two little buckets from the Target dollar spot since they matched. I made a big crock-pot full of hot chocolate, a quart of fresh whipped cream (that we served in a bowl of ice to keep cool) and dipped marshmallows in white chocolate and peppermint. We also had chocolate cookie sticks, mini marshmallows, candy canes, mini peanut butter cups, fleur de sel, and more crushed peppermint. I covered english toffee syrup, caramel sauce and white chocolate sauce bottles in snowflake patterned paper with labels. 

After three houses worth of food, everyone often gets to the dessert house stuffed, but thankfully a small cup of hot chocolate seemed to be a good little something sweet to end the night.

Green and yellow...

If it's Sean's birthday (like it was this past Saturday) it pretty much means there is some kind of peanut butter dessert and some green and yellow decorations. They are color of his beloved Oregon Ducks and actually were his high school colors too...but his wife added in the lime green.

This year I quickly made a little fabric garland (like I have pinned a couple of times). Messy cut fabric knotted onto the twine that Mac held taunt for me.

Oh and to meet the peanut butter requirement, I made a double batch of this pie. 

Party in a bucket...

We usually get my brother-in-law a gift card to his favorite remote control car store for Christmas and his birthday every year. Now if someone got me a gift card for one of my favorite stores like Anthropologie it would make me awfully happy. Regardless, getting him a gift card time after time kind of made me feel like I wasn't trying hard enough.

So I asked my sister for a list of his favorite beers, Sean and I read up on them, spent a little too much time in the individual beer bottles aisle, and put together a dozen different bottles of new beer for him to try based on what we knew he liked. 

That's a decent gift, right? But then I decided the gift had to look cute too. The carriers the beer came in were completely covered in ads for the store, so it would have been like rebuilding an entire box to cover them up, so we ended up at the dollar store for a container. We quickly found a bucket and got in line and then it occurred to me...balloons. 

I added some curly ribbon when we got home and we had ourselves a party.

Bright Blue Bow Tie Baby Luncheon...

This past Saturday I hosted a little family celebration for my mom's best friend's daughter, Amee. She is having her second little boy in a few weeks, so it was a great reason to decorate, have lunch together and play games.

Originally the party was going to have a sprinkle theme since Amee loves them. Coincidentally, her friends had just celebrated a shower with the same theme a couple weeks before. That's what can happen when everyone knows you really love sprinkles. I figured it'd be easy to plan something new, since there were only a handful of people coming and I hadn't started working on the sprinkle theme yet. With a few minutes Pinterest researching the new theme was bow ties. When I was brainstorming colors with Amee's mom, she suggested bright blue. It had never been a favorite of mine...until now. I went bright blue bow tie crazy.

I decorated the dining room wall with a couple wonky felt bow tie banners, put some fabric on the table, and Sean painted wood initials we found at the local craft store.

Then I got to the menu and ended up having everything with a "B" in it for baby Braden. We had roast beef sandwiches, bowtie and broccoli salad, chips with blue cheese dip, blueberries with brown sugar yogurt (in little jars), and blue velvet cake (this recipe turned blue). 

And there were still sprinkles...bright blue.

My mom took charge of the games and wrote an original mad lib and then made a custom version of Catch Phrase to play...only my mom could come up with games that good. Then the favors ended up being bright blue too...little paperclip fabric bookmarks. 

I always like party planning, but somehow this was extra fun...and I got a new favorite color out of it. 

Blog Party...

On Saturday morning my dining room was full of kind people, lots of laughter, and sharing tons of good ideas. You can't beat that. 

The menu included turkey cranberry sandwiches, a chickpea cucumber and feta salad, loaded baked potato dip, mint truffle cookies, s'more bars and little jars of chocolate banana pudding pies. 

I made some button jars to hold flowers.

The colors were completely inspired by the paper napkins I found at Target. I also did the "just lay fabric out and call it a tablecloth" trick twice in a week.

Then we crafted. We painted die cut hearts with watercolor crayons to make a card, we covered clothespins with my way-too-big washi tape collection, and we made fabric flowers.

And look this amazing pile of supplies everyone brought to donate to Backpacks for Success.

Thanks so much to everyone who came over to snack and craft together...it was really wonderful to spend some time with all of you!

Cookies and Milk...

To celebrate Mac's seventeenth birthday we invited his friends and family to stop by for cookies and milk on Friday night.

Sean, the wonder step-dad, baked up over a dozen batches of cookies which included, Late Night Snack Cookies, Chocolate Mint Truffle Cookies, Peanut Butter Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookies, Cake Batter Chocolate Chip Cookies, Frosted Flake White Chocolate Cookies, Chocolate Cake S'more Cookies, Oreo Pudding Cookies, Sugar Cookies and Salted Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. He even baked during the party so the house would have the scent of fresh baked cookies.

All I was in charge of was decorating the table and I didn't figure out what I wanted to do until hours before the party. I was going to sew a simple black and white table runner, but as I laid the 1/2 yard pieces of fabric on the table just to start figuring it out we decided that just layering the fabric looked cute enough...and no sewing required. Look for this idea to be used over and over for future parties.

Mac has had a tradition of hanging out at his Dad's house right before his birthday parties so he can arrive for the big reveal. Thank goodness we were able to pull off a little get together that seemed to be cool enough for our super cool teenager.

Fabric jar centerpieces...

One of the half dozen gatherings we hosted a couple of weeks ago was a fall dinner. It was planned with my mom's best friend's daughter in the height of summer, when we were dreaming of all things fall. Our menu included a cheese plate with cranberry sauce and honey, apple cider marinated grilled chicken with an apple and sausage hash on a bed of cheesy orzo, cheesy beer bread, homemade apple sauce, apple bread with cream cheese frosting and fresh fried apple fritters with peanut putter caramel sauce. 

This definitely needs to become a tradition. 

And we couldn't have a fall dinner without a little table decorating, so I grabbed a few jars, tore some strips of fabric and got out the scary glue gun. I knotted together the strips of fabric and wrapped the jars using a little glue to hold it in place where it needed it. Add a few washi tape tea lights and you've got yourself a party.

The half dozen...

As of this evening we have finished hosting six parties in nine days. Sean and I just counted it all up. We had eighty people in the house...including twenty-five teenagers and fourteen kids. We cooked up twenty-two different dishes. We went to the grocery store five times. I ran to the florist around the corner to purchase a few stems of flowers three different times. We cooked a twenty-four pound turkey. I wrapped tea lights in washi tape in four different color combinations. We did too many dishes to count and we had an awesome time.

Randomness...

1. Today I took out a bottle of gesso for the first time since 2008. It was a rock solid. 

2. I love sending Mac e-mails when I've found something that I think he'll like...today it was these hamburger cupcakes.

3. Last year we ended up hosting five get togethers in eight days. This year somehow, someway it's going to be six different dinners or parties between October 25th and November 4th. At least there aren't three different events in one day again.

4. One of the first parties is Mac's annual pumpkin carving get-together with his friends. Invitations went out today...

5. If you were to crack open my soul inside you would find Simon and Garfunkle's greatest hits album...therefore I am completely in love with this cover of The Boxer by Mumford and Sons.

Last Wednesday...

We celebrated Sean at a concert in the park on his birthday eve. As always, it was filled with his favorite green and yellow, chicken curry sandwiches on croissants, and chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting.

After hosting bridal and baby showers earlier in the year, I figured out that this little scallop circle punch and this star punch make cute little cupcake toppers. Tape a toothpick to the back of one and then sandwich the toothpick in between two circles with a little piece of foam tape holding them together. 

Best party ever...

Considering we have practically hosted a three ring circus for almost all of Mac's birthdays, a simple dinner at home with family and friends seemed a little strange. But that's what you get when you are supposed to leave for cheer camp at 6:45am the next day and will be on a plane to New York next weekend to continue celebrating your sweet sixteen.

Tonight's dinner celebration had hamburgers and french fries, a little attempt at chalkboard art, a balloon idea found on Pinterest, little s'more pudding cups, and a banner (thanks to finding it in the party supply aisle at Target) that ironically proved that this was the best party ever...

A colorful blur...

Sean and I are pretty sure that this was the biggest party we have ever hosted...we were incredibly fortunate to have so many of our friends and family celebrate Mac's graduation (and a little bit of mine too).

Just as I had hoped there were colors everywhere, but with all the party prep craziness I didn't get a chance to get too many photos of the details...

There were messy fabric banners everywhere, including our backyard with its mismatched chairs and tables borrowed from family and neighbors.

Buckets of rocks and little banners on skewers made up the centerpieces (or in this case a weight to keep napkins in place). And there had to be too many colorful straws for party guests to stick in their drinks.

My mom found this snack mix recipe for us to make as party favors. We quickly learned that Fritos drizzled with a caramel mixture are pretty amazing. The party invitiation turned into little tags for the favor bags.

The school photos of Mac over the years were clothespinned to some fabric strips tied together to decorate the mantle.

And, just as we planned for, the front and back yards were filled with games. 

This was a celebration that was thought about for years. To look around at our family and friends laughing as they ate together and played games was the very best version of this dream coming true. 

And off they went...

These invitations have hopefully arrived to the friends and family we invited to celebrate with us... 

The invitation was inspired by this design which has been waiting on my Pinterest graduation party board for awhile now. Our "theme" is all kinds of colors since Mac and I love all things colorful.

After seeing this party idea last fall we decided that instead of just feeding everyone we would also have lots of games ready and waiting for people to wander around to. We have a few D.I.Y. game ideas saved up including a pipe ball lawn game, cornhole, and painting our own twister board. We also have bocce ball, badminton and ladder golf sets ready to use. We've hired a guy who puts together an amazing taco bar and are planning on ice cream sundaes for dessert. I have a stack of fabric waiting to be made into decorations and just have to figure out a little party favor for everyone.

As much as I have always loved hosting parties, I don't think I have looked forward to having a celebration as much as I am with this one.

Lots 'O Green...

The party Friday night was actually a sleepover for fifteen girls. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I host it every semester for the new members of the sorority I joined way back when I attended the University of Redlands. Other alumni come by to meet them, tell lots of stories, I always make the same snacks, and they end the night happily crafting up some picture frames.

Then Saturday night was "Happy St. Peggy's Day". My sister's birthday party on the Irish eve of her birthday. The dining room was decked out in shamrocks...

We made beef stew, buttermilk dill bread, and mint chocolate sundaes with my mom's homemade fudge sauce.

We also crafted up some Irish bead bracelets, made shamrock wands with pipe-cleaners and felt shamrock stickers, and had a leprechaun scavenger hunt that I discovered here.

Then we tore into my sister's gifts. I'll share what I made her tomorrow...

Thank you note gifts...

I decided to craft up a gift to help the bride and mom-to-be with a little post-shower thank you note writing...

I included stamps, address labels and matching envelope seals...and then I had way the heck too much fun wrapping them up. 

Thanks for going along with me through all this party crafting this week. The countdown is on until the next big party around here. T-minus 108 days and counting...

Little shower details...

Just a few more little bits of shower fun today...

Thank goodness for crafty punches and toothpicks to make up little cupcake toppers.

Ever since my brother made me vanilla sugar for Christmas I have been obsessed with mixing it into hot tea. I decided to attempt my own 10 pounds of vanilla sugar making. I got a dozen vanilla beans, scrapped them into the sugar and let it sit for a couple of weeks. It went into little jars with a tag.

For both showers I served iced tea with flavored syrups. I couldn't resist striped straws for the baby shower.

The menu for the baby shower included heaps of tea sandwiches. Some of the recipes can be found here.

For the bridal shower I used my mom's recipes for a chicken strawberry salad that I need to share soon.

And napkin bundles have to be cute too. 

Tomorrow's the last day of shower overload...I'll be sharing the gifts I gave to the bride and mom-to-be. 

 

Shower Decorations...

The bridal shower was a little tricky since I was hosting it over an hour away at a my friend's home. I had only been there once before, but she took some measurements for me and we brainstormed a couple possibilities. She has a great open floor plan (and a huge kitchen that I am very jealous of) so I kept the focus over the peninsula counter where I served food. 

Sean actually put together the various flowers for me. I got the idea from Mac's snowflakes back in December. 

Now the baby shower was an entirely different situation. Having it here at home and especially having an amazing partner in crafty crime, as I ended up co-hosting with one of the mom-to-be's friend's from college, helped to create a ton of fun details. 

My shower co-host suggested a "I love you to the moon and back" theme for the baby shower. Since it has always been deeply symbolic to Sean and I was so happily flabbergasted by her suggestion. I picked some colors and we were on our way...

My co-host made the super cute welcome sign and printed the designs to make the pinwheels...I was so lucky to have her crafting stuff up too. 

I found fabric that matched the colors pretty darn well and Sean got to work cranking out fabric banners. I also couldn't resist announcing Declan's name on our mantle.

My co-host yet again with this banner we hung in the entryway.

Extra fabric ended up as a couple of wonky table runners. Painted stars ended up on the tree and the dining room and the flowers were in button jars.

The cabinet behind the couch held the shower favors (more on that tomorrow), baby pictures of the mom and dad-to-be and the packaged prizes.

For the table we covered cardboard with fabric to make matching serving pieces (just like we did with Mac's neon party this past summer). Over the table were strings of punched stars sewn together.

Finally the big chalkboard in our entryway ended up as a place to record everyone's guesses for Declan's birthday. He's actually due on my birthday so he just has to be born then, right?

Shower games...

Thank goodness for Pinterest because I scoured it for games. I ended up using two of them at both of the showers and they seemed to go over really well.

First I found Pass the Present (scroll down to find it). It involves distributing gifts as everyone gathers in a circle. A story is read and every time "right" and "left" is mentioned in the story the present is passed accordingly. For the bridal shower I read the story found on the website, but for the baby shower my mom wrote a personalized story that included what traits the new baby may inherit from every grandparent and great-grandparent. The prizes were mugs filled with packets of hot chocolate.

That's what the tissue paper flowers I shared a few weeks ago were for

For the baby shower I attempted yarn pom poms.

The other game played at both showers was "He Said, She Said" (found on the Orange Beautiful blog). The premise was to guess which trait belonged to the bride and groom or mom and dad-to-be. To make it a little trickier some traits belonged to both of them so the players had to circle both initials. It was so fun to put this together and have the guests wondering whose favorite candy was purple skittles or who was born closer to their due date. Another super cute version of this game can be found on Craftaholics Anonymous. 

And because I have two friends who love a cute detail as much as I do, the pencils had matching ribbon tied to them for each shower...

For the third game at the bridal shower we played Bridal gift bingo. Not a new shower game...every guest fills in the squares with guesses of what gifts the bride might receive and you play bingo from there. Here's a PDF of what I put together... Download Bridal Shower Bingo

For the baby shower I brainstormed (with lots of help from the new-grandma-to-be) a random game after reading up on numerous possibilities...

It involved a balloon, a size two diaper and sharpie markers...so I guess I'm going to call it the balloon baby game. The game was designed with two rounds. In the first round the guests had to blow up the balloon, get the diaper on it and the first five people to have the balloon held up without the diaper falling off moved onto round two. Round two involved the five finalists secretly having a couple of minutes to draw their best baby face on the balloon. They were carried into the mom-to-be and her grandmother for a blind judging to pick the best. I was holding my breath hoping it would work and thankfully it seemed to...

And here are the game prizes...

A couple of cute dish towels wrapped up for the baby shower and a stack of chocolate bars for the bridal shower. 

Hopefully if you're throwing a shower sometime soon these game ideas may help out...I know I'll be keeping them for the next time I host a bridal or new baby celebration.

That's a wrap...

Thankfully the bridal shower was a success. I will share a detail or two this week, but I'll be staying quiet for the most part so I can transfer some of the ideas. There's a chance that the friend whose baby shower I'm hosting next month will be reading this and I love keeping party secrets for the guest of honor to discover when the celebration begins.

I just found out tonight that I get to spend a few hours at CHA tomorrow so I'm sure I'll have a long wishlist to share with you tomorrow...

The big ones...

Sure, we hosted a fair amount of get-togethers at our house in the last year, but none were major events. That changes this year. Already on the 2012 calendar there's a bridal shower to host at the end of this month, a baby shower in late February, and graduation party this June. The first invitations went out in the mail today...