Autumn Decor Idea

This post is a bit delayed in that the day I was going to post about this autumn decor idea, I went into labor with our third child!!  I gave birth to our beautiful daughter last Wednesday, and she has already added such joy and happiness to our family. I just love being a mom, and we have so much to be thankful for. 

Now onto this autumn decor idea...

I saw the idea for vases filled with popcorn kernels on Pinterest, but decided to add an extra something to it with the Cricut letters. I wanted to share this idea because it was so inexpensive and easy to do.  The entire thing cost me less than $12 and I finished the project in less than an hour! 

I bought the vases and candles at the Dollar Tree.  I placed a large shot glass in the bottom of the vases to lift the candle.  This also enabled me use less popcorn kernels to fill the bottom.  I tied fake fall leaves to the outside using twine.  Then finished each vase off with letters cut from my Cricut machine.  The photo does not do it justice.  It really pops (no pun intended) on my mantle.

I didn't glue anything, so that I can use these vases for future decor as well.  You may even see a future post with a Winter decor idea!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Catching Fire Fun

I am a big fan of the Hunger Games series and very excited for the release of the second movie at the end of this month.  Many of my friends are too, which made Catching Fire the perfect theme for this month's monthly dinner.

Invite:  Now that I am learning how to use PhotoShop, I am completely addicted! I made this invite and tried to use wording reflecting the theme of the novel. 

I asked guests when the RSVP'd to choose one of the twelve districts and arrive dressed in black with an accessory representative of their District.  This was easy enough for the guests to do and added a fun, creative aspect to the evening.

Entry Decor:  I again called on my husband to help create a fence similar to the electrified fence around District 12 at our front door.  It left room for guests to come in, but got the idea across.

Decor:  I set the table with a neutral colored tablecloth and symbols from the novel.  A big hit was the "Sponsor Parachute" I hung from the ceiling.  To make this, I covered a plastic basket I bought at the Dollar Tree with silver metallic tissue paper and attached a pretzel bun to the sides with grey yarn.  It hung over the dining table.

For the centerpiece, I bought a dozen white roses to represent President Snow's obsession and how it impacts Katniss in the novel. I surrounded the vase with coal to symbolize District 12.  On each side of this, I put the Hunger Games and Catching Fire novels with other symbols -- bread to represent Peeta and arrows to represent Katniss.  I made these arrows with grey felt and sticks the kids and I found on one of our walks.

My place cards were mini bows and arrows. I made these by soaking popsicle sticks in water for an hour and bending them into this shape. I then tied them with fishing line (you could use floss) to keep their shape and painted them black.  For the arrows, I cut the tops of skewers and attached the scrapbook paper.  I downloaded the Hunger Games font free here.  I used this for almost all the printed items for the dinner.

My napkin rings represented the "weapons" for the Quarter Quell. For added color, I used two napkins and just folded one paper napkin to be a little smaller than the red one.

I matched the wine charms with the Districts the guests were dressing as. I downloaded the District symbols from the web and printed them on grey card stock.

Behind the dining table, I covered our family photos with quotes/images from the novel.

These were the wine bottle labels I made on Photoshop and wrapped around the wine bottles.

Menu:  I read Catching Fire a second time to get inspiration for the menu for this dinner.  They serve a lot of dishes at the parties in the Capital, but I decided to theme my menu after food the tributes ate during the Quarter Quell.  I made the menu on Photoshop and then backed it on orange card stock and placed it on each guest's plate.

The main dish was "Peeta Bread Sandwiches with Charred Tree Rat Meat."  This was pita bread sandwiches that I filled with Steak and veggies.  I used a fajita packet to season the meat, red/green peppers, onions, and tomato chunks before putting them in the pita.

As a side, I served "Speared Sweet Raw Seafood" which was really just shrimp I cooked with butter and garlic. I made the skewers into arrows to fit with the theme.

My salad was "Nightlock Berry Salad with Roasted Tree Nuts" to match food items from the novel.  This was a simple salad with feta, blueberries, and toasted almonds. I served it with Balsamic Vinaigrette.

They didn't have dessert in the Quarter Quell, but I wanted to have a cake at this dinner since it happened to be one of my guest's birthday. I made this round cake with Catching Fire flames on the side and the Catching Fire symbol on the top.  To make the symbol, I made a stencil on parchment paper from an image I found on Google.  It took a long time to cut out the parts to make the stencil and some "fill-in" spots later to make the textured wings, but I think it came out pretty good.

Favor:  I made "Sponsor Parachutes" for a favor with silver tissue paper and silver balloons.  Inside the tissue paper, I made these cute cookies...

Again, these were made with a stencil cut from a Mockingjay symbol I found online.  After I made the dough, I put the stencil on the cookie and dusted them with cocoa powder.  Then I baked them.  This is the tag I designed for the outside of the favor...

This was another fun party, and I am really looking forward to seeing the movie in a couple weeks with many of these girls.  Hope you enjoyed this post...HAPPY HUNGER GAMES!!

A Pregnant Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone!  This year, I was 8 months pregnant for Halloween with no idea what to dress as. I wanted to be comfortable and appropriate for work, but I needed something easy.  Here are a couple of ideas I came up with for VERY simple costumes.

My pumpkin belly!  Found this idea on Pinterest and it was super easy.  I bought an orange t-shirt, cut the face parts out of black felt, and hand-stitched them on.  I stitched a cute bow on as well since we are having a girl and I thought it added to the pumpkin.  Took less than an hour to put this baby (pumpkin that is) together.

Another easy costume was the Magic 8 Ball that I made for an adult party, but also wore to work on Halloween.  I cut a circle and a number 8 out of felt and hand-stitched them on a black shirt I already had.  I printed some Magic 8 ball sayings onto white card stock and made them into a necklace.  As party goers asked me questions throughout the night, I rubbed my belly and then ripped off one of the cards to hand to them.  Silly, but pretty funny.  It worked well at work with my students as well.

Student: Mrs. Casto, do you think I'd get a detention if I wrote this (points to paper) in my essay?

Magic 8 Ball:  You May Rely On It!

or 

Student: Mrs. Casto, if I score well on this small quiz will it make up for all the homework I haven't done?

Magic 8 Ball:  My sources say No!

I actually  had a lot of fun with this costume as you can see.  You could even add a green posterboard around you to look like a pool table and cut out the belly part so the black ball shows through.  Then just carry a pool stick.  Too much work for me when I only had an hour to come up with something to wear, but I think it would have been fun.

My costume on Halloween night was family themed of course...our kids are little so we can still influence their decisions about what they want to be.  This year....Alice in Wonderland.  We borrowed the Queen of Hearts, Mad Hatter, and rabbit costume from friends.  I found my daughter's Alice dress on Craigslist.  All I had to make was the felt heart covering for my son with blue collar and the clock (which is painted foam board).  Super simple.

 

Happy Halloween!

Seven Dwarfs Dinner

I just hosted my 84th monthly dinner last night!! For 7 years, I have hosted these themed dinners for my friends.  It is hard to believe as time flies so quickly.  In honor of 7 years of dinners, I wanted to theme my dinner around the number 7.  After tossing around several ideas, I decided on the Seven Dwarfs as my theme.  This would be great for a little girl's birthday party too.  The details were neat. Check them out...

Invite: I am just learning PhotoShop, but I used it to make this simple invite.  There are a lot of cute invitation ideas out there, but I found most were focused on Snow White.  I wanted the focus of mine to be on the Seven Dwarfs.

Entry Decor:  Lucky for me, I have a great husband who always says "yes" to helping me with my crazy ideas.  I asked him if he could easily build me a mining entrance, and he went to work on it.

I borrowed these stuffed dwarfs from a fellow teacher which I used to decorate the entrance. I made the Heigh Ho signs out of cut logs. I also played the Heigh Ho song from the movie at the party entrance.

Decor:  I set the table with a yellow tablecloth, red plates, and blue napkins.  I platter of red apples was my centerpiece (and dessert), and then I lined the center of the table with mining cars and statues of the seven dwarfs.  The red "mining carts" I bought at the Dollar Tree five for a dollar.  I cut black circles out of scrapbook paper to use as wheels, and then elevated them from the table using wine corks.  I also used origami paper to make paper diamonds to set out near and inside the mining carts.

I made napkin ring holders to look like the Snow White Mirror using a Google image for the inside of the mirror and the Cricut cartridge "Happily Ever After" which had the frame. The menu was designed using a Google image that I Photoshopped out the middle to add my text.

For my place cards, I made apple cupcakes. These are really simple. I placed a plain donut on top of the cupcake before frosting it, then covered it in red icing and red sprinkles!  The stem is a Tootsie Pop cut in half and the green leaf I piped on with frosting. I made Heigh Ho flags with a dwarf on them for each guest.

I made wine charms with images of each dwarf and designed a red and a white wine label.

Menu:  I wanted to serve mini seven dwarf-related food, but not have my guests leave hungry.  For this reason, I chose to have 3 "main" dishes.  The first dish was mini wieners that I placed on cut skewers and called "Mini Meat Pickaxes". The second dish was ground beef turnovers that I shaped into diamonds, and the third dish was "Dwarf Skewers" which was just grilled chicken cut and put on toothpicks.  I served petite peas and mini carrots as my vegetable.

I also made mining carts filled with Jell-O "jewels".  I used baby food containers with scrapbook paper to create the wheels and filled them with 4 colors of Jell-O Jigglers.

Dessert: For dessert, we had a caramel apple dipping station. I used the apples from the centerpiece and cut them fresh as guests were ready.  The caramel, Oreo crumbles, nuts, coconut, and mini chocolate chips were in each "mining cart" along the table.  The sign near the toppings instructed guests to "Pick Your Poison."

Favor:  I wanted to incorporate each dwarf into the favor, so I decide to make a funny Seven Dwarfs

Survival Kit for each guest. Coming up with some of the items (and trying to keep it inexpensive) was difficult, but I did it.  The shot of Vodka to help Bashful gain confidence was the girls' favorite!
I bought the items at the Dollar Tree (eye mask, tissues, dum dums), Party City (paddles), Ralphs (sour candy, Skittles, airheads), Total Wine (vodka), and Bare Minerals (gave me the sample concealer).  Here is the prescription label I made for Doc:

This was another great dinner to add to so many other great dinners. I just love hosting these parties for my friends, and I cannot wait for another year of memories created with these amazing woman!

And of my course my daughter loved dressing up for the occasion too!

Cops and Robbers Party

Who knew that even adults love to play Cops & Robbers?!  We sure do, and my latest monthly dinner with the girls proves it. All came dressed up, and all came with a playful attitude ready to "steal" away some fun!

Invite: I tried to use some police lingo in the invite to make it interesting, but otherwise, just a simple invitation made with Microsoft Word.  As part of the fun, I asked guests to come dressed as either a cop or a robber.  The girls were very clever in what they came up with and we had fun posing in front of the paper line up background I made....

Decor:  I didn't find too many ideas for this type of party on the internet, so I was left to my own creativity (which I love!).  There were so many ideas that came into my mind, I couldn't wait to put them into action!  It all started with the entry decor...

I put Police Line Do Not Cross tape on my front door and made a sign to identify our house as the "police station".  I included entry requirements, and each guest completed these Booking Station requirements before entering.  Under the sign, was a ribbon with mini clothes pins for guests to place their fingerprint cards.  I designed the badge on PhotoShop and used my Cricut cartridge to make the police cars and lettering on the sign.

Mug Shots! Yes, I know it's cheesy, but Mug Root Beer shots was the idea that truly inspired the whole Cops & Robbers theme for me, so I couldn't leave it out!  Guests took their "Mug Shot" before entering.  The red light I bought for $10 off Amazon.

The second requirement for entry was the fingerprint station. I made simple cards with funny aliases for each guest (Robin Banks, M.T. Vault, Patty Larceny, etc.).  I used a normal stamp pad and set out some baby wipes in a pencil box for guests to "wipe away their crimes" after providing fingerprints.  Guests attached their cards to the entry sign after completion which added to the decor.

After guests entered, they passed through my doorway "jail" made with paper streamers.  I taped half the streamers down on top and bottom and left the other half loose so guests could walk through.

Table Decor: I bought a white plastic tablecloth and used black duct tape to make striped lines to continue with the jail/cop theme. I wanted to tie both cops and robbers into my centerpiece as well, so I bought a dozen donuts to arrange on a cake platter and made money bags to go on each side.  The burlap bags I bought at Michaels, then spray painted the money sign on the front. I filled each bag with gold tissue paper and a can of soda for weight and then topped them with chocolate gold coins. I also bought ring pops, but I didn't like how they looked so I left these out.

I tried Photoshop for the first time EVER in making these mug shot place cards...LOVE THEM!  It was a bit of a challenge finding "non-smiling" photos of each girl and then trying to edit them for this project, but I did it.  The above are some of my favorites.

For wine charms, I made half the guests police car charms and the other half money bag charms.  Both were made using my Cricut.

To hold the forks, I made holsters out of black card stock and buttons.  I folded a grey napkin to stick out like a gun.

Menu:  I made the menu card like a police report.  It was fun coming up with even more silly officer names and then of course deciding on a menu that I could tweak to fit the theme.

We started with a normal salad that I called Tossed (in Jail) Salad.

For the main dish, I served chicken, peppers, and mushroom kabobs on sticks.  I called them "Stick 'em Up" Kabobs with Pepper Spray. I also bought wheat pizza dough and shaped the dough into handcuffs.

For dessert, I served Prison Striped Pudding with a police badge cookie on top.  The pudding is just boxed chocolate pudding alternating with whipped cream.  I couldn't find a police badge shaped cookie cutter anywhere, but I found a pretend police badge at Dollar Tree.  I set the badge on the dough and used a knife to cut around it to create each badge.

Favor:  I bought mini chocolate and powdered donuts and wrapped them in cellophane bags as my favor.  Just a little "loot" for the girls to take home.  I had two different tags.

We had an amazing time dressing up and playing our parts.  This was a great theme for a party gathering, and I totally recommend it.  Would love to hear your thoughts and comments!!