Time to return to shore. Pirate's AHOY!

My friends,

 

After some time away I have so much to share with you and how better to steer the boat ashore than with this pirate themed party for my eldest held this past fall.  Being completely uprooted, currently in temporary housing whilst we renovate our casa this party invite needed to wow without any requirement of special spice.

 

Yep, this wee invite was created by staring at the non existent crafting supplies around me and making it work with nothing but mega creativity.  Granted obviously these bad boys were hand delivered but they still had the desired effect I was looking for...one wee man excited to bring along some mates for adventure.

 

 

The how to was simple, some flags glue gunned to tooth picks and then to the legal sized invite folded into a paper boat.  Click here for a how to fold your own boat.

Crazy cute right?!

Check back soon for more to this story...

xox
Dish

PS When distributing you may want to verbally clarify it is a party invitation...long story, just take my word for it. ;o)

Jungle Birthday Party Cake

This was the first birthday Jungle party cake for a wee little man that my family loves.  It was made for him apparently by a nurse (Karen Nardini) who like so many women that I know have these incredible talents that are completely unrelated to their day profession.  I just love the detail of the little animals right down to the hair, spots, stripes etc.  Love the creative design and the approach to the different layers.

Congrats Karen on having the courage to pursue something you love.  This is far far beyond anything I could pull off even if I had the patience, well done and good luck!  www.sprinklez.ca

Doesn't it make you think about your passion?  Are you doing what you love?
xox
Dish

Sweet Shoppe Birthay Banner Printable

I went all out for this banner and it was a serious headache but it was really beautiful.  I just love the hanging Donuts so much so that when you make your own banner and if you want to use them you may download them here.

Okay so enough of the Sweet Shoppe Party.  I truly hope that if you use some of the ideas you found here that you try to add your own flare to the event and share with us all.  So boring it is to only chat about what I do!! 

On to more fabulous things Monday!  I can't wait.

Have a wonderful weekend all!

xox
Dish

Sweet Shoppe Birthday Party Cupcake Toppers

For the Sweet Shoppe party I created these personalised cupcake toppers but if I had the opportunity to do this theme again I think I would try to be a little more creative.  Yes, they looked great and matched the theme but I wish I would have pursued real candy toppers.  Perhaps creative candy figurines made out of various candies and stuck together with icing or fancy retro candy straight from Charlie's Chocolate Factory.  How exciting would cupcakes be with the twirly multi coloured suckers sticking out of them?!  Please share with us if you come up with other wonderful ideas!

One more night of the Candy Shoppe and then we will move on to other fun things and ideas.  Don't forget Mother's Day is quickly approaching so you may want to give that some thought when planning activities/crafts with the kids this weekend.

Night all, its been a long week and I need to veg!

xox
Dish

Sweet Shoppe First Birthday Month Banner Printable Tags

You probably know I have a special place in my heart for the first birthday month banners.  I take every opportunity to suggest to friends that they make the effort to take monthly photos for this very reason.  There is never a first birthday party where at some point in time all the guests don't go to stop and look at each photo of the wee one, smiling and remembering as they walk along.  Don't even get me started on the fact that the banner is a huge keepsake...would it be bad to pull them out at my sons' weddings?  Would that make me the crazy "mother-in-law"?

Anyway, here is the Monthly Banner a girlfriend (thanks JS) put together for her daughters first birthday.  I provided the monthly tags (which you can download here) and she did all the creative work to put this beauty together. The tags aren't specific to the Sweet Shoppe theme so if your party colours are shades of pink you'd do fine to use them.

I truly hope they inspire you to formally show off your little one at their first affair.

Happy crafting.

xox
Dish

PS  Shout out KS!  Thanks for always checking in.  

The Sweet Shoppe Birthday Party Sweet Box Printable

What would a Sweet Shoppe Party be without a matching bag or box to take candy or baked goods home in?  It would stink in my opinion and be just plain unfair....so here you go.

Designed to fit a cupcake but certainly limited only by your imagination.  You may download it here but please note it needs to be printed on an 11x17 to make the 3 inch cube.  Please also note....not a ton of fun to cut out and put together but I will leave that most certainly in your capable hands.

Back to working on my day job.

Night all.
xox
Dish

Sweet Shoppe Birthday Child Party Hat

Well this was a first for me.  Creating birthday hats really added to the party but it also meant there was much added labour for me.  Sure printing them up was easy but then I had to cut and assemble which was consuming (especially if you need a lot of them).

You can download the "Sweets" hat here for your own use. 

I say, try to delegate this one out if you can or simply plan enough ahead and do a few every day.  It can't be all fun and games right...or can it?!

Enjoy and night all,
Dish

The Sweet Shoppe Birthday Invitation

So it's probably a little late in the game to present the invite but alas here it is.  It's not perfect but you are welcome to download it here for your own personal use.  Be weary there may be faint faint lines in the background pattern...I suggest you do a test print.  If you know how to fix that with the patterns function in AI please do a girl a favour and pass along some advice.

Thanks all.  Night.

xox
Dish

The Sweet Shoppe Birthday Party Water Bottle Label Free Printable

So to continue with the Sweet Shoppe theme I love love the addition of a matching water bottle label.  People under estimate how easy it is to do these yourself and it really adds to being able to pull the theme of a party together. 

For your Sweet Shoppe party I created a generic "Happy Birthday" water bottle label for you which you can download and print here.  Print them up in colour, buy your water bottles, rip off the original labels and using two sided tape on one end of the label pull tight and attach yours.  I kid you not it will take you 5 minutes to do 24 bottles. 

Note:  Do yourself a favour and use a board cutter to trim these labels quickly.

Looking forward to continuing this theme with you all Monday.

Wishing you a restful day tomorrow.

xox
Dish

Sweet Shoppe Birthday Party Candy Jar Labels Free Printable

Well you certainly can't have a Sweet Shoppe birthday party without jars of candy everywhere.  Really...what would be the fun in that?!

You can download the sheet of printable labels here (I included some blank labels if you prefer to write your own).  Again I suggest you use some sharp small scissors as these are a little finicky when cutting out.

Okay all...now I need to get back and do some more work for my day job.

Hugs and tune in tomorrow for another piece of this party.

xox
Dish

Sweet Shoppe Birthday Party Sign Free Printable

I thought it time for another birthday theme and I just adore the Sweet Shoppe Party!  To start off the intro into this girly affair I thought we should begin at the door.....some signage.  What little girl wouldn't get excited to see this to greet guests?!

You can download the "Sweet"" and "Shoppe" here for your own use.  To create the signs you need to do the following:

1. Print in colour and cut out (they are a little tricky so grab some small scissors)
2. Buy some dowels from Home Depot (much much cheaper than a craft store)
3. Hole punch at the top and bottom of the signs and feed the dowels through.
4. Bottom with a knot of numerous strands of pretty ribbon.

Easy right?!  I really hope you enjoy this theme as it was particularly a lot of work for me to create so please make your little girl smile from me.

Come back tomorrow for another piece of the Sweet Shoppe.

xox

Dish

Nautical/Ocean/Under The Sea Birthday Party Games

Well here we are at the end of the Under The Sea birthday party and now you get to see some of the kids having fun which was the real theme of the party.

Remember the ribbon sticks I made?  Huge hit!  I made a CD with some ocean/sea/sailor music and the kids danced away.  Some of the mixed adult/kid titles were Roll Up The Map by The Never Land Pirate Band, Yellow Submarine by The Beatles, Excursion Around The Bay by Great Big Sea, Under The Sea by Samuel E. Wright, Fresh Off The Boat by Nelly Furtado and Rock The Boat by Party Animal.  Have fun with this and pump it!  We certainly did in our Under The Sea Kids Club!!

Note: I wish I had had more songs from The Never Land Pirate Band...all the kids got into the Roll Up The Map, so cute.

The next 20 minute to make craft game had the kids fully engaged (all ages) for more than half an hour which is incredible at this age.  Two pieces of bristol board taped together and then edges rounded to make a terrible but effective looking lake.  Cricut used (thanks ma) to make many fish of various sizes, paperclips put on (thanks papa) and then put into the lake. Each kid was given a fishing pole from the Dollar Store (there is a magnet in the lure) and alas we were fishing.

The official fishing rod "untangler". 

So that's it folks for this project.  Hope you enjoyed taking a swim with us over the past week.

On to the bunny hop? 

xox

Dish

DIY Ocean/Nautical/Under The Sea Party Cupcake Toppers

I just love how the cupcakes turned out for the party.  They were a hit and the bakery loved the toppers too which is saying a lot in my mind since I am certainly not a professional!! 

I really struggled and pondered how I was going to make the shark fins as paper I thought would just end up absorbing the oils from the icing and eventually look terrible.  I considered the following alternatives: foam, cookies, modelling chocolate, laminated paper etc etc and it was only when walking around the baking supply store that I came up with the answer.

Sugar Sheets by Wilton!!  What the heck are those?!  Anyway I'd never heard of them but I thought I would give them a try as it seemed to be the perfect answer to my problem and they worked fantastically.  See how I made them below. Oh...they tasted good too.

Then the life preservers which I also brainstormed as to how I would create.  I tried a few things (jellies, modelling chocolate etc) but the painting of the life savers certainly was the easiest, least time consuming and least likely for me to mess up.  Big hit. 

Give it a whirl folks. 

xox
Dish

Ocean/Nautical/Under The Sea Party Fish Net Cake Topper

So before I go into how I made this Fish Net cake topper take a long hard look at the photo above and ask yourself does it look good enough for your party?  Looks great right?!

Would you believe me if I told you it took me 30 minutes to make? It probably would have taken less if I knew how to crochet before hand and I didn't start it at 1am the night before the party.

My message....anything goes with this one, I'm willing to bet the messier the better/more authentic it will look.  Daunted by just looking at it?  Me too and I made it so I guarantee you can too. 

You need the below (okay you also need a needle and thread and 2 skewers).

The pattern is made up of four crocheted ropes.  One very long one (red arrow) and three shorter ones (blue, green and pink arrows) when tacked on make the net complete. 

This last picture just goes to show you at 1:30am you don't care what colour the thread is to tack this thing together (hence the blue) and it still looked awesome.

Make it your own, you can do it I promise.

xox
Dish

Ocean/Nautical/Under The Sea Birthday Party Banners with Printables

Here are the two banners I did for the Under The Sea party, both very different from the traditional alternatives.  The first was a birthday banner made of fish caught in a net along with a couple of crustaceans.  You could cut everything by hand but I used the Cricut for the fish and design software for the letters.  You get the idea.

The second banner I always do for a 1st birthday and it is classically an instant hit.  The month banner from birth to 1 year this party was fish bowls, plants (both cut with the Cricut) and photos.

The monthly tags (2inch) I created again with a design software and you can download them here for your own use. 

Do you like the banners? You can do them too.

Tomorrow is the cake!

Night all.

xox
Dish

Fish Net and Crustaceans from The Amazing Party Store

Ocean Nautical/Under the Sea Party Room Decor

The room didn't turn out the way that I had in my head for several reasons but ultimately I was able to improvise and get it close enough to what I was looking for.  Wall backdrops in my opinion are the quickest way to truly transform a room however it takes a lot to keep them on the walls.  Thankfully this house is scheduled for a major reno this summer so my hubby didn't cringe as much as I thought he might with all the tape I was using to hold these suckers up.  I did however get the lecture about how we would not be "doing this" in the new house.... ;o)

 Here is a shot of the ceiling decoration.  The plan was to actually have hundreds of individual streamers hanging down but I couldn't get the tape to stick to the ceiling so I came up with the above using thumb tacks.  Boy am I ever glad I was wise enough to keep their length out of the reach of the children; something you may want to also consider.

The tissue flowers (DIY, posted here on the blog) added to the party well along with the occasional hanging puff fish.

 Much of the food and table decor was done in fish bowls which people seemed to like.  I personally loved the small ocean Dixie cups beside the fish crackers; perfect for little hands. 

 Finally to finish off this post we have the Ocean Nautical/Under the Sea water bottle labels.  These like so many of the things I do are very very easy but make a huge impact....don't you love the "she thinks of EVERYTHING!" comments you hear floating around.  Warms my heart.



  

You can download a free generic ocean/sea printable set of water bottle labels here

Tomorrow is the Ocean/Under The Sea birthday banners. 

Check it out.

xox

Dish

Sourcing:

Ocean Wall Backdrops:  Buycostumes.com and The Amazing Party Store

Fish Bowls:  Michaels

Printable Ocean/Nautical/Under The Sea 1st Birthday Invite

Where does one start with walking through this Under The Sea/Nautical party?  At the printable invite I suppose and instead of showing the one I created for my son I thought you would prefer to see the one I created for all of you. 
If anyone would like to have a general age invite created please drop me a comment and I will make one...but unless there is a need I'll work on making other things. 

You can download the printable sheet with crop marks here.

All the kids were given sailor hats to wear with their nautical blues, some wore them, some didn't but none were cuter than this little fella.  xo

So here is the schedule for the week:
Tuesday:  Room & Decor
Wednesday:  Birthday Banners (totally the hit of the party)
Thursday:  Cake (so easy)
Friday:  Cupcake toppers (wait until you check these out!)
Saturday:  Party games

I hope this works for you.

Enjoy.

xox
Dish

Sailor Hats:  The Amazing Party Store

Resurrection of the Ribbon Stick....Get in Shape Girl!!

Working hard to get ready for my second sons first birthday and wanted to create these ribbon sticks for the kids to dance with.  Sure there may be a complicated way to make them but I assure you I simply do not have the time but I still think they turned out fantastically.

You need the below and do yourself the favour of buying the wooden dowels at Home Depot and not at a craft store, it will save you several dollars.

1.  Cut the dowels into one foot sticks.  You can use sand paper to soften the edges but as I didn't have any I took them outside and filed them on the sidewalk (make due with what you've got is my motto). 
2.  Use a wrench to clamp one end of the stick enough to make a serious indent on both sides (this is so that the ribbon won't slide off the end of the stick). 
3.  Cut the ribbon (I made each 6 feet) and pull out the wire if your ribbon has one.
4.  Tie the ribbon tightly around the indent on the stick.

Easy right?!  Go ahead...you know you want to...yes you can play with it for a bit.

xox
Dish

Kids Construction Birthday Party Part 2

Here are several more photos from the Construction Party, the first being the invite that I created for the affair. 

The goal of the rest of the photos is to show you yet again how even the best of intentions can go so terribly terribly wrong.

How can you have a construction party without an area dedicated to digging?! I really wanted to set up a sand station outside but being that I had some major concerns about the weather I brought the sandbox in and filled it with packing popcorn. Now I knew it would be a disaster but not to this extent! I did look at other options but given the volume I needed this was the most cost savy solution....in retrospect, the sand may have been better.

Photos of the Digging Station:
1. At the time this photo was taken I was very impressed with my resourcefulness.

2. During this time I was glad to see the kids enjoying the station but starting to worry that the parents will never let them return to my home. These packing kernels broke into even the tiniest of pieces and were full on up the kids pants. Oh....thank you static clean for making this day a nightmare for all!

3. Okay, so not a photo of the digging station (birthday boy with pinata) but take a look at the floor in the background!! My whole house what like that.

I used a shop-vac for a week straight....no exaggeration needed on this one folks.

We had a wonderful time obviously; with kids you can judge the success of your party by how long you are cleaning up afterwards.

Tomorrow, construction cake and cookies.

xox
Dish

Bulldozer Pinata BuyCostumes.com

Kids Construction Birthday Party Part 1

This Construction Party was for my son's second birthday.  This party was more about all the little boys having fun than it was about look and presentation as you will see in the days to come.  I am in a unique situation as this house will be renovated shortly and as such we don't mind it getting beat up by a heard of little boys which most certainly is not the case for 99.9% of the population.  Please keep that in mind as you look over these party pictures and I will make suggestions as to how you can alter things to be more "house-friendly".

First, I decorated the outside of our home to look like a construction site.  I begged my baby brother to sit outside and pretend like he was sleeping on the job.  When guests arrived he ushered them in and directed them to sign in with the "site supervisor".  That was a huge hit.  Side note....I asked him recently if he would pretend to be a sailor for my other son's first birthday....lets just say he is a little concerned he is playing out the Village People on my front porch (his girlfriend and I think it's hilarious).  Love you bro.

Second, I made out of cardboard boxes a fleet of Construction Trucks for the kids to run around in.  The more I did the better I got and although I could have gone overboard on these I didn't bother knowing they were going to get pretty beat up (and they did!!).  Fun right?!  The basic directions for these I got from http://www.parenting.com/

Sourced items:
Construction sign, construction tape, kids plastic hard hats and birthday boy construction vest from BuyCostumes.com

Construction signs
Scholars Choice

Mini Pylons and stick reflectors
Dollarama

Check in tomorrow for more on this party.

Night all.

xox
Dish