Ladybug Birthday Party

Last year it was Poodles...this year...Ladybugs! I decided to go with Lady Bugs...not really because Eve loved ladybugs but b/c of the invitation idea I had. Next year, I promise Eve, you can pick out what you want. :) But actually she loved her ladybug stuff. She still talks about her ladybug cake at every birthday event we go to! I am going to have to come back and add the invitation I did b/c I don't have any pictures of it. But it was SUPER duper cute!

Her 2nd Birthday Ladybug Cake - I baked 2 sheet cakes and laid them side by side and then used the Wilton Ladybug cake pan and put it on top and then iced it. I was pleased with how it turned out!

Ladybug Lunch Bags for the kiddos - I bought some red lunch bags and punched out black circles out of cardstock and used double sided adhensive to stick them to the bags. I also printed bag labels and put each child's name on them. Inside contained 1 McDouble from McDonalds, a bag of Cheetos, and a Caprisun. :)

We had the Birthday Party in the backyard and in the basement. The littles ate at small picnic benches.

Some of the Birthday friends

She blew out the candle on the 1st try!

Ladybug Party Favor Bags

Inside contained ladybug bubbles, a couple sheets of ladybug coloring pages, some candy, and a homemade music CD with lots of good kids songs.

Ladybug Party Signs

Instead of Eve saying Happy Birthday to someone she would say "Happy to you" so I made a sign for her Bday "Happy 2 You Eve"

LOVE these Vinyl Banners from Vistaprint. I create them and have it printed.

Ladybug Birthday Decorations

Birthday Family Picture ~ June 2010

Table Transformation

I LOVE going to consignment shoes and finding something I can make over. And I'm not above grabbing something from someone's curb either. :) This is the latest piece I bought for $29 at The Gingham Daisy. It is called a vanity table but I saw it and thought it would look great in our foyer. I got it home and Lance couldn't believe I got it...one of it's legs was almost completely rotten off. Looks like some termites or something got to it at one time. But I see the potential in stuff. This comes from my parents and my hours watching HGTV and DIY. So I primed it and used the paint I had originally bought for our front door. :)

Foyer Table BEFORE

And then the Foyer Table AFTER

Eve's Room

I had the hardest time deciding on what type of room I wanted to do for Eve. At first I really wanted to do a red lady bug theme. But I couldn't find exactly what I wanted. I actually bought some bedding on sale but then ended up not liking it and couldn't return it...ugghh...maybe I can use it one day. But I ended up getting the Circo Love and Nature bedding from Target and she LOVES it! It's got owls, tree's, squirels, mushroom's etc and she loves talking about all the animals.  

I came to our new house the day we were schedule to close and started painting Eve's room. I wanted it to be done before we moved in. The walls were all white, white trim...blahhhhh

Here's another before picture.

I decided to paint 3 walls green and 1 wall pink. Her last room had a chair rail which I really liked but didn't have the time or help to do that...so I decided to do the accent wall. I also knew when we moved that I wanted to paint a tree on her wall. Which could work with either lady bugs or not. I had seen some really cool tree decals but Lance can be such an artist...I knew we could do it ourselves. So Lance drew the tree on the wall and I painted it. Her Circo Love and Nature bedding came with wall decals so I bought them and added them to the tree. We all just love it...espically Eve!

Front Door

So as many people know I STRESS a lot about making decisions. But it is always the small decisions that I stress over. Give me a major life changing decision and I can make it in 2 seconds flat..but deciding on what color to paint the front door was a STRESS! :)

The front door...like a lot of the house was brown! Brown door, brown roof, greenish-brown shutters...yuck...where is the color? I guess in the flowers b/c we do have lots of them coming up. But non the less...it needed to be changed. So my 1st plan was to do a green door. B/c most front door are either white (mostly all) or black and sometimes red. Which is why I wanted to do green..something different from everyone else. And we did...we got it painted green but after the 1st coat was on it just didn't pop like I had hoped it would. So, alas...we did red. But I'm glad we did b/c I think it really makes the house pop.

Here are the BEFORE pictures...

Here are the shutters on the right side of the house - BEFORE

Red Front Door - AFTER
We decided to paint the entire door and side panels red...again...another stressing decision...and painted the storm door black and added a new silver kick plate.

Shutters AFTER
We went with black since it pretty much goes with anything and it will match the storm door.

Our walkway to the front door. When we moved in there was snow on the ground so we didn't know what was going to up come in the Spring. Thankfully the previous owners loved flowers b/c we have LOTS of them now!

Our Kitchen BEFORE & AFTER

Kitchen Island Before - A lot of the kitchen was brown...brown cabinets, brown floor, brown table, etc. It needed some color.
Breakfast Area Before - There was a floral border along the entire kitchen. Ick! And the walls were all yellow with the chair rail.
More of the Kitchen Before....
Here is the Island while I was painting. You can see I also painted the upper part of the chair rail green. Already the color is improving things...

The Kitchen AFTER
Painted the island red and the strip over the cabinets. Painted the upper chair rail green and painted where the border was the same as the yellow below. Added a new light fixture over the island and bought some new fabric and covered the curtains that were there.

The updated breakfast area...new curtains, new wall hangings.

And new floor. We had the parkay floors in the kitchen too. Again, I was stressing over putting down the duracermic we had in our old house or going vinyl. They make some really nice tile looking vinyl now so we went that route. I like it so that's all that matters, right. :)

Next to do is the back splash...glass tiles from kopperwood. :)

Foyer & Hallway BEFORE & AFTER

So we moved into our 2nd house on Valentine's weekend and have had lots of house projects going on. We are finally done with the biggest ones so I thought I'd share our accomplishments.

The Hallway and Foyer - new laminate flooring that we put down with the help of Daddy. Picking the pattern was such a STRESS!!! But I think we made the right decision on the color/design. It's called Honey Spalted Maple.

Here are some BEFORE pictures of the Foyer and Hallway. The foyer was the original parkay wood floor from the 80's. At first I felt like I shouldn't be covering real wood with fake wood but the floors just weren't doing it for me...they had to go. However I will say my original plan was to only do the hallway. I hated that carpet! But Daddy and Lance both said no, if you're gonna do the hallway you gotta do the foyer too. So we did and I'm so glad we did!

Oh and I can't forget about the walls. The foyer and hallway were all painted white. We painted them a creamy coffee color before we did the floors. I didn't want to get any paint on my new floors.
This is the foyer looking down the hallway.

The carpet in the hallway before we ripped it up. ick!

The old floor...

The Foyer and Hallway AFTER PICTURES

Baby Angel, Puddin, Eve....

So for the most part this blog is going to be about the projects I work on or have worked on but I have to show off my sweet baby girl. She is the coolest, sweetest, cutiest almost 2 year old I know. :) I love her more than words can write. I love making things or buying things for her. She is the joy of my life!

Fun with Food

So playing with food is kinda a craft, right? Now that I have Eve I LOVE making cute treats for school or parties. I found all of these ideas from other blogs and websites such as Southern Living and Parenting Magazine.

Owl Moon Pie Treats - these were for Eve's teachers at Halloween. I got the idea from Southern Living. Its a Moon Pie, seperate an Oreo, add a little icing to the center and put on 2 M&M's, add a little icing to the top of the head and add some chocolate sprinkles, then a Candy Corn for the beak.

Frog Mini Cupcakes - I made these for Eve's 1st Birthday to take to school with her. Just dye some white icing green, then pick out the green marshmellows from the multi-colored bag and dab a bit of black icing and you're done. Kids love them.

Spider Cookies - There I made for Treat Day at Eve's school. You take an Oreo and split it. Add a little extra icing then put back together. Break up the long preztels in half and stick 4 into each side of the Oreo. Then dab on a little icing to hold the M&M's. They were a hit! I'm sure all the kids think that Eve's mom is the coolest. :)

Cupcakes on a stick - These I made for Eve's 1st Birthday party. She had a Poodle / Cupcake party. These are just cake balls dripped in chocolate and added sprinkles and an M&M on top. Yummy!

And finally the Poodle Cupcakes! I had found a really cool Poodle cake to make for her 1st birthday but I attempted it and it was a nightmare! So I found this idea online. However on the original design it called for pink circus peanuts for the ears and I couldn't find pink ones anyhere! So I used a stick of gum and it worked pretty good. :)

I have also made Reindeer cupcakes and Frank-n-Stein cupcakes but can't find a picture of them right now.