The One with Prepping for Fox's First Birthday


Monday, September 5, 2011

I feel like I've waited 26 years to throw this party! Ever since I can remember I've loved Halloween to (Reese's) Pieces. Pun intended ;) Last weekend I sat down and started flipping through all my Martha Stewart Halloween magazines, Pinterest, random papers I've collected through the years, the internet, so on and so forth, and pillaged and pilfered my favorite ideas to bring to life. I'm sooooo happy Fox was born in October so I have a major excuse to have a Halloween party! God must have had this in mind when we didn't get pregnant the first couple months ;) I love having an October baby! So, the following is my inspiration, things I want to create, bake, make, and more for Fox's first birthday/Halloween party.

This is the "patch of grass" where the party will take place. I hope I can transform it into how I envision it in my mind's eye!
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It seems like everybody uses e-vites now, but if I were a really ambitious person, I'd love to make these for the invitation:
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Halloween party inspiration:
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Then comes the food! Here's a clean and classic food table:
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Jars filled with candy decorated with cute tags seems easy enough:
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Candy corn pizza! Genius! Start with mozzarella in a circle in the center, followed by a ring of dark cheddar, finished with a ring of lighter cheddar:
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Clear gloves with candy corn in the tips and filled with popcorn:
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Candy shishkabobs:
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These plastic bag/black pipecleaner spiders should be pretty simple and cheap to make:
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Bring on the pumpkin cookies and bread!
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Guacamoldy with Ghoulish Dippers! Fuuuuun! That Martha thinks of everything...
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Oranges gutted and filled with orange sorbet:
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To hold the dark brown, orange, purple, and green colored drinks - a large carved out pumpkin filled with ice:
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Chocolate carmel pretzel rods (but use Halloween colored sprinkles and such) - Alisha - I need your recipe!!!
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Witch's fingers!
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Spiderweb eggs:
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The perfect Halloween sugar cookies:
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If people have to come inside to use the bathroom, they'll have to come to the front porch which I want to look like this:
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Then they'll have to walk up the stairs so the banister should look like this:
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And then maybe they'll see our fireplace, in which case it HAS to look like this :)
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Next: decorations! I want to make spooky gravestones and line them around the patch of grass:
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I'm still debating whether to just make or buy them... here's a great tutorial for making them:
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The table centerpiece: a styrofoam head wrapped like a mummy:
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Dangle "moth-eaten curtains" (aka tattered cheesecloth) from the trees and over the chairs/tables:
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Make dozens of shrunken apple heads and dangle them from the tree and use as decoration:
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Wrap white pumpkins and candles with black lace:
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In addition to the tattered cheesecloth, place fake spider webbing with fake plastic spiders e'erywhere.
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Games to play: Bob for Apples. And that's all I have for now in that department... game suggestions welcome!
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Other: Paint my nails like this:
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And print this:
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Last but certainly not least: this is what I want Fox to be for Halloween (what do you think Dald?) And, I can't decide if the party should be costumed or not? I say YES :) At least for the little kids.
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I am soooo counting down the days until October 15th! (Fox's birthday is on the 14th, but that's a Friday so the hubbies will be in school and there's a Relief Society activity that night. I better send out invites soon eh? Gotta save the date!)

The One with the Fuchsia/Lime Green/Aqua Bat Mitzvah


Sunday, September 4, 2011

Apparently there are a lot of Jewish people in LA cuz I be goin' to bat/bar mitzvahs all over the place all the time it seems! Last night the color scheme was fuchsia/lime green/aqua with a paisley pattern. But first, I had drive there, and passed my favorite view of downtown.
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It was at the Skirball Cultural Center which I always hear about on the radio when they're discussing traffic (so like a million times a day it's mentioned, haha), but this was my first time actually going there.
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FYI:
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I walked through a pretty garden to get to the front entrance.
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Prepare your eyes for fuchsia/lime green/aqua overload!
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Even the trees were lit up to match.
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I love this big pond in the main area.
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The candy table before it was covered up with a cloth and which was still covered when I left at 10:15pm - those kids were probably hopped up on sugar all night cuz they got to it so late!
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Cindy and I had to test out the camera to make sure it was working properly :)
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Here was my designated work area:
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Bounteous prepped pages:
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These guys would take pictures of the guests and print the photos right then and there and hand me a copy which I glued into the scrapbook and that was that! Can this even be called work? :)
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There was also a jewelry making table:
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Where do you think all the teenage boys spent the majority of the night?
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Boys will be boys.

The event at night:
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Let's try that shot again with a steady hand:
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Another exciting night in LA!

The One with Ocean Pictures


Friday, September 2, 2011

I saw these beautiful pictures of the wide open ocean taken by Mary Ellen Bartley on the Elements of Style blog yesterday.
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Methinks they are so calming and soothing and serene and tranquil. Just what the doctor ordered for today.
Over and out.

The One with the Balloon Hat Layout


Thursday, September 1, 2011

I lied - I do have one layout I can share!
I recently joined Studio Calico and can't wait until my first kit arrives! In the meantime, I decided to participate in the weekly challenge which was to create a layout using a rainbow of colors: red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. That sounds right up my alley! So here's what I made:
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BALLOON HAT
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Journaling says: I've been married to Chris for almost 5 years now and this was the first time he ever tied balloons in front of me. He really can! He made Fox a hat which we put on him and you can tell he was very unsure about it... :)

Tips and tricks: This all started when I remembered doing tessellations in art class. I like to use a lot of patterned paper bits on my layouts so this technique was perfect! I created a hexagon, triangle, and square in Adobe Illustrator, printed them out, cut them out, traced them onto cardboard, and cut them out. Turns out the square was exactly 1" which was so serendipitous because I have a 1" square punch! Talk about a timesaver! I traced about 10 hexagons and 100 triangles onto a rainbow of papers, cut them out, and punched another 100 or so squares from the same papers. Then, based on this pattern:
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I pieced together the background. Then I found a font I liked (Cursivestandard) for the title, printed it out, and traced it onto the background in the empty space. I went over the title with liquid glue then carefully placed red baker's twine on top. Then it was just a matter of embellishing with matching colored buttons, fabric brads, and stickers, adding a trio of photos with pop dots, and writing the journaling! All-in-all it took about 5 hours. I really need to learn to scrap faster...

Supplies: Cardstock, patterned paper, buttons, fabric brads, stickers (flower, hearts, stars, tab), pen, adhesive: American Crafts; Baker's twine: The Twinery; Paper cutter, scissors: Fiskars
Paige Taylor Evans © // Quinn Creatives DESIGN