Bee My Valentine!

Time to make Valentine's! Every year I throw Jane a Valentine party for her and her friends and am so busy getting that ready, that I neglect to help her make make Valentines for her and end up using store bought ones. Fine if that is your thing, you'll get no judgment from me! But nothing is sweeter than a handmade Valentine. So this year I remembered to included making Valentine's in the party prep. I showed Jane a bunch of options and she chose the Lollipop Flowers that were featured in Scrapbooks Ect. Magazine.  We decided that no kid Valentine is complete without a cheesy pun, so we decided to add the cute little flying bee and the sentiment "Bee My Valentine". They are inexpensive as all get out and cute as can bee!

To make your own bouquet of 24 lollipop flowers you'll first need to gather your supplies. I used my February issue of Scrapbooks Ect., One 12x12 sheet of Meadow Green Core'dinations cardstock, two 12x12 sheets of Doodlebug Designs paper that has bees on it (each sheet has 18 bees on it), Crop-A-Dile (or other hole punch), scissors, wire bending tool, white marker, 3" scallop punch, floral wire, hot glue gun and glue, 10 sheets of tissue paper (I used 3 sheets each of red and pink and 4 sheets of hot pink). And don't forget your bag of Dum-Dums! In my bag there were more than 24 suckers of red/pink/purple suckers.

So you just stack up your tissue paper the way you want it. I put my reds on the bottom, hot pink in the middle, and light pink on top. And then you punch it with your scallop punch. I don't know if mine was a little dull...or if cutting tissue paper is just difficult, but it caught in one place every time. So I had to kind of tear the paper out in that one spot and then push the blade back out to the starting position. Not a big deal...but made it a little tedious. I would suggest cutting all your scallops then moving on. Then you use the small hole punch to punch a hole in the center of your scallop. To get to the center, I had to bend my scallop in half and just kind of nip it with the hole punch. No big deal. You just want the hole to be just as big or slightly bigger than the stick..so the petals don't just fall off! Then make cut out a leaf and use it to trace 24 leafs and cut them all out. Have your child sign their name on the back and then they or you can write the sentiment on the front. Or the magazine has them printed...but I didn't figure that out!

Then you need to cut out all the little bees from your scrapbook paper, cut 24 3 inch lengths of floral wire, and use the larger hole punch to punch a hole in your leaf. I wrapped the wire around a screwdriver a few times to give it a curl and then pierced it through the leaf and then bent the end and hot glued it with a tiny dab of glue. I bent the other end and hot glued it to the bee. Then ease it onto your stick and voila!

I think for 24 Valentine's it cost about $6

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I think Jane's classmates are going to love receiving these!

And some buzzzzz for the upgraded Blogger! Wow...the changes they have made really are making a huge difference on the ease of blogging for me! Thanks!!

A Very Seussy 2nd Birthday

Teddy turned two!! So to celebrate we threw a Dr. Seuss/Cat in the Hat party! It was so fun and so cute!! And Dr. Seuss is so beloved that there are endless products and resources out there; so this party came together in a cinch!
I had to quickly take down my Christmas decor and put up party decor, but it offered last minute inspiration to change my containers and balls to the party colors instead of just taking them down all together. I already had the blue and red out from Christmas, I just had to grab the black from the basement where my box of master bedroom decor still lies waiting for me to finish decorating our bedroom since moving! The cute Cat in the Hat is a Build-a-Bear Jane built with her Papa maybe 2 or 3 years ago.
Here is the food area. We served Green Eggs and Ham of course. In the lunch bags were a juice box or can of soda, ham sandwich, chips, and a napkin. I learned the lunch bag trick from the fantastic Loralee Lewis. She runs NoFussFabulous.com to sell her amazing graphics. On the side we served deviled eggs with the filling died green. They were so cute! Also pictured are Oreo truffles dipped in blue and red melting chocolate with Happy Birthday toppers. These are my go to dessert because you can decorate them to go with any theme! You can also see a few of the pom poms that hung about. Thanks mom for doing the tedious job of fluffing them out. She said she would rather be cleaning my kitchen than puffing pom poms!
And here is what started it all! When I saw this post by Anj I fell in love with the idea and just had to have it for myself! I even decided that buying cupcakes from Costco like she did was a good idea...but was horrified a few days before the party (with everything that still had to be done due to procrastination) that Costco no longer does cupcakes! So I ordered them from Harmons and am not as happy with the results because they spray the frosting color and as you can see...it makes a mess on the whole cupcake! But the hats turned out great and they were super easy! Thanks for the idea and technique Anj...it is a party trick I have up my sleeve now (and if you are reading this, I would love to know where I can get the stands that you use for your parties!) If you look to the left of the photo and peer through the plastic lid, you can see the green eggs!
Because of the young age of the guest of honor, the only "activity" we had was watching an episode of "The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That!" Had I looked on the website before just now, I would have seen that they have super cute coloring pages I could have printed off and included in the favor bag! You can also see one of the many pennant banners that I had strung around the house. I got the printable file from Dimpleprints; it included sooo many items like several pennants, cupcake toppers, favor tags, invitations, thank you notes, food labels, juice box wrappers, and on and on! And then I had them printed at BYU's printing press. My brother-in-law just happens to work there, so I had him give me a quote, then I called everywhere else, and his price blew everywhere else out of the water, and I didn't get any sort of family discount. So...if you live in the area and need color printing done, that is the place to go!
Here is big sis Jane in her party outfit. This photo doesn't do it justice! What you don't see is the really cute ribbons that are also on the tutu, the black and white striped tights or the Cat in the Hat Converse shoes, or a smile! We'll have to get dressed again and have a separate photo shoot and try again! The birthday boy was also wearing a One Fish, Two Fish tee from Target and his own pair of Converse.
And here he is opening some presents! Can you see the birthday chair he is sitting on? Another inspiration from Anj! She is amazing!
And here is another amazing woman. It is my best friend Jocelyn and her cutie Brock (the only kiddo to keep his hat on the whole party)! She is the best gift wrapper in the world and on the day she showed up with ...
this! Isn't it amazing!
I didn't want Teddy to open it! I went ahead and let him because I get to see her art work everyday on my window cornice boards. One day I'll blog about them when I can get a good photo (it is hard because of the light coming behind the window). They are amazing!!
One last look at that beauty!
HaPpY bIrThDaY tEdDy!! You are a handful to be sure...but you bring such joy to our lives!
A few things about Teddy:

His favorite things are: his blanket, apples and other fruit, soup, bodily noises, watching shows, bathtime and Daddy!

Teddy hates: dip of any sort, mittens, but most of all Teddy HATES sharing!

Teddy is good at: throwing balls, driving his cozy coupe car, cuddling, and getting his way.

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