Black and White Surprise Birthday Party (with free printables)

I'm so lucky to have such a wonderful Grandma! She has always been there for me and this year she turned 80. She's the type that has always lied about her age, and would be mortified for anyone to know her true age. But how can we throw her a surprise party for the big 8-0 with out spilling her age? And me, well being me, just wouldn't want to hide it! She should be proud anyway. She is absolutely beautiful! And really, if you keep lying about your age, you might start to look old for your age, instead of looking great for your age, which she does! I was in charge of the decorations, and my cousin was in charge of the food as well as hosting it at her house. I spent a couple of weeks on everything, hoping it would all be perfect, and I just had the best time with everything. Unfortunately, as I was walking out the door with a car full of decorations and the cake the night before the party, I received a call from my grandma telling me that she took a tumble. She fell while walking the dog, and when she called to ask me to meet her at the hospital, I couldn't tell her that I was too busy getting her party together! I took everything out of the car and I met her at the hospital, where she was told that she broke her shoulder, and then I spent 2 hours at Walgreen's trying to get her scripts. What a long night! I didn't get to my cousin's house until about midnight after coming back to the house to pick everything back up. In the process of kissing my daughter goodnight right before I left, I forgot my camera in her room. So these pics were all taken with my phone. The first thing out of my grandma's mouth when she walked in the door, after yelling "surprise!", was "Oh, my face!". She was in a lot of pain, but played if off well. She was so surprised and the night when off without a hitch!

Here are the black and white themed decorations and feel free to print the free printables (at the bottom of the post).....

This banner looked so great in person! I wish that the camera would have shown it :(

I made a yarn wrapped wreath, with felt roses and satin and lace flowers. The 80th was made from cardboard, fabric and felt (I'll post a tutorial for the wreath soon). Again, the camera just doesn't do it justice.

My cousin's entryway didn't have furniture in it, so I was excited to bring over my foyer table that I recently made over with Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint in Linen! 

A simple inexpensive addition to the table, sticking with the black and white theme, are the spray painted branches that I cut from a near by park in glass vases held up with black rocks (all from the dollar store!). I love adding a natural element.

As I was in search of the cake, I just couldn't find anything that fit the theme that was somewhat affordable, and I didn't want just flowers. I wanted the cake to look elegant. I'm no baker, but I am brave ;). I was at Walmart picking up some other things for the party, and in the baking section, I saw this beautiful demask sugar paper. I had also never worked with fondant but always wanted to. How hard could it be. I did have to buy all of the tools, so that added to the cost, but in terms of just the cake, it was SO much cheaper to do it this way! I made a double layer white cake with white frosting. I used white fondant and Tiffany blue fondant for the dots. The letters are also sugar paper (since my handwriting isn't that great I thought I better go with the paper). It really was simple to make and I will be making my own cakes in the future! The cake itself was super delicious, but the fondant was a bit too gummy for my liking. The only thing that was a bit of a disappointment on the cake was the squiggly lines around the top. When I sent the hubby out for frosting, he bought whipped frosting, which was far too runny to make the pretty row of dots that I had envisioned. I even added some powered sugar, but it didn't get stiff enough....so squiggly lines it got.   

Once I finished the cake, I became concerned that there wouldn't be enough cake. We invited about 40 people. How could one (technically 2) cakes be enough? So I decided I would make cupcakes too. At the last minute I whipped up coordinating cupcake holders, made simple cupcakes, and with an icing bag, swirled on the icing. They looked so professional that I even surprised myself! Aren't the chevron cupcake holders so cute??

Something else that I knew I wanted to do for sure was to have personalized water bottles. I love seeing these through out the web. Notice that I made sure to put her age on EVERYTHING? She sure did haha!

 I printed one sheet using my printer, and then made copies at Kinko's with their laser jet printer, that way the ink wouldn't run. Then I had to think about how to make them water proof since I didn't have water resistant paper. I decided to spray them with a quick drying, poly clear coat. They were pretty stinky for a day or so, so make sure that if you use this technique that you leave plenty of time for them to air out! The spray worked great! The water bottles were the most time consuming part, but SO worth it! Here are some pics of the party...

Getting the table ready. I hadn't even decorated the cake until LITERALLY 15 minutes before the party started!

My dad, me, and my cousin, Nikki

The birthday girl and my dad

The fabulous party planners! My favorite cousin :)

my 2 brothers

my twin brother and I

my older bro

bad family pic

FREE PRINTABLES: CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO DOWNLOAD THE PDF FILE without the watermark. You can upload each image to Inkscape which is a free editing software program. There you can change each label to say anything you'd like. These printables are for personal use only. I'd love to see what you use them for!!

The first image is of the cupcake wrapper template. The template doesn't show up on this image, but when you click it to download, it will be there :)

cupcake wrapper template:

water bottle labels:

cupcake labels, food labels, or gift tags:

 monogrammed labels for gifts or anything you'd like:

Happy Birthday Banner: I printed each letter onto heavy card stock, cut to size and rounded the edges, and then glued to black and white print paper. I punched a hole into the corners and put it together with colored twine (from the dollar store). Once you download the PDF file, you will be able to change the "H" to all the letters that you need or to make the banner say anything else while keeping the same font.

The party was such a success! I was so proud of my cousin who did all of the delicious food and so proud that we pulled it off!! Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy these printables!!

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Fun Halloween Costumes

In all of the craziness this week I didn't get a chance to share with you the costumes that I chose the kids chose for Halloween! I had every intention on buying store made costumes this year. I know that sounds opposite of  what we would normally say. Usually it would sound more like..."I had every intention on making costumes this year, but ended up buying them". With all of the great costume on Pinterest this year, who in their right mind could walk into a store, and find something just as cute? So the decision was made...I would be making the costumes. I only wish I would have made that choice earlier than 4 days before Halloween. I think they turned out great, what do you think?

I made the hat out of card stock, and I thought it really made the look! This picture was the only time she had it on :(

 The penny was the most stressful, and also the only one that kinda bombed...wasn't "the bomb!" I couldn't figure out how to keep it on his shoulder, and ran out of time to do all of the little details. Nick still loved it though, that's all that matters. Girls are much easier! Maybe he'll want to be a cheerleader next year!

Then they had a fun little photo shoot...

 Boot with the fur! I took craft fur and using a hole punch, made holes 1 inch apart, and laced them up with leather lace. I covered her boots with them and realized that these will be cute all winter!

 What fun costumes did you make this year??

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C.R.A.F.T. Package Pals

I was so excited to be able to participate in Package Pal's this past month on C.R.A.F.T. Creating Really Awesome Free Things! We are paired with someone, get to know them, and send each other a package based on the things that they like (or that we think they will like). My #PP was Coley, from Coley's Corner. If your haven't met Coley, you definitely want to stop by, and check out her adorable blog!

One of the wonderful things that I have come to know about Coley, is that she is a very special mom to a very special boy, Noah. He is 16 (just had is sweet 16!), and has Cerebral Palsy. We as moms all have trying days...it's just a fact. I don't have any clue what it is like to take care of kids with special needs. I mean, I freaked out (more than you will ever know), when my son puked for the first time (right Coley? HA). So I can only imagine the stress that a mom feels when she has a child that needs multiple surgeries, and things like that. I had said to Coley in one of our conversations, that God mad her for Noah. In her response back, she told me of her motto "You we made for this", and directed me to this page. And you can find more post about that here. So the first thing that I knew for sure I wanted to make for Coley, was this cuff...

On her post, she said that the verse that came to mind, was Jeremiah 29:11, I know the plans I have for you. On the inside of the cuff, I added that verse...

God made her for Noah, so I added that as well...

I hope you like it Coley!

 I made the cuff right away, but was sure what else to make. I wanted to make sure that (1) she would like it, and (2) it would be something that would go with her decor, whether it be something for her house or to add to her holiday decorations. So late one night, while stalking glancing over no...definitely stalking, Today's Fabulous Finds, I came across these AH-MAZING ornaments made out of paint sticks...

Paint sticks!! Aren't those SO SO cute?!? She has a wonderful tutorial for you to make your own. The possibilities are endless on this project! Definitely not limited to just Christmas or even ornaments for that matter! This is what I made...

Before I share the rest of the ornaments I made for her, I wanted to share a bit of her story. As you can read on her about me page, Noah is not her only child. She is the birthmom to a son named Charlie, who she place for adoption to a wonderful local family. The adoption is an open adoption, which means that she gets pictures, phone calls and visits. Charlie knows that Coley is his birthmom and that Noah is his birth brother.
She also has an angel baby, named Darcy. Darcy didn't make it to this earth, but is a very special part of Coley's life. I wanted to make sure to make an ornament for the entire family.

Here are all of the ornaments...

 My friends dog thought they were pretty great too!

I loved making these, and I hope Coley enjoy's them as well! I'm so glad that I was picked to participate in October's Package Pal! Thanks Jamie for pairing me with such a special gal!


I would just like to add, since I'm not going to post a tutorial for this, a few tips if you want to make your own:

• In the tutorial, it says to print on plain paper and then photocopy onto stock paper (unless you have a laser printer). That is so that the ink from your printer doesn't smear when you apply the Mod Podge.  Instead, after you print your image, spray the paper with hair spray (aerosol  hair spray) and let the hair spray dry or dry the paper with a hair dryer. Works great!
• I wanted to customize the colors of the ornaments, so I uploaded the pdf file to Inkscape. There I was able to change the color of any area. I was also able to make the personalized ones the same way.
• The tutorial says to Mod Podge the cardstock to the stick, but I thought that would take to long to dry. So I used spray adhesive. Love that stuff! 

Those were the only things I did different :)

Once I was finished with these, I checked out Coley's Pinterest, where I saw that she had this project pinned!! I guess that means she would like them!

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