Easter In Colorado

Since it was mothers day yesterday I thought it was fitting to showcase my mothers lovely Easter dinner party. 

 As you may already know a few weeks ago we hopped in the car for a road trip to see our families in C0olorado. On Easter Sunday my mom created four incredible table spreads as well as cooking a delicious meal of ziti pasta.She decorated each place setting with personalized chocolate dipped home made marshmallow eggs! These were the mos wonderful marshmallow I have ever tasted! Much of my family was there and It was a night filled with games and laughter.

 The room above is the sun room and it is so bright a cherry! In the center of the table is a beautiful little house. You can't tell from the pictures but it was made to be a bird house! The rest of the table covered with grass and colorful eggs. I think I am in love with those scalloped blue plates!

Above is the living room It was so romantic and pretty. My mom decorated this table with pink grass, budding spring branches, and giant paper mache chocolate bunnies that looked read enough to eat! We left the pom poms up from the boxed lunch picnic shower, since they were so pretty. This is the room where Trent and I ate, we loved it! :)

Easter baskets for all the grandchildren were filled with delicious home made confections such as: chocolate dipped marshmallow eggs, jello popcorn, pretty paper carrots filled with m&m's, and chocolate dipped peanut butter eggs! My sister D-llyn made the paper carrots and the peanut butter eggs. :) Thanks D-llyn those peanut butter eggs were THE BEST! I ate more than I am willing to tell  :)
The kid table was awesome (pictured above at the bottom right) It had a lovely spread of beautifully colored hard boiled eggs that the kids happily devoured while waiting for the main course.

In the dinning room the table was decorated with a beautiful garden of ivy. A ceramic cookie jar sat amidst a lush spread of live ivy. Beautiful! Later the teensy terracotta pots were filled with live flowers. (I took the photo too soon). Along with the personalized chocolate eggs each guest got a goody bag full of yummy treats!

Thanks you mom it turned out so awesome!

I love you mommy!

• Thank you for being my best friend!
• Thank you for giving me 8 more best friends! (my siblings!)
• Thank you for teaching me how to throw a real party!
• Thank you for teaching me whats right.
• Thank you for spending weeks meticulously sewing my prom dresses and wedding dress!
• Thank you for making my wedding reception be PERFECT! (and it was).
• Thank you for being a good example.
• Thank you for teaching me what is means to be a good mom!
• Thank you for teaching me to pray always!
• Thank you for teaching me to LOVE the scriptures!
• Thank you for shouting "I love my family" at the top of your lungs all the time growing up.
• Thank you for holding my had at church a few weeks ago!
• Thank you for being you! 

(Honestly, this list could go on forever!)
I love love love love you mom! XOXOXO


I hope you all had a great Mothers Day yesterday! 
Thanks for stopping by.

Cinco de Mayo FIESTA!

 I was so excited the other day when I saw Dana's EASY way of ruffling streamers! Sooo much easier then doing it my way thats for sure! I knew I wanted to have a Cinco de Mayo fiesta especially with Dana's streamers, and all the awesomeness I have seen from Confetti System. I went to work this afternoon and created a little fiesta in my dinning room!!!

 

 

Hope you have a great Cinco de mayo as well! :) Thanks for stopping by!!

Boxed lunch picnic party!!

 Ever since we decided to visit CO for Easter I knew I wanted to throw my big sister a surprise baby shower. I spent months dreaming up ideas, I really wanted it to be perfect. She is my oldest sister and has always been a role model of mine. :) As a girl whenever I felt crumby she was always there to pick me up and say something nice and encouraging to me. Seriously, I owe much of my self confidence to her! Love you D-llyn!   Since she is expecting her fifth child I felt she needed a huge party! But instead of the traditional baby shower I wanted to celebrate her, so I decided to call it a mommy shower! I was really wanting to do a picnic party on the grass but it was FREEZING that day so we did it inside. :) I think it turned out so pretty, maybe even better than if it had been outside. 

The decorations were a collection of the prettiest pink pom poms ever and the cutest confetti garland. My sister Annie Carie made the pom poms using Martha's method, and made the confetti garland by punching circles out of card stock and sewing them together. They really made it feel like a party. We loved them so much we left them up till Easter, and might be there still. :) Since I love origami boxes I knew I had to incorporate them into the party some how. When I was brainstorming with  Annie Carie, & she mentioned doing boxed lunches, I just about screamed! Origami boxed lunches, it was meant to be! And I had just the right wallpaper for the job too, yellow gingham! I decorated each box with a tissue paper sash that was held closed with a clothes pin, and the name tags were made using my easy DIY doily instructions.

First we all yelled "Surprise!", then we sat down to eat our boxed lunches.  Each of the boxes was stuffed full of these goodies: a ham sandwich, an orange, a strawberry cupcake, & 2  powdered sugar doughnuts. So Yummy!! Next we played a candy guessing game. It was full of fun and laughter. I was terrible at guessing but somehow got candy anyway. ;)

Because the yellow and pink color scheme reminded me of pink lemonade, that's what I planned to drink. All they had at the store was kiwi strawberry, still yummy though. I used my moms cute white pot to put the drinks on ice. Isn't it the best? I want one just like it!  We had such a fun time! 

Hope you had a great Easter I'll post photos of ours soon, my mom always makes the best table-scapes. Thanks for stopping by.

Check it out

Guess what, I shared this crochet tutorial over at luvinthemomyhood. Go check it out. I'll be posting the full post here in a few days but in the mean time you can see it over on her blog.

what I am up to right now

We're getting ready for Easter over here. And this year that means road trip! In deciding what needs to get packed, I am thinking of a list like this:

• sewing machine ( for sewing at my moms house)
• fabric
• embroidery hoop, needle, and threads (for sewing in the car)
• random things to entertain kids (this could be a whole other list, or book even)
• clothes
• diapers
• car ride snacks
• camera
• home made books on tape (need to make some new ones for this trip)
• music

Here is a tip to anyone who needs a new way to keep kids happy on a long car ride. Before you go, let the kids record themselves telling jokes, made up stories, and just being goofy. Your kids will love to listen to themselves, and, It will become a treasured keepsake when they are older. I was surprised how much my kids loved to listen to that tape! Our favorite part was the recording of the baby laughing. It made the entire car burst into laughs every time. :)

Next week I am guest posting over at luvinthemommyhood for Comfy Sews VS Cozy Knits, so be sure and come back and see what it is I'm doing! :)

Tutorial: ruffled crepe paper streamers

  Hello everyone! I am so excited for today's post! :) I want to welcome all the readers coming over from See Kate Sew. Please stay a while and look around. :)

If you haven't ever been to Kate's blog go and check it out!!  She prints her own fabric, made the coolest clutch from a vintage book, and I am thrilled to be a part of her Ruffle Event! Check it out, for three whole weeks there will be guest posts, inspirations, and giveaways all about ruffles! :)

For my ruffle post I am showing you how to ruffle crepe paper streamers. I am using my ruffles to decorate origami boxes, but you can do anything you want with yours! The possibilities are endless!

 Lets start ruffling! :)

Materials :

• Crepe paper streamers
• sewing machine (or needle and thread)

1. The first thing you need to do is sew a straight stitch down the middle (or side depending on what kind of ruffle you want). If you want two layers sew through two streamers at the same time.
In making ruffles of any kind you Do NOT back stitch, the threads need to be loose and pull-able.
2. Next, tie a knot in the threads at one end.  This enables you to pull freely without the worry of pulling the thread completely out. (Something I did so many times it's not even funny, thus the creation of this step).

 3. Now pull one of the threads at the end that that has no knot. You can gather the ruffle loose or really full whatever you want! :)

4. Once you have the ruffle to the desired fullness, tie a knot at the other end (the end with no knot) and trim the excess threads. 

5. (optional)  If you want to you can sew on top of your ruffle after you have gathered it to keep it from sliding around on the thread. (I was impatient and ready to move on, so I opted out on this step for some of my ruffles).

You're done!

Now is the fun part where you get to figure out what to do with your ruffles! :)  I had been itching to make origami boxes again so I did. :) While at the thrift store a while back, I found a huge old ledger book full of ledger paper, I tried using it for origami and I am smitten!  It is just the right weight and looks so pretty all folded up! :) I used the ruffles to decorate the boxes and since ruffles are so textured you really don't need anything else on the package. 

  I was having so much fun so I did two color schemes; sherbet (above), and blues (below).

I was going crazy making ruffles so I sewed some to card-stock and made a matching card. I also made the envelope out of the ledger paper by tracing another envelope.

For this package I added a pretty blue ribbon on top of the white ruffle to give it an extra pop.  I also used ledger paper to make a simple ruffled card.

Thanks for stopping by! :)

vintage school books

I have a collection of vintage school books that my daughter uses to practice reading.  The illustrations in some are so incredible.  I thought I would share a few. :)

 Thanks for stopping by! :) Come back soon because I have some ruffles up my sleeve for See Kate Sew's Ruffle event!