"Gal"entine Party

Today I hosted a small and fun galentine afternoon party. Sorry some of the photos are a little blurry. Homemade chocolate candies (orange truffles and Bing), homemade crackers with cream cheese and cranberry jalapeno relish, and red velvet crepes with homemade whipped cream and homemade hot fudge and strawberries that were amazing! I have made whole wheat crepes for years, but these were even better. A fun time spent with friends and lots of laughter.

Winter White Party

Yesterday I had a couple of friends over for the afternoon. I have missed getting together with people the past year. It was a hard 2018 and this year I am determined to focus on those things that I missed last year.

I have been so inspired by youtuber Olivia (Olivia's Romantic Home) and the book "Just Open the Door" by Jen Schmidt. Olivia is always decorating her home to make it special. I used to do that and the last couple of years haven't done much. It is something that I really enjoy and I had fun making my home warm and cozy with candles, snowflakes and anything white and cream I could find in my home. Jen's book talks about just have friends over and stop making excuses. She is so right and I had so much fun and can't wait to do this again.

So back to yesterday afternoon...I kept it small and simple, but great thought went into the afternoon to make it a special time in the middle of a cold and dreary day.

I created an inexpensive, but fun little gift for each of my friends. I already had some white berry baskets I had gotten on sale a couple of years ago from Hobby Lobby. I added some gold polka dot tissue paper, white Kit Kats, white Cocoa packet, caramel candy cane, and hand-crocheted natural dishcloth, and glittery white snowflake ornament and a cute mini clothespin with a white felt snowflake.

For the tablesetting, I used a gold tablecovering, my cream Fietsta plates, a gold and white striped napkin, white mugs on a handmade white on white coaster.

Here is a pictures of the table with the food on it. I served homemade hot chocolate and had marshmallows and red hots for stir ins, powdered sugar donuts, white chocolate covered puff corn sprinkled with gold sugar, and artichoke/spinach bomb with chips. The only decor on the table was handmade white yarn pom poms on chopsticks in a cream vase. I had candles burning around the house and soft music playing on Pandora.

artichoke/spinach bomb

Thank you girls for coming and enjoying a fun afternoon!

Misc Invites & Gifts

WOW! 4 days in a row posts! I'm trying to get all caught up on all that I've been doing. Today, I have a few misc projects to share with you.

Today is a baby shower for twins that I'm not hosting, but was asked to make the invitations for. I created these darling diaper invites as it is a diaper shower. Makes perfect sense for someone with twins!

All of the diapers were a little different using papers from Echo Park's Bundle of Joy Boy Collection. The cute diaper and pin are from Cutting Cafe's Diaper Shaped Card & Invite Set Template. I only used the diaper and pin and glued the tabs of the diaper shut. Then on MSWord, I typed up the shower info and it slides in at the top of the diaper.

Next up was an order for a little girl's first birthday party. The mother wanted it pink, camo, and a deer. Well, I couldn't find camo paper anywhere, not even fabric (except fleece), but did find this pink paper that had trees on it and you usually hunt where there are trees, so went with it.

I think it turned out adorable and the mom liked them, so that's what mattered. The deer and white scalloped piece are from the Silhouette store Here and Here. The inside is the bubble enlarged in pink with the party info typed on it.

My last project to share with you was another order from a cousin of mine that needed some wine tags for a bridal shower gift. She had seen some on Pinterest and wondered if I could make something like it. I e-mailed Regina with the Cutting Cafe to see if she had any wine tag files. She didn't and asked when I needed them and I told her the next day. People, she created THIS file that night and sent it to me the next day! WOW!! What a sweet lady! She even created the tags so you can add a pocket if you like to add a gift card or note.

I don't drink so I had to scrounge around for something to show you how these work on the bottles. I had a bottle of Torani Brown Sugar flavoring that was the perfect size. I think these tags would be fun also for non-alcoholic drinks and even pop bottles.

I found several poems on Pinterest to use for the occasions. Wouldn't these also be fun for a college student? Open a bottle for first final, first A, first essay, etc.