a glamous big girl party

My big girl turned 10 this past February! 

Ohh what an exciting age!  She definitely is not a little girl anymore and not quite a teen.

A fun age that deserved a glamous big girl party. 

We've done the swimming, play park, movie and slumber parties.  I wanted to create a party where girls got dressed in fancy party clothes and ate, danced and mingled. 

I glittered, sewed, pom-pomed and baked to get things ready.  I also did a lot of pinning!  If you follow me on Pinterest, I pinned a lot of pink, white and gold parties. 

So here is just a few(hehe) pictures of the details....

I wanted to create a whimiscal tree with recycled glittered Christmas ornamnets as the centerpiece.

My lollipop circle tissue paper fluffs were super easy to make.  I will show how sometime soon.

Cupcake toppers are from this adorable Etsy shop, Icing Designs.

The paper doily banner and glittered flower streamers are from Martha Stewart.  I did add my daughter's name to the center of the doilies.  The glittered "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" banner was made by me the same way I did my "THANKFUL" banner found here.

My sandwich toothpicks were another easy project.  I will show how to make those as well.

The ruffled fabric garland was also sewn my me....and it still amazes me that I did this one!  I need to perfect a few things before I show anyone my method.

I made a bunch of symbols, number "10"s and letter "C"s out of glittered cardstock to hang in the tree.

And finally my oversized cardboard letter "C".  This too was an easy project but did take awhile.  I used the same technique as I did with my hanging crepe paper flowers found here.  The only difference was that I used strips of crepe paper in lengths of 2' instead of 4'.

Finally every party has to have balloons!  There is just something about balloons.  This party I ordered extra-long strings so that the girls could reach them.

The party went well!  I thought girls would mingle around the food and into our living area.  Instead they would grab a bite to eat and go back into my daughter's room.  At one point I went into her room and found all 8 girls on the top bunk sitting and talking.  I guess at this age they need their privacy too!

Thanks for stopping!

Bye for now.

crepe paper flowers

  While I was setting up for my daughter's birthday a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to add something orange.  I really wanted to make some orange pom-poms.

I searched several stores even a party store and orange tissue paper was no where to be found.  I had no idea!  I'm sure I could have found it online, but I didn't have the time to wait.

I remember seeing on the wonderful blog Dear Lillie she made crepe flowers as embellishments for wrapped presents.  It really added to the finished look of the present.  It was almost to beautiful to unwrap!

Well I took that idea and thought about hanging flowers from the ceiling.  But I knew once I hung them they would sway back and front and you would see the back of them.  So why not hot glue two flowers back to back?

Dear Lillie has a complete tutorial on the making of these flowers...here is my shortened version.

I started with 3 strips of crepe paper anywhere between 2' to 4' long, depending on big you want the flower to be.  I cut mine 4' long.  I ruffled one edge.  Then I wound it around and hot glued it as needed.  I found that once I started winding the crepe paper somewhat held it's shape so it didn't need hot glue.

Once the flower is completed glue strips of crepe paper on the back to hold in place.



I cut a long piece of fishing line.  You could use about anything to hang it with depending on the look you want.  I think it would be pretty to hang it from a satin ribbon tied in a bow at the top of the flower.  But in this occasion I wanted everything to be floating from the ceiling so I didn't want the string to be seen.

Next just hot glue to flowers back-to-back.

Then squish the two layers together.

And finally the fun part...separating the layers of the flower!

I separated the outer layers the most and kept the inner part of the flower together.  I liked the look of the more defined flower as it circled toward the middle.  Experiment on what you like best.

In my top picture, I love how it adds another dimension to the decorations.  The mix of pom-poms, lanterns and now these crepe paper flowers make for an interesting display.  In a way I'm glad I didn't find orange tissue paper.  A year ago I would have never mixed these things...it would have been one thing or another.  Let me tell you I'm really shaking it up now!  Watch out!  Ha Ha.

Thanks for stopping.

Bye for now!