School Celebration

In our little playgroup of ten kids, four of them start preschool between August 24th and September 6th.  For three of them (including ZB), it's their first time at preschool, so of course I had to throw a School Celebration party!

I asked ZB what sorts of things she wanted to do at preschool and she gave me a cute list - eat snack, dance, play freeze tag, and make new friends.  I decided to take her "goals" and turn them into a cute banner.  I trimmed some classic draw & journal newsprint to fit the biggest sheet my laminator can handle and used scrapbook stickers to write out ZB's goals for preschool.  Then I strung up a piece of baker's twine (the heavy stuff for cooking, not the fancy stuff for decorating) and used clothespins to attach the signs.

Inspired by this tutorial by Heather Bailey,  I used her pattern and instructions (I used my glue gun instead of a glue stick, however) to make apples to hang above the table.  I cut the leaf and stem out of cardstock and hot glued them into the top of the paper globe before I finished it.  I also ran some ribbon through the top and tied a knot to make the apples hang.

I made these smaller balls using a 2-1/2" circle punch and just eyeballed an equilateral triangle on my template for the fold lines.  It worked just fine.  I tied knots along the ribbon to keep the globes spaced out and then just assembled them around the ribbon.

A note for the impatient - you should probably avoid this project.  It is SUPER time-consuming and tedious. It does give you a cute hanging centerpiece like this that your friends will gush over, however:

I made the centerpiece for the table using this tutorial from Happy Clippings as my starting point.  I used yellow pencils, markers and all the cute colors from a box of 64 crayons.

What's the use of having a party if you can't make goody bags?!?!  I started off my creating these bags for Smarties.  I scanned a piece of that good old school paper, found a free clipart apple on Google, then created these in Photoshop.  I could get two bag toppers out of one 5x7 photo and I had a 50% off coupon code for the Walgreens photo center.

I paired the Smarties with a cute back-to-school note pad from the Target Dollar Spot:

Then I stuck them in bags I made a few months ago when I was selected to host an Expo Washable Marker House Party.  The kids all took home a dry erase board and two sets of Expo markers, too!  I love House Party!

I whipped up some yummy food for the moms and ordered pizza for the kiddos.  All-in-all, this was a great party and everyone had a great time!

Back-to-School Time!

AAAAHHHH!!  Miss ZB starts preschool soon.  Very soon.  This is not okay because it means she is growing up too dang fast!  Doesn't everyone say that about their kids though?  I remember when people would tell me that all the time when ZB was a baby and I would always just think to myself "Whatever.  It's not that fast."  I was so wrong about that.  It seems like just yesterday I was watching her try to roll over on our living room floor and now she can do somersaults and she's got some sassy dance moves.  Too fast, I tell you.

While I may be sad that she is growing up, I am definitely not sad about having a teacher and a class of 8 kids to craft for!  Is it weird that I'm already dreaming of Halloween and what I'm going to do for her class party?  Yeah, I thought so.  Really, I blame Pinterest.  It is a mecca for over-planning freaks like me.

Inspired by this post on Nothing But Country, via Pinterest, I made a little first day of school treat for ZB's teacher, Miss Barb.

I'm super cheap frugal and since I only needed one fish and my printer is not fancy, I just used a piece of tracing paper to trace the fish from NBC's printable (is that wrong? hmm. something to ponder.).  Then I cut the fish out and traced around it on a piece of Goldfish-colored paper.  Finished it up with "Miss Barb, I am o-FISH-ally excited to be in your class this year!  Love, ZB", hole punched it and tied it to a bag of Goldfish crackers.  I'm planning attaching a note from me letting Miss Barb know that I am dying to be as involved as possible, so please use and abuse me as needed.  Except it will be sweeter.

Coming soon: pictures from our playgroup's "School Celebration" party!

Serena's Party Boutique Giveaway via Your Golden Ticket Blog!

Your Golden Ticket Blog is a fairly new blog based out of Las Vegas.  They host a lot of fantastic giveaways, mainly geared at children's products, which is fantastic, because so many sites specialize in baby products and my 3-year-old will be the first to tell you she is NOT A BABY!

The latest giveaway if for a $25 gift certificate to Serena's Party Boutique.  Serena specializes in absolutely adorable edible party favors like chocolate lollipops, rice krispie treats, and chocolate covered Oreos.  Stop by and check out Serena's Party Boutique on Etsy and make sure to enter the YGTB giveaway while you're at it!

These chocolate lollipops would make great party favors!

These rice krispy treats would be great for a classroom treat!

How cute would these be for a playgroup party???

*** all images taken from Serena's Party Boutique on Etsy ***

MTM Swap 2010!

Michelle, the wonderful Muffin Tin Mom behind Muffin Tin Monday, hosted a swap last month and it was awesome! Every Monday, she makes her kids lunches that fit into a muffin tin and she has great ideas and really cute supplies. I've been meaning to try start doing this for months and we seem to never be home in time for me to get a fancy muffin tin lunch ready for ZB. Really, if I just planned better, I could get it done, but I never think about it until Monday at lunchtime.

I was partnered with Jessica G., who blogs at Duck Duck Cow! You can see what I sent to her three munchkins here, because I am lame and forgot to take a picture of everything before we wrapped it up and sent it off.

Our box came last week and ZB just kept saying "I get present!" It was a mini-wrestling match to simultaneously take the wrapped goodies out of the box and keep her from ripping the paper off before I was ready! We definitely need to participate in more swaps - it's always awesome to get to shop for random knick-knacks and it was so fun opening up each little wrapped present.



Our muffin tin care package had:
- individual sized cups of Ranch dressing
- a cup with a built in straw
- a box of colored picks (we do think alike, Jessica!)
- an awesome spiral bound index card notebook to keep recipes in
- princess liners and picks (as ZB often reminds me, "I a princess!"
- Jessica made the cutest picks with brightly colored shapes, perfect for a 2-year-old
- a pack of neon bendy straws
- a box of yummy Annie's Cheddar Bunnies
- Easy Writer food markers

Jessica, thanks so much! We love everything and can't wait to use it all in a Muffin Tin Monday.

Here's ZB at dinner tonight, demonstrating how Easy Writers can jazz up your burrito, and even your mashed potatoes! (Yes, it's a weird combo for dinner. She was eating her leftover burrito and the grown-ups were having potatoes with our dinner and I threw some on her plate.)

Welcome!

When I first started blogging three years ago, it was strictly to keep my parents and in-laws loaded down with pictures of their only grandchild, since we live in different states. It's a blog of full names and just way too much personal, identity-theftable information.

I have no delusions of grandeur here. I'm not aspiring to be the next nienie, P-Dub, or dooce. I just want a space to share things that interest me, and maybe you too, if there's even a you out there reading this.

Thanks for coming along on this ride with me. I hope I don't suck!