Last week, we were driving and I noticed a lonely pallet on the side of the road. You know me, I was too kind to let it go to the dump (ha!), so yesterday we went on a pallet hunt to rescue the pallet. We also picked up a few more we just happened to find in a couple locations during our morning walk. My daughter’s 4th Birthday is coming up in the next week, so I’ve been working on party goodies. I had a vision from the time I saw the pallet to use one as a backdrop that can later be used in our home somewhere.

Here’s a DIY project for those of you fellow pallet-lovers:

 First, I did not want to take off all the planks of wood since this particular pallet’s planks weren’t spaced too far, but I did want to remove the back planks and make it thinner and lighter.

I used a jigsaw to cut the side of the pallet, removing the entire back planks and 1/2 the thickness of the pallet. Here’s proof that I did it myself.

This is how I really felt about it (weird face=my excited-I’m-using-power-tools-face)

Then, after the dirty back was removed, I sprayed and cleaned the boards to remove dirt, bugs, spiderwebs and slugs (yes, one slug fell on my leg when I was pulling this thing into the driveway (gross), but it’s all part of the process, I guess- Just don’t say I didn’t warn you. Also, while I’m on that topic, please be careful when handling a pallet! There are a lot of rusty nails sticking out, splinters, etc.

Once it is dry and clean, use a pencil to draw out the shape of what you are painting. In my case, a whale. It’s hard to see in the picture below, but there is a pencil sketch.

Then, paint! I used an affordable craft paint and a foam brush to paint the image.

That’s it! I still plan on sanding mine a little to remove potential splinters in little fingers and weather the whale image a little. Overall, I love how it turned out and I’m sure it will be a sweet backdrop for LB’s upcoming birthday party.

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 I started the thought process this week: My little one, (I call her “LB” for “Little Bit” as so many of you probably call your little ones) is almost another year older!

{I didn’t realize it was such a popular nickname, I just picked it out as I looked at her when she was a fresh new baby, 5lbs 7oz, a tiny “little bit”, so that was her nickname that stuck right away. To prove my point, here she is, 11 days old, the first day her Daddy went back to work at his office, next to a normal 8.5×11″ piece of paper wearing preemie clothes that were falling off of her. So tiny!}

I am totally off track right now, but I guess I felt I needed to tell you who I
am talking about when I refer to “LB”. Now, my friends, you will know!

Anyway, where was I?

I started the thought process this week: LB is going to be 4 soon! What, I am going to have a 4 year old?! Really, it is so true. So, with exactly 3 months until the big 4th birthday, that’s where my party planning begins. 3 months is a good range for me in the birthday party planning process.

I picked up some ribbon and fabric yesterday. They all work with my vision of her 4th birthday. I love fabric, I’m not much of a seamstress. Yes, I may have won our school’s 4-H sewing competition in 4th grade, but that about wraps up my sewing career. I think I am a patient person until I am sitting in front of this machine with my foot on the pedal thinking “when is this going to be over?” I’m not cut out for a sewing career. I do it a little for my daughter, but that is about it. I love fabric for its color, patterns, texture and possibilities…

I’m not going into much detail today, but just wanted to let you know about our upcoming party planning series! I’m really excited because I am a planner and I love to help you make your parties and events special. By thinking about an event well in advance and having a strategic plan, most times you will have a less stressful event and you will be a happy hostess! I’ll walk through some easy steps to help your next event be less stressful and more organized. We’ll have a post a week about it until we wrap it up!

Have a great weekend!

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We have been featured on Pizzazzerie! It is a super adorable Pirate party that was the vision of one creative Mommy, Anna Barnes, for her son’s 3rd birthday. I was honored to help her by doing all the invitations, paper goods and signs. You’ve got to see this party!

(As shown on Pizzazzerie)

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Hippity hoppity, Easter is on its way and with Jen’s little boy’s birthday falling on Easter weekend this year, she decided to have an Easter Egg Hunt birthday for him. It was so cute and may give you some inspiration for your Easter egg hunt this weekend…

Here’s the party story as told by Jen:

I loved the way it turned out, it was so fresh looking with the colors and gingham!

I found some chalk eggs in a plastic egg carton for the favors and we made custom favor stickers to put on top.

The kids lunches were served  in a gable box to make it as simple as possible, they can just plop down and eat. We served egg shaped PB&J (in the gingham bag), Goldfish, a Buddy Fruit and juice box.

We had the buckets to use for the egg hunt.

Striped straws just make everything cuter!

The adults snacked on some veggies, potato salad, and mini ham sandwiches on sweet potato biscuits. Then we all shared some Easter bunny cupcakes for dessert along with haystacks made to look like birds nests.

Some of the kids enjoying the egg hunt

Happy 2nd Birthday Tucker!

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Tucker’s first birthday party was paws-a-tivly perfect! (In large part because of HollyDays) For those of you who did not get a chance to read a previous post, I am Jennifer, the newest employee at HollyDays. We recently celebrated my son’s first birthday, and I am thrilled to write my first post on the blog and share with you all the fun we had. (You can click on the pictures to view larger versions.)

{The Invitation}

I saw the whale invitation Holly had designed for a children’s birthday party and used the layout as a basis for Tucker’s invitation. We just added the dog and changed the colors. I had so much fun brainstorming wording for the invitation and party supplies. I love plays on words, as you will see in some of the pictures below, they are always good for a little laugh.

{Party Favors aka Doggy Bags}

We gave the children large  sugar cookies in the shape of dog bones and tennis ball cake bites, in the event that they did not have enough sugar at the party.

{Favor Sign}

{Favor Tags}

The favor tags were enclosure cards that I attached to the brown bag with a clothespin.

{Birthday Banner}

HollyDays sells the polka dot balloons and I think they are so fun and different!

{The Birthday Boy’s Reserved Seating}

{Birthday Cake, Cupcakes and Cakebites, mmm!}

Hollydays created the brown and white striped cupcake wrappers to coordinate with the invitation and cake.

{Water Bottles}

{Water Bottle Labels}

The water bottle stickers are quick and easy way to add some fun to a party.

{Drinks}

{Food Labels}

Hot dogs, puppy chow, and Scooby Snacks were just a few of the items on the menu.

{Napkin Wrappers}

{Doggy Display}

{Outdoor Fun}

{Dog Ears}

My mom found some dog ears online for the kids to wear, they were adorable!

{Tucker with some of his best buddies}

{The Birthday Boy}

As you can see the party was dog-gone cute and fun!

Don’t forget to send us pictures of your party where you have used our products and we can post them for everyone to see!

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So my husband and I had to work in the nursery last Sunday at church.  We are on the “parents rotation” and usually have to help in our daughters class, but last Sunday we had the 3-year-olds.  I will remind you that our daughter is 15 months.  We had a class of nine and only two were girls.  We learned quickly that the boys were fans of superheros and we didn’t even have to see the spiderman shirt or the pair of superhero sandals on another little boy to find out… they have already picked up some superhero-crime-fighting-moves and they weren’t afraid to use them.

I thought it was great and perfect timing that one of our customers, Haley, sent us a photo collage of her little boys’ birthday party.  Kepler and Dax are their names and since their birthdays are close together, they get to have their parties together.  This year the theme was a Superhero pool party… complete with the terrycloth bath towel superhero capes!  How perfect for a three and four-year-old party.

Haley wanted to be simple with the decorations this year, but as her creative mind got goin’, she started coming up with more great ideas!

I must first say she is so creative and she knows exactly what she wants.  Each year, she emails me a drawing of how she envisions the invitation.

So then, I draw it and here’s how it turned out:

Here are are the photos from the party and we’ll give details of the party below:

Haley used small clear gift bags for guests to fill with Spiderman and Batman pez candy containers (she found these at the Dollar Tree store), small M&M’s, Twizzlers, other candy in blue, red and yellow as well as cute pinwheels.  She also had masks for the party guests to wear. On the suckers, she made paper thank you’s that said “Thanks for making our party SUPER!  Your pals, Kepler and Dax”.  The tables were covered with burlap.  The cakes came from Edgars Bakery (“because they taste SO good” Haley said {I say so, too!}).  Also, she made the hooded towels with their initials on the back for superhero capes.

Thank you so much, Haley, for sharing these great photos!  We can’t wait to see what you have up your sleeve for next year!

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Recently, some friends of ours had a baby boy.  Before baby Ellis was born, we helped host a baby shower for the mommy and daddy-to-be, Troy and Brittany Johnson.  Ellis’s nursery is a woodland theme, so we decided to make the shower coordinate with his nursery.  Here’s what we came up with…

We had a table at the entrance with photos of the mommy & daddy-to-be clothes-pinned on jute across a vintage frame.  We also had the framed invitation and the favors on the table.

This is a wishing tree we made for Troy & Brittany.  Each guest could fill out a card for baby Ellis and hang it on the tree.

The cards had things on it like: “I hope you learn __________________”, “I hope you aren’t afraid __________________”, “I hope you love __________________”, “I hope you laugh __________________”, etc.

The couple has a great sense of humor, so to see what their friends wrote in the blanks was quite entertaining.  In this picture both of the grandmothers are laughing at some of the wishes on the cards.  (By the way, I sure hope I look as good as they do when I’m a grandmother!)

We used more vintage touches with Fenton glassware.  We used it on the wishing tree table and the dinner tables.

Here is an example of one of the arrangements on the dinner tables.  Weren’t they precious with the old blocks around them?  Oh, one thing we learned- if you are doing an event on Mother’s Day weekend, make sure you don’t just stop in for flowers.  The florist was almost out!  Good thing they had these that looked perfect in the vases.  Our friend Mary did all the centerpieces and she did great!  Under the vases were small “logs” cut from branches to add more of a “woodland” touch!

Here is the drink table.

We had water bottles that matched the invitations.

Each of the guests could take home a set of 12 note cards and a pencil in a neat little bag.  These were for the girls and the boys got a little more “manly” geometric design- no whimsical art for them!

Here is their coordinating thank you notes:

Here’s the mommy & daddy-to-be!  Of course, they are now proud parents of an adorable little boy.  As long as he turns out like his mom he’ll be ok!

We had such a great time planning and hosting this shower!  Hope you have a great weekend!

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Anna has been so kind to share more pictures of her little boy’s 1st birthday frog party.  This is a super long post because of all the photos, but well worth it!  These photos were taken by Bonnie with Blink Photography in Birmingham, AL.  The photos are great and these photos give you an idea of what the party experience was from the time you arrived at the party!  Hop on in!

Walking up to their front door.  Welcome to Froggy Bottom!  This is sure to be a fun party!

The guests are arriving.

This is the welcome sign on the front door.

Table in the Foyer.  Look at the cute frames and photos!

Mommy Anna is serving some punch at the food table.

All of the food had a cute, creative frog theme name!

And of course… the frog food!  Goldfish!

The frog cake…

and frog cupcakes…

and beautiful fondant cake…

Anna used some of the regular stickers we made to put on waterbottles.  She bought a large quantity and used them also for the party favors.

We also have waterproof stickers available and are looking into waterproof labels to wrap around the bottles.

Table Setting

Even Jamison got to sit on his own lilipad!

Adorable matching birthday hat and bib

The Birthday Boy,  Jamison!

Jamison’s cake

Oh, and even the little froggies there were able to hop around in some super fun inflatables!

It looks like everyone had so much fun!  Thank you so much for sharing these great pictures with us, Anna!  Have you ordered party supplies and/or invitations from us?  We would love to see your party photos!

Have a TOADILY GREAT DAY!

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We’ve got some adorable photos from a Frog Birthday Party!  Jamison turned ONE and had an adorable Frog theme party.  His mommy did such a great job.  She contacted me to do some of the paper goods for the party four months prior to the event, so she put a lot of time and love into creating it.

{fill-in-the-blanks thank you flat card and envelope}

{The dessert table}

large tiered cake + frog shaped cake +smash cake + frog cupcakes = YUMMY!

{Jamison with the frog cake}

{the food table}
All of the food had a frog theme… frogaroni, fly dip, swamp punch…

{This is Freddie, a wood frog made by Jamison’s Daddy
for photos with guests.  How cute is Freddie!}

{party favors}
bath theme: a towel, a frog bath scrub, a frog bath toy, a frog tub tread
and a personalized wood frog for each child.

{party favor stickers}

Thank you, Jamison, for sharing your fun party pictures with us!

{gift enclosure cards for Jamison when he goes to birthday parties}

Hope this inspires your creativity for your next party!

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Welcome guests from Simply Creative Insanity!  Brandy from Simply Creative Insanity Blog has featured us today!  She is showing off photos of our pink cupcake first birthday party!  She does an even better job than I did showing off our party!

Go to her blog to see us and to get more party inspiration!  She has a ton of ideas for parties, gifts, recipes and more!

Thanks, Brandy!

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