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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Wow, this week was just a whirlwind. We returned from Christmas Village in Birmingham, Alabama, last Monday and it’s hard to believe we have been home for a week and are in full Christmas mode. Orders from the show will start shipping this week! I wanted to share some pictures of our booth so you can see some new goodies that we debuted at the show that are coming this next week to our website! 

Oh, and as a side note, we are going to be selling our booth & checkout table. My husband and I built it in the Summer of 2010 and we have loved the display. We are trying to downsize just a bit with our inventory and supplies so if you are interested, please contact us!

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Wow, it’s been a busy week around here. I’m starting to feel the holiday stress already. I feel like I’m going to end the week ok, though, I’ve been able to accomplish a lot on my “To Do List”. We’ve started uploading some Christmas designs to the website and have a ton more to add. They should all be up within the next couple weeks. In addition to the new holiday products, I’ve been working on getting everything together for our Christmas Show. I wanted to share with you a little of our week in Instagram pictures.

{Halloween Chevron Stickers}

{Styled shoot for upcoming magazine article}

{Custom Pumpkins & Pirates Party Goods}

{A little fun craft project}

{Local Farmers Market}

See all these and more if you follow us on Instagram: shophollydays

Have a great day!

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My good friend, Donna, hosted her daughter’s 3rd birthday party at her house last weekend. It turned out so cute, but this was no surprise, she is very creative. It was a drive-in movie themed party complete with popcorn, candy and glow sticks.

Sticking with the theme, the party was BYOC, bring your own car. The kids were adorable lined up on their cars and bikes munching on popcorn and watching the movie. Everything was so cute it was hard to choose my favorite things, but here are a few highlights:

The sign on the front door directed traffic to the back yard for the feature presentation. The party favors were boxes of movie candy with a custom film strip sticker that read, “Thanks for coming, it’s been REEL fun! Love, Avery”. In keeping with the theme the cupcakes were topped with marshmallows to look like little buckets of popcorn. The polka dot balloons stood in galvanized buckets full of popcorn and added a pop of color on the tables.

I just couldn’t resist posting this picture. I love seeing all the kids lined up munching on popcorn completely enthralled with the movie. You never would have known that five minutes before they were running around the yard pumped full of cupcakes and Capri-Suns. This is my goal for our next birthday party!

Invitations, cupcake wrappers, birthday banner, food labels, custom favor stickers, and polka dot balloons by HollyDays.

Cupcakes by Donna Franklin (Avery’s Mommy)

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It’s so hard for me to believe it is already September! In the South, that means FOOTBALL! Here is some inspiration for your tailgate- orange & blue style…

Cupcake Toppers/Wrappers, Bunting & Platter by HollyDays
Cupcakes by Donna Franklin

Interested in any of the items above?
Just email us at admin@shophollydays.com

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Last week was one of those weeks- one of those busy, exhausting weeks! One that was just such a blur, I actually can’t even remember what happened from one day to the next – I was just operating in survival mode. The week prior, we had spent setting up and working our Spring show, Cottontails Village in Birmingham, Alabama.

{Our Booth}

{Our HollyDays Tree… my favorite part!}

{Party setup & coloring table for the kids}

{We’ll be putting our Easter clothing & stickers/tags on our website this week!}

Wow, I have to tell you, this time I was exhausted. I had some AMAZING wonderful help this year, too – My husband, Jen, Karan, my parents and my in-laws… A HUGE THANK YOU TO THEM! Doing the show for us, is basically setting up a 10×30′ STORE for 3 days and then to turn around and take it down come home and unload it again… wears me out just thinking about it!  We were so honored and excited to take home the 1st place booth award!

As we were tearing down the booth on Sunday evening, we got the message that my sweet friend, Lacey, was having her baby. She was just at the show the day before, so it’s a good thing the baby waited another day or else we could have had more excitement at the show than we could have handled! We packed up, went home to drop off the trailer, said goodbye to my parents who were watching our daughter and headed out the door with one of our hospital door signs and went to the hospital and waited for the sweet baby. She was born right after 10:30pm. We went home a little after that to get our little one in bed. The next day, we visited the hospital again so we could see the baby. As you can see, my Karidyn is in LOVE with this sweet new friend, Layla Westyn.

She is already a best buddy of her older sister, Ava Greer.

After all, they’ve been friends since they could sit in my office floor and play and Karidyn could pull AG’s hair!

Anyway, let me get back on track… show, return, unpack, catch-up and then start working on the new show orders… whew! Yes, I’m tired, but feeling good that orders from the show are actually going to start going out TOMORROW! Yay! We have a ton ready, just ready to be packaged up and shipped out.

Well, I’m off to get working on some new projects and glad to finally be back to a {more} normal pace! Keep up with this week on our Blog, Facebook or Twitter… we’ll be giving away a SIGNED COPY of Jan Moon’s Southern Living Big Book of Cupcakes! {YUMMY!}

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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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I’m super excited to tell you about my weekend!  First of all, I must tell you about a blog I love to read- The Lettered Cottage.  Layla is a very creative decorator and she’s awesome at redoing, re-purposing and reusing!  It’s the one blog I HAVE to check out everyday.  Guess how excited I was one day last year when I realized she lived in Prattville, AL?!  It made me love her even more because she’s an Alabama girl like me!  Anyway, I was even more excited last week when I found out that she was having a yard sale in Birmingham with Rhoda, a fellow blogger and friend of hers, just 10 MILES FROM MY HOUSE!!!!  Wow!  You better believe we were there bright and early Saturday morning!  I can’t wait to show you what I bought…

My niece, Gracyn, was spending the weekend with us, so we loaded up the car with the girls bright and early and went on our way!

Oh, and we also brought our trailer!

We were there earlier than Layla and her husband, so we had a little waiting around time… Animal Cracker, anyone?  Gracyn couldn’t understand what we were waiting for…

Well, our car decided to die on us while we were waiting in it, so after Rhoda’s nice neighbors helped us get it started again, we were in business!

Time to shop!  Rhoda took the photo below.

Then, Layla and Kevin showed up in a big van with a trailer of furniture!

First of all, I have to show you the chairs I bought: LOVE THEM…
Layla blogged about them here and they can be seen here in her dining room.
The numbers on the back of the chairs are 1,4,3 for the number of letters in the words

“I love you”

We also got an old dresser with a pretty round mirror.
I can’t wait to redo it… I’m thinking a pretty fresh white.

We also bought a pretty side table for my daughters room and this:
It is a panel made out of slats of wood that is stained to look weathered.
I’m thinking of painting a Bible verse on it in white or cream.  Any ideas?

And of course, I had to have my picture with Layla!  She is like a celebrity to me!

Thanks Layla for your super fun yard sale!  We had loads of fun!
I can’t wait to share what I do with my new items.
Give me a while to work on these projects, I have a business and a 16-month-old!

Hope you had a great weekend!
Coming up this week… a baseball baby shower, photos of our Christmas booth in the making and more!

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We’ve got a super cute party to show you today!  I was able to do party goods for a colorful cupcake first birthday party!  Ellasyn Claire’s Mommy, Lynsey, was so kind to share the photos with us.  Here are some of the pictures from the party!

Happy First Birthday Ellasyn Claire!

{The invitation}

{Address sticker}

{Thank you note cards}

{Favor stickers}

{Stickers for party decor}

Adorable cupcake cake!  By Edgars Bakery

Is this not the sweetest cake?!  It is Ellasyn Claire’s smash cake in the shape of a cupcake!

Lynsey used our stickers on bright card stock ruffle circles
and tied them with ribbons around the candy jars.

See our stickers on the cups!  I love the muti-colored cup stack!

Here are the cute party favors.

Thank you Ellasyn Claire for sharing pictures from your sweet first birthday party!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures!  The party was so adorable!

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Have you seen fabric rosettes?  They are everywhere now!  There are over 200 pages of Etsy listings for items made with rosettes: headbands, hairbows, necklaces, bracelets, purses, shirts and more!  I am in love with them.

I was super excited to find a FREE TUTORIAL mentioned on a blog I like to read, Polka Dot Mom.  All you have to do is go to the You Can Make This website and sign up for a free account to download the PDF tutorial.

It is so easy, girly and fun to make!  I can’t wait to put rosettes on everything I own!!! {Dear Husband: Just kidding, I wouldn’t put roses on everything, you should know that./ Dear Readers: not really, I just said that to make him feel better!}  I’m seriously walking around the house holding my one rosette I made up to everything saying… “It would look good on that and that… and that…” ha ha ha!

Hope you have a great day!

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