Black and White Engagment Party

A few months ago I had the pleasure of hosting a black and white engagement party for my brother and his Fiance'. I love to party plan and I love to see my vision come to life and that is exactly what happened with this party and I couldn't have been happier.

It was quite the task to determine the type of food to serve, along with invitations and decor. But with Pinterest and Google at my finger tips, this turned out to be a blast!!

I started out with my invitations, I luckily found a template from Target - I was able to print my wording onto a blank invitation with a black and white border. Since I had chosen to host a cocktail party - I had full range of appetizers and fancy drinks - a much more casual atmosphere. The whole ideas was for us to get to know the brides side of the family and I just couldn't imagine everyone seated the entire evening stuffing their faces rather than drinking and talking.

                                                    


Throughout the room I had cocktail tables draped with black and white table cloths crossed in the middle to really give a great effect. I displayed back and white balloons hanging from the ceiling and also around the room on weights. 

Moving on to the food:

I started light with a white mozzarella cheese app, olives, blackberry glazed meatballs, Pasta Alfredo, white popcorn, white queso dip, black tortilla chips. I added a candy bar with black licorish, chocolate covered fruit bites, white chocolate pretzels and a few fancy items I found at the local party store.





Another fabulous idea I pulled directly from pinterest was the white cosmo bar.I served white and red wine and also a darker beer to stick close to my theme. I served the wine in plastic wine glasses that were black and I served beer in black or white solo cups. My Mom actually
had white coffee cups and serving dishes but I did add a few black here and there which I also picked up at the party store.

Along with all the fabulous food I decided to add in a bit of fun with a photo booth and some props.

I actually grabbed my back drop from Target (it's a shower curtain) and I had my handy hubby put together a stand. I bought some pre made props at Target also. I think it turned out great!!

Yee haw - It's a Cowgirl Themed Birthday Party - Every Girl Needs a Party Dress

In September my beautiful little lady turned 4. She was insistent on a Cowgirl themed party.

I'm not into typical cartoon or tv kids party themed parties (yet)! so began my hunt for some traditional Cowgirl attire, decorations and party favors. I love to take on diy projects and I love custom made anything (don't we all) so I was happy to take this task on.

Starting out I figured every cowgirl needs the perfect hat - Knowing my little lady had been counting on a cowgirl themed party since her 3rd birthday I had plenty of time to find the perfect hat. Lucky for us we were shopping in the early summer (most stores generally carry novelty hats at this time) and THERE  it was, the ultimate cowgirl hat and it was pink!! I scored this hat at The Children's Place for $6. So I bought 2 - one for dress and 1 for the party. There's no playing around when you find the perfect hat!!

Now that I had my awesome cowgirl hat sorted out, I knew I had to find the perfect birthday outfit to compliment this hat and my cowgirls sassy personality.... Keeping in mind that I love to DIY, I began prowling Pinterest for the perfect idea. While there were some cute ideas posted by many and some awesome tutorials I then realized one thing - they required me to sew!! Well, I tried my hand at this once and realized I am an instant gratification kinda girl and I did not have the patience to take on this task.

So where or where was I going to buy this perfect outfit I now had in my brain.... One evening I was getting my Facebook fix and I saw it - I luckily had "friended" a local Mom who had started her own custom clothing business. She posted a picture of an outfit that was so similar to what I had in my mind. I quickly sent her a message and a few weeks later, I had the BEST customized Cowgirl outfit EVER!!

With all that being said, I MUST share with you Dana's Facebook page. She does a wonderful job and is so reasonably priced and her turn around time and customer service are fabulous!! I have never seen her duplicate one item, her creativity and eye for her children's clothing is AWESOME!! Click HERE and like Dana's business page - Laynie Bugs Bows. Dana is always sharing new products and ideas, running specials deals and giveaway's. In fact, I reached out to Dana to let her know I would be mentioning her in my post and she has graciously offered to run a special deal strictly for my readers!!  So when you click HERE to like Laynie Bugs Bows mention to Dana that you read my post and you would like to take advantage of the "Our Crazy House Full of Love Special" - 15% off your first purchase. How awesome is that!! Thanks Dana!

Ok - now I have filled you in on the perfect cowgirl hat and outfit. I must confess - I found the cowgirl boots at a garage sale during the spring. I don't have a fun, crazy story to share, I saw them, knew I could use them for the party so I bought them. They weren't in the best shape - but I thought that added to the ruggedness of our Cowgirl themed party.

Stay tuned for my upcoming post on our Cowgirl decor!

Personalized Valentines Day Card - $1.49 shipped

Valentines Day is always a great time of year to send a personalized Valentines Day Card to family and friends. Use this code below and score a personalized Valentines Day for only $1.49 SHIPPED!

14 Days of Love

Allow me to brag for just a brief moment..... I have to say I am quite proud to be one of those people who actually try's to follow through with at least 45% of everything I pin on Pinterest. I pinned this idea a few weeks ago and have been anxiously waiting for Feb 1st to get this started. I actually shared this picture with my friends on Facebook last night and was thrilled that several of them had enough time to start this tradition also.

14 Days of Love:
Each day up until Valentines Day (I even had a Facebook friend change it to the entire month of Feb) Write something that you love about each child on a paper heart and tape it to their door for them to see when they wake up each morning.

I LOVE this idea and I think it's such a great tradition!!

Bet you didn't know the power of Yogurt - Dr. Oz

This morning the Hubby left for work way earlier than usual (I'm not going to reveal a time - just know - I am not a morning person and neither are my kids - thank goodness). So this morning I was able to catch a little of the Dr. Oz on the Today show while feeding my little man his breakfast. I am sharing because I am totally intrigued by this and will certainly be giving it a shot. I will also be sure to keep you up to date on my "findings".

So here's what Dr. Oz had to say.......A recent study looked at people who ate a six ounce serving of low fat yogurt before every meal and found 80 percent of those people lost more weight around their waist than people who didn’t eat the yogurt before a meal. Dr. Oz said this happens because calcium in the yogurt tells fat cells to release the fat. When the fat mixes with the calcium it makes soap, which means you are absorbing less calories.

Seems simple enough - any of you tried this concept???

Feel free to share. 

Poster prints at Walgreen's $0.25 - AWESOME!!

Being the photo nut that I am, I read about this deal over at Mommysavers.com and I can't not share this. I scored (3) 11 x 14 - poster prints of my photo's of my little one's, including this one showing of my new backdrop in my studio.

Here's how....
Head to Walgreens Photo and order your 11×14 poster print with coupon code 25CENTS.  Poster prints can only be printed in select Walgreens Photo centers. This is a savings of $9.99 per print and it's valid until 3/2/13.

SCORE these funky fun magnetic wooden fridge letters

These awesome magnetic fridge letters are an awesome deal over at amazon.

I found this fabulous deal from livefabuluLESS. Jodi Furman shares some awesome deals and saved me a ton of money at Christmas.

ONLY $3.41 SHIPPED for these wooden, magnetic letters: http://amzn.to/WkvVrs

MOVE QUICK - THEY SELL OUT FAST!!