tool party invite

it's already time to start working on the next party! oscar requested a tool party for his 5th birthday, so i made these tool box invitations.

the latches are glued down to hold it closed

it opens up and has the wording and some tools

the envelope has another hammer and some screw details on the back

alice's valentine

last year since alice was less than 2 weeks old on valentine's day, we didn't bother with making her valentines.  but this year, we made her these ones.  the plan was to get some pop rocks and put them on the back like these on pinterest, but i didn't find any pop rocks in time for valentine's day.  no one complained though, since they got a picture of a cute girl.

oscar's valentines

this was oscar's first year of trading valentines with classmates, and i was so excited! he has been a bit star wars obsessed, so we found the idea for these valentines on pinterest. i didn't pin it, and now i can't find the pin! but i used the 5 to a pack glow stick bracelets from dollar tree and we taped the connector on the back so that the kids could wear them. i liked that we sent something non-sugary for the kids, because i know oscar came home with PLENTY of candy! this year for his valentine's day present we took him to see star wars in 3d and he was one happy camper!

we also made some of these for the grown-ups. (pinspiration)

wonderland cake

alice's birthday cake was pinspired by this cake, but i really didnt want to do fondant because it's icky (yes it is. don't argue with me). so i frosted it in buttercream (the pink/purple, blue and greens) and used fondant to make the decorations. and since i got only an hour of sleep because i stayed up working on this, i'm putting FOUR pictures so you can enjoy from all sides.

and i totally left it on that turntable.. there was no way i was trying to lift that thing.

this was my first attempt at a tiered cake.. i was pretty happy with the fact that it was only SLIGHTLY crooked.

the top smash cake was red velvet, the second tier was white cake with a red velvet heart, and the bottom was chocolate/red velvet/chocolate.

and here is the inside of the heart cake. most people wanted chocolate cake, but i was ready to start forcing white cake on people just so i could see if this thing worked. (pinspiration) the chocolate/red velvet/chocolate with the white buttercream in between was actually pretty impressive looking itself...

alice's cake eating station

alice saying 'yay' about eating cake.

ok.. just one more picture of the cake..  my camera didn't quite capture how vibrant it was... but this picture makes it look sparkly... weird!

wonderland funderland

so for some party activities we had some photo booth props pinspired by these. i made this little flower centerpiece with googly eyes like these flowers on pinterest, but ended up just using it to stick the props in. i need to pawn this stuff off on someone else having an alice in wonderland party - it feels so wasteful to toss it all in the trash...

we also had a little place for the time capsule so that people could write letters for alice. i put one of the invitations and a party favor in there too and she'll open it up when she turns 18. out of town family - the capsule is not sealed if you would like to send any 2011 memorabilia or letters for in there.

we also decorated some party hats (pinspiration) and the kids searched for these little white rabbits that  i printed and cut out. (and you can probably find them in all these blog posts because we hid them before taking any pictures...)

unbirthday presents

so of course i had to send everyone home with a little 'thank you for coming' and what better for an alice in wonderland party than a deck of cards? the dollar bins at michael's had a couple different varieties of playing cards (neither matched the theme) in little plastic cases. so i snatched some up and put a picture of alice in her wonderland dress that her auntie danielle made her with her white rabbit that her aunt robyn made her (can you tell this girly is loved?). i also printed out a queen of hearts card to put in the bottom - just because it looked better like that.

the boys each got a red box (found at dollar tree) with a deck of cards, some pop-its (partly because of the fireworks cake in the disney movie and partly because pop-its are just fun), and a rabbit's foot (which, yes, is kinda creepy - but what else do you put in an alice in wonderland favor box for boys?!).

the boys also got some special cookies that i made just for them in their unbirthday present box.  they each got a white rabbit, heart, diamond, spade and club.

alice's party foods

for our party beverages i was pinspired to have some fruity ice teas. but instead i made regular iced tea and a tea station.  all the little drink me bottles (pinspiration) have different flavors of simple syrup and behind that pitcher there are also two different kinds of fruit concentrate.

on the back of the drink me tags i wrote what flavor the simple syrup was. we had ginger, vanilla, and spiced. i also made some of these sugar cubes and forgot to take a picture. boo!

i liked this pin of hard boiled eggs topped with tomatoes, but they didnt sound like the tastiest option, so i used some mozzarella balls with cherry tomato tops. there was some sort of dipping sauciness, but i wish i had time to display these some other way (everything was WAY behind schedule and i was running on an hour of sleep). and now i'm thinking the egg ones would be awesome if you made deviled eggs with the tomato top..

and then there were these heart tomato tarts which i had really no time at all to work on and didn't finish making them.

some tea sandwiches which did not look nearly as pretty as the picture.

mushroom fondant candies (not fondant like you cover a cake with.. ) pinspired by robyn's fondants.

and some "eat me" cookies.. yum. i DID eat them. printable recipe card can be found over at robyn's blog for these yummiest of yummy cookies.

this is another entry for the pinspiration challenge!

wonderland decor

for alice's wonderland decorations, i did a birthday banner using the vintage texture background. 

"don't step on the mome raths" sign made with foam core poster-board stuff and some brown craft paper and paint.

the full effect

and some mome raths inspired by these. i hot glued them on an old rug i had (though i'm not sure what to do with that rug now.. anyone need some mome raths?)

i also did some garlands with white roses painted red and playing cards and some balloons (because it's not a party without balloons). i'm not a fan of how the garlands turned out, but they were good enough and there was no time for something different.

i also did some this way, that way signs pinspired by these. more cardboard, brown craft paper and paint.

and of course some door knob accessories pinspired by this and this. also cardboard and paint. (and i totally forgot to put them on any of the door knobs.. DOH!)

i didn't get around to making a giant flower garden, but maybe she'll have another wonderland party someday.

i'm also linking this up for the subfertile frugalista's pinspiration challenge!

wonderland invitations

for the party invitations, i used this as my pinspiration. though the end product was completely different, it made me want to try to do a 3 dimensional invite. everyone got a little box wrapped in brown paper in the mail and when they opened it up they saw this 'open me' box. i found the boxes 2 for $1 at the dollar tree and covered them with some wrapping paper from the dollar bins at michael's. the tags are printables from etsy seller CherryPinkPrints, and i'm so glad i got them. i also used the background image for the rest of the paper things i printed.

inside was a white rose painted red and a scroll of paper tied with a ribbon. i used the vintage texture background image to age the paper (yay for not having to make a mess with tea and wet paper!). the stamp was also found in the dollar bins at michael's.

the invitation read:

Your royal majesty, the Queen of Hearts,

requests your presence at Alice's Wonderland

to celebrate her very merry ONE-birthday.

Follow the white rabbit to

(our address)

The party starts

February 4th at 3 o'clock

so don't be late for this very 

important date!

i had been in a computer-made invitation rut, so it was so fun doing something different this time.

i'm entering this in the subfertile frugalista's pinspiration challenge!

alice's wonderland

for alice's first birthday i made use of pinterest. usually i search around for ideas and have bookmarks, pictures, notes and doodles all over the place, so it was nice to have all my inspiration in one place this time! here is the board i made for alice's party. as usual, i'm going to break this party up into a few blog posts, but i think this time i'll link them all back here.

• invitations
• decorations
• foods
• favors
• activities
• cake

and you can thank christina, the subfertile frugalista and her pinspired link-up for this sudden onslaught of posts!

11 months

11 months! at 11 months alice weighed 18lbs even. she was crawling all over the place and calling everything 'dada'. she was still riding in a ring sling for most outings, but actually tried out riding in a shopping cart one or two times. she still nursed all the time and at least once during the night (maybe more.. i usually sleep through that) but started spacing things out a bit more. she also seems to spend a bit more time playing and less time napping.

10 months

another month of squirmy alice. every month it seems to get harder and harder to get her to sit still for a photo. alice started really crawling and pulling up by this time and started cruising on december 5th.  shortly before christmas she stood by herself for a few seconds. she's up to 7 teeth and learned how to say 'baby' and 'dog' while we were at gramma and grampa's house for christmas. when we went to the zoo, everything was a dog! she is such a fun, sweet baby and has a great sense of humor.

here's what most of the pictures looked like - blurry silliness!

9 months

Here is little miss bright eyes at 9 months old.

since i'm way (way way) behind on these updates, i'm going to have to try to remember some of the things alice was doing around these times. so during her 9th month, we had a visit from gramma, grampa, aunt robyn and sammy. alice was very happy to sit still and be entertained while they were here and worked on her clapping and waving. as soon as visitors were gone she started working more on crawling and pulling up. when i tried to take her picture she kept crawling towards me, so i have a lot of pictures of the top of her head.