Cruise Ship themed dessert table

This year's theme for the Teacher Appreciation Luncheon at my sons' school was a Cruise Ship.

I was stumped! Seriously. How in the world do you decorate like a cruise ship? And after

looking all over the web for inspiration, I still had no clue.

So then I started to think . . . "What is on a cruise ship?"

•Nautical flags

•Bright blue water

•Wine/Champagne

•Well dressed crew

•Towel animals

So that gave me something to go off of at least.

I went to my local Joann Fabrics store and picked up yellow, blue, red, white and black felt. 

Felt is very inexpensive and easy to work with as it doesn't fray. Following the nautical alphabet flags that I found online, I made about half the alphabet flags using nothing but scissors and hot glue. I used a white rope to hang them on!

Then at about midnight I was online watching video tutorials on how to make towel animals like they leave in your rooms. I have to say, my elephant turned out pretty darn good! I also wipped up some food label cards with two little anchors on them!

I really didn't have a plan as to what the layout of the table would be. Mainly because it was super late at night and I didn't feel like "mapping" it out. So I winged it. I just brought a whole bunch of stuff that went with a travel/cruise ship theme.

•Two globes

•Some grassy plants

•Empty Wine Bottles

•The DIY nautical flags

•Towel Elephant

•Skipper Hat ($10 at Party City)

•Fabric with a water pattern on it (Joanns)

•Left over rope from the flags

•Vintage Suitcase

•Burlap for table cover

Vintage 1st Birthday

I started planning McKinley's 1st birthday right after he was born. He was about three weeks old to be exact. I came across this blog, Young House Love. 

They did a photo "quilt" with their daughter. It was amazing! {check it out here}

I NEEDED to do this with McKinley! I was too late to do a weekly one, so I opted for a monthly one.

Here's how it turned out!

Now you're probably wondering how this has anything to do with his 1st birthday. Well, really it has EVERYTHING to do with it. I planned the entire party around the colors of the fabrics used in the photo quilt. In fact, I used the actual fabric to make most of his decorations. It truly was so special!

DIY Number Wreath . . . tutorial coming soon! 

The brothers . . .

DIY Hot Air Balloon Paper Lanterns . . .

Notice the bunting flags hanging from the ceiling . . . made from the 12 fabrics!

Vintage paper straws, coordinating balloons . . . a vintage flair.

McKinley's Cake . . . simple . . . DIY Cake topper

Bunting cake topper

DIY Fabric covered party hats

The Food labels were all handmade by myself and coordinated with the invite (below)

DIY hand sewn paper napkins & yarn wrapped letters

Photo credits to the amazingly talented Kim Klein Photography LLC

Yoshi Birthday Party

So this party was from LAST August. But since I didn't start this blog until recently, I am posting it now. Maxim (my middle son) fell in love with Yoshi from the Super Mario Brothers. Maybe its because he loves dinosaurs in general, but for some reason, last summer was ALL about Yoshi.

So for his third birthday we had a Yoshi/Mario Brothers themed party. This party was SUCH a DIYers dream! Almost all of the decorations were hand made. And they turned out so fantastic!

First off, food labels. Gotta have them! These were simple. Found the clip art from Mario Brothers online and used photoshop to just make simple labels. Then I used pinking scissors to cut them out and glued them onto coordinating cardstock. 

For these food labels I made up funny names that went with the theme. It was a family party and I knew that no one is allergic to anything so it wasn't necessary to put descriptions and actual names of the food on the labels.

Ok, so this might look a little off, but I promise its just food coloring! What Yoshi party would be complete without Yoshi Egg Potato Salad?

Here is the main table. Some apects from Nintendo that I wanted to have were the yellow question mark boxes, the green pipes, a fire flower and a Gumba (little brown thing on top of pipe)

This Cake was the base of the entire party. Maxim saw one online months before and was adamant about having the "Yoshi Race Car Cake". Lucky for me, my mother has a friend who is extremely talented in the art of cake decorating AND she owed her a favor. Works for me! Isn't it amazing!

This was MY personal favorite decoration from the party. Totally DIY! And made with things you never would expect. Tutorial {here}.

And then to make it even better, I stuffed it with Mario Brothers Fruitsnacks and Cinnamon Candy in the top!

Another DIY project. Bought the chair for $5 at Hobby Lobby. I used iron on transfer paper, printed the Yoshi and name on my printer and ironed it on! Special seat for the birthday boy!

We had a photo op made out of matt board and painted to look like a Nintendo game. I made foam mustaches and hats for them to use!

Me and a couple of my closest girlfriends just HAD to get in on a photo too!

Printables | Hollywood Food Labels

The food labels that I used for the Hollywood themed dessert table were from {here}.

All I did was download the PDF version given on the site. Save it as a jpeg file and then pull it up into photoshop to add my font. Then just PRINT!

I am a firm believer in having food labels. Not only do they give it a finished look, but they serve a very important purpose in telling people what they are about to eat. There are SO many food allergies out there. And I would never want to be responsible for someone eating something they shouldn't and sending them into anaphylactic shock. Nope, that wouldn't not be good.

Sometimes I like to make up funny names for the food to go with the theme. But I always try and put in smaller font what is IN the food as well. Normally at my family parties I don't have to be as careful as I know that no one is allergic to anything.