Thursday Brainstorm Party - Perennial Exchange Party

I thought I would devote Thursday's to a party brainstorm session. A dreaming session per say...If I were to have a party this is what I would do. Then whenever I get a chance to actually do this type of party I will be armed and ready...And unlike my idea notebook I will be able to find my ideas easily :). I hope you enjoy these ideas. If you have any ideas that could make my party even better please leave me a comment. Thanks and have a great Thursday!

For my first Thursday Brainstorm Party Idea this is actually a party I'm planning for end of July. I will be creating invitations next week and have already started gathering my supplies.

PERENNIAL EXCHANGE PARTY

THE GIST OF IT:
The party is all about the love of gardening and getting some new perennial flowers for your yard. Everyone will be asked to bring 6 starts of their favorite perennial flowers. If they do not have perennial flowers they will be encouraged to bring seeds for perennial flowers so they can participate. At the end of the party everyone will take 6 new starts of flowers. In my invitation I will include instructions on how to properly separate flowers from an online expert. For my flower starts... I plan to put them in a small pot, wrap them with burlap, make a pretty tag(From the garden of: Hope) and wrap them with a green or yellow ribbon.

THE TIME:
This party will be a lunchtime party for approx 10 people. Very casual and relaxed but with special touches.

THE FOOD:
I will be creating a salad bar and either sandwiches or lasagna for this lunch. I bought a salad bar blow up contraption from LTD commodities. It is very cute and I haven't had a chance to use it yet. It looks like a blow up long pool that has a cover. I will use my green glass bowl collection to put the salad ingredients in down in the ice. It should look nice I think. FOR DESSERT i haven't quite figured it out yet...Maybe some flower cupcakes and a fresh berry trifle. I have already bought some cans of yellow and green drinks to match the colors and I plan on buying some mountain dew and lemonade as well. I will probably make labels that says perennial exchange party or something to that effect. For the drinks I will either put them in my turtle pool from the cookout that I had or I would love to find a wheelbarrow to fill with ice and place them in there.

THE THEME:
Of course gardening will be the theme of this party. I have picked the colors yellow/green to tie everything together. I will use gardening containers to decorate with. I'm thinking burlap down the center of the table with tin cans of varying sizes down the center with fresh flowers. I scored some white lanterns with lights from big lots for $2.00 so I'm sure I'll hang them up everywhere and probably add some green and yellow birds, butterflies, or polka dots to them to match the theme. If I can find some flower picks I will use them in the salad bar to name all the things(green pepper, onions, bacon, carrots, etc) I also may cut out some flowers from cardboard boxes and decoupage them with scrapbook paper for the back wall of the deck if we end up putting the table up there.

FAVORS:
Gardening Gloves stuffed with tissue paper at each place setting and a seed packet wrapped with a ribbon around them. I possibly might make some flower pens with my dd too. She loves to give things out to people. I bought a couple of butterfly knee cushions that will be the children's gifts if they come to the party. I will probably use them for the children's table on the back of their chairs. They are yellow and should look really good with everything else.

ACTIVITY:
Since my mother-in-law is a master gardener I have asked her to do a container garden demonstration for everyone at the party. We will use this container garden as the door prize for everyone that attends. I'll probably just pull the name out of a hat or maybe before then I'll come up with something more creative. If we have several children show up I would like to have an activity for them as well. I'm thinking of finding some large rocks and cleaning them up so they can paint them for their mom's flower garden. If I do this I'll have to make/buy some painting smocks so they don't get paint all over them. Still thinking on that.

Look for pictures from this party near the end of July.

Comments Welcomed

Hope XOXO

Casual Cookout

My dh wanted to have a casual get together for work. He said upfront I couldn't make cutesy stuff or mess up the house making things for the party. So I went on a hunt for some cute things to put the food in...we had to eat right? I found a plastic bird bath that was great for the relish tray. I also found the flower pot saucers for the chips and dip. But my favorite of all was the turtle kiddie pool that we filled with ice and put all the drinks in. It was $10 bucks at Walmart and they had a hippo too but I thought the turtle went better with the outdoor/cookout party we were having. I also plan to reuse all of these containers at a garden themed party I'm having later in the month. Have you found any unique containers for food that you just loved?

Hope XOXO

Party Idea Notebook

I have 3 parties coming up in July so I'm really busy with the planning phases right now. I just wanted to share how I keep track of all my crazy ideas. I keep a notebook with me at all times to sketch out ideas and write down anything that pops in my head about parties. It never fails when I'm trying to go to sleep at night a party idea springs in my head and I need my idea notebook. Here is the page I have started for a fishing birthday party for my 8 year old nephew in July. I like to sketch ideas and brainstorm anything I can think of. Some of it gets used and others ideas get scratched but I always have it to look back on after the party is over. I plan on using bobbers as the main feature of this party. I'm going to try to make large red/white bobbers to hang from the picnic shelter. I might use plastic bowls glued together or make them out of fabric, or use the throw away plastic bowls to try and work them out. I'm also going to try and make fake fishing poles out of pretzel rods, life savers, twizzlers, and swedish fish. Check back soon to see if they turn out :)

How does everyone else keep track of their ideas?

Banner Ideas

For fathers day why not make a tie banner. I plan on adding some letters to each tie to spell out FATHER and hanging it up on father's day. Here's how you do it:

1.) place two ties side by side and set your sewing machine on zig zag stitch.

2.) sew approximately 15 inches up from the bottom of the ties.

3.) make 6 of these 2 tie sets

4.) use rotary cutter to cut 14 inch tie banners

5.) cut off small area of remaining tie pieces to use as the banner base.

6.) sew small pieces right sides together to make long piece

7.) place tie side by side pieces right side together with small tie long piece to create banner.

8.) flip over small piece and sew again to make the tie banner pieces lay flat.

9.)Add letters or just tie up to decorate for Father's Day.

ENJOY!!!!

XOXO....Hope

Another idea to use for a banner is discontinued upholstery swatches. Since they are already bound you would just need to put them together with some ribbon and add some letters and they are usually in the same color family.

Chalkcloth Drink Tags

I think these are called wine tags but around here we drink more water than wine so I'll just call them Drink Tags. Here's how you make it:

1.) Find a round object and trace onto the chalkcloth. Then cut it out.
2.) Cut out 2 pieces of tablecloth slightly larger than the chalkcloth round piece.
3.) Place 2 round tablecloth pieces right sides together and sew around leaving an opening to turn.
4.) Turn and top stitch the opening.
5.) Place chalkcloth round piece in the middle of tablecloth front and zig zag stitch around it.
6.) Punch a hole in the tablecloth piece near where you closed the opening and feed ribbon through it.
7.) Tie onto glass, write name or initial on the chalkcoth and always know which glass is yours :)

ENJOY!

XOXO....Hope

Thank You Creative Parties and Showers

I am so excited to be featured over at one of the COOLEST PARTY BLOG's around today. Run over there and check out all the amazing parties and give her a comment to let her know we love her blog!!!

http://creativepartiesandshowers.blogspot.com


Hope XOXOXO

Chalkcloth Mini Flag

I created this chalkcloth mini flag for my front entrance. I took an existing flag and laid it on top of the chalkcloth to get a template. I left enough fabric to fold down and sew a pocket to slide onto the flag pole. I then took pre-made double fold binding tape and sewed it around the edges so the chalkcloth didn't curl up. Now I can use this flag to announce all my upcoming parties and everyday events. I took pictures of a few examples.

Some other ideas.....I think this would be great for a realtor to use at Open House events. How about using this to announce your upcoming yard sale in your front yard? I think this would also be a great teacher's present as well. Can you think of any other ideas? I would love to hear them.

Kindergarten Graduation Party

My daughter graduated from Kindergarten this year. After the ceremony I planned a little party for my daughter and her classmates. We set the tables with red tablecloths and put a 12X12 piece of white cardstock down so the plates I created would show up on the tablecloths.

The graduation hat plates were created by placing a square red plate on an upside down red bowl. I glued them together and placed a soup can on the top so it would stick. Once the plates and bowls were glued together I punched a hole in the corner of one the plates using a hand held hole punch and then I created a tassle with white embroidery floss and gold ribbon to tie through the hole in the plate.

I went to the party store and found smiley face pics with graduation hats to use for the cupcakes. I scanned in the yearbook pics and cut the children's faces in circles to use on the pics(NOTE: place these on the cupcakes right before the party so the icing doesn't get on the pics) The kids really enjoyed looking at themselves on the cupcakes.

I also created a centerpiece for the punch table titled "SMARTIES". I took wooden skewers, glue dots, smarties, and ribbon and made smartie pics. On each smartie pic I placed the childrens pics. I also bought a couple of the larger smartie packages for the teachers pics. It turned out really cute. I used a wallpaper tray painted in school colors and floral foam as the base of my Smartie centerpiece.

For the goodie 'bags' I bought to-go containers from Sam's warehouse to hold all the goodies. The goody containers each had a small chalkboard with the child's name written in chalk on the top. They include a small box of chalk, a diploma made out of fruit rollups, white paper, and ribbon, goldfish crackers(adapted this idea from ReneeDezember on 2peas), a button that I made out of paper and ribbon that said I graduated from Kindergarten Today, and a single kool-aid pack that said "Have a Kool Summer".

I also had to make some adorable graduation pops from Bakerella.

I hope you enjoyed these ideas and I hope that you can use some for your next graduation party.

Bridal Shower Collage - Sarah and Evan

I just learned how to do collages so I put together one for the bridal shower I threw a couple weeks ago for my cousin Sarah.