Lilac and Lemon Baby Sprinkle

I had the honor of hosting a Baby Sprinkle for my sister in law Cori- Since their second child is a girl they needed to get a few “girly” essentials so it was fun to “sprinkle” them with love.

It really felt like Pinterest threw up all over our house for a few weeks while I prepped everything- but in the end it really was a lovely afternoon.

I am making this post photo heavy so I can Pin the pictures for posterity and for anyone else that may need some lemon and lilac inspiration 🙂

Decor:

I originally was shooting for it to be all indoors- but logistically I did not have enough seating to accommodate the guests especially during present opening which was the main activity for the day. Luckly Arizona was offering us some extremely lovely weather (as opposed to the weekend before when Seattle brought all the fog and rain for Superbowl)

I staged the welcome areas and dessert table in the front room

lots of “Dollar Store” decor was used—you can really turn a plain table insto something fabulous with just some construction paper and some lace.

Those Lemon bites are from Costco and they are DEVINE- I made the pretzel rods (easy peasy), the cupcakes were from the valentines section at Walmart Bakery and the Coconut dip is from here (so yummy with strawberries or graham crackers)

I made the Diaper wreath (super easy) I used a wooden wreath frame and some dollar store ribbon

We did the diaper notes which was a hit with everyone and I had sent out note cards in the invites for a diaper raffle- which I gave away simple little buckets of beauty goodies – the buckets were from the Target dollar bin and I just stuffed them with a loofah, nail polish, nail care kit, gum, and a packet bath salt

I HAD to do mason jars and paper straws for the drink station I just HAD to- it was like the first thing I envisioned when I started planning the party

People were supposed to take their mason jar home with them but only a few did- so yay for me I have like 20 mason jars!!

My girlfriend Destiny (frequent appearances on this blog when Pinterest is mentioned) and I made the tissue paper flowers- also super easy but time consuming. Do it while watching Downton Abby (we started by following this tutorial here but then ended up just winging it as we got towards the end of the tissue paper)

Food was real easy since it was a 2pm shower I only put out the sweets table and a few hors d’oeuvres in the kitchen.

The feta dip (recipe here) was RAVED about and it is one of my go to entertaining recipes– so easy and people just fall over themselves to eat it all up. As a play on “pregnancy cravings” I made some pickle pin wheels (recipe here but I used Ham instead)- these are so weirdly delicious– my sister in law absolutely loved them- and of course the pineapple kielbasa bites (recipe here) were devoured as well. I really need to always make a double batch of those bad boys because people really inhale them every time I put them out for an occasion. Lastly there was the Costco Greek Jalapeno Dip and pita chips and ranch and veggies. So as you can see minimal work- big pay off with everyone complimenting it all just how I like it!

Outside I was lucky to have several friends lend us chairs- the only hiccup was all the rain from the previous weekend really saturated the grassy areas so it was still so soft which meant chairs were sinking left and right like they were in quick sand….it was funny to watch. The garden arch was here when we bought the house so Jason and I moved it to a spot in the yard where I liked the “background” and I built off of that.

I used 2 yellow dollar store table clothes along the sides and top of the arch and we pinned a homemade tissue paper flower in the center. Then I hung home made purple dots bunting from the back (we connected it to  a piece of yarn to keep them from blowing around. Then we just strung some yarn over to the tree and hung a few of the outfits mom and I had bought as gifts and it looked great! This worked really well for a photobooth and to have Cori sit under for presents so there was a cute background in all the pictures.

I printed off some baby stuff and cool glasses for photo booth props off of Google images (sorry etsy I ain’t spending $10 to download photo booth props–super cute ones yes but my goal was for stuff to look great but be affordable- not everyone can go “all Pinterest etsy amazon” for every party they throw- so I had to make wise decisions to stay within my goal budget.

 

For party favors I did the play on “pop” with some popcorn tied up with ribbon-  I was busy snapping photos at the photo booth when people were heading out the door so either these were highly undesirable gifts or people just didn’t see them on the table by the door and take them cause I have all but 3 that I made. (just a note on that- your mileage may vary– I really wanted to do homemade bath salts with my young living essential oils but couldn’t bring myself to pay for the jars- I would have been devastated if no one took the salts if I had put the money and time into that project)

 

Overall it was a smashing success and I had a blast putting it on.

Can’t wait to hold the new baby girl at the end of March!

P.S as of posting this cousin Taryn STILL has not had her baby—she was 5 days overdue at the party— we love you T!!!

You can glance over all the ideas that I Pinned while planning this event here While you are at it- follow me on Pinterest 🙂

Happy Pinning!

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More Pinterest Inspirations

Since I did Harvest themed decor in the front room at the beginning of October

The autumn decor before the walls were painted

I really did not have any more fall specific crafts I have been dying to do- so I  am turning my focus to that blank wall in the entry.

The big mirror that is now on the north wall behind the dining table used to take a lot of that wall real estate up so I have always thought I needed to figure out some bigger chunkier pieces to fill in its spot.  I keep flip flopping between a grand family tree heritage legacy theme, a travel them and a general “decor” theme.  I spent a lot of time going through older photos trying to figure out which ones I would display and who in the family would get a spot on the wall- that was stressing me out!  I also could not decide if I liked the idea of doing all black and white photos (so turning more modern pictures black and white) or if having mixed media was more my preference and then I could not find a happy medium between the more traditional “posed” shots I liked and the more candid or less formal shots I liked so I ended up changing my mind on making that entire wall a family tree theme.  I might still create a small collage in the realm of “family tree” but it won’t be the whole wall- I had also really been drawn to travel type decor like rustic maps and compasses and what not- but dang it if all of that is not just “trendy” right now and making it all way pricey.  So I went ahead and went with “general decor” and the first item I wanted in that theme was a big chalk board so I could change out the design on it with the season.

So I pinned a lot of different homemade chalkboard ideas and ended up making one out of:

1- 2 feet x 4 feet sheet of chalkboard (less than $10 at Home Depot)

2- 1 in. x 3 in. x 6 ft. Select Pine Board-347294 at The Home Depot

and had them cut them into the frame sizes I needed which was 2- pieces of 1″ x 3″ cut to 48″  &  2-pieces of 1″ x 3″ cut to 19″

Some stain (I used Minwax Wood finish in “Red Oak”)

some wood glue, some clamps and some hanging hardware.

I really like how that turned out- the stain color is different than what I thought it would end up as but I like it better because its a good contrast with the rest of the browns and oaks in the room.

When I went into the chalkboard project I had envisioned it being horizontal and similar to the same space the mirror took up- but its more of a vertical piece which really changed my plans.  Those who know me know that I am obsessed with having things symmetrical- so I would need the chalk board centered and then 2 like items on either side of it in order to satisfy my OCD in that realm…problem is– if you look in that picture of the wall there is a vent in the wall that is NOT CENTERED and the wall itself is not exactly “centered” in the room either due to how it cuts back for the door

So any ideas I have for creating pieces that mirror one another that can hang on either side are just not working for me.  This shake up of my need to have “Feng shui” has been good though because now I am playing around with a few pieces of scrap wood in the garage that I have ignored because they are all different sizes and therefore could not be used since I don’t have a saw to make them symmetrical in size.

I still have a few finishing touches on the  other piece I made so I will post about that when it is complete and link it on this post and I need to come up with a few more things to hang on this wall as well so I am not hanging anything just yet until I know what I have and where it will go- but it’s a work in progress.

I am enlisting the help of a friend with a vinyl cutter to complete a cool sign after seeing how awful that chalk board writing turned out–I can handle the chalk board being wonky looking since it will change out all the time but I just do not have the steady hand even following the cool tutorials to paint a nice stencil or anything LOL.  Hey at least I recognize my limitations!

~More to come later~

 

 

Combo Living room & Dinining room Update

 

We have slowly been doing some updates to The Geroux Crew home and this one is probably one of my favorites.  Our front room was never really “put together” and pretty much housed random hodge podge furniture and our huge book shelves.  Of course this being the first thing you see when you come into our home it always made me feel discontent.  But we had just done the unplanned for staircase remodel so I knew the front room would likely be a future project down line.  Here are a few shots of the room in one of its stages after we moved in- the dingy off white walls, the really dated curtains and blinds and non working brass light fixture and the carpet- I don’t even want to know what is under or in that carpet.

 

If you follow me on facebook you know that when our good friends the Sages moved to Virginia that left us a nice sleeper couch and when our uncle and aunt did some down sizing there was some furniture gifting from them and our cousin as new to us became huge blessings.  So we shifted some furniture around to make the place feel more like the two rooms they actually are– the living room and the dining room.  I moved our large dining table out there as its colors just fit better out there and it seemed to be taking up too much space in the kitchen when we had it fully expanded (which seemed often) So contentment was really settling in and I was proud… I even got around to putting up a collage that contained the canvas prints from our family photo shoot last winter and we swapped out the light fixture too.

I really was not sure when we would be tacking some of the bigger projects in that room and had not really planned on it being any time soon, but Jason has been working his tail off and he really wanted to pour some of that extra income into our home so we went ahead and got the room painted and some new carpet installed as well as new window treatments.

 

I am SOOO very in love with this room now!!  My house feels so warm and inviting– the difference that the new carpet makes is just phenomenal and the paint is nice and rich and fresh.  This space now feels like OURS! I can not wait to see this place snazzied up for Christmas time.  The next project will be  planning what to do on the main entry wall on the west side of the room (left side of this picture below- I have some great ideas that will really celebrate family, heritage and legacy – so stay tuned for that!!

 

 

 

Happy October!

The crafting has continued- much to our checking accounts dismay.  Even being frugal and getting bargains at Dollar Tree to re-create things I have seen on Pinterest is taking a bite out of our budget- so I will need to try and scale back and put this habit into check.  For now here are the crafts I have completed in October so far (adding on each week):

October 1st

Even though we no longer burn candles (Essential Oils Baby!) I have been wanting some chunky candle holders to decorate with.  You can put all sorts of things on top of candle holders- but I am cheap and I could never find anything I liked so I finally attempted a Pinterst Dollar Store hack I saw and I am impressed enough with them that I am trying to double tiered version next.  The bases were $1 each and the toppers were a pack of 2 for $1 and the spray paint was something I had on hand from another project but would have spent $.98 on the walmart version if I had to buy it.  So these puppies would be $1.99 each 🙂 That makes me happy.

I also really really wanted to recreate a Halloween wreath that I saw that used the Dollar Store spider web decoration so I went to work on that as well.

I got all of the supplies from Dollar Tree for this- the wreath form, it took 2 of the black ribbon spools to cover the form and I bought the other 3 ribbon options to play with as well and the spider web embellishment. In all this one cost me prob about $7 total to make.

I actually had enough supplies to make 2 so I created a second version to gift to my mother in law. Happy Halloween mom! Thanks for always giving me holiday themed dish towels 🙂

October 2nd

 

Today I finished this quick little festive decoration.Even if I do NOT like candy corn, it makes a nice decoration.

I had saved a wine bottle from last Christmas (not big wine drinkers) and the other two are an empty cooking sherry bottle and an expired sweet chili sauce bottle that I dumped lol, so it cost me the spray paint all of $3.

October 4th

 For my “Autumn” themed decor in the living room I went with a very simple craft of tying some foliage to a few candles with some jute and placing them on the double tiered dollar store holders that I created (I decided to not paint them at this time and use them here instead but they will be so versatile and I can easily coat them with spray paint and use in any tablescape so I am really happy with them

I went ahead and splurged on some LED candles that have a timer on them that I found at Hobby Lobby- they were $4.99 each- I had the jute (but to buy it would have been 1.99) and I cut the 2 leaves off of another fall stem I had in my collection ( if you need to buy you can get some a stem at dollar store for a buck) and the double decker candle holder were $2 a piece so in total these 2 pieces cost around $17 if you have to buy everything including the candle holders- of course if you have stuff it is much less or if you use dollar store regular candles most people could purpose candles they have in their house already and many could even use real fall leaves instead of fake ones and you really do not even need to put them on candle holders even. and make this super cheap etc .  Since we do not burn candled anymore but I wanted the ambiance fo the candle look it was worth it for me rather then just having dust collecting non burned real candle.

This weekend we will pull out all of our Halloween decorations (including lights and decor for the yard because we live in a neighborhood that does up outside holiday decorations from October through December and it makes my heart burst with joy!) I really really want this Weenie Dog inflatable

so anyone want to gift that to me?? I will blog with some more decoration pictures next week.

How are you getting into the mood for October?

Fall means Pinterstification

I do not know why this time of year over others is more “crafty” for me but it just is.  Today my good friend Destiny and I got together and made a couple of our favorite fall wreath PINS into reality.We hit up Hobby Lobby for supplies last night after dinner and spent a good hour and a half figuring out what we wanted to create.  We had both originally wanted to create “faux” boxwood wreaths that we would “holiday” up but once we were in Hobby Lobby and surrounded by all of the fall stuff we changed gears.

 She settled on making an adorable burlap wreath with simple fall embellishments. She spent right around $13 for hers after sales and the hobby lobby coupon.

 She followed the burlap tutorial at Craftaholics Anonymous here and said while it was easy it was not a “15 minute project” and she secured her embellishments with a pipe cleaner and maybe a few dabs of hot glue.

 I went with a grapevine, embellishments, mod podged Initial bow version and mine was right at $22 after sales and the 40% off coupon(a bulk of that was the spool of ribbon)

I used the mod podge instructions from Fancy Frugal Life (who is one of my favorite blogger/pinteresters) and also happens to be a real life friend of Destiny’s and lives right here in AZ (we should all do a project together some time hint hint)  I followed the bow tutorial from Home Sweet Ruby here.  Both were pretty easy–then I secured the Initial to the vine by gluing a few snips of ribbon to the back and weaving a pipe cleaner through

Voila’!!! We are both itching to create more stuff now- gosh Pinterest is such a nasty yet productive habit! I guess it is better then always getting together over food- although that’s fun too.

Both of us plan on hanging them on mirrors in our homes- Here is mine:

Our next project is to create those cute candy corns we saw made with yarn and cones-YAY!!

Murder Mystery Party!

You are Cordially Invited to attend our Class
Reunion. For one night, we will be reliving the Good
Old Days of 1957! Attend this event to renew old
friendships and reacquaint yourself with people who have
probably changed as much as you have!

(game was purchased from http://www.dinnerandamurder.com)

“Linda and Lenny”

“Jenny and Johnny”

“Steven and Susan”

“Charles and Carol”

“Mark and Maria”

“Michael and Mary”

“Becky”

the cattiness started early- we all got into character real good!!!

interrogations

scheming

gossip

weapons scavenger hunting

Conniving

threats??

 

 

blackmail??

MURDER

 

 

Oscar worthy death by poison

Fun times!!