Drew's Frozen Inspired 4th Birthday Party

Last month, we celebrated my baby's fourth birthday.  Like every other mom of a little girl this year, a Frozen party was imminent.  Let It Go had been played in a constant loop in our house, making my husband seriously consider checking himself into a loony bin.  BUT I do love this movie, and it was so easy to find inspiration. 

I usually start my party-planning juices flowing by starting with a color scheme.  I saw a lot of the parties that were on Pinterest and most of them were all about Elsa and the icy colors.  I decided to play off of Anna & Elsa's dresses.  I did not want anything literal "Frozen" in the decor.  First up, was the invitation design.  Whenever I can, I always prefer a invitation via mail versus an E-vite.  Don't get me wrong, I love E-vites and have used them tons, but for this party, I wanted to set the tone early.  I collaborated with Colleen from Outside The Bloom. Colleen has the most beautiful handwriting and completely "got" what I was going for.  We added some glitter and washi tape and the invites were on their way!

I was completely inspired by a fringe curtain I saw on Pinterest awhile back and decided to give it a go.  It was really easy, but definitely took alot of time and glue!  

Are you in love with peg dolls as much as I am?  I think they are just the cutest.  I thought that I would give it a go and try my hand at doing some.  Off I went to Michael's and I was so happy with how they turned out!  

 

Next up was a floral "4" to hang at the party.  I grabbed a piece of cardboard and just drew a giant four on it.  I cut it out and got out my glue gun and wah-la!  

 

 

 I found these adorable free printables from Bakingdom by doing a google search!  I just loved that they had rosemaling.  They added the perfect addition to my walls! I ended up using these on our front gate and a few other places throughout the house. 

You have to admit, Frozen has a lot of funny moments.  Anna always has the best lines, but if you really pay attention, Kristoff has some of the best lines.  When I met with Colleen, I knew I wanted to highlight some of my favorite quotes from the movie, and I could not have been more happy with the designs she came up with! 

 Here are some other details that Colleen helped with!

 

 

Now it was time to get the party started!  Us here in San Diego had the hottest, longest summer ever.  Yes, we are spoiled, but we love when summer starts to wind down and we get to trade in our flip flops for an occasional boot.  Maybe even an Ugg boot if we're lucky in December.  But, this September was so stinkin' hot, we decided to do a little twist on Frozen and get frozen shave ice.  Sno Cal Shave Ice was so awesome and served our guests as they arrived.  It was a perfect way to start our party off with a frozen treat!  

And then, a Frozen party would not be complete for a four year old without Elsa & Anna in the flesh.  This princess phase won't be around forever and I will always remember that look of awe and happiness on her face! 

These ladies from Royal Entertainers were amazing.  Not only were they absolutely beautiful, they were so talented....so great with the girls and both had amazing voices.   I worked with Royal Entertainers last year, when Cinderella paid us a visit.  They were so great to work with and were happy to accommodate my kinda-random request to have Anna do braids in the girl's hair! 

The finale of any party is the cake!  I worked with Crimson Cake this year and I could not be happier.  As mentioned above, I didn't want anything "literal" at the party.  I used the dresses as inspiration and it really was a great centerpiece. 

 

I took a picture of each girl with Elsa & Anna with an Instax camera that I borrowed from a friend.  I got this awesome glitter paper from Michael's and cut it down and taped the picture on for the girls.  Drew still has hers next to her bed!  

Lastly, I had so much fun with the goodie bags! Drew loves bracelets and to accessorize.  It's her thing.  So, I wanted to do a personal, handmade touch to the goodie bags, so I made some Elsa inspired bracelets. 

Then we had to have lots of fun other stuff in there too!  What girl doesn't love lip gloss, chapstick, Frozen hair ties, tattoos, and Elsa's ice crystals (aka rock candy)!

 

A huge thank you to my very talented friend Leigh, of Leigh Castelli Photography for taking pictures of everything today and catching this special moment with my little.

  Hope you enjoyed the pictures! 

Glitter Reindeer

Hi all!  Welcome to October!  The holiday season is upon us already, which is hard to believe!  Recently, the glitter reindeer I did for last Christmas has been making its way around Pinterest, most noteably re-pinned by the Glitter Guide, fittingly.  Here is the original post and tutorial.

Kristin from Bliss At Home found me from Pinterest and let me know that she did her own glitter reindeer, inspired by mine.  Love the way hers turned out!  Check out her post here. 

I have a bunch of new projects up my sleeve that I'll be posting soon!  In the meantime, if you'd like to follow me on Pinterest, find me here! 

Drew's Pretty Picnic Party

“Picnic: Originally, a fashionable social entertainment in which each person present contributed a share of the provisions: no, a pleasure party including an excursion to some spot in the country where all partake of a repast out of doors.” – Oxford English Dictionary

My baby girl, Drew Elizabeth turned two on September 2nd.  I started planning early on in the summer so that I'd have plenty of time to get all the details in that I wanted.  The theme I chose was a "Pretty Picnic Party", with a little bit of a twist.  No, there were no eating on picnic blankets or traditional picnic baskets, but we had a great time outside with our friends.

I ordered very simple invitations from Tiny Prints and lined the inside of the plain envelopes with this awesome pink ombre napkins from Target. 

This was a super easy DIY project.  I found the idea on Pinterest, which is hugely becoming a great place to find great inspiration for all things, but especially parties!  You can follow me here.  Once I had selected my fabrics, I glued them into Mason jars and used them as vases. 

Some of my favorite flowers were available at the flower market before the party and I was so excited.  Feverfew (mini daisies) and anemones!  I put them in these adorable berry baskets from Sweet Lulu. 

Here is the food table before all the food got set out.  

 The drink station...

The adults had glass Mason jars, but the kids had these awesome plastic bottles from Sweet Lulu that I added chalkboard labels to.

 To make the lemonade a little more "fun", we had mango and strawberry purees that guests could mix in.  It was delicious!

I used these cute baskets from Garnish.  Below are the kids baskets which included a heart shaped PB&J, a fruit cup, and mac n cheese.  Oh and a little Pocky on the side!  The bags, fruit cups, and zig zag spoons are from Sweet Lulu.  The chips bags were an easy DIY.  I got the craft paper bags from Michael's, as well as the doiles.  I found the "D" stamp in the $1 bin at Michael's and wah-la! 

Below are the adult picnic baskets.  I stamped the cute "2" from Paper Source on the treat bags, which included yummy turkey sandwiches.  I made the potato salad and the green salad in the cup. It was so fun for guests to be able to just go grab their basket and have everything in there.

This is our gelato stand!  My dad made this for me from scratch!  The backdrop is a vintage sheet that I found at an estate sale.  The cute chalkboard sign is from the $1 bin at Target.  My dad and I made the tarp on top and I did the banner. So happy with how it turned out! 

Next to the gelato stand is the cake and lace chandelier.  I had so much fun making the quirky toy mouse chandelier for Drew's 1st Kitty Cat birthday, I thought I'd try something again.  Thinking of hanging it in her room I love it so much!  DIY instructions coming soon!

 I made miniature #2 sugar cookies to stick on top of the gelato.

How amazing does this gelato look?  It tasted just as amazing!  We even had sample spoons for people to try.  The strawberry, salted caramel, and brown-sugar sour cream gelato was from EscoGelato.  If you live in San Diego County, you've got to check them out!  The lemon cheesecake gelato was from Bubby's in Encinitas, another local favorite. 

 There is my Micah, taking a break from the bouncie to get some gelato. 

 A Jones birthday party is not complete without a banana truffle cake from CAKE.  The wire topper was done by my dad, and we'll be adding a collection to our Etsy shop soon! 

Here is the birthday girl when we sang to her.  As you can see, she wasn't too excited by all the singing.  This is a preview of the face I get when I tell her "no". 

 Here she is a bit happier with her gelato! 

As favors, we had pints (from Sweet Lulu, as almost all of our parties supplies are always from!) of gelato for guest to take home and miniature "pie bits" from the amazing Elizabethan Desserts.  Some of our guests got inventive and combined the apple crumb pie with the brown sugar-sour cream gelato.  I had a taste and it was amazing!  Below, I got a simple chalk board and just attached a few doiles from Michael's.  P.S. A chalk pen is a must! 

 I had so much fun with this party!  It was girly and vintage and sweet.  It was really fun to spend time with our closest family and friends to celebrate my beautiful baby girl on her special day.  Hope you enjoyed!  Plan on seeing the gelato stand make appearances at many more parties to come.  Now, on to planning Micah's 4th birthday in December!