Our productive weekend

Wheeew, what a busy weekend...and man, was it a hot one! We had planned to go to the zoo in the evening on Saturday, but it was just too darn hot - so I was busy crafting away and getting the house ready for Drew's birthday party. I thought I'd share some of the fun things I've been working on.

I put the final touches on this huge canvas I did for Micah's room. Micah loves Dr. Seuss, and I love the title of this book. All that is left to do is to hang it up and find a cute globe to put on his dresser.

I decided to give our hallway a little pop of color. It is very pink. I was going for a raspberry, but all in all, I'm happy with it. You can also see a little sneak peek at the decor I started to put up for Drew's kitty cat party. Yarn poms are everywhere!!!

Here is a picture of our family calendar I just got from Paper Source. I put an open frame around it to make it a little more "stylish". It also serves as a place to set the Sharpies.

I also wanted to do a little sprucing up to our guest bathroom. I changed out the mirror to this black and gold one I found at Aaron Brothers (1/2 0ff), of all places. I added a little shelf for some fun decorative items from Anthropologie.

To tie in the hallway color, I did this little piece of art to add just a little pop in the room. I'm hoping to find some great brass piece soon for the wall...just waiting for something to jump out at me.

Lastly, we ended the weekend with our tradition of homemade soft pretzels and popcorn. My baby girl has started walking and has a new tooth coming in, so it has also been an eventful weekend as well! Hope everyone had a great weekend! Stay posted to see my finished dining room and more pictures of my projects for Drew's party!

Happy Anniversary mom & dad

44 years ago today, my parents were married! Quite an accomplishment these days! For their 40th anniversary, I decided to throw them a surprise party at our house. My mom HATES surprises. That didn't stop me. It just so happened that my sister and her family were out visiting from Tennessee for their high school reunion. With my brother and sisters help, we were able to pull it off!

As with any good party, I started with the theme. I'm not usually a "red" girl, but the 40th wedding anniversary is the Ruby, so it was a great excuse to go all out on the red color scheme. To keep things easy, we just did a few desserts, champagne toast, cake and coffee. I'm disappointed I didn't have enough time to more pictures! Note to self: have a designated person to take all the detail shots while you are scrambling like crazy!


Here are some of the desserts. I kept it really simple with chocolate covered strawberries and my mom's famous jello recipe in little cups. You can't really tell in the picture, but I labored over those champagne glasses for weeks. Each one has a cluster of red gems for a little flare!

Here is the line up of guests waiting for my parents to come in. On the invitation, I had requested that all the guests incorporate red into their attire. 60 people and all....it was like built in house decorations!

Here they are....my mom a little annoyed and a lot surprised! We had told them we were going out to a great new dessert place, so they didn't suspect anything with a 7:00 arrival time.

This is my niece, Casey outside. I had rented a few belly bars and linens for our deck outside. I did red roses and pomanders of red carnations.

Here is a shot of the deck. I used red lanterns and tissue poms hung over the deck.


Perhaps one of the most fun projects from the party was re-creating their wedding cake. I worked with my favorite ladies at CAKE and got their famous banana truffle cake. I sent them a picture of my parent's wedding cake, and did our best to re-create it. It was actually hard to find the flying doves and the cherubs! I set a picture of them cutting the cake next to their cake. The irony of it was that my mom's wedding colors were red and white, so it went perfectly with the theme!

Here they are after their toast! You can kind of see the cake here.


When my cousin Sara arrived, she was looking at the cake and I saw her studying it a bit. She later told me that she thought I had gone crazy with my taste level. She didn't realize until later that I had re-created their cake! Hilarious. I still laugh when I think what she must have been thinking! After the cake, we surprised them with a video we created in iPhoto of all their pictures through the years. This was a collaborative effort between us kids and me sneaking into my parent's house many, many times over my lunch breaks! We toasted them and took this family picture. Since then, we've added my niece Avery and our two kids to the family.

Next year is their 45th. That is the sapphire anniversary....my wheels are already spinning!

Happy Anniversary mom and dad. I love you!

Sneak Peek at last weekend's wedding

Happy Friday everyone! Last weekend I had the pleausre of working with the talented Bre Nelson from Joyful Weddings & Events on a wedding in Dana Point. It was a beautiful day and everything turned out beautifully! Here are some of the photos I snapped...

Check out some more sneak peek pictures from Brynn Alyson Photography here

The countdown begins

I am officially less than 1 month away from my daughter's first birthday party! It's kitty-cat theme central at our house. I can't wait to share with you all the fun stuff and ideas I am doing for the party.

Here is a little sneak peek at one project I'm working on. Yep, that's right. It's a toy mouse chandelier.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

The Children's Museum

We recently had a vacation. Well, let me re-phrase...daycare had a vacation, we had a stay-cation here in San Diego with our kids. Since our kiddos are still pretty young, we opted not to push it and go anywhere. That's not a bad thing, there is SO much to do in San Diego with kids.

We decided to try the Children's Museum downtown for the first time. I was so impressed with everything I saw...there was a bit of "eye candy" and inspiration in every room we encountered. I can't imagine what it was like seeing everything through my children's eyes.

First up was this amazing macrame...well, I'll just call it a macrame chandelier. I loved all the hanging string and dragon/snake looking "things". I'm so technical, aren't I? All you artists right now are cringing I bet!

This was a view from the bottom looking up at it. From the bottom you could tell the white piece looked more like a ghost. Since I'm knee deep in crafting craziness for Drew's party, this really gave me inspiration. I have yarn coming out my ears (kitty cat theme)! If you look up to the stairs, you can see several paper mache animal "heads". The museum is so on-trend!

It was a great surprise to learn that it was finger-painting Friday, which I knew Micah would love. Micah had never painted with his hands before. We have always used a brush, so he was a little unsure at first. He got more and more comfortable and had a great time!


Here I am with the kiddos...I had to have a picture in front of this amazing wall. I wanted to get behind the camera and get some great kid shots, but it was super hot and chances of getting either one of them to hold still with so much going on was going to be near impossible.


I loved this...they had a whole section devoted to chalkboards. It was like a huge graffiti wall done by kids. This was also on the bottom floor looking up. It was like a huge wrought iron fence, but it was made out of cardboard. It was quite stunning in person.

Here's a close up of the "fence" and my girly girl.

I don't know what this is or what to call it, but I love it.

Here is a picture of the rock climbing wall/room. I loved the swirls of paint. Again, I tried to get a cool shot of my kids in front of this wall, but no such luck.

Micah jumped right on to the wall, like he's done it a hundred times before...no big deal. Drew tried.

There was a huge table just full of wood blocks. I'm pretty sure Micah could have stayed there all day. Stacking and falling, stacking and falling, and on and on. I have to admit, my hubs and I looked at each other several times thinking the same thing....where are the anti-bacterial wipes?

Lastly, there was a whole bubble play area outside that also could have kept my kids busy for days. But, we were all getting hungry and quite hot, so we only stayed out here for awhile. Micah looks a little grumpy here, but trust me, he was having a blast. He was more annoyed that I was sticking the camera in his face and saying, "cheese" & "look at mommy" for the millionth time!
For $10 a person, this was definitely worth it. I can't wait to go back and I'm sure the kids feel the same way. What a great way to end our great week with the kids!

Dye Dipped Flower Pots

Obsessing over this post at Design*Sponge today! I love creative ways to re-invent table arrangements. This definitely sounds like a project in my near future! What a cute idea for an Easter table, huh?

Look how cool each pot looks...each a little different, but giving off a chic tie-dye look. Who knew? They used natural materials as their dye...I'm thinking that seems a little too much for me, so I'll be going the store-bought dye route. For the full post of instructions go here.

This reminds me of the amazing fabric posted on one of my favorite blogs, Coco + Kelley a few weeks ago seen here and here.

More fabrics like this amazing one can be found at Thai Silks. You have been warned...there is amazing fabric at this shop...I've got about 6 prints I have my eyes on!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! If anyone has done any recent tie-dye projects, email me!

Drew's birthday invite

The invites have finally been put in the mail. It's a kitty cat party! I have been hard at work getting everything ready for the party....lots and lots of projects! It has been so much fun and can't wait to share all the details with you!



Cali Mac Ink did a fabulous job on the invites, don't you think? If you have any custom invite, stationary, or graphic design needs, I highly recommend working with Keri! Contact her at quillin.kq@gmail.com

Happy Friday-Eve!