garland... a handful of hearts

with the ending of each season, my mind begins to spin with ideas for new garlands... i knew for valentines day, hearts would be the most expected...

 but i knew that i didn't want to use felt like i did with the trees... the pumpkins had such cute detailing with their stems and green, twirly vines... the posies have unique button centers...

 

i wanted to create something that had some dimension... years ago, i made a series of valentine's day t-shirts for one of maizie's sweet, pre-school teachers... each shirt featured a bunchy, ruffly heart in different pinks and reds... i had forgotten about them, until my mom mentioned that maybe that design would make a cute heart garland...

 

i gave it a try and love how they're turning out...

i've started a production line...

so many fun patterns and designs...

i found a few more fabrics to incorporate during my late night trip to the fabric store on monday evening...

these will be keeping me busy over the next few weeks... for that i am thankful...

 

how do you decorate for valentine's day?

 

xo

angie

 



marina's over the rainbow birthday party...

i mentioned a while back that marina had an over the rainbow birthday party... some of you may have even seen this picture on my instagram or facebook page... {it was just a little sneak peek photo that i took with my phone}...

my sweet friend michelle from mmgphotography was kind enough to offer to take pictures for me that day... and i'm really excited to share them with you...

first off... her birthday cake... marina's absolute favorite cake in the whole wide world is cookie cake... this little gem is from sam's club... a double layer of chocolate chip cookies with cute colorful polka dots... can't go wrong with that... {she had the same cake last year only with red and pink dots... all you have to do is ask the nice people at sam's to switch up the colors for you and they will :)}...

a peek into the dining room... i punched flower shapes from colorful card stock and stitched them together to create the rainbow garlands...

the white tissue paper pom poms hanging represented the clouds...

and i just layered our table with a white tablecloth and different fabric remnants in bright cheery colors and patterns...

in our breakfast nook... more fabric was layered as a table covering... another little detail from the day were the mason jar drinking glasses... i punched more of the rainbow colored flowers that i used for the garlands... and hand stamped each girls name onto a white sheet of paper... hole punched both and tied them around the neck of the jars with colorful fabric strips... {the stripey straws are from hobby lobby}...

{close up}

i had the most fun setting up the candy buffet... pink, hot pink, and orange pom poms hung from the ceiling from a mixture of bright ribbons... more of the paper punched garland was used as part of the backdrop...

the girls {l o v e d} this... they had so much fun filling up little cellophane bags with their treats...

{jolly rancher lollipops... how to here}

the birthday girl reaching for a ring pop...

do ya like her bracelet? this girl has her own little style... it's actually a napkin ring :)

each of these polka dottie felt squares contained a bracelet kit... 

my friend keri put together individual bags of colorful beads for each girl... 

the girls enjoyed this activity... they unrolled their felt square... laid out their beads in whatever pattern they wanted {the felt helped to keep the beads from rolling all about} and then they strung them... we attached the toggle clasps and each one of them went home with a hand made bracelet... 

{we were so busy finishing them up that we forgot to take a photo... oops... i promise... they were cute :)}

another request that marina had for her special day was a rainbow shirt... this request came the night before the party... we were out and about and there really wasn't anything rainbow-y enough so i bought a white shirt at target with hopes that i could do something cute to it prior the party... about an hour before the guests were to arrive, i was whipping up a shirt... {i'm always so last minute}... 

i was pretty happy with how it turned out because i wasn't quite sure how i was going to make it... i just started tearing strips of fabric... gathering... stitching... swirling the gathered white strips for the clouds... marina smiled so big when she saw that little shirt... it made all the crazy last minute rushing worth it...

 the girls did a lot of just dancing in between eating, happy birthday singing and gift opening... they were all so sweet and well behaved... i'd say the day was a success... 

marina was happy and that's what was most important to me... i hope that she'll always remember her over the rainbow party...

thanks for letting me share all of the details with you :)

and thanks so much to michelle for capturing my sweet girls 7th birthday...

have a happy day!

angie

a simple valentine garland...

 i have a thing for garlands... buntings... banners... paper chains... they can be fabric {images coming soon}, made from book pages {see here}, or made from pretty scrap booking papers sewn on the sewing machine {this style will be featured in an upcoming post about marina's over the rainbow birthday party}... they add a cute touch to the decor of a party and are festive when done in holiday colors...

today i wanted to share a simple valentine garland that i made with you...  i used different sized cupcake liners and bits of crepe paper that i tie-dyed...

{to tie-dye crepe paper:  add a small drop of food coloring in a shallow bowl of water... {you only need a thin layer of water because the crepe paper soaks it up quickly...} set the roll of crepe paper in the dyed water and when you see the color absorbing slightly up the sides of the roll, pull it out of the water... set it aside to dry... we have radiators in our home so the heat from the crepe paper rolls drying on them caused the edges to ruffle slightly but i was happy with that result :)}

since i made this last year, i don't have step by step pictures but it's pretty easy... i threaded the end of a very long strand of embroidery floss with a needle...

i sorted my decorative cupcake liners, smaller plain cupcake liners and snippets of crepe paper into piles...

i flattened out the cupcake liners as i went using a mixture of large and small, decorative and plain, with the crepe paper inner mixed, threaded onto the embroidery floss to create a "pouf" effect...

i repeated this step, spacing evenly down the length of my floss... i made ours long enough to hang across our mantle... 

it's a fun little project to do... minimal cost and a really cute turn out...

hope you enjoy making one of your own :)

have a happy day~

angie