alphabet party!

Meet Max, the newly-turned two year old! He is modeling the alphabet shirt that grandma made for his party. I'm finally blogging his party...only a month after, not bad, right?!

The table:

The invites:

This was my plan for the invites...I sewed together two sides of the invitation with red yarn and put the name of Max's friend inside! Unfortunately, mommy wanted to invite her friends too, so I ended up just printing the invites on the front and back, but I loved the idea! I found these little wood letters at the dollar store to make the names.

Here is the party hat my mom and I made for Max...I am so in love with it that it is still being used as my table centerpiece in my kitchen!

Too bad Max hated it though...

His birthday cake! (See next post for a tutorial!)

These cupcakes were simple...but there is just something about piping up the frosting that makes them sooooo cute! I found the mini-letter tiles at Wal-Mart.

A couple of the party guests...

I made party hats with letters glued on for Max's little friends.

Decor...M&M's, letter stamps, alphabits, and letter beads.

My mom made this darling alphabet tablecloth for the party. Picked up the plates at Zurcher's.

My grandma found alphabet letter candy at Cost Plus World Market...it was a HIT!

Max's banner:

We decorated the floor with these alphabet tiles to match the cupcakes!

My favorite part of the party was these alphabet tater-tots! The party was at 10 am so we served them for breakfast. I found them at Harmons.

More decor...

My friend Kara found these AWESOME Dick and Jane style vintage letter books at Costco, and let me borrow the letters to Max's name.

My favorite quilt from my mom...guess what it has on it! Numbers! Just kidding.

We found these huge letters at Jo-Ann's and spray painted them blue.

I was going to hand out little bags of alphabits as favors with a letter stamp attached, but I ran out of time! (as usual...)

This is the thank you I sent out to the guests!

Lost Party

I've been so excited for my turn to host the monthly movie night for a group of girls in my neighborhood! I've been collecting some really cute tropical ideas, I've been dying to make Lost cupcakes, and Lost is my favorite show (after Frasier, but it isn't on anymore), so it was a perfect theme! Above are the invites...with my personal info changed, of course...I don't really live on "john doe"-doe street. :)

This is also a perfect post to celebrate Lost's Emmy nom for Best Drama! Yay! (Even though the actors were ignored...)

So now it's time for some doughdough-ness. Make that dodo-mess.

So I've tried twice now to make a blue jello mold with swedish fish in it. You can see what a success the first one was...NOT! I thought maybe I didn't refrigerate it long enough...or maybe it was all the non-stick spray I coated on the pan...not to worry, I thought, we all have recipes that don't work the first time, I'll just do it again!

Here's attempt #2:

Oops. I'm notorious for having butterfingers.

Lovely. And I'm not just talking about the weird use of flash and the shadow in my picture!

One of my friends suggested maybe I needed to use a Jello Jiggler recipe since it makes a firmer mold. I thought I must have read the recipe wrong, but no! It just said to follow a regular jello recipe. So I give up. For today! Someday I'll have that perfect jello ring mold to create the luau centerpiece by Lori Needham that I saw in the June/July 2003 edition of Taste of Home magazine. The mold had a pineapple in the center with fruit kabobs coming out of it.

I also got the idea for this palm tree in the same article:

Isn't this fun? The palm tree "leaves" are made from green peppers, the trunk is a carrot, and the "island" base is half of a potato! It was super easy to make, as long as you are able to take your time so you don't slice your finger like I almost did! You can see my jello mold salvage...I actually think it looked more like water than the mold would have. You can also see that the Swedish fish have a major case of pruny-ness from being in the water too long!

Since this blog is supposed to show that I am learning things, I'll share my new knowledge...how to cut a melon! Okay, I won't really tell you because I'm sure you know and you are laughing at me right now. I honestly had to ask my friends how I should cut the melon and serve it. (If you're thinking that means I wasn't ready when my guests arrived, you're right! I'm always running late, which is why I could never be a party planner.)

When I went to get a bowl for the melon, I decided to put it in the melon instead! Cute, no?

Plates and napkins for the party:

Last, but not least, Lost cupcakes! I LOVE these! I got the idea for the plane and sand from myaimistrue's lost party post. (Check out her fish biscuit cookies, too!) My husband came up with the idea to put Jack on them...okay, I think he said one of the characters, I picked Jack.

Here's another tropical party idea that I saw in a magazine awhile ago, and I can't remember which one! Pirate chests made from Swiss Rolls! I thought they were cute with Rolos or gold coins. Aren't they fun? Great for a Pirates of the Carribean party!

Cutest Invitations I have ever seen!

Since I'm still on a Dr. Seuss kick, I wanted to share these adorable invites my friend Kara of Kara's Party Ideas made for a Dr.Seuss baby shower! I LOVE the poem!