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I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! We were blessed to be surrounded by our loved ones for another year.

The holiday rush is finally over and I've enjoyed recovering the for the last two days. My niece's shower and wedding put me behind and I never did finish decorating this year. My sister-in-law Debbie was kind enough to host my husband's family for Christmas Eve. All we had to do was cook the food. I had my sister and father for Christmas dinner, which was nice after hosting both for 25-30 people for the last ten years. We were broke this year, so shopping was minimal. I spent the 8 days before Christmas crafting so I would at least have something small for everyone. I hope you like what my family and I made. Most of the gifts cost $5.00 or less and the bow and arrow sets were the biggest hit.

The little monster I made for my 1 year old nephew Collin. I had the fur, so the total cost was around $2.00.

Magnetic fishing game I made for Collin and his 7 year old brother Nathan. It cost about $6.00 to make because the bucket was $4.00.

I made a pair of these mailboxes. One for Collin and one for Nathan. My girls had a mailbox on their playhouse when they were little and they would play mail for hours! Felt by the yard is a steal when it is on sale at Joann's. The total for 2 mail sets, about $4.00.

The bow and arrow sets I made for several kids. The bows were made of spray painted 1/2" PVC, PVC caps, foam pipe insulation wrapped with electrical tape for the grip and nylon string. The arrows are 3/16" dowels with a groove cut in one end and capped with rubber erasers sprayed silver. The quivers are easy sew felt. Total cost, less that $4.00 for a small bow and around $5.00 for a teenage sized bow. My daughter's boyfriend was able to shoot his about 20 feet.

 

Some of the grown ups received these chalkboard snowmen and gingerbread men made of dollar store trays. They can be used by the front door to greet guests or near the tree. I thought it would be great for a countdown to Christmas for the little ones. The chalkboards have velcro on the back to make writing on them easier. They were around $5.00 each.

We had so much fun with these birdhouses. Debbie loves birds and I thought it would be fun if we each designed an ornament for her. The unfinished houses were $1.00 each at Joann's.

I spent a full day baking so everyone received homemade goodies. I filled in with a few inexpensive store bought gifts, but I honestly spent very little time shopping. It was nice this year to have the focus on family and being together. It's a tradition I hope to keep.

I will be posting some of the great finds I have picked up over the last few months, (but had no time to post) in the next couple of days. Until then....Happy New Year!

Kitchen Shower Part 3

The decor for the party was inexpensive. We made sixty-five tissue paper pom-poms in pastel colors from Dollar Tree for about $20.00. If you buy them pre cut and folded they are $2.00 to $5.00 each! It took my niece Lauren and I, and later my daughter Mary Kate, the better part of a day to make them. They were hung in all the gathering spaces and over our two buffets.

The centerpieces were made in an old enamelware colander, and two adorable pink vintage canisters I found at a yard sale a few weeks before the shower. I also made smaller arrangements in teacups to fill in the center of the table.

The tablecloths were all battenburg and came mostly from my mom's huge collection of tablecloths.

I mix matched the place settings because I didn't have twenty four of one set. I found the floral plates over ten years ago at St. Vincent De Paul's. I think the huge box of dishes was $20.00. The pink depression glass plates were my grandmother's and the French pink glass plates are the plates I offered on my blog last summer. Somewhere packed in my mother's garage is another set that I bought for her when I was ten.  The goldware was bought at Ross for my mom and dad's fiftieth wedding anniversary. I love having so many sets and prefer them to disposable utensils. The $100.00 investment ten years ago has saved me at least that much on plasticware! The napkins were made using $6.00 worth of fabric from Jo-Ann's. Our favor was a set of Dollar Store measuring cups and spoons with a recipe for a happy marriage attached. My wonderful husband did a beautiful job on the cards. 

When it came to staging the drink area I was stumped. Some vintage washtubs for the coolers would have been nice but I didn't have any. The answer came when my dad showed up with some vintage suitcases he wanted me to list. I thought they would be adorable packed with lacy things for the honeymoon! I lined the suitcases first with plastic bags to protect them from water damage then found Dollar Tree washbins that when cut down, fit the suitcases perfectly. We pre-cooled the drinks then set them on the ice right before the party. An iron changing table with a vintage look was covered with a tablecloth and served as our bar.

On the buffet I knew I wanted a dress form in an apron that I would then give to my
niece as a gift. My vintage dress form didn't look right with the color scheme so I painted a Danskin half-mannequin lime green and used her instead.

The apron was a labor of love. Between the towels I made and the apron I am all ruffled out! The apron was made from a white queen sized sheet I picked up at Goodwill on half price day for $3.00. I had a basic apron pattern that I shortened to give the apron a flirty party dress feel and then added seventeen rows of ruffles. I love the way it turned out and Kristin did too. She wore it all day. 

The cake plates for the buffet and desert buffet were made from Dollar Tree platters and yard sale candle holders. I sprayed them before hot gluing them together. My other favorite prop was my grandma's mixer. Once olive green, it is now perfectly pink and held a huge bowl of potato salad.

 

We had a lovely brunch of ham, mini frittatas, green been casserole, cinnamon french toast casserole, potato salad, fresh vegetables, and rolls. I was finally able to break out the chocolate fountain Kristin gave me last year for the dessert buffet. 

 It was a wonderful day for a wonderful girl.

The happy couple

Kitchen Shower Part 2

We played several games at Kristin's  Shower. As a mingler we handed each guest a card with an ingredient on it. They had to talk to other ladies and come up with a recipe having no more than six ingredients. The ladies were amazing and it was difficult to pick a winning team, but in the end Shrimp Scampi won. For another game, we covered spices bought at Dollar Tree with scrapbook paper to hide the labels and then numbered them. The spices were passed around and the ladies had to identify the spices by sight and smell. The guests who had the most correct answers won a prize. The bride was then given the spices to stock her pantry. Another game had the ladies try to name a selection of oddball vintage kitchen gadgets.

A collection of vintage kitchen gadgets

The favorite game was the toilet paper wedding dress game. Usually, the bride or a person from each team is dressed in a toilet paper dress. I wanted to give our ladies more time, so I decided to use mannequins. I found the mannequins on Craigslist. They were black and in rough shape, so I spray painted them pastel colors to match our theme. We provided 24 double rolls of toilet paper, tape, needles, thread and scissors. I was impressed with the dresses our teams made!

This dress had shoes, a veil and bouquet

Toilet paper chic

The winning dress

Notice the rosebud detail down the back

Because I had so many games, it meant I needed a lot of prizes. My budget was tight, so most of our prizes were dollar store items dressed up. The magnetic chalkboards were Dollar Tree silver trays painted with chalkboard paint. We glued ribbons to the back with hot glue then covered the entire back with felt. The magnets and felt were on sale at Jo-Ann's and the pearl and silver buttons I used for the magnets were 25¢ each at SAS. This brought my total for the chalkboards to about $1.75 each. The chalkboards are great to keep in the kitchen for messages or to write down grocery items as you run out.

I wanted all our friends to look lovely while they are doing the dishes.

My husband made the custom tags which I paired with Dollar Tree treat bags

I made a variety of colors and patterns

The glam gloves started with Dollar Tree rubber gloves. We lucked out because they actually had a good array of colors. The fabric I used came from Goodwill (some in the form of sheets), and my ever growing fabric stash. The only other cost was the grosgrain ribbon, which I bought half-off at Michael's (and it was also used on the coordinating towels). I opted to pleat the cuffs because I think it looks nicer than gathering. If I have time before Christmas, I will post a tutorial because they make GREAT gifts and cost about $1.50 to make.

The ruffled dish towels were made from flour sack towels I bought at Walmart for $5.00. When I opened them, they were double the width I needed so I cut them in half, hemmed them, and ended up with 10 towels for the price of five! I ironed, hemmed, and gathered three strips of fabric for each towel, added a band of ribbon and a bow, and came up with what I think is a darling towel for about 75¢ each.

Keeping with the kitchen theme, my sister embellished Dollar Tree coupon organizers (for beginners) with ribbon and rhinestones. I think they were adorable.

We filled the rest of the basket (also on an earlier bog) with dollar store kitchen items for a total of 65 prizes at about $65.00.

Maybe it seems excessive, but on several of the games we had a possibility of 24 winners per game. I think being a good hostess requires sometimes having too much, but never not enough.

We finished the night with the die-hards (it was a 13 hour party) with more pictures and a Bridal Pictionary game my darling daughter Mary Kate put together. She was my graphic designer for all the party games and she did an amazing job, especially considering it was mid-terms and she's an honors student! For Pictionary, we used a chalkboard I made with an old gold frame, 1/4-inch ply, and custom chalkboard paint in dark pink.

You can make chalkboard paint in any color by mixing 1 cup of latex paint with 2 Tbsp of grout. I used a foam roller to paint the plywood, but you could use any roller to transform a wall into a chalkboard. It's great for a child's room. 

I'll be back soon with more DIY's from the shower and wedding!

I Am Not The Hostess With The Mostess
I'm more like the hostess without two pennies to rub together! I know I haven't blogged in a long time. I have been busy with my girls and working on my niece's bridal shower and wedding. We wanted the shower to be a surprise so, as much as I wanted to post what we've been up to, I had to wait.

Our beautiful bride

My niece is also my Goddaughter and has always been a daughter in my eyes. She lost her mother when she was 7 and was raised by my mother who passed away 3 years ago. Almost her entire life I have lived less than a mile from her. She has been a joy and a blessing in my life. You may remember in an earlier post that I was taking a sabbatical from parties after throwing 15 last year. Dummy me, I volunteered to HELP the Maid of Honor with the shower (my 3 girls were bridesmaids) and I ended up throwing the shower. 

All my beautiful girls

The theme was vintage kitchen. Early on we decided to make a recipe scrapbook as a way to incorporate my niece's mother, grandmother, great grandmother, aunts and other important women in our lives who are no longer with us. The second half of the book is filled with the women who were at the shower, the women who are there to love and support her now. My oldest daughter and I put the book together and we sent out pages and embellishments with the invitations asking the guests to scrapbook a handwritten recipe and photo to include in her book. 

Our Scrapbook

One of her mom's pages

One of her grandmother's pages

One of Great Grandma's pages

Her sister's page

My page

Kristin absolutely loved it. I felt awful when she started to cry, but everyone assured me they were good tears.

The photo booth backdrop for the shower was made using the same paper (on sale at Michael's 6@$1.00). It was a huge hit. I made it from two sheets of 8 x 4, 1/4" ply. I had Home Depot cut a foot off the top of both pieces and one in half. The finished backdrop was 7' x 8'. The ply wanted to warp when standing so we glued 5 1x2 strips to the back. One in the center and the other 4 on the inside edges so we has something to screw the hinges into. It worked like a charm. The scrapbooking paper is 12" x 12" so no cutting was involved. The hardest part was laying out a pattern. It took a couple of extra trips to Michael's for additional page styles that weren't in the scrapbook (while the paper was still on sale) to give the backdrop the right overall look. We put the paper on using white glue and a foam brush. We thought about spray adhesive (which is a favorite of mine) or Modge Podge but because of the size it was too costly. We had to do a little smoothing to work out bubbles and creases, but the end result was fantastic!

My niece Lauren putting the paper on. 

I made a silverware chandelier for the booth to tie in with the kitchen theme. All the silverware I used was $3.00 on half price day at Goodwill. I tore apart two old lampshades I had laying around, (one small, and the smaller part of a large shade) to get the hoops to hang the silverware on. I thought I was doing great! A silverware chandelier for $3.00! Then I started drilling. I have a fantastic variable speed Dremel that takes drill bits and I bought bits made for drilling stainless steel. The spoons were a piece of cake. One drill bit did all 8, but I switched to a new one for the forks. Then my trouble began! I think I went through 4 bits on the forks. I did one knife and called it quits. Luckily my husband stepped in with the big drill, lots of muscle and several more bits and finished my knives! I strung the silverware and attached the hoops together with fishing line, then added some crystals from my collection. I think it turned out cute and it makes a great wind chime! 

We won't talk about how much I spent on drill bits. The lesson I learned, spend more money on the silverware and buy vintage pieces that are much easier to work with and prettier to look at!
The antique camelback trunks I had on my blog over the summer are off the market. My husband commandeered the huge one for his office. It now holds his watercolor board, mat board, poster board, and other art supplies.

The smaller trunk paired with a rickety antique coffee table I fixed, is a perfect place to hold and display props for the photo booth. Part of the lid compartment was missing and it was ideal for sticking containers full of sunglasses, lips and mustaches, blurbs and other small props in. The bottom of the trunk held hats, frying pans, rolling pins, frames and other large props. We also put a large mirror on the patio so everyone could see how silly or glamorous they looked before they had their picture taken. By the way, the photo booth including props, is available in the Metro Phoenix area for rent! I'll have more handmade party goodies to show you tomorrow.