Three and Free :: birthday celebration

Yesterday we celebrated my son and his girlfriend turning 3. The two of them began being friends while still in our bellies --So yes, they have literally grown up together :) This was the first time I had done a joint birthday party and I must say, I LOVED it! I always have more fun planning something when others are involved. It was great to come up with ideas together and then split some of the executing. Not to mention our children adore each other and we can never get enough of watching the two of them play. Huge thanks to my friend Diane who was a perfect co-host and who had the perfect house for this event.

Since it was a coed birthday we did a simple ice cream theme with a mix of pastel colors. On our list of must haves, a photo backdrop was pretty high up there. So we took some old (free) pallets that had been sitting on the side of my house for way too long and gave the hubbies a job ;) I must say I give them major props. It turned out just as I hoped and they did a fabulous job in a very timely fashion.

The birthday morning was filled with smiles, laughter, sweets, more sweets, good chatter, running around, and even a donut eating contest. This was a beautiful gathering and celebration for both the kiddos and adults. I can't believe my son is three!

chalk talk :: diy on a dime

My son just turned 3 on Wednesday May 7th and next weekend we will be celebrating with a joint ice cream social party with his girlfriend Raelyn, born a week after him. He is an ice cream lover (like his mama), so this theme was perfect. Over the next week I will be posting some small diy projects that myself or my friend Diane have been working on.  And don't worry all will be quite cost effective, hence the subtitle -diy on a dime :)

We wanted a sign for the photo backdrop and loved the saying "I scream you scream we all scream for ice cream." Especially because we know a few kids may be screaming haha. Since I'm not great with free hand chalkboard lettering and because we don't want the kids to mess up the chalk when they hold the sign, I decided to work a little smarter and not harder. So yes- I just jumped on the computer and made it. Then for only $5.99 I printed it out as a 16x20 at costco and will frame it next. Here it is!

I also wanted to make a small one for the ice cream station and printed the below design in an 8x10 at home.

How to make any similar sign:
First you want to grab your background image. There are tons of free chalkboard backgrounds you can use. I found one from here.

Next is the fun part. You get to pick your fonts and then dream up any saying you want. If you don't have a lot downloaded you can get free ones at dafont.com. Here are the names of the ones I used written out so you can see what they look like. Super easy right?! If anyone would like the sign I made as a 16x20 for personal use just email me or you can use the files above to print an 8x10, Enjoy!

Winter One-derland

A few weeks ago we celebrated our baby girl's first birthday! I am not a big theme person so as Everly's first birthday was {quickly} approaching I knew I had to act fast. I normally just stick with a cute color scheme and work from there. BUT- the day before I was going to put invites out I came across this saying: "winter one-derland" and just loved the play on words! Since Everly is a December baby and turns one only once- this was a must! As many do, I searched the web for decor inspiration. I wanted a woodsy feel but with some subtle glam...and I think we got just that!

The awesome bonus about this party is that almost everything gets to stay up for the holidays too, woohoo!

I love photo backdrops and thought it would be fun to have one at Everly's birthday. I used fabric I was given from a friend and then some garland and snowflakes from the 99¢ store. Oh and I made this cute flag banner for $1. I just bought 2 sheets of sparkly scrapbook paper at michaels (on sale for  25¢ each) and you can get 3 flags out of one sheet. Then I used some ribbon off of a large spool that I have had for a while and just hot glue gunned them together. Easy peasy!

feeding daddy her cake...doesn't get much sweeter than this :)

Here are a few pics I had taken two weeks before Everly turned one so that I could use them for her invite. I am obsessed with large balloons so I needed an excuse to use them :) My toddler LOVED them too!