The Big 3-0

My husband turned 30 so we had a little celebration in his honor. I didn't do a lot of decorating just a banner and some "over the hill" muffins. The banner was fun because I made it on my Silhouette. To make the letters I found some school notes Mike threw away in the trash can and made a copy of them. I thought they looked cool because they had all these nifty derivatives on the page.

Happy 80th

My grandma is one of the sweetest and most loving individuals I've ever met.

Every year for Christmas she gives each family a calendar with all of our birthdays and wedding anniversaries. Each year we get a birthday card from her and those that marry into the family also get a birthday card from Grandma A. I love that she always remembers us, even if the card is a few days late I know it's coming.

My grandma just turned 80. I decided it would be fun to put together a family photo calendar for her. My grandma had 7 kids so the calendar starts with the oldest child's family and goes down from there.

I used shutterfly.com to make this calendar. You can customize dates and add different backgrounds. I only wish they had more picture layouts or an option to customize. I hope she enjoys our calendar to her!

Balloon Birthday Bash

Yes we gave our one-year-old a birthday party and yes we know he won't ever remember but we will. Parties are fun and I had fun planning my child's first birthday party. My little guy loves balloons so we decided to give him an overload of balloons for his party.

Theme: Balloons

Invitation: Evite-it's free!

Decorations: Helium balloons and a balloon garland around our apartment. I got the garland idea from Martha Stewart's website.
My husband set-up a balloon screen saver on our TV/computer.

Activities: "UP" play fort, toys, and bubbles.
Bean Bag Toss. Box-diaper box, wrapping paper, construction paper. Bean bags-old jeans, left over fabric, pinto beans.

Treats: We did kid snacks, and adult snacks and tried to find puffy, circular things like quiche, creme puffs, jalapeno poppers, lil crunchers, watermelon balls etc.

Cake: When we were brainstorming balloon cake ideas I remembered that one of my roommates from college recently made an "UP" cake for her daughter. We totally stole her idea. The big difference is she does cake decorating and we do NOT. However, my cute hubby was the chief architect and he did awesome!

First I baked three cakes on Thursday night and froze them in the freezer. I found some helpful cake tips here on the website Make it and Love it. Friday night Mike used an electric turkey carver to cut the cake and he began creating using butter cream frosting to glue it together.
I made fondant to use for the roof, windows, door, and bushes. I also found my recipe for fondant on Make it and Love it. The recipe and directions are here. I used 3 tablespoons of water and I live in a humid climate. It worked much better than 2 tablespoons which is the suggested starting point. After the cake was finished on Saturday we used a kabob skewer to hold the balloons in place. See below for our end result.
In the end the cake was destroyed by the birthday boy. A proper ending to a 1st year birthday cake.

Of course we couldn't let our guests eat this cake so I made some cupcakes. I topped with mentos and teddy grahams.

Party Favors: Balloon, Bubbles, and lollipops. However, in the shuffle of things only about half of the kids and parents got their parting gifts. Sigh.

Lots of leftover balloons!

Thanks to all our guests who came. You were adorable!

Gifting on a zero dollar budget

Two weeks ago I found out my parents would be flying out for a couple days and I would get to see my mom on her birthday.

Last time I saw her on her birthday had to be 8 years ago. I began thinking big! I need to shower her with gifts.

Hours later my husband asked if I have checked our bank account lately.

Gulp

I'm informed we need to watch our spending for the rest of the month.

I hadn't bought anything for my mom yet so I decided I would create her gifts and only use things I have in our house.

So here is what I did for my mom's birthday on a zero dollar budget.

Garden Sticks

Materials: stickers, Sharpie, Popsicle sticks, and Mod Podge.

My mom loves gardening so I used leftover craft Popsicle sticks. I covered them with several layers of hard mod podge to make them weather resistant.

Scented Sachet

Materials: Tule, ribbons, dried roses, rose scented essential oils.

I used leftover ribbon from a taggie blanket and leftover rose petals and essential oil from a Church activity to make a sachet you can use in a drawer or closet.

Magnetic Picture Frame

Materials: Scrapbook paper, scrapbook letter cutouts, Popsicle sticks, magnet, tape and glue gun.

The scrapbook paper is leftover from the blocks I made for my son. I used Popsicle sticks to hold the picture and to allow other pictures to slide in and out. The magnet is from a fridge notepad I had used.

Ping Pong Ball!!

Basically we had a ping pong ball but we don't have a table. My parent's do have a ping pong table and now they have another ping pong ball but this one says "bring it". :)

A weeks worth of dinner recipes

I gave my mom seven dinner recipes that I enjoy making for my family for dinner. While they were here I made one of these recipes and she asked me to make sure I give her the recipe. No prob!

Necklace

Materials: Denim, beads, embroidery thread, mod podge, white thread.

I got my idea here. I used an old pair of jeans to make the flower. I covered the petals with mod podge to make the petals stiffer so that they would stick up more. The big wooden beads on the necklace are from a necklace I had as a little girl. I didn't have any necklace clasps so I just left lots of room with the thread to tie it.

Cake Pin Cushion

Materials: felt, buttons, pins, glue gun, magnet.

I found this tutorial here. Very easy project with a lot of fun ways to embellish. I wrapped an empty ribbon spool with foil to use as a cake platter. I put a magnet on the bottom tier to pick up stray pins with.

A History of Motherhood

Lastly, I recorded thoughts and memories I have of my mom while growing up. I wrote down memories from holidays, grade school, and different stages of life. I then called my grandma and asked her questions about being a mom, specifically being a mother to my mother. I also asked her questions about her mother and recorded everything I could. I love, love family history and the little details is what makes it so special.

There you have it. Luckily a mother's love is unconditional no matter how handmade or silly a gift is!