Jaelyn's 1st birthday party

My daughter's first birthday party was a cupcake themed party.

I found some cute cupcake wrapping paper and taped it to the wall for an instant back ground for her 1st birthday photo.

I removed all the furniture from my formal living room and rented some tables and chairs for lots of seating:)

I also made pom poms in different pinks using $1.00 tissue paper from Walmart and hung them from the ceiling. Cute and affordable decorations.

The centerpieces were just Terra Cotta pots from my local craft store filled with pink carnations made to look like cupcakes. Then I found these $1.00 cupcake marshmallow pops I just couldn't pass up!

The banner I made just using coordinating card stock, ribbon, letter stencils and lots and lots of cutting and gluing.

Even the chandy got a little bit of sprucing up with some pink beads:)

I wanted her high chair to be something special for her so I made a tutu for the front of it using tulle and elastic and found a cupcake chair cover from http://www.abcdistributing.com/. I added some balloons and it turned out great!

I made a cupcake using Styrofoam wrapped in ribbon and cake boards top with cupcake wrapping paper. Made a tutu for the bottom tier and added store bought cupcakes.

The goody bags were just simple pink bags and I added a cupcake sticker to go with the theme and also found cupcake tissue paper in the dollar bins at Target.

I knew she would not remember any of her party so I spent as little as I possibly could by doing most of everything myself. It made the party that much more special for me because I knew a lot of heart and love went into it. When I show her pictures in the future I am sure she will appreciate everything I did:)

Have a great day:)

Party Planning

I suffer from "fundsarelow" disease so planning my little one's birthday parties can be pretty tough. I love throwing parties but with a family of 40 people they can become quite pricey. I have them here at my house for the simple fact that it's free, but it can get crowded really fast. I think next year I will be having my daughter's birthday at the park. She LOVES Spongebob right now so I am planning on having her a "Spongebob in a tutu" themed birthday party. There was an episode where Spongebob and Patrick visited a new toy store that just opened up. Spongebob tried on a tutu and Patrick asked him, "Spongebob, why are you wearing a tutu?" Spongebob replied, "It's not a tutu, Patrick, It's a mantu. With extra support."  I felt that having a little girly girl, who loves the color pink, it was appropriate to go with that theme. Here are a few tips to keep birthday parties cute and with a tight budget.

Invites: Make your own!! they almost always get thrown away so might as well make them as super cheap as you can. Noone will care! I admit I don't save invites unless there is a photo of the birthday person.

You can make some cute ones with cardstock and your own computer just be creative:)

Food: For my daughter's birthday we will just grill hamburgers and hotdogs (Krabby Patties and Salty Dogs) it goes so well with the theme.

Decoration: I like to go through the dollar bins at Target they always have great stuff for decorations or goody bags. The kiddos will be walking away with some cute butterfly nets (jellyfishing nets).

I also like to save money by pairing a theme dessert plate with a regular plate and solid color napkins in your matching party colors.

Spongebob dessert plates with regular pink ones

and a mix of pink and yellow napkins.

Serve cupcakes on this cute Spongebob cupcake stand

You can make your own or just buy some from Walmart (only $5.00/dozen) the buttercream ones are really good:)

To go along with the theme let the kids take home their very own "Pineapple under the sea".

I found these super cute Pineapple Cups

Another theme to try is Scooby Doo he seems to be big with the little ones right now.

Scooby plates

You can serve sub sandwiches since he is always eating them on the show and for a fun treat serve bone shaped Scooby snacks (you can find them at grocery stores, they are basically graham crackers shaped like bones) inside dollar store dog bowls.

The kiddos will get a kick out of that! and no Scooby Doo birthday is complete without these adorable

Dog noses

Have fun planning your next party!

Irene

My thoughts and prayers go out to all those across the East Coast.



May you be safe. God Bless.

Coupon Cart Caddy

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I started couponing a few months ago to save money so that we can work on redecorating and remodeling our home. I do have to say it is time consuming but totally worth it! I have saved a lot just by clipping coupons and buying only items that are on sale. I always save at least 50-90% on all my grocery bills now:). When it comes to using coupons it is really important to stay 100% organized (which I generally am not) so I have a binder I keep all my coupons in. They are all organized in different categories making it super easy for me to just flip to the coupon I need. Now I love anything that keeps me organized so needless to say I was so excited when I came across this Cute Cart Caddy I just had to try it out.



Beautiful hardwood floors ruined!

My steam mop broke so I had to find an alternative product to clean my floors with until I could replace my steam mop. My hubby picked up some Orange Glo after watching a commercial on the product and this is how my floors turned out.

It left a milky white film all over my floors and it's impossible to get off. Any advice is accepted!

My not even a year old beautiful hardwood floors are ruined and I am pissed!! Thank you Orange Glo! I will be contacting you in the morning as soon as your office is open.

Craigslist find

I was looking for a computer armoire for our family room re do that would house our home computer, xbox, ps3, and printer. I was ecstatic when I came across a piece on Craigslist for just $75.00 and it was exactly what I was looking for:) I <3 Craiglist!!

It has lots of room for everything and even my 2 year old enjoys hiding in it:)

It came with an unexpected bonus! 2 cork board pieces on the inside of each door.

They were in good condition and I love the functionality of having cork board right next to where you sit. I'm going to be painting the computer armoire a creamy white to match my kitchen cabinets (which I will be painting soon also so keep an eye out for that post). I had some extra fabric left over from the pillows I made for the room so I decided to use that to take the cork board up a notch:)

I cut the fabric to size (make sure you leave enough hang on all sides to wrap around so there's no edge showing) and using a spray adhesive I sprayed the cork board and covered the board in the fabric. Caution: Do this outside because spray adhesive stinks and can get everything super sticky!!

Then simply hot glue all sides down on back to create a nice edge all around.

There you have it! It looks much better and now coordinates with the room and its a super easy diy project to dress up that boring cork board and you could even add nail head trim or ribbon:)

Dyeing curtains

Found some gorgeous curtain panels from World Market for my family room re-do but at $26.00/panel and me being on a tight budget they were far out of my reach.

I looked everywhere else I could think of to find a cheaper version but had no luck at all. I already had some tan linen curtains I had bought at Target a while back at $9.99 for 2 panels. So I decided I would just dye them myself! I have never worked with dye on such a big project so I was a little apprehensive but I am so glad I did:)

Equipt with some Rit dye in teal and my washing machine I very carefully followed the directions on the back (sorry I didn't take pictures of the process, I was too scared of making a big ole mess) and transformed my blah beige curtains into exactly what I wanted!

There was no color variation at all so I am very pleased with how easy and incredible these curatins came out. :)

Craft Room

I posted an inspiration board of my craft room a while ago but since then have changed my mind on the route I want to go. I wanted to create something fun and girly for me. A place that I can escape to and enjoy being surrounded by something feminine and relaxing. Enter in the color pink:) If I had it my way every room in my house would have the color pink in it, but since I have a manly man hubby that has friends over often I am limited to my daughter's bedroom and the playroom. Both of those rooms aren't rooms that I can sit in, relax, read or stimulate my creativity. So I have chosen to go with pinks in my craft room instead of turquoise!

Here is the inspiration board I have come up with:

I am sure a few things will change when I begin to redecorate. I can't help it... I am an indecisive person:)

Oh and BTW that fabulous pink chair is only $19.99 at Ikea!!