Back to School Mom Pack

Remember those notebook favor bags that I got from Petite Party Studio?? Want to see how I'm using them?? 

 For Mom favors~ Just in case you can't see or read my handwriting it says:
1. Napkins & Stickers~to write sweet notes and put in lunch box
2. Envelope and paper~ write your kindergartner on 1st Day of School, seal and open on High School Graduation Day. (I'm very sentimental like that)
I really want to capture the emotions I feel on the first day of school for Madison and write down all of my hopes and wishes for her. No day is promised to us so I want her to always know my love and wishes for her. I have a file box that has all her important papers in and I will put her letter in the file. My mother is gone and although I have no letters written to me, I have her Bible and it's filled with her handwriting and it is my most valuable possession in this world. In case of fire, I would grab Madison and her bible!

Very simply done...no bells and whistles but hopefully the mothers will write their children letters and will send at least one love note with stickers with their kiddos lunches to school.

Back to School with Petite Party Studio

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting my "party girl" friends Rebecca and Shannon at Petite Party Studio (formerly know as Fresh Chick Design).  I seriously love these 2 sweet and wonderful girls/mom entrepreneurs!

Love that cheery yellow door! Forgive my IPhone photos~ forgot my camera! However, I think my IPhone pics aren't too shabby!

This shop just makes you want to have a party!

I sat on this couch for so long...Madison fell asleep! LOL

You know I had to get the Back to School printables for Madison's Welcome to Kindergarten play date! I just can't help myself! Seriously cuteness! Here is a link to purchase complete set here.

I would have never thought to use those vending capsules to make apples! I will be using this idea for sure!!! Even if you aren't having a back to school party/play date~ any kid would love getting this for a special back to school treat!

I picked up these notebook favor bags!

EEEEEEKKKKK! I love these pencil candy tubes! You know I picked these up too!

This is just pure genius~ they used white ice cream cups embellished with red washi tape turned upside down for base. Put bowl of gumballs topped with Mason Jar Lids wrapped with their tag from back to school printable collection! How clever! All of these products available in their shop!

Love, Love, Love all of these back to school ideas, printables and my party girls Shannon and Rebecca! If you don't live in Phoenix...no worries. Just shop online in your PJs HERE! 

FREE PARTY STUFF~I haven't had a giveaway in a while ~ go to their website and let me know 1 item that you would want. You can either pick from their Etsy party printables or from their party products! Leave me a comment here or on my Facebook of your pick and what you would use it for! You never know with me how many winners I may pick!! I'm feeling generous today because I love ya'll so much for visiting me here and FB!

Update~ Giveaway is now over congrats to all 8 winners!!

Alyssa Cannata

Cris McGrath

Nicole Reed

Jessie Flag Obert

Nina (from blog comments)

Elaine De Dios

Katie Perry

Vanessa Estrelinha

Back To School Wreath

 My baby is starting Kindergarten in 12 days! That is so unbelievable to me! First, I don't like that school starts in the beginning of August and I can't believe my baby is going to start KINDERGARTEN! Please say a prayer for me the morning of August 6th because you know I will be crying! I can't let this monumental day go without doing something special, right?? I am having a few of her friends over for a Welcome to Kindergarten play date. She has grown up with these kids and I'm so glad to have such a wonderful group of friends! You know what that means...yes...PARTY CRAFTS!!
First project ~ a Welcome to Kindergarten wreath.

 I started with a  some foam core board from Dollar Tree and used a paper bowl and plate to make my wreath form.

I hot glued 2 boxes of pencils that I got from Dollar Tree on the back.

 Turned it over and glued crayons on the front. I have hundreds of crayons no need to purchase more!

 I spray painted a wooden frame and printed out Welcome to Kindergarten and glued on.

 Embellished with a apple, crayon, and ribbon.

Viola, easy back to school wreath using products on hand and $3 spent at Dollar Tree! A great way to welcome the new Kindergarteners to the play date! Since it gets over 100 degrees here in Phoenix, this wreath will not be going up until right before the play date! I don't know what temperature it takes to melt crayons but I don't want to find out!

Darcy Miller's Daisy Theme Party Kits on Opensky.com

I'm a huge fan of Daisies and Darcy Miller! (I've loved Darcy every since I saw her gorgeous wedding with ton of DIY details in Martha Stewart so many years ago) So when her peeps contacted me to share her new Daisy Theme Party Kits on Opensky.com ~ I was excited!

Here are some tips and details from Darcy~

Darcy’s Daisy Lollipops – “When I set out to find a lollipop, I knew I needed something special – so I had this specially created for me! These adorable lollipops have pure white petals with a sweet yellow center.

They come wrapped individually so you can put them on a place setting, send guests home with them, or fill a bucket or Mason jar for a pretty display.”

Eleni’s Daisy Cookies – “Eleni’s creates these sweet daisy cookies which I love to put on top of vanilla cupcakes for a beautiful display on the dessert table.

You can stack your cookie-topped cupcakes on our cupcake stand from Martha Stewart Crafts (included in this sale) or simply put out plates of these cute treats for your guests to nibble.”

Yellow and White Gumball Favors – “Have I mentioned that I love decorating with candy? These juicy gumballs and packaged for you in the tubes, ready to send home as favors, set as place settings – get creative! Use with the our (DIY Daisy Kit) to decorate these tubes with a daisy like I did!”

DIY Party Favor Bundle – “With this kit, you’ll be ready to assemble some fantastic party favors of jelly beans, sour balls, gumballs -- and we even have the bags ready for you! Let the kids have a party-duty in filling these bags with their favorite combo of theme-colored candy!

Darcy's tip: stay away from melty chocolate if you’re having outdoor summer entertaining! These candies will hold up to the heat.”

 

Daisy Party Starter Kit (see table place setting) – “I’ve put together a collection of napkins, cups, flags and much more to help you one-stop shop for your very own daisy party! Your guests will be delighted by the little details on the tables such as the yellow swizzle straws.”

Here's a link to Darcy's entire Daisy Themed Collection - https://opensky.com/darcymiller?osky_origin=osm&osky_source=PRmaddycakes

So excited to be able to share this new launch with you. How cool is it to be able to chat with the editor of Weddings Martha Stewart! 

BTW, here is a picture of me and Darcy (and my niece) at The Special Event in New Orleans when I was a speaker. My class was titled Parties for Pennies. The class was over 250 people but I don't think Darcy attended. :( But we stalked her caught up with her in the exhibition hall! Bad photo but you can see how excited we were! LOL

Vintage Lemonade Stand

 I am in love with lemonade stands... remember I posted about having one here in April 2010 and another one here in July 2011. Now I see them everywhere! I finally had a chance to make a lemonade stand a reality! Can you believe that lemonade stand was free? Well, almost...it came from a free palette of wood with a few free scraps of wood from Home Depot. (All you have to do is go to the wood section and ask if they have any wood scraps and they will give them to you! You will be amazed at the scraps you can get!) The cost was nails and paint for the word Lemonade! LOVE!

 I actually had most of the props for the lemonade stand. I wanted a vintage lemonade stand so pulled out my vintage Coke and RC bottles for holding flowers.

 I love my vintage scale. I found this one at a yard sale for only $5!

 I took small Mason jars and filled with lemon heads. I didn't have any fabric on hand to match so just cut a red and white striped treat bag and tied with twine.

 I love Coke so I have a lot of stuff associated with my addiction! I have this Coca-Cola crate that I use for so many things. Here I am using it to hold newspaper treat cones that I made with Dollar Tree party hats. 

 I have a few of these chalkboard stands that I have left over from Madison's Art Party 2 years ago. You can see it here.

 I have used this Radio Flyer wagon for so many things! I got it ...yep you guessed it at a yard sale!

 I used yellow duct tape to make the flags for the straws. I love using what I have on hand!

Found this metal stool on clearance at Hobby Lobby for $10. I knew it would be perfect. It was black but a quick fix with yellow spray paint. 

Vintage Lemonade stand was ready for a little photo shoot with Madison and her friends! They are so adorable!

Photography by Andrea Crawley Photography. If you are local Andrea is holding this Vintage Lemonade Photo Shoot July 27th & 28th. Leave me a comment here or Maddycakes Muse Facebook if you are interested. (great price and she does great work ~as you can see!) I love having these photos so I can cherish summer and my little girl.

Treat Cones and HUGE NEWS!!

 I love the ever so popular treat cones. However, they can be tricky to make, right?? Want to know how I made these treat cones??? I used party hats from Dollar Tree...you get 8 for 1 buck! I just ripped strips of newspapers and glued on to the party hats. Easy Peasy treat cones!! You could also use scrapbook paper to coordinate them to your party colors!

These are a couple of pictures I snapped with my IPhone during the Vintage Lemonade Stand Photo Shoot I partnered with my photographer to do. I put a couple of pictures on my Facebook page of the shoot but will post more soon on the blog.
BIG NEWS~Thanks for being so patient with me during my sporadic blog posts! Things will be changing once we launch the new and improved Maddycakes Muse in late August! The blog will now be a daily blog with some AMAZING CONTRIBUTORS!! Yes, I will no longer be solo ~ I have some amazing party girls who I just love their work blogging with me!! SO we are teaming up to bring you more amazing daily party crafts and muses!! Currently Maddycakes Muse has between 80,000-100,000 page views a month (and that's is with me blogging about 2-3 times a week - I know it will tremendously grow once we launch our daily blog) Maddycakes Muse will start taking advertising on the new site so contact me at contact@maddycakes.com for rates. So much more is happening but I can't tell you everything just yet! I can't wait!! So excited!!

Newspaper flowers

My hubby has decided that he is going to read the Wall Street Journal everyday. So now my house and recycle bins are overflowing with newspapers. I feel like I'm living in an episode of Hoarders. What is a girl supposed to do with all of these newspapers? Make newspaper flowers of course!

I wonder what else I can make with all of these newspapers?? Stay tuned and watch "As The Newspaper Turns".  I hope somebody gets this title!

DIY Giant Fringe Garland

I am in love with festooning! It is a great way to give space color and texture. However, traditional festooning can seem small so when I saw the DIY Giant festooning by Oh Happy Day~it was love at first sight!

See the difference between the store bought and the DIY Giant festooning? Genius I say! Complete step by step how to HERE!

My Little Pony Birthday Party

We had a wonderful time at Madison's My Little Pony birthday party. Even though her birthday is in June and we live in Arizona~ I still have an outside party every year at our home. So each year we have guests bring swimsuits. I had a rainbow balloon arch over our pool. It really added much needed color and such a wow factor. I'm sure you could build one yourself but it would take a lot of time and I prefer to leave it to the professionals. This was a splurge but I think it was worth it. Now when my husband sees the invoice he may not feel the same way!

Loved the over sized rainbow beach balls floating in the pool.

The girls food tables were under the pergola that I decorated with colorful organza fabric.

The craft tables were under a canopy decorated with colorful tissue poms and rainbow wind spirals that I got on clearance at JoAnn's.

The favors were all bought during after Easter sales from 50-75% off. I totally scored finding the purple unicorns (Easter baskets turned treat baskets) at Walmart! I needed 12 and found exactly 12! I'm such the lucky girl!

Since I had The Knot event 2 days before Madison's party, I had tons of popcorn, mix-ins and toppings left so I changed my plan for dessert table and added the popcorn. I hate to waste!! It was perfect since her party was all the colors of the rainbow!

Got the popcorn boxes from Oriental Trading Company. I love them!!

I also added some additional flavors of popcorn from my favorite popcorn company in the Valley~ Poppa Maize Gourmet Popcorn! SO YUMMY and yes they ship in case you don't live in Phoenix/Scottsdale area!

The cake that Madison designed and Liz from Lizzy's Sweet and Treats made. Yes Madison told me exactly how she wanted her cake! 

Lizzy's Sweets and Treats also made the push-up pops! They were so perfect that I didn't want to add anything on the push up pop container. Usually I add a tag or something but I just loved the colorful layers!

My wonderful photographer (Andrea Crawley Photography) had to leave shortly after the party started so I got no professional photos of the sweet and salty table! Oh well....that is what happens in real life parties...it wasn't a photo shoot after all! However, here is my birthday girl posing in front of her half finished table. The kids really loved the Skittles dispensers filled with Skittles~another great after Easter find! Taste the Rainbow!!

Did you know that Scentsy has a new fondue machine?? It is called Velata! It is awesome! I will post more on this wonderful Velata fondue warmer on the blog soon! Do you like my rainbow "flowers"? Yes, they are dusters from at the 99 Cents store!

I had 4 games/activites scheduled but due to the extreme heat and guests arriving late we cut it down to 2. Here is the pin the horn on the unicorn. The girls really loved this game! The handmade game and mask was created by Shawna from Shawna Brockmeier Styled Events.

LOVE!

The girls went searching for unicorn jewels. You will never see a unicorn, they are mystical and magical but whenever they stop they leave jewels behind. The girls received colorful organza bags and went on the search for these magical jewels!

Here are the photos I took after my photographer left~ I know you can tell the difference!! At least I got a few shots of the finished sweet and salty buffet (popcorn/fondue).

I

 I will show a tutorial on how I made the felt flowers very soon.

 Madison loved the magician. If you watch My Little Pony then you know why I went with the magic show for entertainment. Friendship is Magic! Jolly Roger kept the kids totally entertained for 45 minutes! That is magic all right! Can you see my backdrop rainbow? Couldn't move my wall mounted television though! LOL

 At least I got some shots of the girls wearing their unicorn horns from the talented Shawna from Shawna Brockmeier Styled Events custom made. This year we had a girl only party for the first time.  After the girls ate and watched the magic show they all changed and hit the pool. After swimming for a while they came in to eat cake and treats from sweet and salty buffet. Also, freshly made cotton candy was a huge hit! The party was just magical and we are so blessed to have such wonderful friends in our lives!