Gifts from the Kitchen with #Celebrate365

The holiday season is here and what a better way to celebrate than by making some homemade gifts from your kitchen.  I've partnered with my Celebrate 365 co-hosts (Carlee from Cooking with Carlee, Ellen of Family Around the Table, Jan of The Tip Garden and Nicole of Tales of a Kansas Farm Mom) to throw a blog party full of DIY gift ideas!

How to create an Advent Star Tree

Advent greetings and blessings to you!  As we all prepare for the coming of Jesus this season I wanted to share about one of our traditions - the Advent Star Tree.

Curious George Birthday Party

The 3rd birthday is a pretty special one.  Your little baby is no longer a baby.  He can take care of himself in many ways and has an opinion of his own.  This is most likely the first birthday party where your little guy really has an opinion or can make choices regarding his special day.  LP turned 3 years old on Monday and we celebrated his birthday on Sunday with our family.  LP is an independent, curious, and easy-going farm boy who loves anything with wheels, being a big brother and reading books.  So when we asked him about a month ago what he'd like on his birthday cake he excitedly chose Curious George.  LP loves reading Curious George books & watching Curious George on television.  He loves how George is silly and always on an adventure.

The first thing to do for the party was make the invitations.  I was all about having LP involved with planning for the party so I got him involved in the invitation making.  I bought some blank yellow cards from my local craft store and wrote on them "I'm a Curious Monkey who is turning three.  Please come celebrate with me!", followed by the party details.  I then let LP have free range on the invitations.  He had fun coloring them and putting stickers on them from his Curious George Super Sticker Coloring Book.  (By the way, if you know a Curious George fan, this is a must have sticker/coloring book.  It is reasonably prized and literally has 100's of stickers and coloring pages.  LP loves his!)

The next thing LP helped with was the activities.  LP loves playing with play-dough so a few days before his birthday party LP and I made some homemade play-dough and added yellow food coloring and banana extract to it.  LP and his cousin had fun playing with it during the beginning of the party.  I also printed off some coloring pages that I personalized that both kids and adults colored.  The last activity we had was that we asked everyone to write LP a special birthday message in a copy of Curious George and the Birthday Surprise book.

LP was also a great help with the decorations.  I printed off one of the personalized coloring pages on card stock and LP colored it for a "welcome sign" for the front door.  Also, every year I love printing off photos from the past year and displaying them some how.  LP helped me pick out 10 photos from the past year and then I made a Curious George memo board to display the photos.

The last thing to do was take care of the food.  We served supper to our family which consisted of smoked pork loin sandwiches, overnight salad, baked beans, chips and dip, and of course cake and ice cream!  It is tradition for us to have cake and homemade ice cream at birthday parties.  For the birthday cake we decided to make banana cake, since there was a Curious George monkey theme for the party.  I made a double layer, 12" circle cake.  I have so much fun using my frosting tips and really enjoyed making LP's Curious George cake with him right by my side, ready for a dab of frosting anytime I needed to change tips!

Our whole family had a great time celebrating LP's birthday!  We had fun doing a few simple DIY projects to make his third birthday special and unique for him.  What are some birthday party DIY projects you're proud of?

Be sure to Comment for a Cause!

Thank you to PartyPail.com for awarding me their "Best Decorations" Birthday Party Award.

Wine Tasting Bridal Shower

Those that know me know I love to entertain and be the "hostess with the mostess."  Well, this past weekend I had a great time hosting a bridal shower for my sister-in-law and several of her friends!

When I first started planning the shower I decided I was going to have the shower in/near Des Moines (about 100 miles away from home for me) because that is where my sister-in-law and the majority of her friends live.  Second, I decided I wanted to do something fun and different.  My first initial thought was to have it at a winery, but the wineries in the area I checked either were already booked, or didn't do Saturday afternoon events.  So I found a great substitute, WineStyles in Johnston.  WineStyles is a wine boutique and retailer that also has an area for private parties and wine tastings.  It was a very fun and casual atmosphere to have the bridal shower.

So once I got the the who, when and where taken care of the fun part of "what" was left to do.  The first "what" to take care of was what activities or games would we be doing.  Of course one of the activities would be wine tasting.  WineStyles offered a wine tasting to the group of six wines, three red and three white.  To go along with the wine tasting and "Raise Your Glass" theme, I also had all the girls write words of advice, sayings, quotes, etc. on old wine corks, that were then put in a candle arrangement for the bride to then take home.  It was fun, simple, and it was a great way of everyone introducing themselves to the rest of the group at the beginning of the party.

The girls during the wine tasting
If you look closely on the table, you can see the candle/cork centerpiece

The next "what" to take care of was food (which just might have been my favorite part to take care of...)  I was traveling almost two hours to the shower so all of the food I brought had to be "cold."  So I decided to have a cheese tray from WineStyles (I feel like a cheese tray is mandatory, right?) and I made a cheese ball, BLT rolls, lemon cake balls and oreo balls to go with.  This was the perfect amout of savory and sweet to go along with the wine.

The final "what" to take care of was a gift for the bride.  I figured I'd go with the theme so I got a reusable four-bottle wine bag to put all the gifts in (you can get these at Wal-Mart for $1!).  Since there were four slots, I figured I'd better fill eat of those spots.  So I got her a wine slushy mix, LOVE wine charms, a certificate for her favorite bottle of wine from the tasting, and I made a set of chalkboard wine glasses.  The first couple of items I was able to get at a couple local shops in Hampton.  And as for the chalkboard wine glasses, I recommend doing them a week in advance to make sure they are fully set and I personally did three coats on each glass before I was satisfied.

I had a great time hosting the shower and now I'm gearing up for the bachelorette party!  I already have most of the details done and this week I hope to get the official invites out for it.  I'm having way too much fun being the matron of honor I think!

The group after the wine tasting!
(I didn't have to worry about decorations because
there were fun "backgrounds" everywhere you turned.)