Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Party Crashing - Kim's NYE!

My friend, Kim, is working on her New Year's decorations and I had to share! She found a great website for New Year's Eve printables and printed off her favorite labels and photo booth props:

Free New Year's Eve Printables

Here are some of the fun pictures she sent over to me - all the labels and props come from the website above:

A cute way to add some NYE character to your wine & champagne bottles!



Photo wall!
These turned out great! You just have to print, cut out and add to skewers or straws.

Great use of a chalkboard wall - love her handwriting!
And last, but not least the glittery craft projects! I absolutely love how these glasses turned out, even if it meant getting glitter everywhere. She also added glitter to the bottom of her balloons for a sparkly touch and to help weight them down.




Looks like she is ready for her New Year's Eve! Love the look and how it all ties in together - very glitter glamour. Printables are easy, so if you are stressing about last minute details, use those! There are lots of good ideas on that website.

Photos by Kim

One more day of 2013 - do something exciting with it!

Lots of Love,

Sunday, December 29, 2013

NYE Party Crafting!

I followed through on some of the fabulous ideas I posted yesterday on my New Year's Eve Party Ideas blog, and oh my gosh, I love how everything turned out! I've posted today, so you can last minute craft before your New Year's. Once I found everything I needed, the crafting part was really easy. On my hunt, The Dollar Tree was the best place for party supplies:


They also were perfect for some of the crafting supplies - I will label which items came from there on the "How To" sections below.

First up, my favorite, the confetti champagne! Needed Supplies:

Found a fun use for the chalkboard wall!
Lay something down for your mess area. First step, cover the bottle with Mod Podge (or something similar). I used a sponge brush for easy application and make sure it's thick enough for it to be really sticky.


Next is the fun party! Over a bowl, start sprinkling the confetti onto the bowl. Keep reapplying until the bottle is covered. You will have to let it dry before shaking off the excess confetti. I bought the bag of confetti from Party City and it worked really well. I've also heard of cutting up the fringe curtains if you can't find the confetti.



While I had the confetti and Mod Podge out, I continued on to the confetti balloons. You need the same supplies plus balloons:


I bought black helium balloons from Party City (make sure to ask for the High Lift if the party isn't that same day). You do the same process as the bottle, but keep in mind that you don't want them to weigh too much. They won't float up if you add too much glitter. These turned out very fun and festive:



On the other balloons, I wrote on them with a gold Sharpie marker. I was struggling at first with the marker, but realized you had to use it for a little bit to rub off the initial coating. I recommend doing this on paper. Definitely popped a couple balloons in my face, so make sure you don't press hard! Once the Sharpie worked, they turned out really fun. I love the look of the balloons and champagne:



My initial plan for NYE head pieces was to be lame and just purchase a NYE kit from Party City, but upon going there and looking at them, I decided I'd rather do something more creative and cheaper - those kits are overpriced, as well as the packs of their crowns, headbands and hats. I bought one top hat for the guys to use in the fun pictures. I then remembered a pin on Pinterest for mini hats. Since basic party hats were so expensive at Party City, I drove back to The Dollar Tree (luckily it was nearby) and picked up the needed supplies.

Mini Party Hats
Supplies:
Basic Party Hats ($1 for 8 at The Dollar Tree)
Headbands ($1 for 4 at The Dollar Tree)
Hole Punch
Decorations such as tinsel, washi tape, pom poms, stickers, etc.
Hot Glue Gun


Cut the big party hat down to about half, or as big or small as you want the mini hat to be. Then hole punch on each side, so you are able to slide it onto the headband. Then decorate! I used tinsel I found at The Dollar Tree and pom pom toothpicks I had leftover from the Fancy Nancy Party:


We will have festive head attire for the NYE par-tay! I also found cute paper tiaras while I was back at The Dollar Tree looking for the party hats. I will make sure to get pictures of people wearing all the fun head gear!




Final (and easiest) craft project for the night? Adding number stickers to the plastic wine glasses I picked up from, you guessed it, The Dollar Tree. $1 for a pack of 6. I also got the fun vintage style champagne glasses (you can see them in the picture up top). I had some glitter number stickers at home.To make countdown glasses, you just stuck the numbers on:



I am very excited to bring all the decorations over to Rachel's house and setup for the party! It is going to look very fun and sparkly! If you haven't started preparing yet, there is still time. These character filled projects are inexpensive and easy. At least spice up your bottle of champagne! (You can buy the cheap stuff if you cover the label! haha)

Photos by me


Lots of Love,

Saturday, December 28, 2013

New Year's Eve Party Ideas

Hope you all have had a good holiday week! New Year's Eve is quickly approaching and I need to get ready ASAP! Instead of fighting the bars this year, a couple of my friends and I thought it would be fun to have a house party. My wonderful friend Rachel and her cute fiance are nice enough to host, so I'm going to help with fun decorations. I've been scanning Pinterest and wanted to share some of my favorite finds:

Fun Wine Bottle Printable - Free!

Add balloons on a wall to make "champagne bubbles!"

Confetti adds so much character to these balloons!

Countdown glasses are an easy & fun decoration.

This Kate Spade NYE Party has really cute ideas!

I'm going to use my beloved chalkboard paper for this Resolution Wall!

Add some rock candy to your champagne glasses for color & fizz!

My friend Meg gave me the idea of glittering some Champagne bottles!

I have these balloons spelling out "FANCY" that didn't arrive until after my mom's Fancy Nancy party - I think they will work for NYE! You can get these number balloons at Party City.

I love the idea of writing on black balloons with gold marker!

The common denominator in most of these ideas is balloons, so Rachel I am probably going to pull up with a car full of balloons! They make for a fun and cheap decoration that fills up space. Plus, as you can see above, there are so many things you can do with them! I will make sure to post what I come up with. Party City and Dollar Tree here I come!

Lots of Love,

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Santa Letters

Every family has their own Christmas traditions. In my family, Christmas Eve is our big night with the Lacy family. Those that can come/stay in Wichita, we have a big dinner at Grandma's and we do a fun Secret Santa gift exchange. I already told you about the fun we had in Western Kansas with Dustin's family. Growing up, we had other traditions that we celebrated as children. Our Christmas wishlists were sent up to the "North Pole" where Santa - aka Grandpa - would write us gorgeous letters back. I love having those now and this year my mom and I put them into an album, so we could keep them safe:




Photos by me
My grandpa had the best calligraphy handwriting and knowing that, my mom asked him if he would respond to our wishlists. If you have someone in your family that loves doing things like this, I recommend having them write back to your kids! Start while they are really young. My grandpa is no longer with us, so having these letters means a lot to my brother and I.

Some other fun ideas for Santa traditions:
Most already know about this fun little elf! I had to put it on here because I'm so excited to do this tradition one day!
http://www.elfontheshelf.com/
I used to babysit for a family that would put Santa steps coming out of the fireplace.
Photo via Pinterest.
I love these personalized Santa sacks! Fun way to deliver presents from the North Pole.
People also love shaking sleigh bells outside the windows, creating footsteps in the snow & my parents always signed the gift tags with "From: Santa" on the Santa presents.

I hope you are all ready for a very Merry Christmas Eve and enjoy spending time with your family! If you have little ones at home, good luck putting together the presents!

Lots of Love,



Monday, December 23, 2013

Christmas Eve Eve

Mom hosted this year for the eve before Christmas Eve because we had family in town - love! She wanted it to look festive, but still keep it easy. MacKenzie Childs paper plates and napkins are perfect for this! If you are local you can pick them up at The Plaid Giraffe. They are perfect for a holiday get together and they make fun gifts.


They make such a fun table and you can just throw them away when you're done!
I got my love for MacKenzie Childs from my mama - she has a great collection of the old pottery!
Snacks are an important part of hosting company and I love how my mom puts simple food items in pretty dishes to make it look snazzy:

Veggie Chips & Pretzel Sticks look so much prettier in her Juliska Pewter Ramekins.
Christmas wrapped candy always adds a festive touch - our favorites are the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups & Hershey Nuggets. I also love that she put the bowl on top of pretty holiday edition magazines.
For dinner she picked up a delicious chicken pot pie from a local caterer, Toni D's. Definitely a great comfort food. Then for dessert we had Braum's Peppermint Ice Cream and my Aunt Sue brought some Starbucks snowman sugar cookies and good chocolates she had made. It was such a fun night and the best part was baby Addie (Jenny & Eric's baby):


She loved her princess crown we got her in the Target Dollar Section and her cute gift sack - it's the little things!
The night ended with conversations over wine and sharing fun pictures. Then, baby Addie put her winter gear on - being from Texas, she has enjoyed her first Christmas snow. It doesn't get any cuter than this little munchkin:


Countdown to Christmas - 2 days! So excited for Christmas Eve with my family tomorrow!

Lots of Love,