Gossip Girl Here

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am ridiculously obsessed with Gossip Girl. I didn't start watching it until after the sixth season though, but I was able to catch up on Netflix. I was devastated to learn that the seventh season would be the last, so naturally I had to make a big deal of it. I made a trip to Michael's to get the essential decorations and started planning my menu. The day finally arrived and of course the awesome Pittsburgh weather interfered and most of my guests were unable to come. Since I had everything anyway, I still set up.

In the very first episode, Chuck gave Serena a grilled cheese sandwich. When the restaurant, Gilt, was open at The Palace Hotel, it would have cost, oh just $50. I found a recipe and tried my best to recreate this NYC delicacy. However, I couldn't find black winter truffles which is why you see Lindor truffles instead. I also replaced the truffles on the sandwich with bacon because, who doesn't love bacon? These substitutions are the simple person's extravagant.

Blair Waldorf: my absolute favorite character and idol. Yes, I know she is fictional. That's beside the point. So, when I was looking for recipes for this themed event, I had to have the Waldorf Salad. This is also a NYC delicacy, which was first created at the Waldorf Hotel. There are many variations, so this more simple recipe was used. It's definitely a dish which requires an acquired taste.

At any ritzy event, shrimp cocktail is a must. I also added pepperoni, cheese, and crackers for a simple palate. 

Champagne. One of the staples of the characters of the Upper East Side. It wouldn't be a Gossip Girl party without any.

Possibly my favorite part of the party, french macarons. The ones I got for the party are from Jean Marc Chatellier here in Pittsburgh. They are so delicious. I highly recommend the Peanut Butter and Jelly and Salted Caramel. However, I am completely obsessed with Ladurée, which is the bakery Blair gets hers from on the UES. I was so excited when we stopped there on our trip to NYC!

The show was bittersweet. I've been waiting for Chuck and Blair to get married, so I was ecstatic. On the other hand,  I was extremely sad that Gossip Girl had finally come to an end. Who knows, maybe one day they will come back. 

Save the Date

I definitely do not think "simple" when I think of weddings. I think of extravagant, fun, time consuming, exciting, painful, thrilling, just to name a few emotions. I didn't know it was possible to feel so many mixed emotions about one event, but I do.

Through the good and the bad, it is still crucial to make the best of everything because this time only happens once! So when I thought of sending out save the dates, I wanted them to be different. I love the magnet save the dates, but so many people use those. I searched on Google and many wedding websites and finally found an idea I loved. The concept was from Miss Duckling's Blog Post and Red Shoes & Snowflake Marshmallows. These two blogs give amazing, detailed step-by-step instructions on how to put these together. They made the time consuming process, simple.

The first step was already taken care of, engagement pictures. One of my very good friends owns her own company, Dandilynn Photography. I was a bit nervous for Chelsey when we went to the session because I knew our Boxer, Kia, would not cooperate. She of course didn't, but Chelsey was amazing with her and I think we got some really good shots! You can check out our mini engagement session here!

Onto the actual save the date. I ordered Classic Natural Cream Card Stock and A7 Classic Natural Cream Envelopes online from Paper and More. The Baby Chocolate Envelopes were ordered online from Paper Source. The ribbon and the pink scrapbook paper for the numbers were both purchased from Pat Catan's, but can be purchased at any craft store. Chelsey formatted two pictures as one 4" x 6" image, I printed the images at Kinko's, and then cut them in half. Caution: be careful with scissors while doing this part. I poked my eye and was out of commission for an hour. Oops!

When it comes to graphic design, I have no clue what I am doing. Not only does Chelsey provide photography services, but graphic design services as well, so she was more than happy to help me out. It only took us a few hours to get the design perfect. From there, I was able to print two save the dates on one sheet of paper and then cut down the middle. 

The most time consuming part of the entire process was cutting out, punching, and stringing the numbers for 100+ save the dates. First, we cut out the numbers. Thank the heavens above one of my bridesmaids let me know that her sister owns a Cricut and cartridges and she let me borrow them! I am so grateful to both of them for that. After all of the numbers were cut out, they were punched with a 1/8" hole punch and strung through the ribbon. We also got a heart shaped hole punch and punched out hearts from the extra scrapbook paper to put as a divider between the numbers. Those also needed hole punched. 

Like I said: time consuming.

After the numbers and hearts were strung onto the ribbon, they were folded so the first number was on the bottom and the last number was on the top with extra ribbon on each side. A knife was used to cut a slit through the back of the chocolate envelope and the beginning of the ribbon was fed through, and taped to the back. Then, a small piece of the ribbon was left out of the flap of the envelope so the guests could pull out the numbers. After they were all stuffed, I glued the envelopes and the pictures onto the save the dates with a permanent glue stick.

I was getting so anxious toward the end because the stickers from I Love Dielines Studio took a while to come in. When they finally did, they were placed on the flap of the envelope to seal it shut, then they were out the door!

  

They turned out better than I could have even imagined and I couldn't be more happy with them! 

A HUGE thanks to my mom, maid of honor, Tina,

and bridesmaid, Sarah, for helping me put all of these together! 

I couldn't have done it without them!! 

DinoLand

Welcome to Grayden's DinoLand! 

My nephew, Grayden, is going through a stage where he is obsessed with everything dinosaurs. So naturally, that's what my sister-in-law, Lyndsay, wanted to make the theme of his 4th birthday party. She consulted Pinterest to get ideas and then we made a trip to Party City. The following pictures are from her own vision of "DinoLand".

These decorations were an idea from Kara's Party Ideas. Instead of using a more sheer fabric, we used plastic table covers from Party City, which were able to be cut into fours. We opened the fluffy decorations and tacked them to the wall. Then, we cut the tablecloths, (light green, brown, and two dark green strands) and hung them right under the fluffy decoration. 

 
Each child that came to the party received a Pith Helmet and goodie bag filled with dinosaur tattoos and stickers, candy, and bubbles.

The Dino Dig was inspired by the Fossil Dig from Catch My Party. For the Dino Dig, Lyndsay purchased six bags of tan brown basket shred to empty into a medium sized box. 45 dinosaurs were hidden in the shred for the nine children invited. Each child was given 20 seconds to find their five dinosaurs.  

To keep with the dinosaur theme, Pin the Tail on the Donkey was replaced with "Feed the Dinosaur a Leaf". The backdrop was purchased from Party City and the leaves were purchased from our local craft store and duct tape was placed on the back of each leaf. Each child took a leaf, was spun around, and had to get the leaf as close as they could to "feed" the dinosaur.

The food area was so much fun to put together. My brother-in-law made fun of me a couple of years ago for wanting to theme the food for a Halloween party. I still can't live down "boo-falo chicken dip", so this was refreshing since it was acceptable to theme food for a 4-year-old's birthday party. 

   Dino Teeth = tortilla chips         Lava Dip = buffalo chicken dip

Dino Eggs = Peanut M&Ms; Tree Branches = soft pretzel rods; 

Dino Toe Nails = Bugles

Herbivores: vegetable tray, fruit bowl, apple slices

Carnivores: crescent hot dogs, meat and cheese tray, hoagies

Watering Hole = water and soda   Lava Juice = Kool-Aid Jammers

The cupcakes were my contribution and I had so much fun making them! I wanted the green icing to turn out more like grass, but the consistency was not cooperating. The green iced cupcakes are from How Sweet It Is. The recipe called for dark cocoa powder, but I only had regular cocoa powder. I also left out the hot fudge, so they turned out to be just a pain chocolate cupcake with green tinted peanut butter icing. The other cupcakes were supposed to resemble desert rocks. They are Cinnamon Toast Crunch cupcakes from Your Cup of Cake. They were both absolutely delicious and I highly recommend you try them for your next party!

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Grayden, Happy Birthday to you!

At the end of the day, the decorations, the food, and the games didn't compare to the amount of laughter from the kids and the memories that were made on Grayden's 4th Birthday. 

"Dinosaurs may be extinct from the face of the planet, but they are alive and well in our imaginations." - Steve Miller

why not...

My soon-to-be sister-in-law and I were decorating for her son's 4th birthday party. She found a ton of ideas on Pinterest for the "Dinoland" party she was throwing. We had so much fun bringing out our creative side to put the ideas to the test. After we were done and admiring our work, we obviously took pictures of everything. I wanted to post our pictures on Pinterest to show how "simple" people recreate the extravagant ideas also found on Pinterest, but I thought, "how would people know what we used, how will they know what we were trying to recreate, and how will they know how did we did it?" So, that's when I came up with the idea of creating a blog. Since I am completely and utterly obsessed and passionate about planning events, it only made sense!

Now, I will start out with saying that I don't have one clue how to manage a blog nor do I have a fancy camera. I figured I will learn as I go and lean on my amazing friends who already blog, so please bear with me and feel free to share tips, tricks, and opinions. If anything comes of this, I just hope my posts bring out the creative side of others too.

"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new." - Albert Einstein

My soon-to-be sister-in-law and I at another event we organized together in 2011