The Sugar On Top

Sweet Sweet Towel Treats

2009-08-12T11:05:00.000-07:00

What's better than an edible favor?

A favor the looks delish, but is calorie free!

Here are some new items I've added to my line...

Need a template? Let me know!

More Tiffany & Co. Inspiration

2009-08-12T09:16:00.001-07:00

Tiffany & Co is becoming one of the most popular party themes. I used it for a baptisim, I've seen it used for weddings, and 2 of my clients are using the theme- 1 for a Sweet 16, another for a Bridal shower.

Here are some of the projects I worked on for them:

Both a place card and a favor... pull out the pearls and you will find an organza bag with Hershey's Hugs & Kisses with a Thanks You attached.

Save The Date Darling...

These small book marks had a calendar on the back that had the date of the sweet16 marked with a small sworvski crystal.

The Invites:

The Left Side picture is labeled "Vintage Tiffany" (that was the clients' name)

The Right side reads "Tiffany Couture"

... Stay tuned more to come....

You had me at Yago

2009-06-30T10:21:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me can tell you that my casual drink to unwind my day is Yago Sant Gria--- Add a lil frozen fruit to your glass--- and instantly get transported to an island complete with a cabana boy....

Ok, so maybe that's a bit of an over exaggeration, but it is good stuff- and has become a staple in my house... like MILK. Not that I use it like milk with my breakfast and stuff, but ... hey! thats not a bad idea ;)

I must have tweeted about this amazing Sangria a ka-zillion times, you would think these fine wine people would take notice to a mama and maybe sponsor some kick ass Yago Soiree's ?.. but, I digress.

I've gotten many-a-friends of mine hooked on the sweet sips of this stuff.... so when it was time for my friend Jenn's birthday I thought somehow working in our love for this stuff would be fun.

And here is what I came up with:

it reads: "You had me at Yago" and "Best when shared with Friends"

For someone with ZERO painting/drawing ability, I thought it came out pretty cute!

Here's how I did it:

The Glass I found at the Christmas Tree Shop $2 (nice!)
The Paint you need to use is Acrylic Paint. You can find this at Michael's or AC Moore (use your 50% off coupons that are in the newspaper every Sunday!)
I printed out LARGE images from the actual Yago Bottle and taped it inside of the glass and with the paint I traced and painted adding a lil bit of my own stuff as I went along.
When it was complete, I baked it in the oven for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. (this is so the paint doesnt chip off.. so its a super important step-- DON'T SKIP IT!)

Wrapping it up with a Bow....

I filled the glass with crepe paper and wrapped it up with a bottle of Yago.

IPhone Cake for Dummies

2009-04-22T09:32:00.000-07:00

My Hubby is a techy- kinda-guy. His love for me and the kids, only to be challenged by his love for....

His IPhone

Now baking and I have this love hate relationship. I love it because its so YUMMY, and I am constantly inspired by Ace of Cakes, but I hate it because... well Im just not very good at it.

But for The Hubby, I gave it the good ol college try:

The Shape:

I used your average retangular baking pan and rounded the edges for the shape.

The Color:

Black food coloring mixed with vanilla whipped frosting covered both the dark black and grey areas.

The Icons:

I made on my computer and printed out on 110lb cardstock (ooo yea, I TOTALLY cheated!) ... if you would like the template for the icons let me know and I will send the file.

and vioa-la!

Clearly, Piping is not my strongest point, but its not too shabby right?

Though its not something I'd consider adding to my business, I thought I'd share it to give all of you MUCH better cake decorators a fun idea to play with .

Mr.Complicated was impressed...

That's all the matters- right?

Giving the gift of Fun in The Sun

2009-04-12T11:57:00.000-07:00

Every year when my in laws anniversary rolls around we have the dreaded
task of trying to find a gift.

They are always very good to us, so we are always trying extra hard to get that perfect something. The problem is though, they need for nothing.

So knowing that every summer they spend a lot of time going to the beach, I thought it would be a fun idea to get the beach passes! ... only problem?
The passes weren't on sale yet.

We would have to give them the money and a note of "this is for...."-- how boring!

So I created oversized replicas of the actual beach passes and attached it to a towel inside of a beach pail & Shovel.

* If your beach passes look like this too and you would like the template, please leave me a message in the comments section and I will be sure email it to you.

Spiderman City Birthday Party

2009-04-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

Being a Girly-girl, when my son asked for a Spiderman Birthday Party, I have to admit, I initially thought- “What am I going to do with Spiderman??..how boring!” .. but as I learned - Spiderman is not to be underestimated because– you have no idea the potential fun that a Spiderman party has.

Here are some things I did:

Invitations

Vintage cartoon looking, I incorporated my son’s Halloween picture (his early spidey obsession proved very convenient) with a cartoon picture and then printed out a bunch. Some I had my son help me shred with me using craft scissors as the backing to give the invite a “ripped straight from the comic” look. My son loved this! It was a great way to get him involved and psyched about his party.

Favors
I made candy bar wrappers to look like the Daily Bugal. That gave a little synopsis to the Birthday boy’s year. I used these for both favors and decor (stay with me here).

Goodies bags...

I took medium size paper shopping bags and glued comic page that I printed out on it. I made custom “thought bubble” name tags and glued them to the comic to give the bag a 3-D affect. I filled the bag with various candies and a small spiderman puzzle that I found at the dollar store. Attached to each bag was a small toy camera ( you can find these in Walmart or a dollar store in the party isle) along with a note from Peter Parker thanking them for coming to the birthday and wishing them luck in catching a picture of spiderman.

Decor

NEWSSTAND...

I loved the Candy bar wrappers so much that I decided to make a whole newsstand with the extra candy bars! I wrapped different size card board boxes in black construction paper and arranged them to look like newsstand displaying candy, newspapers and magazines. I labeled each item on black paper with chalk to give it the “old fashion effect” and strung some of my husband’s old comic books from some twine rope we had in the house.

SPIDERMAN CITY
I covered 2 sides of my entertainment center with dollar store plastic black table cloths and printed out windows on the computer to make them look like skyscrapers. I created a billboard for one top one tower and used a 3-d Spiderman book my son had, to top the second tower with a villain. I hung a spiderman toy upside down from one tower as well. (using themed toys that your kids have as decor items is always a great, inexpensive idea!)

Cake

Wilton sells some really cute Spiderman cake pans, if you are so inclinded to try it out... I on the other hand, have limited skills when it comes to cake decorating so I kept it simple.

So my husband and I decided to make the simple double layered round cake you see above and decorated it with one big spiderweb.

We placed our spidey candle on top, and used a daily bugal wrapper (yea we REALLY liked these – tee-hee!) as a billboard behind spidey. We surrounded the cake with cupcakes covered with red and blue sprinkles.

Party tip: I find people prefer cupcakes anyway. I don’t know why, maybe cause it’s finger food? I don’t know but I never have left over cupcakes- where as Cake I always have extra lurking around my house for days after.

A Christening with Tiffany's Class

2008-11-01T13:00:00.000-07:00

I have wanted a little girl my whole life, and when I found out that I was being blessed with my little diva you can only imagine the excitement. Literally, I cried. I actually scared the sonogram technician cause she thought she had upset me when she said “Its a girl”. However, it was quite the opposite. Immediately, I started having visions of PINK and Fluff, marabou and glitter, and when my family planned

My “Sprinkle” that’s exactly what it was. Everything Girly! I loved it.

But by the time my little Pink Princess arrived… I was so done with pink! I believe I had every pink outfit in Carters, Children’s Place and Baby Gaps current lines. My mother even insisted I replace all my sons baby gear with Girlier pink versions. (Yes, she’s insane.) So when I had to plan my daughter’s christening, I had to come up with another way at expressing my love for extreme femininity.

After searching lots of different ideas online, I finally found it! …TIFFANY’S!

What better way to be girly than to be surrounded in Tiffany Blue (which is a copyrighted color by the way, so don’t expect to find anything with that color name). It was better than Pink! And in the end I believe Holly Golightly would be proud

So here are all the ideas and items I put together to make my daughter’s first Tiffany’s dream (that she didn’t quite dream, but I know she would have if she could have) come true.

First Thing is invitations!

Right away, I found the perfect one…
You can find these on http://www.partyinvitations.com/ for $1.85/ea or less, depending on qty.

Then for the centerpieces.

I didn’t have a huge budget, so I wanted something inexpensive but still within theme.

I found this GREAT company http://www.sunrisepackaging.com/ that makes boxes that are almost a perfect match for Tiffany Blue. They have Trays and Towers, all kinds of boxes that can be made into centerpieces and they are really good quality, glossy boxes!

I seriously considered these and wrapping them with a satin bow:
But ended up going with these trays that I made look “flower pot” like by making pink and white tissue paper flowers.

For favors, I decided went with stained glass crosses (it was after all a Christening, I thought it should reflect somewhere!), but of course insisted on finding a Tiffany Blue-ish glass for the center. I got ribbons printed through a vendor on Ebay for $6 and hung them on a favor tree that I purchased at Michaels for $15 (plus a 20% off coupon!)

My extra special touch were the place cards. They were pinwheels, ofcourse – in “the color”. I thought about standing them in Wheat Grass but decided to just lay them down around the favor tree (that sat on a BIG Tiffany’s box we had just recieved the week before!) It made my welcome table a little more “welcoming” don’t you agree?

You can find instructions to make your own pinwheel at Melz Stamps

Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of each place setting, but on each plate I placed a menu card that I printed from home that read "Dinner is served" and a Tiffany’s colored box with the signature white satin bow (That I found at the Dollar Tree!). Inside the box were Hershey Hugs and Kisses and a note that Read “Thank you for sharing in my special day xoxo”

There are really so many other things, Id love to have included if the budget was a little bigger.

Word of advice though, to the “Tiffany-Party-Planner”… There are many versions of what companies consider “Tiffany Blue” so get samples before ordering online!… also, DONT EVER, EVER under any circumstances describe the color as a “SEA FOAM GREEN-ISH“, or you may get a kelly green occasion cake!

… Good thing we’re Irish.