Long, long ago, before I had a blog and still took pictures of people at parties, instead of decor, my baby girl Maddie turned one and we had a cupcake themed birthday party to celebrate. There aren’t a lot of pictures of all the fun cupcake details from this party, but there is one shot I would like to share with you, our cupcake buffet.

I made chocolate, vanilla, peanut butter and coconut cupcakes. There was chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, mocha and cream cheese frosting. For toppings there was chocolate sprinkles, rainbow sprinkles, sugar, coconut, smarties, peanut butter cups, chocolate covered espresso beans, crushed Oreos, gummy worms, cherries, and strawberries.

Along with all these options, the menu included some “House Recommendations” for how to combine them:

Everyone loved creating their own signature cupcakes, and I highly recommend a cupcake buffet for any party.

I can’t believe my little cupcake is already 4 going on 5!

Friday night Grandma and friends came for a family Valentine’s Day celebration. Nothing too fancy, but it doesn’t really take much to make a kids day.

Maddie was very excited to eat in the dinning room, because in her mind that means a party!

I found some fun napkins at the dollar store, and these cute heart containers, which we filled with some candies. The girls decided to make little “place cards/Valentines” for everyone.

I used my pink table runner, and added some cute metal hearts to the white orchid.

I love these simple glass tea light holders, sitting amongst some Valentine confetti.

My girls LOVED these balloons from Dollarama, and played with them for a long, long time.

The menu was simple but delicious. We had some veggies and dip, homemade hummus and pita chips, “make your own pizza”, and opened a bottle of wine.

The cutest detail; I cut the pepperoni out with a mini heart cutter.

It looked so sweet.

For dessert we had fruit and cream cheese dip.

We also had a sweet little heart shaped ice cream cake from Diary Queen.

And if anyone had any room left, there were also some goodies from our favourite local bakery.

On second thought can we just skip the fruit? Just kidding.

This was a really simple party to put together, my guests cooked their own dinner, dessert was from the store. All we really did was chop up some fruit and veggies, and grate a little cheese. The decor was all stuff I had, or picked up that day at the dollar store. Sometimes over the top and months of planning is amazing, but sometimes all it takes is Mom to declare that it’s a party, and move the meal to the dinning room!

I hope you feel inspired to do something special, but simple for the ones you love this Valentine’s day, because life really is a party if you make it one!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

This post is linked up at Under the Table and Dreaming, Between Naps on the Porch, and Tatertots and Jello.

Tonight a new Art Gallery opened in my dinning room, with a beautiful grand opening reception. It was quite the elite affair.

The extravagant menu of finger foods included cheese sticks, veggies and dip, and honey garlic chicken wings. One of the young artists prepared beautiful homemade chocolate chip cookies in her Easy Bake Oven, and there were also some lovely chocolates. The Fruitopia flowed freely, and a lovely time was had by all!

The guests enjoyed mingling with the artists.

The art itself was amazing, especially considering the age of the artists!

Sales were good, and there was even rumoured to be a few phone bids from Grandma and Grandpa. Guests were invited to purchase, but asked to leave their art with the gallery for the duration of the show. Purchased pieces were marked by a sticker.

The artists were extremely pleased with their first show, and said to be contemplating new pieces already. Keep your eye on these budding young artists, they’re sure to accomplish great things ahead!

Life is a party if you make it one, sometimes an art gallery opening night party in your very own dinning room!

This post is linked up at Under the TAble and Dreaming.

Over the holidays, my friend Rod got a big promotion, and his wife threw him a celebration party. It was a lot of fun, and there were a few really cute ideas I thought I would share to inspire you for your next party.

Our friend Heather made these fun sugar cookies using her new Williams-Sonoma Message-in-a-Cookie Cutter. Wouldn’t they also be great for Valentine’s cookies? I love them, so many great possibilities.

Another really fun idea for a celebration was that guests were greeted with paper masks of the guest of honour. It was even funnier when some of the kids decided he needed some glasses, and a mustache. He took it all with a laugh.

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The face idea was also carried on to the cupcakes. These were simply ordered from a local supermarket, and personalized with these custom made cupcake pics. So easy, and so cute.

One other really fun idea, the family had ordered customized M & M’s with their faces on them, for Christmas.

It was a great little party, and a good time was had by all. Congratulations Rod, hope your first few days at your new work place were great!

Part II –The Activities

Friday night our women’s ministry group got together for a night of Christmas preparation.  The food was great, read more about the hot chocolate buffet and desserts here.  We had a great time together, and in addition to a word of encouragement and great food, we also had some great activities.  We broke our ladies into small groups, and rotated them through 4 different stations;  Cookies in a Jar, Handmade Gift Tags, Parade Decorations, and Sugar Cookie Decorating.

Cookies in a Jar 

The first station was making cookies in a jar.  The station was wonderfully organized with all the ingredients lined up in order, with the amounts printed up on large easy to read labels, with the correct measurement.  There were home-made rolled paper funnels to help get the ingredients into the jars neatly. 

After the jars were all layered up, there was a decoration area, with beautifully printed cooking instructions, ribbons, and wrapping paper.  If you’d like the recipe, look here, where they also have the really cute printable label that looks like a giant M and M, with the instructions on the back.

What a wonderful gift they will make!

Handmade Gift Tags

The next station was a gift tag making one.  We had all sorts of Christmas paper, paper punches and paper cutters, special scissors, markers, and embellishments.  There was also lots of rubber stamps with Christmas images, and the alphabet, and different colours of inks.

The ladies were like kids in a candy store, creating gift tags to go with the two gifts that they were creating that night.

Parade Decorating

The next station was making decorations for the upcoming Christmas parade and our church float.  We used old cardboard boxes, and cut them into Christmas candy shapes.  They were painted and decorated with glitter. More on the parade later this week…

Sugar Cookie Decorating

The final station was cookie decorating. The women were given a great handout with the recipes, and tips, and given a lesson on techniques like flooding, and flocking.  They were then invited to use all the colours, and embellishments they needed to decorate several cookies. 

Everyone was given a sheet of wax paper to leave their cookies to dry on, and when they were set, they could be packed into a beautiful little bag for gift giving.

Describing these activities, it sounds a little like a birthday party for grown-ups, and that’s about how much fun we all had!  It was a great evening and we all went home with two beautiful handmade Christmas gifts, although I did hear from several friends that their cookies were already gone by the next day.  I think any of these activities would make a great ladies night for a group of girlfriends, you could pick one of the activities and have everyone bring some of the supplies.  The only thing more fun then creating Christmas goodies, is doing it with friends and turning it into a party!

This post is linked up to The Crazy Christmas Crafters at I Heart Naptime.