thank you spammer man

What is it with spammers?  I have had so many spam comments left on this blog as of late it's driving me crazy. 


I have always felt like blogs should be open for anyone to comment (kinda the point of blogging) and I have never used word verification on this blog because I think it's nice for people to not have to worry about it (besides sometimes it's impossible to read those dang words)  Well that is about to change.  I have now added word verification to comments thanks to some spammer in Japan.  Sorry for the inconvenience.


Things like this make me mad (not to mention I'm a little irritable as I'm living on no sleep because of the flu in our house and the last few crunch days before the big Spring Formal I'm decorating for - will Saturday ever get here?!)


So I apologize to those of you that will no longer be able to just leave a comment but instead have to retype some crazy word that you can't always read.  I also apologize for my bad attitude and promise that once I've had some decent sleep I will be a much more pleasant blogger.

queen bee market - let the shopping begin

I have a great friend that I have yet to meet in person but we are in her words "blog bffs"  Mique is the genius behind 30 Handmade Days - a great resource for ideas, ideas and more ideas on anything from crafts, parties, sewing, etc.  If you haven't visited her site, you really should and tell her Denise said hi.  I'm sure you'll love her as much as I do.  

As if Mique wasn't busy enough she is now taking on more and I couldn't be more excited.  I wanted to share with you Mique's newest venture... Queen Bee Market - a hip, modern, and fresh art and gift show in the San Diego area.

Held on Saturday, May 1st, perfectly timed for the week before Mother's Day and beautiful San Diego weather (but really, when isn't it beautiful weather in San Diego?). 

Unlike any other craft fair or boutique, Queen Bee will feature vendors from all over the handmade scene. With purses, jewelry, home decor, children's items, accessories, baby products and more- you won't want to miss out. There's sure to be something for everyone.

In addition to unique products, we'll also be focusing our attention on giving back to the San Diego area. For more information, read what we're up to on our charity page.

You can also visit the the Queen Bee Market blog or check it out on Twitter and Facebook.

For those of you that are interested in selling at the market go and check out the vendor information.  What a great way to get the word out about the products you make.

I'm making plans now to get myself down to San Diego to enjoy some sun and shopping and I'd encourage you to do the same.  It would make a great girls trip!  So pass along the info.  Perhaps I'll even finally get to meet my "blog bff"   See you there Mique!

my soon to be bald boys

I'm interrupting this party blog for an important message from my boys, Nathan (10) and Luke (8).  I'm so proud of them for wanting to help and finding a way to do it.

Hi, this is Nathan and Luke and we are going bald.  Our mom is a little sad to see our hair go :) but it's for a good cause.  

Our cousin Talitha has cancer.  You can read about Tali here.  

We wanted to help so we decided to join with St Baldricks and have our head shaved to show support to those that have cancer and to raise money to help fight cancer.  We are each trying to raise $500.  If you can help us that would be great.  If you don't have the money right now, that's ok too.  Please just say a prayer for Tali and her family - that would be a big help too.

You can check out our websites.  For Nathan go here and for Luke go here.  You can read more about Tali and other kids fighting cancer on our site and there is also a place to make a donation.

You can forward this on to anyone you think would be interested in helping.  We hope that we can get lots of us together to help fight cancer and help lots of kids feel better.

Thank you a lot

Nathan and Luke

st patricks day: lucky you!

It's your lucky day...TomKat Studios has great St Patty's Day printables for the low cost of...FREE.  


Such a great inexpensive way to make the day just a little bit brighter.  I'm thinking I'll use mine in cupcakes for my kids OR maybe I'll cover our corned beef with cute little toppers - I'll start a new trend, meat toppers.  I am totally kidding.  


Click here to download.

hollywood party: the oscar goes to...

I know these amazing cookies from Bakerella are making the rounds on the internet but I love them so much I just had to post them here.  I have Hollywood on the brain as I try to finish up the decor for the Old Hollywood Spring Formal that I'm decorating for.  Do you think I could whip up 400 or so of these cookies for all the high schoolers attending the dance? Um, NO!

alice in wonderland party idea

I just got this in my inbox.  Thank you Disney Family.com!

Perfect little edible teacups for an Alice in Wonderland party.  Here's the how-to.  


I CAN NOT WAIT for this movie.  Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are movie magic in my book.  Friday can't come soon enough.


For my Alice in Wonderland craft ideas go here.

road trip parties

I love taking the party on the road.  Remember when we took our Harry Potter party to the movie line instead of having at our home?  My favorite on the road party was a few years back when my husband and I took off to Tahoe with some friends to see Jason Mraz in concert and have some fun in the snow.  


The party started in the car on the way up with specialized car kits for all the vehicles making the trip.  This kits included traveling tunes, food and more.  As soon as I can find pictures from this trip (I really need to organize the photos on my computer better) I'll post them.


I'm so wishing I had seen this idea before that trip.  Honestly, how cute is this?

I love this homemade car freshener found over at Design*Sponge.  What a brilliant idea!  The tutorial can be found here.

valentine treat - rice krispies

Yes, it's March.  


Yes, I should have posted this before Valentines so people could make them if they wanted.  


Yes, I'm lame.


But we move on.  I'm feeling so bad for neglecting this blog that I thought I'd do this quick post to let you see what I made for Valentines Day.  I can't remember where I saw these but kudos to whoever it was that created them.  They were easy to make and oh so cute.  We delivered some to friends and I also used them at our place settings for our Valentines meal.


All you need is...cones, rice krispies (dyed pink or other color of choice), melted chocolate, and a gumball. I think you can get the steps involved by looking at the picture but if you have questions about the how-to leave me a comment and I'll get back to you.

do you feel ignored?

Oh party blog how I miss you.

I am here but can't seem to find a minute to post.  I'm in the thick of planning the before mentioned formal as well as a few other shindigs...

• Daughter's sweet 16 party with an 80's theme (how am I old enough - I still feel like a 16 yr old sometimes)
• Lost finale party - I'll have to post photos of a small gift I delivered to a few friends for the premiere of the last season.  Can't wait to have a finale party. 
• 40th birthday parties for the husband and me - would like to make this party a weekend trip to NY but not sure if that is going to happen
• A travel party - when we go on vacations with friends or family we like to make it a party - matching jammies, t-shirts, party favors, etc.  We are heading out the end of May for a trip so the planning has begun.  I'll have to share photos of some past travel parties.

Don't count me out - I'll be back as soon as I can.

need ideas

Anyone have some great Old Hollywood, Hollywood Regency, Vintage Hollywood party ideas?

I'm in the planning stages for a Spring Formal that I have to pull together for high school aged kids. Not many tables to decorate - mostly decorating the entrance and dance area.

Here are some photos for inspiration...

edited...I just realized my pictures were all set to small - sorry about that.

countdown to the new year

Thought I'd repost a birthday party I did in 2008 since the theme screams New Years. You can read more about the party here.

I'm planning to head out to Ikea on Wednesday to grab some more clocks so I can rework this idea with a different color scheme for our New Years celebration.

I also plan to do this if I can gather all the clocks I need

and give this as a take home favor

Having lived in South Carolina for a time as a missionary for my church I have come to love the Southern ways. Black Eyed Peas on New Years is a memory I have from my time there and I love the idea of sharing that tradition with my friends here in California.

creative party place - i was featured

I got a little after holiday gift today when I opened my emails...

The kickball party I put together for my daughter Megan was featured over at Creative Party Place. You can check out my party along with an adorable polka dot party here.

A big thanks to Shannon over at Creative Party Place for sharing my kickball shindig.

On a more personal note - hope everyone enjoyed a lovely holiday. I have enjoyed time spent with family and friends this Christmas and am looking forward to this week with my husband on vacation from work. Our schedule includes a few trips to Disneyland (thanks for the passes Santa), a trip to the snow with extended family, some house cleaning (not fun but oh so necessary after the whirlwind of Christmas) and I'm hoping some days spent at home relaxing in jammies.

After our little stay-cation it's back to school for the kids and work for the husband while I get back to my normal routine. As for party planning I have a Spring Formal to decorate for in April so I'll be scouring books, magazines, blogs and more searching for ideas. The theme they gave me was...Old Hollywood. I welcome any and all ideas or links to ideas so please do not be shy about commenting.

excuses, excuses

I have been missing in action in a big way. I can't even promise that I am back fully yet but I'm working on making a comeback. We have had illness upon illness that I believe I have mentioned before...mono x 3 kids, flus, nasty colds that linger forever that make your head split and light your lungs on fire when you cough (can I please just get rid of this?), etc., etc. My home feels like the sick ward of a hospital.

Throw into the mix a 15 1/2 year old daughter with permit in hand that begs to be taken out driving. Every spare minute she wants to be out on the road and my nerves are only capable of handling so much. If I survive her learning to drive I plan to throw the biggest "I survived" shindig known to man. Teenage driving is not for the faint of heart.

Plus Christmas festivities abound. We have hit a few parties, holiday concerts and dinners as time and health have allowed while trying to decorate our own house with all it's Christmas trimmings.

For those interested in checking out the fireplace decor read on...

I have weird theme issues when it comes to holiday and party decorating. I have to have a story in my head or a reason why the decor looks the way it does. My thoughts for this years decor was our family gathering around the fire on a cold winters night, cuddled up to read our favorite books. I can hear all the "aaah, how sweet" comments now. It makes you gag I know but I have to have a story.

Here is the fireplace mantle decorating breakdown...

Garland. I tend to take my abundance of cheap crapola and layer it with some nicer stuff just like I did for Halloween. Here I used the super cheap, doesn't really look like living greenery, green garland. I found mine at Michaels. I layered it with a more expensive garland that was priced at $30. Yikes, too big for my budget. But, yes Virginia there is a Santa and he made the good people at Michaels mark down the garland of my dreams by 50%. I can handle $15.

I also added snow because nothing says "stay in and read by the fire" like a bunch of the cold white stuff. We've got no real stuff here in sunny Southern California so my snow was imported in from Michaels (I'd like to add that I am in no way affiliated with Michaels I just spend all of my husbands paycheck there) Need snow too? It comes in a bag ready to be thrown around your home making a big gigantic mess that doesn't just stay on the mantle. It's fun really. Your kids will love you. Go get some.

It's Christmas - we need stockings. I pulled our snowflake ones out of the box and hung those puppies up grinning that they matched my cold theme and were green (I decided to stick with an all green, white, silver color palette) To add the reading part of my theme to the stockings I painted cheap brown kraft cardstock stencils white to add each of my children's initials to their stocking.

I wanted the letters to be a glossy white but spray painting them wasn't working for me - too much curling of the stencil. To solve the problem I ran a quick coat of white craft paint over each stencil and then once dried I spray painted my high gloss white paint over them.

To add more of a reading vibe I ripped out pages of an old dictionary (hit your thrift stores people) and cut out a square to back each stencil. I'm a sucker for details so I searched for words that fit with my theme. Check me out...

"arctic"...brrr, cold. I think I want to read by the fire

"family circle"...it would be so much nicer to read by the fire with my family

"chimney sweep"...hopefully the chimney sweep cleaned out our fireplace so we can read by it. Ok, so that one is a stretch but the words chimney sweep made me happy and they seemed to fit the theme in a Mary Poppins celebrating Christmas type of way.

"jingle"...it's Christmas, we people jingle all the way this time of year.

You were impressed with my attention to detail weren't you. In your mind you have crowned me the queen of detail haven't you?!?! I'm guessing my crown is going to be yanked from my head rather quickly when you take a look at my dictionary page "flowers" My idea was to add some more reading theme goodness to my mantle by throwing in some paper "flowers" but take a look at this little beauty. Something about that word doesn't scream the holiday to me. (Click on the picture to supersize if you can't read the word)

Add some more stencils to spell out joy

and add a 6 because there are 6 of us in family and we all like to read by the fire on a cold winters night - see how I stick to my theme?

There you have it. Hopefully I can get my sick, teen age driving stressed self back to blogging more regularly to bring you more of our Christmas decor and other party related jive.

cookie exchange

The illness continues but I miss you all and just had to share these adorable cookie exchange invites that I found over at Brooklyn Limestone.

just one of those days

Tired.

Pain.

Lab work.

Waiting for results.

Busy on top of it all.

Trying to stay positive, happy and productive.

Really just want to curl up in bed and sleep for a couple of weeks.

Posting again soon.