Pins of the week....

I have become more than addicted to pinterest lately and find myself on it every free second both at home on the computer and on my phone.  I can't stand to miss out on a great idea, recipe, craft or fashion find.  It's truly pathetic!! lol

I have found some great things though in all seriousness and want to share a few recent finds with you.  If you happen to follow me on pinterest, you'll see that my days of pinning everything superhero are now over.  The party has ended and my little guy is now planning his 6th party...I hope I can top this one!   

I tend to gravitate towards crafting, sewing projects, organization and food.   I have tried a ton of recipes lately and I've really been trying to cook at least 3 nights a week and leftover the remaining so I've been in need of new recipes.  Overall, I'm not digging the recipes.  If you've found any that you love lately, whether from pinterest or not, please share.  I love new things.    

Also, I have been collecting some goodies to share in future posts about different holiday ideas and organization tips since these are 2 of my favorite things to do believe it or not, decorate and organize.  Sad, but true.  I am a true Aries, type A personality and need things in ORDER around here.  I've discovered some great tips, but I'm going to wait a bit to share.  If you have a topic you'd love to hear more about, please let me know and I'll see what we can come up with.

So on to the pins....

CRAFTASTIC

Not sure if this qualifies as a true craft, but more home decor of sorts....either way I adore these homemade lanterns.   Aren't they beautiful?????  They are simply cut out paper wrapped around a glass hurricane.

 And...because of my 8 years selling Southern Living at HOME, I have built up quite the collection of hurricanes!  I do already own a few sets that resemble the others, but I can't wait to try them in various fall colors for my Thanksgiving table!

FOR THE HOME

I love this idea from 'My Heart's Desire'

As I already mentioned, I LOVE to decorate and especially love to decorate for different holidays.  I don't go crazy with themes, but more change color palletes and add some seasonal touches.  I have done these many times in years past with different things include orange lentils and black beans for Halloween, green and yellow lentils for spring or Easter, candy corn for Halloween, red hots for Valentine's...you get the idea.

I currently have an assortment of cool gourds and mini sugar pumpkins in white and orange filling my hurricane and no candle.   Here is one of the ideas I used in the past.  Simple, but fun.  Just be careful not to let the candle burn too long with the candy corns or you'll be scraping gooey candy off the inside glass.   

FASHION FINDS

Believe it or not, I haven't pinned a thing in this category in weeks...hmmmm.  Not sure why.  Doesn't mean I haven't been e-window shopping!  I love to browse store website to see what's hip and what's out.  I've seen a lot of stripes this year layered under solids and sweaters.   I haven't been much for stripes myself in the past, but I'm trying to add a few to my wardrobe for fall/winter.  Here a few inspirations I saw.

Both from Ann Taylor Loft...a favorite of mine!

I've also seen a lot of boots...and boy do I love boots.  Here are a few cute outfits I did pin previously with boots.

What I love about both of these is that they are layered to allow for you to go throughout your day and deal with the ever-changing fall weather.  Also, you can either dress them down for daytime or dress them up for evening without a complete outfit change.  I'm big on that.  I myself want to look nice everyday even if my children and complete strangers are all I'll see.  I get dressed at 7am and don't change until late at night so I need this kind of flexibility!

FOR THE KIDDOS

Who knew that Disney would send an autographed picture of any character when you write a letter?  Certainly not me.  I wish I had known that when my daughter was OBSESSED with Jasmine.  I did manage to have a call made to her from a "Jasmine" for her birthday.  She was so excited.  

My son is beyond obsessed with Belle or "Beauty" as he has re-named her.  Look at the look on his face when he met her last year.  Smitten!

I think we might just need to send her a letter.  Just send your letter to:

 walt disney world communications p.o. box 10040 lake buena vista, fl 32830-0040

RECIPES

So as I mentioned, I've tried a bunch.  My daughter and I have been taste testing our way through pinterest.    I say only my daughter because my son has severe and limiting food allergies and my husband is a vegetarian.  So...we're the only 2 that can and will try anything.

We have found a few keepers, but I'd love for you all to share some favorites with us.  Here are a few worth repeating:

Broccoli and White Cheddar Mac n Cheese from 'The Craving Chronicles'

 I liked it..she didn't.  The pepper jack cheese gives it a little bite...no pun intended!

Lemon Chicken from 'Annie's Eats'

A true crowd pleaser...and hooray, my son could eat it.  They begged for seconds and there were no leftovers.  Very rare around here since I'm usually cooking for two at best.

Spaghetti with Chicken and Grape Tomatoes from 'Skinny Taste'

It is by far, my daughter's favorite.  It really is delicious.  We actually had it this weekend for the third time already.  Skinny Taste is full of fun and easy recipes.  In fact, I'm making their potato soup tomorrow...I'll keep you posted.

QUOTES TO LIVE BY

from 'Little Miss Momma'

AND A FINAL ADDITION THIS WEEK...

GREAT PHOTOGRAPHY...or in this case

GREAT PHOTOGRAPHY EDITING!

I could not stop laughing at this from 'Conflicting Heart'

Happy Pinning!

Poshed Up

It's a bird...it's a plane...no it's a SuPeRHeRo PaRtY!

My son's 5th birthday party was this past Sunday and it was so much fun.   I am truly exhausted after all of the preparation, but he had the time of his life so it was all worth it.    I wanted to share some of the ideas I used and give credit where it's due for the ideas I borrowed.    This is a REALLY long post filled with pictures so hopefully it won't bore you.  

I played off of the common superhero colors of red, blue and yellow throughout the theme and found the perfect invitations to match.  Here is a copy of the invitation I used which I got from Paper Monkey on etsy....I just loved it!

We added a line encouraging the kids to wear their own superhero costumes...here is my little superhero before the party started.

Of course he had to go the bathroom as soon as he got in the costume...hence the pose...lol

Also, you'll see a lot of him in this post because I don't like to post pictures of other people's children on here, but I assure you there were 7 other little superheros here that day!

All of our decorations followed this theme with the added color of green.  Here are some pictures of the decorations before the party began. 

Homemade banner using some clip art from 'One Charming Party'.  This was so simple...I should have taken pictures while I made it, but it's just card stock cut into circle shapes and then run through the sewing machine...yes, the sewing machine.  Then I adhered the letters on top and voila!  I did sew ribbon to the end to dress it up a bit!

I also made the balloon wreath that I was crazy about and mentioned as one of my "Pins of the Week" a few weeks back.   And here it is....

If you'd like instructions...you can visit 'Two More Seconds' because her instructions make it super simple to follow.

A few other fun ideas I found, but unfortunately can't remember where are these cute cutouts with my son's initials for the tables and the painted boxes as a skyline backdrop...which you'll see later.

These served as our centerpieces and the bases were simply "Mike & Ike's" candies...my son's favorite that just so happen to match our theme.   We also had 2 bunches of balloons in red, blue and yellow on the table.

Speaking of the table...here is what ours looked like...

Along the fireplace in the back I tried another idea I found for multi-colored streamers.  FUN!!!!

You can find a tutorial on 'Made' (on of my all-time top favs of blogs).  Hers are a little different, but I decided to go with no gathering because I was afraid they'd look too girly!

Here is a close up of them...

I had a table set up near the main table with our desserts, water bottles, a few snacks and a few other things.  This table had our skyline backdrop which held the goody bags.   

Here is the sign posted above...

On the left side of the table we had "POWER popcorn" in paper cones...

On the right I had chocolate covered pretzels and in the middle...our cupcakes with cupcake toppers to match our invites from 'Paper Monkey'.

On the table I had some cutouts of words in case you're wondering what they are in the picture.

And the goody bags....I made Spider Man, Batman and Captain America bags.  My son's favorites.

These are made from Walmart paper bags and simple cut out decorations.   

On the back we attached a little note of thanks.

Our main food table was on our kitchen island and we served superhero themed food.  My son has tons of food allergies so I had to customize the menu to make sure he could eat as well so...we had:

"POWER Popcorn"

"KAPOW Carrot Sticks"

"ATOMIC Apple Slices"

"WHAM Watermelon Kabobs"

"Super-charged Chicken Nuggets"

"HOLY Macaroni"

"LIGHTNING Lemonade"

Cupcakes and Water

We made bow tie pasta because my son has always said that it looks like bat wings so what better fit?!

And yes, I did have red and white roses on the food tables.  What would a party be without flowers.  I also added our superhero lollipops next to it.  I got the idea for these from 'Zakka Life'.  Aren't these adorable?

She even shared her template on her blog so go check it out.  These would be fun for Halloween too.

The whole premise of the party was based on my son's on-going insistence that he needs to be a "real" superhero so that he can defend our family against the "bad guys" when they come to our house.   Quite the imagination.  So.....I planned the whole party around the idea that the boys would "earn" their superhero badges, capes and masks after completing activities to demonstrate their superhero abilities.

Here was our table with all of the activities before we got started.

We had several things they did to earn their superhero badges, capes and masks. 

For each activity they earned a star on their  badges...

They were costume store bought medals with a foam circle hot glued to them.  We then added the sticky stars after each activity.

They had a bunch of activities to complete and they started with "Ping Pong Power Training" where they had to keep the balloon in the air for as long as possible with their partner.  I got the idea from 'The Weekend Homemaker'.

The paddles were just paper plates and plastic rulers taped to them.

Then we did "Straw Rocket Launching" where they had to shoot their "rockets" off the straw.  I got this idea from 'Curious Kangaroos' and it was so simple to make.  They are really just rolled up paper taped at the end and then a straw...super simple.

...they all tried so hard to make it go across the room....so sweet!

Next was practicing their accuracy with our "Bean Bag Toss".  Totally homemade.

I painted an old box and cut a whole in it.  I made the bean bags too...who knew they were so simple?!

The last activity inside was the "Laser Maze".  This was so much fun for the boys.  I found this idea on 'Chicken Babies'.  My husband and I had fun putting this together for them.  We used painter's tape and streamers.

They had to climb under the lasers without touching and take a piece of taped streamer off the door on the other end.  They did so good!

My little commando...lol

Last up was our silly string.  We took them outside for this one for good reason and they had no idea that Batman was going to make a surprise visit.  

After we came back in the boys were still trying to figure out where Batman went.  They all had a theory...oh the imagination of 4 and 5 year old boys!

Here they are looking out the window for him...

They all earned their medals, capes and masks.  My husband thinks that was the highlight for the boys!

I made them all capes and masks as part of their goody bags.  They each had their initial and coordinated with their masks.  Each cape has a different color on the inside as well.   (BTW...if you are familiar with my etsy shop...I will be selling these custom made capes very soon.  A great Christmas gift!)  

We ended our party with a pinata and snacks for everyone.

 

We really enjoyed it and the best part was that it was all over by noon so we had the whole day to enjoy...I mean clean up...lol!

Until next year!

Poshed Up