GIVEAWAY!!!!!

Pink By Design has a giveaway going on!!!!  Go check it out!  Entering is so easy; you WON'T want to miss this!  Just click on the picture above; it will take you right to the giveaway!

Party Decor Blog Hop

Welcome to our Party Decor Blog Hop. We have a fantastic group of ladies who love to make party decorations and we are excited to share our projects with you today! If you just happened to find my blog, thank-you so much. However, so you don't miss awesome projects or the chance to win blog candy, you will want to start at the beginning at Laurie's Blog.

Last month was my son's 9th birthday.  His favorite "theme" right now?? ANGRY BIRDS!  Local party supply stores only had plates and napkins - no invites, banners, etc.  So, I had to go on a hunt for Angry Birds images so I could make my own decor.  Here is the invitation I found:

I just found this online via Google Images and saved it as a picture, then inserted it into a Word doc (3.5"x5" so I could get 4 to a page).  Then, I used text boxes to insert my who/what/when/where information, printed on plain white cardstock and, VOILA! Quickie (and cute!) invites.  Easy peasy!

Next, he chose to have cupcakes instead of "regular" cake.  Know what that means, right???  CUPCAKE TOPPERS!!!!  Yikes!! I had NO idea what to do for this, so I wandered Hobby Lobby for ideas.  Cupcake toppers there were nothing more than a cute image pasted on a toothpick/skewer. I could do that! So, I went on a hunt for images with which to make these toppers.  I found some in a girl's etsy shop for $5 that my son and I adored.  Unfortunately, I cannot find the link again. :(  But......later, I found some more that were, get this, FREE!!! Yes, you read that right.  Dealwise Mommy has all sorts of FREE Angry Birds stuff, including the FREE Party Kit by Shery K Designs.  This kit has it all - invites, cupcake wrappers, cupcake toppers, gift bags.....it is just beyond awesome! 

Anyhoo....once I downloaded  - and printed - both sets of toppers, it was time to cut them out.  If you have the time, no punches, and/or just want fancier toppers, you can use your Cricut and the Centerpoint feature to cut out each one of the little toppers.  This way, you can use Elegant Edges or other fancy circle shape, find the center of each topper, set your fancy circle to 2", hit Centerpoint and then cut.  Be warned - time will be consumed by having to do this for each one of the toppers.  Being that we had 108 cupcakes and myself being the procrastinator that I am, though, I had to go the not-so-quick-but-quickER-route of using a 2" circle and a 2" scallop circle punch.  After cutting them all out, I just used my ATG to stick 2 of the circles together over the top of a piece of a skewer. (Cheapo that I am, I bought 100 big skewers for $2.99 and used wire cutters to cut them into 3 topper sticks each. 300 for the price of 100!)

The ones pictured on the desk in the top picture are the ones from Shery K Designs. I used the scallop circle on them.  The others, if you look closely in the picture on the bottom, are the ones I bought from etsy and used the plain circle on.  Here they are, on the cupcakes and PARTY READY:

Then, I began to wonder.....What am I going to put in the CENTER of the table???  I have 2 cupcake stands, so cupcakes were going to go at either end of the table, but what about the MIDDLE???  I had to come up with a centerpiece idea.  Being that I was out of time, I decided that my best option was to modify the cupcake toppers a bit and turn them into a centerpiece.  I punched the circles and scallops out as usual, then I just cut some skewers to different lengths, put the modified toppers in a vase of pebbles and, TA DA!! Instant centerpiece!  Here is a look at how that turned out:

And, as if this post weren't long enough already, I wanted to also share with you guys the card I made for my son for his party/big day:

For directions on how to make the grass, bird, pig and cloudy sky, see my other post HERE as I re-made that card, minus the "Good Luck" sentiment on the inside and adding the slingshot and blocks.  The slingshot itself is just a modified Capital Y cut from Car Decals on brown cardstock that I ran through the Cuttlebug in a woodgrain embossing folder.  The "rubber band" of the slingshot is free-handed from cream cardstock.  The blocks I trimmed out of the leftover brown cardstock and ran through the woodgrain embossing folder as well.  The sentiment on the outside is printed using a free Angry Birds font I downloaded from the internet and just trimmed into a rectangle with the corners rounded and then mounted on a slightly larger rectangle-with-rounded-corners made from black cardstock.

I hope you have enjoyed my projects; I know my son sure did! He had a blast at his Angry Birds party, and REALLY enjoyed telling his friends that his Ta Ta (my mom) made his cupcakes and his Mom made the decorations! :)  (I think he was proud of us!)

Now, on to the good stuff:
BLOG CANDY!!!!!

BLOG CANDY is a $20 gift card to Michaels.

To win, all you have to do is comment on each of the designer's blogs. Following everyone's blog isn't required but we sure do appreciate it when someone new follows our blogs. The winner will be announced on Laurie's Blog on April 27th.

Up Next is Sheila!  

Here is the entire Line-up in case you need it:

Laurie http://mincedpaper.blogspot.com
Michelle www.scrappinwithmybug.com
ClaireR http://threewaterscreations.blogspot.com/
Ashley http://theglamoroussideofscrapping.blogspot.com
Cyndie http://cyndiepaperboutique.wordpress.com/
Sandy S. http://thecraftycreationspot.blogspot.com
Gloria http://craftnthings.blogspot.com
Jessica http://homespunelegance.blogspot.com/
Autumn http://autumnsbuggycreations.blogspot.com/
Sheila http://2pawprints.blogspot.com
Vanessa http://wwwpaperkraftsunlimiteddesings.blogspot.com/
Marji http://www.fstampaholic.blogspot.com/
Sylvia http://www.bellascrapbookdesigns.blogspot.com/
Wandy http://greenapplescrapper.blogspot.com/
Mary http://Mary-fortheloveofart.blogspot.com/
Jenny R http://myimagitivity.blogspot.com