A Look Back

My business, Party Wishes, and myself had a lot of first this year. In February, I hosted a beautiful Tinkerbell and Captain Hook party outside in the Hollywood Hills overlooking the Valley and Hollywood sign. 10 minutes before guests were to arrive, it started hailing and I had to move the decorated tables to a covered outdoor patio area. Of course, as soon as I moved the tables, the hail stopped and the sun came out!

                                    It was also the first time I did a Tinkerbell dessert table.

 In March, I hosted a puppy party for some repeat clients who just moved to their new home in Bel Air.

 It was the first time we offered glitter tattoos with the party and they were a big hit!

 In April, I hosted a Royal Wedding tea for my girlfriends. When I was 15, I woke up very early to watch Lady Di become Princess Diana and have been smitten with the Royal family ever since.

 I have also been on Ancestry.com this year and found that my hubby and I have Royal roots in England, as well. So now I can say it was a family celebration LOL!

 In May, I hosted a Mommy and Me Princess party for a preschool with 80 guests. We did the girls hair and make up, made crowns and had a scavenger hunt that ended at a candy buffet.

 There were also some beautiful princesses that came to sing and entertain the guests.

 In June, my son turned 13 so I had a surprise paintball party for him.

 It was also the first time I used these adorable push pop containers for the mini cupcakes.

 Also in June, I introduced my new Star Wars themed party. I was so happy to debut it with my wonderful repeat client, Dr. Robert Rey and his family.

 The kids played pin the light saber on the Jedi, paint Star Wars rocks (a BIG hit!), play Jedi bingo and have Jedi training to battle Darth Vader.

 For Halloween, I hosted a Edgar Allen Poe/Raven inspired tea for my girlfriends.

 In November, I had a dream come true and got to host my Mad Hatter party at the Disneyland Hotel! It was held in the Sleeping Beauty Pavillion for 250 pharmacists and volunteers.

 I created a photo booth so guests could

put on some silly hats and take pictures.

 I created 20 hats myself for the table centerpieces as well as

painting all of the tea cups and decorating the yard flamingoes.

 Also in November, my daughter turned 11 and we celebrated with a Little Miss Homemaker party. This was my first attempt at making a ruffle cake, cake banner, cupcake liner garland and homemade party hats.

 The girls had a great time learning how to make their own hair band rosettes and making cherry and apple pies. I even taught them how to make a lattice crust!

 In December, it was the first time I hosted a class party for Sheridan's 5th grade class. They made gingerbread houses and had a hot chocolate bar.

 I had different syrups for them to add as well as

4 different kinds of marshmallows and whipped cream.

 Another first was having my Halloween decorated front porch

featured on Houzz.com and the HGTV blog...such an honor!

I feel so truly blessed to be able to use my creativity and share it with others. I hope that in 2012, I will be able to share with more of you and I want to thank all of you who inspire me on a daily basis. I love being a party planner and touching the lives of children so that they can have happy childhood memories. You are a child for such a short amount of time and I am lucky to play such a small part in a child's life.

Thanks for including me in 2011

and have a wonderful 2012!

End of the Year Parties!

I'm sharing one of my favorite craft projects of the year at some of these great link up parties!

Gingerbread Class Party

 On Wednesday, I hosted a gingerbread house making party for my daughter's 5th grade class. I decided to use graham crackers for the base of the house since I really didn't want to make 32 mini real houses and our budget did not allow for store bought pre-made ones. To speed up the construction process and be budget friendly, I hot glued the crackers together. We instructed the kids NOT to eat the graham crackers, just the candy :)

 I had a candy assortment in plastic cups from Smart n Final dressed up with cupcake liners.

 I bought gingerbread boxes from Oriental Trading for the kids to bring home their creations in. I made 4 batches of Royal icing and placed in individual bags for the kids to put the candy on with.

 After they decorated their houses, we had a hot chocolate bar for them to enjoy. I had different flavored syrups, peppermint, caramel and coconut, for them to add to the hot chocolate along with whipped cream and 4 different kinds of marshmallows.
For the banner, I once again used my Cricut to cut out the gingerbread men and lettering. I used white paint pen to add the details.

 I used the free printables from TomKat Studios to dress up the syrup and marshmallows and they can be found on the HGTV blog.

 The little gingerbread men suckers are from Oriental Trading as well. I just added the red ribbon.

 I decorated the cups with pink paint put on with a round sponge, orange felt noses and black ink pen. They were quick and simple to make and made a big impact.

 One mom brought a box of Starbucks coffee and I was happy to make my own peppermint mocha.

After the refreshments, we played a game of pin the nose on the snowman and wrote on the white board. Everyone had a great time and the kids and parents were very appreciative.

Merry Christmas!

Random Acts of Kindness

 My daughter is in the 5th grade and I have been her Girl Scout leader since she was in Kindergarten (with a year off). For their holiday party this year, the girls decided to do random acts of kindness around the neighborhood to spread some joy.
We started at our own elementary school by putting a popcorn tin in the teacher's lounge, taped some coins to their vending machine and putting some cupcakes in their fridge as well. The girls were so excited to be in the "forbidden" teacher's lounge!

 We traveled to our local grocery store and passed out roses to the clerks and moms. There was also a Red Box there so we taped bags of microwave popcorn onto it so people could enjoy popcorn while they watched their movie.

 I taped some quarters to Lotto machine hoping it will help someone win a jackpot!

 We headed down to Starbucks and passed out free drink cards and roses to ladies working on their laptops.

 We flagged down people heading through the drive thru at McDonald's and handed out gift cards. This lady rolled down her window to tell us she didn't have any cash on her. She was shocked when we told her we wanted to give HER something!

 One scout baked cookies and we dropped them off at our sheriff station. The girls also passed out candy canes and cupcakes to kids.

 After we spread our holiday joy, we headed over to another scout's house and had some yummy treats such as potato latkes, Christmas cookies and hot chocolate.

The girls had so much fun, they want to do this again for Valentine's Day!

Lil Light 'O Mine

My kids are now 17, 13 and 11. Sheridan is still hanging on for dear life of believing in Santa which means the big Christmas morning extravaganzas will soon be coming to an end in our home. Over the last few years, I have noticed that the kid's gifts have gotten smaller but more expensive which makes for a pitiful pile under the tree.
This year will be different. I asked my oldest what he wanted for Christmas and he said "Nothing". Great! Now, do you think I can convince your brother and sister with the same idea? Probably not. But this has offered up a wonderful oppurtunity for our family to give gifts to our community instead of ourselves. It does seem that a lot of people need lifting up these days and small things seem to make such an impact. Just giving a unsung hero some recognition goes a long way.
I stumbled across this wonderful post via a friend from Facebook and it has all the tools and fun printables that this ADHD girl needs to make a lot of people smile this season.
Please check out this post if you would like to pay it forward.

Little Miss Homemaker Party

 My daughter turned 11 on Sunday and we celebrated with a Little Miss Homemaker party. She wanted to cook and sew at her party so I just added a retro twist to the idea. Serendipity Soiree provided the adorable retro invitations and set the tone of the whole party.

 At each of my kid's parties, I have guests sign a scrapbook page. I also attached a copy of the party invitation.

 I hand embroidered each guest's name on an apron for them to wear during the party.

 I custom made the party hats by color copying some fabric and using the circles from Serendity Soiree that matched the invitations. The crepe paper trim is from Bake It Pretty.

 I made a cupcake/coffe filter/doily garland on each of my dining room hutches. (yes, I have 2).

 I made the Devil's food with raspberry cream fill ruffle cake myself. I learned how to make the ruffles via YouTube. I also used the same circle tags to decorate the milk bottles for when the girls had their cake. I made the cake topper from pom pom trim from a local scrapbook store and I made the "eleven" banner with my Cricut.

 One of the items the girls made were rosette headbands. I got the sewing kits from the Dollar Tree and added the SS circle tags again. The each picked out 2 fabrics to make a double rosette that I hot glued to black headbands that I also got at the Dollar Tree.

 I used to same tissue trim from Bake it Pretty but in pink to edge the favor bags and used my Cricut machine to make the tags. The font is Little Days to match to one used on their aprons.

 I covered small mason jars with doilies and baker's twine and filled with candles for the party table.

 Since it was a retro inspired party, I got the girl's their own make up since 1950's housewives always looked their best even while doing their daily chores. The girls really liked this part because they would touch up their make up after every activity.

 Next, we moved into the kitchen to bake pies. Since we didn't have a lot of time, I used refridgerator dough and the girls got little rolling pins to roll out the dough. I bought some ramekins from IKEA to make the mini pies in. The girls got to pick from apple or cherry filling and I taught them a lattice technique for the top of the pie.

 The guests really love making the pies and getting creative with the dough!

 As the pies were baking, we moved into the dining room to enjoy some cake and wear the cute little hats I made. Yes, fresh lipstick was applied prior to eating as well! The crepe paper curtain behind my daughter was ruffled by me on my sewing machine.

 Didn't the pies turn out well?

Happy Birthday Sweet Sheridan!