messyart

it only took 11 years...

But i finally got to throw a little girl (well, maybe not so little now) Party! Woot woot! Yes i was very excited :) There was no 'theme' as such, i just had lots of random ideas i wanted to use. The colours were loosely lavendar, light turquoise and just a splash of fushia. I didn't get a whole lot of pics, in all the business, but i did manage to snap a few instagram shots...

 

This was thier little sitting area where they had water in cute little jars and sweets from the dessert table.
Speaking of desserts....











I set up a craft table with little jars filled with craft goodies for each girl. My friend Bec and I also made them each a little mini album and notebook to decorate. They LOVED this bit, even more than i thought they would. I loved watching them craft and chat away happily. It kept them busy for almost 2 hours! They each decorated thier albums and notebooks, and each made thier own hairclips from felt, buttons and flowers.

My favourite idea was the 'Milk and Cookies' bar i set up in the loungeroom for when they watched their movie (Alice in Wonderland). The couch was covered with blankets and pillows and we had a few blow-up matresses' on the floor as well. Above them i (the Mr.) had hung some light blue and white balloons, just for fun. I was going to hand silver stars as well, but we ran out of time :(

The "milk and cookies' bar had little bottles of milk, stacks of freshly baked oatmeal choc chip cookies and little boxes of freshly popped popcorn. I made some little clouds (tutorial to come) and hung them above the 'bar'. It looked so sweet. Unfortunatley i didn't get any photos during the day as i hadn't popped the popcorn yet. So the pictures don't quite capture the real feel. But it looked SOOOOOO cute! And at night, when we turned the lamp on, the starts were so sparkly and glittery! 

The girls were awesome. I have to admit i was a bit nervous about having 7 girls staying over, but they were just great. They did stay up ridiculously late, but i guess thats part of the fun, right? One of the girls had her own iPhone, and Tat thought it would be fun to send me text messages all night while i was trying to sleep. (it was kinda funny). I don't know how they all had so much energy the next morning though. I was dying.....sooooo tired.

And would you believe that i ran out of coffee beans! I went to make a coffee and couldn't because i had no beens left!

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I called mum to see if she would go pick me up a take-away coffee and bring it to me, but to no avail (she didnt answer)

So i opened the coffee bean grinder and scraped up all the beans i could, pulled the machine out to see if any beans had fallen behind, checked the fridge to see if any had fallen out of my last bag. I searched EVERYWHERE! Kinda like the way we used to scour the house for spare change as a teenager to be able to get up enough money to catch a bus/buy some ciggies(yes, i used to smoke, shame shame)/ grab some junkfood. I managed to scrape up a pathically small handful, but still not enough to grind me a shot of coffee. Why oh why don't coffee places DELIVER?

Anywho....somehow i made it through the day without coffee. All the girls were gone just before lunch, and my exhausted little 11year old had a VERY long nap.It was a good day.

Now i just need to get through Entoni's party tomorrow!

 

 

Last minute Birthday invites

So the kids birthday parties are in 4 and 6 days respectively, and i still hadn't made the invites. The kids woke up this morning with complaints of "Muuuuuuum!  Haven't you made our INVITES yet?! MUUUUUUUM....you SAID you would make them by now! What are you doing? Why aren't they done!" Well lets see, between planning 5 birthdays in 2 weeks and an upcoming 60th and 70th and Easter lunch at my house, and running around with an IMPOSSIBLE toddler, soccer, dance, homework, dinners, lunches, grocery shopping, paying bills, fixing wardrobes that keep falling apart, breaking up constant squabbles between 4 kids and constantly picking up after EVERYBODY (because , as it seems, no one remembers how to put away shoes, clothes, their dishes after dinner, their toys or homework or anything, really)....hmmmm, nothing really kids. I've just been a bit lazy, sorry.

But really, their complaints are a bit justified, i should have made them by now. I know this. It's 6am when these complaints are being wailed at me and i realise i need to send them to school with invites. Today. In 2 hours. What to do, what to do?

First , grab a pen and the kids coloured markers.....and draw. Nothing fancy, but still has to be cute.

Now this next idea i know i've used before, and only recently at that, but who says i can't use a good idea twice. Especially when it's to different recipients?!

 Entoni's invites were a littler easier again. My friend Bec had given me this cute little notebook which i carry around with me. It's got really cute pages in it. I just tore my favourite page out and wrote the invites on that. Then i scanned it into the computer and printed in out onto heavier weight paper and then cut them out. I used more pages from the book to decorate the envelopes and Viola!

INVITATIONS ARE DONE!

And we were only 5 minutes late for school ;P

(remember, i was doing this while i was feeding/changing/dressing/entertaining a busy toddler and getting 3 kids ready for school)

 

a birthday, a green tree frog and lots of pink sweetness...

Yep, random...i know.

The kids found this little guy in our backyard. Entonis a total frog lover, and wanted to keep him as a pet. Mean mummy... i said no. But they did have a little play with him ;)

My little neice had her 4th birthday yesterday. Her fave colour is pink (of course) so i threw together and very simple little sweet table for her party...

For the jello i made little toppers with words that described the birthday girl :)

Happy Birthday sweet little girl! I hope you have lots of new and exciting adventures now that your 4 years old! You are my favourite neice in the whole world!!!!! 

xx

For her gift, i made her a little craft box using stuff i already had on hand. The box was packaging to an album i got years ago, magnets are made by me, the craft stuff is all extra stuff i buy but never use (shocking, right), and then i just made a little label for the box :)

We had fun celebrating and relaxing mostly by the pool, which was perfect on such a HOT day! My brothers got a pool table, so we played a few games of pool. I used to LOVE pool, and was pretty ok at it too. Seems when you haven't played in years you loose it all :(. I couldn't even sink a ball the first game!

Dad wasn't much better (sorry dad!). However it did start coming back, cause i won the next game! (again, sorry dad ;)

We also had heaps of fun making videos of eachother using my new favourite app! I'm sorry to anyone who has me on FB, you must be so sick of all my videos by now, lol! But i just can't get enough :) :) :)

I love days spent with the family just chilling. It's a shame we always have to wait till it's somebodys birthday to do it! 

And on a final note....is there something wrong with me? Because i bought TJ this toy (you race cars down it) and was really annoyed that it looked so ugly in my lounge room.

So i painted it to match. My lounge room that is. Is that kinda OTT?

Hope you all had a nice weekend!

Shhh....it's a surprise! Oh, and i can't spell. Obviously.

So my good friend Bec and I have been busy planning a surprise Valentines day party for the kiddies today. I know Valentines is on Tuesday, but we've got school, dance, work....blah blah blah. So Friday it is. Plus, our local park is having a 'Movie night Under The Stars" so we thought it would be fun to end the night at the movies in the park :)

Because it's a surprise, i've been working on all the decorations and bits at night when the kids are asleep.

Never mind my half painted toes.

Because i've been up so late these last few nights, the Mr. has been waking up with TJ so i can have a bit of a sleep-in in the mornings.  This morning my gorgeous daughter brought me up a cup of tea....

Sweet.

Theres an idea i've had in my head for years, something i want to do for Valentines....a new tradition to start. Every year i say 'i'll do it this year' and then i always seem to run out of time. I've done it (or not done it) again this year :(

Feeling frustrated at myself....

I do have a cute little Vday tute i plan to post later today...

Anyways, got a full day of getting ready for this little Vday party of ours. Of to bake a cake .  Have a lovely friday !

who doesn't like a good obstacle course?

So today we celebrated a special little girls birthday.... Happy Birthday Jezelle !

Jezelles mum, Mel (one of my bestest friends ) planned a simple little pink party in the park to celebrate. We had party hats, pink pom poms, an amazing cake (sadly, no pictures) and of course..... an obstacle course! It was the same one i used for Kody's birthday earlier this month, but the kids had SO MUCH FUN at his party, we thought we'd do it again today ! It was super easy to make, most of the stuff was from around the home, or really cheap to buy. The kids loved it (and some of the adults too....just quietly. Although if i post any of those pics, i might just be in trouble ;)

This is Mel...isn't she gorgeous?

The course was easy. 

• kick a soccer ball around some markers
• jump through some hoola hoops
• walk the rope (the jumprope that is ;)
• put on some mens clothes and a hat
• balance a tennis ball on a frisbee...walk to the jumprope
• jumprope 5 times
• do some golf...get the ball into the cup
• take off the mens clothes and hat
• grab a pillowcase and jump all the way back to tag your next team mate!

This course was a bit easy because most of the kids were little. Kody's course was MUCH harder! But if anyone has more ideas i'd LOVE to hear them!

Love this pic of me , Mel, and her sister Cheree. Mind you, we all look totally airbrushed....

TJ was too small for the obstacle course, but he had fun on the playground instead :)

 What a nice way to start the weekend :) 

Everything was Merry and Bright...

Firstly, let me say a late Merry Christmas to anyone who might still be checking in on this lil 'ol bloggity blog of mine. We had a wonderful day... full of yummy food, family, and good times. It was nice to have everyone together to celebrate Xmas with.  We had a goregous seafood lunch outside, followed by a sweets buffet full of yummies for our already quite full tummies. We all opened gifts together, swam (or floated, more like it), played games and had lots of fun. Heres some pics of our Xmas day.

Heres me and my dad just getting the table ready.

I made fabric covered stubbie holders for all the guys (with thier initials on them), and little woodenfans for all the girls, which my step-mum helped me painted (by helped, i mean she painted them all ;). Each person has a white wooden letter of thier name on thier plate, and a personalised bon bon. I also had little party favours of macaroons for each person which i tied up in sheer fabric bags and adorned with a little Xmas ornament. They sat in everyones wine glasses.

I borrowed some snow globes my dear friend Bec made and decorated the centre of the tables with those and jars of pretty white flowers from my step-mother (Thank-you Robyn! xoxo)

We had soooooooo much seafood! See those 2 boxes on the right side of the table? FULL of seafood! And such good seafood too! The prawns were huge, the crab was amazing, thier were oysters and bugs and salmon...OMG. Good.Food. There was enough for everyone to take home dinner for themselves , and we still had plenty left over for us! Thanks to my brother and dad who organised all that yummy food! You guys rock.

After lunch was gifts and swimming while i got coffee and desserts ready....yummy ;)

There was some kissing under the mistletoe. (yes, i made mistletoe :)

And then there were the sweets......mmmmmmmmmm.

Mums pineapple upside down cake. So.Damn.Good.

I'd say these two were more nutty than sweet...

 And  heres some more random pics taken from phones and ipod's through-out the day (which would explain the low quality of some pics)...

The Mr.

TJ feeding Tati's little doll.

And this pic is soooo blurry, but just check out that sweet little smile!

Hope you all had a Very Merry Christmas too!

DIY party favour idea: personalised mugs

Recently i helped my step mother plan a 40th birthday lunch for one of her good friends. It was simply done, as it was held in there tiny beachside apartment. With the ocean as their background, we went with auqua, white and silver as our colours. We had a small dessert table with lots of home baked sweetness on it (sadly i dont have a picture :( ) Robyn made some really good food for lunch (she is an EXCELLENT cook), and we decorated above the table with loads of pom poms in the afore-mentioned colours. She wanted some party favours, and we tossed up a few ideas, such as monogramed napkins. However things didnt go as planned and the day before the party we were left with nothing. So a quick stop to my local cheap shop and the florist and we came up with these.... 

They were quite simple to make really. I just got some ceramic paint, a fine paint brush, and white ceramic mugs. For the bouquets you'll need florist foam, lots of pretty flowers, and good gardening hand shears.

Following the instructions on the box of ceramic paint (every product works differently, so read the instructions carefully!) i hand painted on each invitee's initials. You only get one go, so take your time!

Then i let them dry. Once dry the were baked in an oven for 35 minutes. Once they were completely baked and cooled, i added florist foam and water to the bottom of each mug. Dont put in too much water, you want your guests to be able to take them home without spillage! Then add your flowers and your done :)

This would work really well with tea cups or plain white vases would look cute too!

And it's a gift they can use again and again. I had actually written up some cute little tags with care instructions, but didn't have time to tie them on! It was a surprise party, so we were under the pump, and i wanted to be out before the birthday girl arrived. Hopefully you'll be more organised!

ps. If you actually make any, please share your results! Just post a link to yours in my comments, as i'd love to see other peoples takes on this :)

Moustache Cup tute

Better late than never, right?

Its been a busy week round here with 3 sick kids, and one sick mumma (me), but i've finally got a chance to visit my sadly negglected blog now that everyones sleeping in bed :)

So without further adue....heres the Moustache Cup Tute. It's an easy one folk, great for the kids for Fathers Day mabey? 

What you need:

pencil or pen

scissors

glue

paper cups

black or brown coloured cardstock

srcap paper (old bill, and envelope...anything will do!)

1. Fold your scrap paper

2. Draw half a moustache

3. Draw a few different style moustaches, if u wish

4. Cut out your moustaches , open up and make any alterations you need to it

5. Fold your coloured cardstock and cut out moustaches using the white one as a template

7. Unfold your moustache and drop a dot of glue in the middle

8. Glue your moustache to your cup and let dry before using

Viola! You are done :)

Simple, right? Now just do it 50 more times! Haha...only kidding. Unless your crazy like me and actually do make ones for every guest at your party (and then some)

;)

Happy Monday!

 

Only one but he's already vintage

Tyler had his first birthday last month, and we decided to throw him a big party (cause you know, 1yr olds just LOVE big parties ;) I had all these idea's in my head of what i wanted to do. Thanks to the help of my good friend Bec of RubyJu (thanks sweetie!) we just managed to pull most of those ideas off! I love a friend, who, when your spouting out all these crazy ideas of what you want to achieve in a ridiculously short amount of time, she says "Lets do it!" instead of bringing me back down to earth. 

Awesome. Love those kind of friends. 

Anywho....so the party is being featured on the Cake Events blog today, which is pretty cool. So if you are coming to this blog from there....Hello! Nice to meet you all :)

 I'll be posting a couple tutes on my blog from the party, so keep watching! I should have the first one up later today. But for now, heres some more pics from the party. (They're definitley not as cute as Bec's pics...thanks Bec for all the precious photo's!)

We had a fingerprint tree, where all the guests would sign in with their fingerprint. My friend's husband whipped up the awesome tree in minutes after i panicedly realised i didnt have a tree yet, just as the guests were starting to arrive. Oops...knew i'd forgotten something!

We also had a section set up for guests to leave the birthday boy little notes of wisom/advice for him to read when he was older.

heres some of the notes that made me laugh...

We had a photobooth set up with cute bunting my girlfriend Debbie made for the backgdrop.

Every family got a polaroid taken which they got to take home with them later. In retrospect, i wish i had kept them all so i could have at least made myself a copy. Then i could have sent them out to everybody with Thankyou notes. Theres a tip for you if you ever end up doing the same thing!

Heres some other pics from the day...

 and of course, my fave pic of the day....

There was lots of vintage decorations...you can some more great shots of the party HERE and HERE.

 and heres some of the food (pics by Bec of RubyJu)...

TJ fell asleep before he got a chance to cut the cake (so to speak) so some of our friends and family missed seeing him get his cake (and eat it too!) as it was quite late when he woke. We made him a smaller version of this pumpkin spice cake to have all to himself. And he was in heaven!

The Mr. thought it would be funny to smear icing all over my face, but as you can see, i think i had the last laugh ;)

A BIG HUGE thanks to my gorgeous friend Bec, my step mother Robyn, and my sweet friend Mel and my family, who all did such a great job in helping me get this party done! Poor Mel had sick kids on the day, so after all her help, she didnt even get to see the end result :(

 Thanks for looking!

Tash's Bday (#2)

 

Heres some more bday pics from my sister bday. Theres too many photos for one post, so i've spread them out over 3 posts.

It's was held at a kitch little cafe with fake grass floors and mis-matched furniture and 80's parifanalia everywhere, so decorating for it was easy, as i kept it quite simple. Heres some little peaks at what we did...

i made some birthday bunting from scrapbook paper

There was a little table set up with all her fave lollies on it, and some glow-stick bracelets just for fun.

I ordered some yummy cake-pops from here...which were an absolute hit!

 I hung up pom poms and attached various embarrasing and fun photos from the years with ribbon and had them hanging all around. Yes, she's a fan of the finger, my sister.

I took my mighty big mac screen in (24" screen) and created a photo booth with props and all. (pics in next post, to come) I also bought a zillion cheap beaded necklaces for a game we played through-out the night . It's kinda like the safteypin game you play at baby showers.