Gender Reveal Photo Shoot!

I was so honored to put together a gender reveal surprise for my sweet cousins! I got the call on Friday from Sandy at the Ultrasound place informing it was a ..........ahhhhhhhh!! Yep! I had to KEEP THIS SECRET FOR ALMOST 2 FULL DAYS!!!!! It was KILLING ME!! lol

So the big question was did I buy pink or blue???

Well the answer is PINK!!!  They are having a girl!!

We can't wait to meet you Kaci Taylor!!

Van Gogh Inspired Bridal Shower

Have you ever seen someone in a full on panic attack?!  There is shortness of breath, a string of sometimes unintelligible words flying out of their mouth, occasional pacing....lots of "what am I going to do?"  You would think this was for something drastic and life threatening, but no, in this case it was not.  In this case, it was my friend hyperventilating over planning her future sister-in-laws bridal shower!

I thought it was funny.  She did not.  So after calming her down and offering my assistance what came to fruition was a beautiful Van Gogh inspired shower at a local park.  Here are some of the pictures.

The Bride is allergic to any artificial dyes so we had to improvise our color pop with non-edible items such as flowers and beads.  I think it turned out fantastic!

Truffles

Party Favors

Decor

Beverages

Gifts for the games

I helped set up and then headed out to spend Mother's Day with my kiddos, but by all accounts everyone had a great time!  And the bride loved all the details! Here's wishing them many years of love and happiness!

Goonies Party!!

So for starters I am sooooooo in love with my party theme! I am a total child of the 80's!  And the party turned out just like I envisioned!  So I thought I'd give you a run down of all the little special touches that made this a rockin Goonies party!

First of all, no movie night would be complete without a movie marquee!  You can find an extremely cool tutorial on how to make it from Jordan at Oh Happy Day!  I just love the way mine turned out so THANKS JORDAN!!

I took the two pictures above the night before the party to make sure it was all working and looked great.  There was no wind that night.  However, on the night of the party it was a bit windy so I had to improvise and lean it against the fence. It still looked fantastic and I didn't have to worry about it blowing away!

Next, a movie night would not be complete without a concession stand!

A very special thanks to Audrey over at Sweet Cheek Tasty Treats for A LOT of these ideas!  As many of you know, I am not a baker so I was pretty pleased with myself for turning oreo truffles into Sloth cake pops! I did a trial run a few weeks before and then tried to improve it a bit the night before the party! I am SOOO happy how they turned out!  You'll also notice a lot of similar cake pop tags and signage.  I used her designs as the basis and scrapped them to my hearts content!  After all, you can't have a sloth without a "Hey, You guys!"

 The Candy Bar

 The Treats....Rich Stuff!

POPCORN!

 I had plain popcorn as well as some pre-made bags of Rocky Road popcorn.

My cake! Another thing I am sooooo proud of! I found the pirate box on top when I went to visit my family in Florida.  The skeleton key and token are sugar cookies I shaped and painted. Then I made a ton of edible hard candy jewels and used some pearlized sixlets as well.  And of course, what Goonies cake would be completely without Data's Pinchers of Power!

Then of course we needed drinks.  There were plenty of non-alcoholic beverages (sodas, water, etc) as well as some signature cocktails for the more adventurous!

 Pirate Boat Jello Shots

Baby Ruth Shooters

And very delicious (sorry for the blurry picture) pre-made mason jar drinks!

Cherry Limeade and a Ocean Blue Breeze!

Finally, since this was an evening party and I wanted to make sure everyone left full and happy so I laid out a spread of portable friendly food.

From Left to Right: Single serve 7 layer dip with pre-bagged chips, pre-packaged silverware with napkin and salt and pepper, Soft pretzels with queso blanco dip, bacon wrapped jalapeno poppers, ham & swiss sliders, chicken & cheese taquitos, pre-packaged hotdogs, and fruit cups.

 Thanks for checking out my party. If you have any questions about anything I did, feel free to ask!