Category Archives: Pie’s Parties

MPS Blog Hop Challenge! Wildly Sweet Pinky Pirates!

Posted on August 14, 2011 by apieceoflifespie

My Pink Stamper announced a Blog Hop challenge this past Friday during her fun Pinkalicious Blog Hop. This was the first Blog Hop featuring the new MPS Design Team! I have to say I had a great time hopping along it Friday night! The talent is just amazing and very well-rounded in technique demonstrations and ideas!

I was actually excited about this challenge since it was a two-fold motivation of getting a kick-start on a pending project and participating in a challenge. Believe it or not I had EVERYTHING to start this project on hand so I got cracking on this Friday night!

I recently volunteered to make banners and cupcake toppers for a daughter of a dear friend’s third birthday. She gave me a theme and creative licence to run with whatever I wanted to do. Once I saw the challenge posted by MPS, the light bulb started to glow! I got to follow the challenge and combined my favorite color scheme (pink, black and “bling”) my favorite technique of incorporating animal print (I LOVE ANIMAL PRINT!) , my favorite Cricut project of creating birthday swag and one of my top fav Cricut Cartridges, Rock Princess – the creative possibilities that cartridge holds is unbelievable.

I just finished the project with two weeks to spare and in the nick of time to meet the MPS deadline. The project was a bit larger than I anticipated, but I think it will be the perfect proverbial cherry on top for the birthday party!

Thank you for stopping by and sharing a piece of life’s pie with me! 🙂

Recipe (for the banner details, I used Design Studio and it was very complex in demotions and it would take two blog pages to break down, so if you want the exact info, I do have that information, please feel free to contact me directly or leave me a comment.):

Cricut Cartridge: Rock Princess, Mini Monograms (scallops and cupcake topper base; see cupcake topper base and layers) and Celebrations ( set at 5.5 for banner; find on page ).
Cupcake Topper: Scallop from Mini Monograms set at 2 inches for base. The next layer set at 1 3/4 inches.

– Princess Rock Image: Skull Font was set at one and 1/4 inches.

– Princess Rock plain cupcake image with cross-bones was from the image that cuts both cupcake and cross-bones. I had to change-up the paper and the font size from each other so there was a bit of waste in that step. The pink cupcake was set at 1 inch and the cross-bones were set at 3/4 inch. I then layered them using a pop dot to elevate the cupcake from the cross-bones.

Paper: Recollections, Michael’s Open Stock embossed and textured paper (Pinkini, Ballet and Very Berry and Shimmer Cream). Silver Glitter Cardstock from clearance rack at Target ( I used this behind the # 3 on the banner and cupcake “dots”).
Ribbon: All Celebrations (Michael’s brand) Hot pink and black 1/2 inch zebra print ( bow for banner),one and 1/2 inch hot pink zebra print (treading for banner), 1/8 inch black satin ribbon (bow for cupcake topper).
Accent Pen: Uni-Ball Signo- White (used for dots on scallops and smile on cupcake face)
Stickles Diamond (used as an accent on cupcakes on both banner and cupcake toppers and to outline the # 3 on the cupcake toppers).
Wilton Lollipop Sticks, Pack of 50 at 4 inches – Michael’s
Pop Dots: I used these to add dimension to cupcake toppers under the second layer and I added these to the 3rd layer to the banner.
Hot Glue Gun: I used a hot glue gun to attach lollipop stick to topper and to attach the small bow on the cupcake topper with the # 3 on it.

* Please note that I cut off legs and arms of the “cupcake man image” on the one on the banner as well as the one for the cupcake topper.

Again, thanks for stopping by and having ~~a piece of life’s pie~~ pirate cupcakes with me! 🙂

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4th of July Party on a Budget!

Posted on July 8, 2011 by apieceoflifespie

I love to throw parties and when ever I can I will, but no matter how you slice it or dice it, parties can get a little out of hand in the price department. I just hosted a 4th of July party where I had about 20 in attendance. I made all my decorations with mostly what I had on hand already in my craft room and shopped the ads for the food. We kept it simple with burgers and dogs. For cocktails I found a really good pre-made margarita mix at Costco for $11 a bottle (Kirkland brand). A friend over asked if I had Grand Marne on hand and she added a shot of that to each “rita” and WOW were they good!

I put American Flags that I got on clearance last year in this jar and added a tag I made from my Cricut Celebrations cartridge (3 inches). Paper was from Die Cuts with A View Summer Stacker

Label was made from Cricut Storybook Cartridge (2 inches)

I wrapped these tin pails I had from a previous party with some patriotic material I found at Jo-Ann’s at 75% off. I also used this same material for table runners.

I made these stars from Plantain Cricut cartridge the star is 2 .5 inches and the layer star is 2 inches. I added little “pom-poms” to the center and attached with hot glue to 2 inch white tin pails I had from a previous party.

I made the Pom-Pom by using a method I found online. The only thing I did do, is I layered different colored paper to get the multi-colored effect. They were so easy to make. I did use zip ties instead of stapling the center. That seemed to work amazing!

For my tables I wrapped the kiddie tables in brown butcher paper and then wrapped the star garland on both ends. I cut the table runner to fit and taped down with painters tape.

Life’s Cowgirl Theme Birthday Party on a Budget!

Posted on May 6, 2011 by apieceoflifespie

My oldest just turned 3 and she had a fascination with Jessie, from Toy Story, and she requested a Jessie and Bullseye themed party. I thought, “Not a problem” until I found out that to just limit the party swag to just those two characters was going to be tricky if I was to buy anything commercially and stay on a resonable budget.

I took matters into my own hands and started doing my homework and managed to be able to throw a cute and on budget themed birthday party that looked like a good amount of money was thrown at it.

For invitations, I had a friend that is a graphic artist design me a custom invite that looked like a movie stub that I could sent the file to Costco Photo and have two invitations printed out on a 4×6 photo. I then found a plain primary colors note card with envelope set at Target for $3 and I printed out directions and other important information on those that the invitation could not support.

Made to be able to print on a 4x6 photo then cut into two invites

For decorations, I found a Cricut cartridge on Ebay that had all the Toy Story characters that I could manipulate for my benefit to make my own decorations (I bought it for $23 band new in the box and sold it one month later via Ebay for $26). I made cupcake toppers, banners, and accents to table settings.

Banner

I went to a local feed store (which was a fun side-trip with the kids since they had a few farm critter residence that were fun to meet) and found out that I could rent out bails of hay for $6 that I used for seating and ambience. I added banners and bandana material to spruce it up.

On advise from a friend, I decided to put my effort on decorations this event and buy pre-made cupcakes. Albertson’s has a wonderful chocolate cupcake that was topped with delectable fudge icing and mini chocolate chips. I purchased 36 cupcakes for about $20 dollars.

I raided the Michael’s dollar bin and lucked out on finding markers and crayons that were Toy Story themed. I did the same at Target’s dollar bin and found the tin buckets for the goodie bags and place settings.

I found bandanas and cowboy hats at Oriental Trading Company and sheriff pins on Ebay for the goodie bags.

I order my mylar balloons off of Amazon and had them filled while I was picking up regular balloons for only $1. The total savings I had on the mylar balloons was $6 a balloon.

For eating areas, I opted not to rent table and chairs sand I borrowed a couple of kiddie picnic tables from friends and covered them with butcher paper and a bandana material table runners and secured with raffia to add a more “rustic” feel. I found the material at a fabric store on sale and used my pinking sheers to make the table runners. I went the no-sew approach. I added the mini tins filled with the markers and crayons that I enhanced with sheriff stars to each place setting. This was a built in craft idea for the kids. Now they could color on the table using the butcher paper.

I did have a jolly jump that I got for $64 for 10 hour period.

As far as food, it was a party that served lunch so we stuck with dogs and burgers and the typical side dishes of chips, veggie platter and potato salad.

For thank you notes, I recycled the banners I made for the party by simply adding a back to them and tieing together with ribbon. When I was at Costco picking up my invitations, I asked for a pack of their envelopes and used those to mail them in. I got a lot of feedback that everyone loved the thank-you notes!

It was a bit time-consuming, but at the end of the day I saved close to $300.00 by cutting these corners and getting creative. I had an attendance of around 35 which included about 13 kids. I only spent $350.00 and that also included food and beverages (I did offer sparkling wine and beer to the adults).

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