that's a wrap

We recently found out that some very good friends of ours are moving to Colorado next month.  Boo.  It was their 10th wedding anniversary and I wanted to do something a little extra special for them.  Since the traditional gift for the tenth anniversary is tin, I went with a "Wizard of Oz" theme for everyone's favorite tin man!  I filled a tin bucket with the movie and some snacks.  Each snack had a quote from the movie.  A bottle of house wine had "there's no place like home" a box of skittles had "somewhere over the rainbow" and some candy hearts had "If I only had a heart."  I wrapped the whole thing in cellophane and attached a chocolate "10!"  I kept most of the gift edible because I know they are trying to get rid of a lot of stuff. The only thing they will have to pack from this gift is a very thin, light DVD! 

that's a wrap

One of my dear friends just became a grandma for the first time.  I wanted to get her something special and when I saw these adorable cookies I knew they would be perfect!!!  On the card I wrote "grandma's are like mom's with frosting."  These would make great favors for a baby shower too. SO fun!

friday favor

I was approached by a company called Daisy Days who asked me if I would like to do a review of one of their products. Since I had never heard of it so I was excited to check it out.  They gave me a $25 credit and there were definitely a number of things that caught my eye.  My favorites were probably the love letters......

(photo courtesy of daisy days)

and the individual glass cupcake domes!

(photo courtesy of daisy days)

I ended up using the credit to help my friend Krista make favors for her soon to be sister in law's bridal shower.  They were doing a champagne theme so I suggested doing glasses like I made for my friend Nell's shower. She found the champagne glasses at Ikea and we decided to order personalized ribbon from Daisy Days.  I was happy that the ribbon shipped quickly (which isn't usually the case for personalized ribbon).  I also liked that there were many colors to choose from. Krista decided on a blush pink color with gold writing.  She added some champagne candy gumdrops and two recipes for champagne cocktails that were sentimental for the bride to be.  One of them was called the lakeside kiss since the couple was engaged at a lake in upstate New York! 

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. I received a $25 store credit for the purposes of this review. All opinions expressed here are entirely my own

dinner at eight

Last week my husband and I celebrate our eighth anniversary.  My gift started with inspiration from  these adorable pillow cases!

Since we went to France for our honeymoon and our bedroom is black and white, I knew these would be perfect!  I used the translation "good evening" to put together some items that would ensure that we had a "good" evening. To start with we had dinner at 8:00 at our favorite French restaurant on the Cape.  For the gift I used the pillow cases as the tissue paper (the bronze heart tissue paper that I made kept smudging and I didn't want it to get on the new white pillow cases).  I included the movie "dinner at eight," a new cd by one of my husbands favorite Irish artists, a chocolate "8," and some prosecco that had a bronze foil wrap.  I love that this gift included a lot of meaning for both of us and our evening turned out even better than good, it was fabulous!

bubble fun

This morning we had some fun with bubbles.  There are lots of ideas on the web but this one looked easy.  I picked up some bubbles at the dollar store and added about six drops of food coloring to each bottle.  I kept the colors true to the bottles so the children would know exactly what color was inside.  I had a canvas lying around and used that to let them blow the colored bubbles onto it.  My daughter liked it so much she asked if she could make another one to hang in her bedroom.  The colors were quite muted so next time I might try it with paint or add more food coloring.  The kids had a blast and I got a new piece of art work for the play room!  This would also work well as an activity for a summer birthday party.

that's a wrap

This was a gift I gave to some friends who recently retired to the Cape.  I found an anchor beer bottle opener and gave it to them with some Anchor Steam beer.  The note read "fair winds and following seas" for a wonderful retirement.  This would also make a fun summer hostess gift!

summer afternoon

We are back from the Cape.  We had a wonderful week filled with fireworks, lobsters, parades, ice cream, swimming in the ocean and lots of time with cousins!
Before the summer started I asked my children what they wanted to do this summer.  I wrote their ideas on the chalkboard in the dining room.  They included make s'mores, build sandcastles, catch fireflies, typical summer activities.  Today we crossed one off the list: berry picking.  We picked raspberries, blueberries and peaches!!!!  There is nothing more summery to me than picking fruit at the orchard and then coming home to eat it.  We had berry smoothies for lunch and I made some lemon blueberry muffins this afternoon with my daughter while the boys napped.