that's a wrap

My daughter had three birthday parties this past weekend!  For one of the gifts we gave her friend a Disney gift card, since they will be making the journey to Florida for the first time in March.  I put it in a red gift certificate box and wrapped it with a red and white striped ribbon.  I love these red boxes and have used them in the past as a birth announcement/thank you/Valentine and recently for the invitations for my son's birthday party.  There are many different kinds of gift card containers and I find that they have many uses beyond what they are intended for. 

that's a wrap

On Monday it was my friend's 40th.  She loves Prosecco so I gave her a bottle of Cupcake Prosecco to toast to her milestone birthday.  To make it a little more special and fun I included a recipe and all of the ingredients (which includes the Prosecco) to make a birthday cake martini.  The sprinkles were to rim the edge of the glass!

it's beginning to look a lot like....

Valentine's Day around here.  I picked up these adorable place mats that have a little felt pocket on them for silverware, a napkin, or even a little love note!  We used them last night and the kids loved it.

 

I also changed out our hot cocoa station to look a little bit more like Valentine's day too.

  

Do you decorate for every holiday?  I had a friend comment on our house at Halloween and how she never thought to decorate for anything besides Christmas.  I thought it was funny since I seem to decorate for each and every holiday!!!

that's a wrap

Since we woke up to a blanket of snow this morning in Connecticut and the kids are home from school I thought I would feature this s'more themed gift basket for our Wednesday "that's a wrap" feature.  We have some friends who recently built and outside fireplace.  For Christmas we gave them a cooler filled with the ingredients for s'mores along with a cozy monogrammed blanket.  On top we attached a metal marshmallow branch for roasting multiple marshmallows at the same time.  I love the orange and blue color combination and think this would make a lovely gift year round. 

puppy paw-ty

Our littlest loves dogs.  It was one of his first words and the stuffed animal in the picture with him below goes with him everywhere.  So a dog theme seemed perfect for his second birthday.  

 We started his birthday with some dog waffles.  I found this idea on Pinterest and although I couldn't find a link I was able to look at the picture and assemble these quite easily.  All three kids loved them. 

He also loves balloons so we got him an over sized "2" balloon which was also a big hit.  We attached it to an adorable new stuffed dog which was one of his presents.  

 For his party we sent out some invitations.  I copied a picture of one of our favorite books "If you give a dog a doughnut" and wrote the party details on the red and white paper bone. I placed both in a square red box and mailed them just like that.   We only invited a handful of friends and I did the party when my older two were at school.  It was more like a play date than a party and it worked out perfectly

I set up the food in our dining room and made a sign that said "Barkery."  We had pupcakes, pupcorn, lolli-pups and bark.  I also had some cantaloupe that I had cut into the shape of dog bones with a cookie cutter.  

 For the table I used some paw print wrapping paper and made dog bone place mats out of foam sheets. 

I used some tiny dogs in a clear vase for the centerpiece.  

I also photo copied some of the pages from the book to go along with certain stations.  This was the drink station with some dog bone sippy cups. 

 I had bags available for the parents to stick all of the favors in.  I also tucked in a paper back copy of the book "If you give a dog a doughnut."

For the activities I had the kids adopt new puppies.  They had to wash them and name them and give them some dog bones.  The kids loved this.   I also had some dog coloring pages and dog bone shaped crayons out.  They all got to take some home with them too.

We ended the day with some friends coming over for chili and hot dogs, of course!  It was truly a lovely day celebrating our youngest. 

just checking in

Did anyone else have a really long week?  Mine was REALLY long.  But, today is my baby's second birthday and we are going to celebrate all day.  Since he loves dogs we started the day with some doggy waffles.  We had a dog themed play date/party this morning with lots of fun details and we are having some friends over for chili and hot dogs this evening!   For some reason my blog isn't letting me post any pictures, so I guess you will have to wait until next week to see all of the fun.
Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

that's a wrap

We gave out some gift cards for Christmas this year and when I saw these tiny metallic piggy banks I thought they would make a perfect presentation.  These would be cute any time of year and would also work with gifts of cash or checks.  For my son's farm birthday party years ago we gave out tiny piggy banks and chocolate pennies as the favors.