Happy 2nd Birthday Emily! (minnie theme)

My Baby girl turned 2!

I cannot believe my baby girl is 2 years old! I have been planning her birthday party and really tried to make a lot of stuff myself. But I got so excited that I got a little carried away! (Can you blame me?) 

So, I had a great idea to use a local business as a location for my daughter's birthday party. The place is Classicakes, and they teach classes on decorating. They also sell all supplies necessary when baking anything! They do cupcake tower parties and thought this is a great idea and something that's not done daily! I decided to do a Minnie Mouse theme. It's age appropriate and so many cute ideas on pinterest! So out of all the ideas here is what I came up with! 

This is my baby girl's birthday outfit!  I had the outfit made by a local business lady and brought my ideas to life! 

 
I wanted to do an all girls birthday party! For all the little girls that attended I wanted to give them all Minnie Ears and an apron. I found an inexpensive way to do this by having my sister in law make the ears and I ironed on the Minnie silhouette using the Circut and Cricut craftroom. I also had (what I think is an ingenious) idea of making the bow on the minnie ears removable for daily use! We put a loop using the felt material in the middle and putting the bows on alligator clips! 

I also made the banner using my Cricut! I know it may look like I am crafty do it all mom but I started making stuff 6 months ago. I worked at a slow pace, making sure I didn't overwhelm myself. I made the sugar cookies and used disco dust to give them that sparkly look! I used an used damp makeup brushed to paint the dust on! 

The girls decorated cupcakes and melted candy into molds. Once they finished the cupcakes they would put it on the tower, making a cupcake tower. NO NEED FOR CAKE! 

For party favors I bought the chinese take out boxes at the dollar tree 3 for $1. I used some ribbon as handles which added a nice touch (I think). And again using my computer I made the inner circle label and had it printed at kinkos for that nice shine. I cut out the pink outer circle with the cricut.

Inside I filled it with all things from the dollar tree and most minnie theme::

1. bubbles (bought stickers and put minnie on all of them)
2. pencils (the ones with pull out lead)  
3. stickers
4. flying discs
5. tons of stamps
6.  a ring pop
7. And a notebook 

If you have any questions on anything please ask. I can give a step by step on how I made it! 

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Teacher end of the year gift!

So to follow up on that last post on the teacher gifts (http://emsmom611.blogspot.com/2013/06/teacher-appreciation-gift.html)  

... I had decided to not do the weekly gift since the last day of school was in a week! But I loved the idea that I didn't want to spend too much money since that's not what's important! I had donated materials to the classroom throughout the year. And gave the teacher gifts at all occasions possible. I wanted her to know we were thinking of her without all the money! So here is what I came up with...

I went to Albertsons and bought a plastic cup with that jelly stuff to help keep the drink cold. And bought a couple king size candy bars. And used some fillers I already had at home, (from birthday parties).  I made a simple thank you tag with a personal note using stuff I had at home and some ribbon. Total I might have spent $15. The cup was the biggest expense! Here it is... Let me know what you think.

Sorry for the blurry picture ... so not my style! 

Teacher Appreciation Gift!!

Since not many people read this, it is a little hard to be encouraged to keep up with it. I'll try a little harder since I know I can relate to many moms out there and I would LOVE feedback on my little projects. I am a first time mom with two kids. My son(step) is 5 years old and my daughter is 2! It has been a struggle to adjust to a life with 2 kids, especially since recently I have had to switch as a full time parent for my son. 

 I was excited for his first year of school but I never realized that all the cute and nice ideas that I saw on pinterest would put a hole in my pocket! So toward the end of the year convincing hubby to fork over more money was a little of a fight, especially since the school our son was in many parents didn't seem to be involved. 

Well, with that said teacher appreciation week was vastly approaching and my intent was to do a small gift every day of the week. But then the end of the year was coming to an end and that was 6 gifts I had to plan and purchase. Well with the chaoticness (I know its not a word but it should be) of motherhood I completely forgot about the gifts! So Monday I come home from dropping my son off at school and it hits me .... ahhh the gift! I have 2 hours to put something together!!! So here is what I did ...

I had old jars of spaghetti sauce cleaned out and peeled ready for use! I used my cricut to cut out an M for Mrs.M using vinyl and I remember her telling me purple was her favorite color! I threw in some cotton balls and some new files I had purchased a couple weeks ago. I grabbed some purple ribbon and tied it around the top of the jar. Lastly, I wrote out a little poem using as many M words as possible, to put inside ...

The poem read:: 

Mrs. Montero,

Thanks a Million

For being such a

Marvelous Maestra!

Hope you get a Minute

For some Me time,

Here is a little something

Hope it Helps!

Then I ran to rite aid and bought 3 nail  polishes all in the purple family & on sale, some single use nail polish removers, toe separators & tape to cover the lid! I ended up spending less than $6 on the whole gift and I ended up really liking it! Hope you do too!!