Sweet Bailey's Super Sweet 6th!!!!

Today we celebrated my sweet sweet Bailey's SWEET 6th birthday with a Candy Shoppe Celebration at All Around Gymnastics!!!  What a FUNNNNN party!!!!  Entertaining, colorful, happy and best of all...NOT AT MY HOUSE!!!!  lol  This is the FIRST party I have done outside of my home and I must say, it was niiiice.  Messy children eating chocolate cake....pssssh, no big deal for this mama!  ;)  White carpets were no where in site!!!

Ok, I have a billion gazillion photos so grab a snack.  Get comfy...turn on that vibrating back massage chair of yours (you know you have one).  Anything to keep you here with me! ;)

  Oh, and before I continue...gotta give a great big ol' shout out to AMANDA of Amanda's Parties To Go.  I absolutely LOVE this Candy Shoppe party collection she created.  She is amazing!!!   Thanks girl.  You are a party superhero.   

Cute containers huh!?!  I found these on clearance at Michaels for 50 cents a piece!  I just love the itty bitty scoop.  ;)  

Easiest cookies EVER!!!  I'm not so good with royal icing so I used marshmallow fondant and buttercream to decorate.  

When it came time for those kids to fill their candy containers...OMG!!!  VULTURES!!!  LOL  This picture speaks for itself...3 kids all trying to get into the same candy jar.  ;)  HURRY!!!  Theres only 300 more jelly beans left!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After all the gymnastics festivities were done we came into the party room to eat cake and do a little craft (decorate a frame).  

I found these fun straw cups at Party City and loved how colorful they were.  I wrapped some cellophane around them and VOILA, their little candy cups!!!

This should make all you dentists happy....wrapped up in every napkin/fork set was a toothbrush to remind all the little ladies to take good care of those teeth after all this sweet fun!!  (hopefully this little move helped me score a few brownie points with the mamas after all this sugar!)  ;)

For party hats I made little dessert headbands (ice cream cones, cupcakes, and donuts).  

Bailey girl with her ice cream cone headband...

Livie with a donut             and               Taylor with a cupcake...

The girls were given some popcorn to snack on while they crafted their frames...I used Amanda's Treat Box tutorial for the popcorn container.  Transforming dollar store treat boxes into totally cute matching containers.  LOVE this clever idea!!  You MUST check out her tutorial for this one!!!!!

A couple frames being worked on...this was such an easy (non messy) craft to keep the kiddos busy.

ok, and now I'm tired.

After a week of waking up way tooo early and going to bed way too late, I  think it might be time for this lady to sleep!!!!!

Happy 6th birthday sweet Bailey girl.  Mommy loves you more than you will ever know!

Dancing Jungle Animals

This cute little cake was created for my neighbor who is throwing a baby shower for one of her cousins. She wanted to base the cake off the nursery bedding. Dancing safari animals...how cute!!!!

I thought a pair of baby ballet shoes would make the perfect topper for this sweet cake...

Meet these super talented animals....not only do they survive the harsh elements of the wild, but they also do ballet!!!  (I'm guessing these are probably pampered zoo animals...not real African hard core wild ones, but I could be wrong)

Photo Mini Diary Tutorial

Today has nothing to do with cakes, but it is SWEET! And since this is EVERYTHING sweet, it goes.

Today is a little tutorial on how to do these great little photo diaries (I guess that's what you'd call them). I have been doing these for a couple of years now with my little girls and I always get questions from friends on how to do them so I decided to create a little tutorial for anyone who is interested in creating their own. :)

Basically, I take one of my favorite pics of my baby and around her birthday I add a few words to the photo to describe HER...what a couple of her favorite things are, funny things she said, quirky habits, inside jokes, etc.

I created mine in Paint! Its no special app, its free, came with my computer....First step, open your photo...(correction...first step is TAKE a great photo, then turn it into a black and white photo), THEN open the photo in Paint. ;)

When you first open it (if it is a large photo) it will look like that (down below). OOPS! Too big. ;) Zoom out so you can see what you're working with...hit the view button (see arrow) then zoom out.

Zooming out, zooming out, zooming out, until....

Now you can see what you're working with!! ;) Now to start adding your words!

Hit the Home button, then the button with the letter "A", which is the text box button.

Once you've selected the text box option, click on the picture and drag the mouse to create a box as big as you'd like. This was a large photo so for the name and age I chose 300 font size. Make sure to avoid writing ON the subject you're writing about (wouldn't want to cover up that pretty little face) ;) Oh, and choose black or white color font depending on the background. Your background might be lighter in which case you'd want to do a black font, or it could be dark like my photo so choose white font.



Next step is adding the fun descriptions...same formula, select the "A" button and start a new text box, placing it wherever you want on the photo. You'll need to go with a much smaller font size than the title, making sure to change the size of each description to give it a little character. (my font sizes ranged from 120 to 35). The good thing about this project (and what makes it so easy) is that its not supposed to be perfectly lined up, proportioned, etc. The words are all over the place (at least that's how I did it).

Add and add and add all your text until you're done. VOILA!! You have a sweet little photo mini diary of your child's quirky habits, favorite things, funny sayings, etc. :)

Oh, and I have another one...a little different from my sweet Bailey girl. Its Olivia, my other baby...the mischievous one. I love her. Love her, love her, but she is crazy.. Here she is...read up, you'll get a little sense of who Liv is. ;)

Hopefully this helps some of y'all out there to do your own little photo diary.

Have fun!!!! Say cheese. Oh, and eat Cake too!!!!!