Fif-TEA-eth Surprise Party

Sorry for the grainy picture. I don't know how to use my camera yet.

One of the reasons my blog posts have been few and far between lately, is that a lot of my time and energy was focused on a surprise 50th birthday celebration I was helping throw for my wonderful MIL.

The planning crew, which included SIL M and AIL, decided the theme would be "Tea Party". There's this wonderful restaurant near our place called "The Tea Room" which MIL frequents and loves, so we ran with that idea.

The hardest part of the planning process was not accidentally slipping about the party! I sooo wanted to post pictures of the invitations and some ideas we had, but I know she reads this blog!

The party was a complete success and we all had a wonderful time wearing pearls and eating little desserts.

Any words I write won't do the party justice, so I've compiled a few of my favorite pictures:

Picture of the invitation.  I made a little pocket to insert a real tea bag with each invite.

 

We made a few poms to hang around the room. 

In hindsight, I wish I spent a little more time on the banner.  This was one of the last projects we worked on the night before the party.

 We bought teapots and pearl necklaces to use for centerpieces.

 

 We had four tables, and since there are 4 kids in the family, we named each table after each of them.  There were escort cards to direct people to whichever table they were assigned to.

Sorry for the sad picture of the escort cards.  By the time I got around to taking the picture, most of them were gone!

A dear friend, L, let us borrow her beautiful teacup collection, so each guest had their own teacup!

And of course, there had to be a photobooth! All the guests took turns taking pictures with the guest of honor at the photobooth. 

My mom and I had decided to take a few pictures together while waiting for the guest of honor to arrive.

Here's another silly one with me and SIL M!

 All the pictures from the photobooth, will be printed and pasted into the beautiful scrapbook SIL M created.  All the guests were also requested to write a message to be included in the scrapbook.

Dessert buffet -- yum!!!

 One of the games SIL M came up with we called "What's my Flavor?" in which we passed around unmarked teabags and had each guest guess what tea flavor it was just by smelling it.  The person with the most correct won a prize.  The game was a lot harder than it sounds.

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We all had a great time and my wonderful MIL was truly surprised!

It's "A" boy... and a Lulu*s coupon for you!

A few cousins and I are throwing a baby shower for my dear Cousin M this Saturday.  I volunteered to be in charge of the decorations, of course.  It's been a while since I opened Photoshop, and I was itchin' for a new project.

She's having a boy and her husband is a huge Oakland A's fan... naturally we went with that theme.  The decor will be sweet and simple. I think it took me a total of just 2 hours to complete all the DIY stuff.  Here's a sneak peek for ya:

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In other news, here's a treat for you and me! (Awesome coupon below)

The other day I discovered Lulus.com and fell in love!  In a matter of 5 minutes, I ordered three dresses and a top!  I don't normally buy clothes online because only certain styles fit my body type and I like to try on stuff beforehand...  even though I know that all stores have magic mirrors in their fitting rooms.  90% of the clothes I thought looked fantastic on me in the store end up making me feel like a bloated cow at home.  Lulu*s has a pretty good return/exchange policy, so I thought I'd order online anyway and give it a shot! 

I made the order last Wednesday and the package arrived at my doorstep by Friday! Everything fit really great, though the material for the dresses I bought were a bit thin and definitely require a slip underneath.  Otherwise -- loving my new purchases. Here are a couple of the dresses I bought:

Cute, right? Now I have something to wear to the baby shower on Saturday!

On to my main point: Lulu*s contacted me and is offering us a 15% discount off our next purchase!

Just use the coupon code SIMPLEEVERYDAY during checkout for 15% off your entire LuLu*s purchase. It's available now through September 12th!

Tiny Prints & No-Go BlogHer

Guess what!?!?! My pictures were featured on Tiny Prints' blog! I'm elated!

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I love Tiny Prints -- They have the best invitation designs (at great prices, too!) and have been a major source for inspiration when I'm working on my own projects. 

They shared a great tutorial on how to make your own Poms and asked readers to share their own examples.  Of course, I had to send mine in and I'm so honored they chose to spotlight them!

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In other news, I'm not going to be able to participate in the awesomeness that will be happening at the BlogHer Conference this year, but Maya from Musings of a Marfan Mom and Stefany from ToBeThode are hosting the No-Go Blogher bloghop and I'm joining in on the fun:




When did you start blogging? A couple of months ago... I'm still a n00b!

Why did you start blogging? I've always wanted to start a blog to be able to look back on things I've done. I have a horrible memory (no really, I do... I often find myself in a different room in the house and think, 'why am I here?!' I never remember until I go back to the original room... happens at least 5 times a week).  Anyway, I figured having a blog would be a great way to chronicle my everyday, and connect with people I wouldn't normally enounter IRL.

What is one thing you are going to do this week that is WAY cooler than going to BlogHer? It's our first wedding anniversary on Sunday, so we will be celebrating all weekend.  Don't want to spill the beans on the details yet... but I'll be sure to write all about it.

Share a post that you think says a lot about you or is your favorite. Here's one that's fitting with my answer to the last question!

Lilac Baptism: The Reveal

This past Saturday was the day of the baptism I was prepping for all of last week.  I put off finishing the favors until Friday night and also had the centerpieces to work on, so I didn't get to go to bed until 3AM the morning of the party!  For some reason though, I had a lot of energy and didn't have too much trouble waking up 5 hours later to go to the venue to set up.  No coffee was required either!!  My lovely hubs helped me load/unload everything and was the best helper!  He has quite an eye for design and is very much a perfectionist (I'm more of a "ehh, that looks good enough" type of person -- it's the Libra in me), so he was a definite asset to me that morning. 

We finished setting up with plenty of time to get ready and head over to the baptism ceremony.  It was beautiful and Baby L is one of the cutest babies ever.  After the ceremony, we headed to the reception and had a great time with family.

Of course, as promised, here are some pictures of how everything turned out.  All photos were taken using our camera phones, since we still do not have a replacement for the point & shoot I lost in the beginning of this month.  (We were going to get a new one, but I decided I wanted the new iPhone 4 instead - the new cam will have to wait a little longer... maybe a D-SLR instead? That hint's for you, hubs)

I also included a breakdown of the cost for everything, in case you wanted to do something similar for your next party.

Favors:

80 Favors = $43.18/80 = $.54 each
-8 bags of caramel corn from Target = $34.55
-2 packs of 40-count favor bags from Michaels = $8.64
-20 pieces of white cardstock paper + staples + ink = FREE (leftover from previous projects)

Pom Poms:

10 Pom Poms = $5.35/10 = $.54 each
-Jewelry wire and fishing wire = FREE (leftover from previous projects)
-5 packs of gift-wrapping tissue paper from Target and Dollar Story = $.99/each

Banner:

Custom Name Banner = $7.23
-Cardstock from Michaels = $2.93
-Ribbon from Michaels = $3.22
-Design tape from Michaels = $1.07

Centerpieces:

10 Centerpieces = $140.57/10 = $14.57 per table
-9 bunches of flowers from Costco = $89.18
-10 sheets of cardstock = $6.85
-10 small bowls from Michaels = $12.72
-Floating candles: $14.80
-Design tape from Michaels = $1.07
-2 bags of decorative rocks from Michaels = $13.80
-Food coloring for water = $2.15
-Vases = FREE (had a ton of vases leftover from wedding)

And how can this post be complete without a picture of the guest of honor:

CIL J, Baby L (grabbing my hair), and me

Sneak Peek: Lilac Baptism

Remember the inspiration board I was working on last month for CIL J's daughter's baptism?  Well, the party is this weekend and I'm really excited but at the same time kinda nervous.  I hope my ideas are received well and CIL J isn't disappointed!

Last week during the few hours I have between dinner and bed time, I worked on finishing the centerpiece details and other decoration ideas.  It was a lot of work, but I had a really fun time shopping at Michael's and creating something out of nothing.  All I have left to do this week are the favors - woohoo!

I'll definitely post pictures after the event is over, but for now, here's a little sneak peak*:

*sorry for the poor quality camera phone images

I *microphone* Dad

I like to sing and have been doing so since I was five years old when my dad bought me the karaoke version of "The Greatest Love of All" by the Whitney Houston on cassette tape. He taught me how to add vibrato to my voice and emotion to the song. I rewound and practiced that song so many times that the tape eventually wore out and we had to get another one.

Since then, I've sung at church, school, concerts, weddings, and every family party I've ever attended, much to my chagrin. You see, I really like to sing and am fairly competent at it, but never really liked to do it often... but boy, did my family make me! I'm Filipino and for those who don't know, 98%* of Filipinos like to sing, whether they are good at it or not. If you know someone that is Filipino, they probably have some sort of karaoke machine/magic microphone at their house and bust it out at every family function.

My family is no different. After everyone is done eating, everyone gathers in the living room for endless rounds of karaoke. I can probably go on and on about this topic (which I will probably in a future post), but I digress...

Somehow, many years ago when I was bored one summer, I decided to record myself singing karaoke and compiled them all in a CD to give my dad for his birthday - complete with a "professional" looking CD jacket and label. The quality of the recordings were just a'ite, but I thought the idea of having a CD with me singing on it was cool... and apparently so did my parents - especially, my dad.

My brother ended up having to burn probably 100 (I'm not even lying) of those CDs for my parents to give out to ALL of their friends and family... I was mortified. I remember walking back to my car from church one day and hearing my CD on full blast in another church member's minivan!

I *hate* listening to myself on playback - whether singing or even just talking. It sounds disgusting to me... but I did it for my parents. They were proud of their little daughter. Anyway, they asked me to record more and that's what I did. I was young and did what my parents told me to do, so throughout those next few years, I recorded 6 different albums using our karaoke machine and some computer program my brother knew how to use.

Once I went off to college, I told my parents I wouldn't record any more songs. I was tired of doing it. I was an adult and they couldn't tell me what to do anymore. I still sang at parties, but never recorded anything again. From time to time, other family members would ask me to record more, but I would politely turn them down, saying I didn't have the free time to do that anymore.

One day last month, my dad called me while at work. He said he was listening to the very first CD I made him and was feeling very nostalgic. I heard his voice crack and I knew he was crying. He missed his little girl.

I realized then how selfish I was being for the past 8 years, and decided to suck it up and record him at least a few tracks for Father's Day... so that's what I did!

I recorded four tracks for him. The first one being a song he's been requesting me to sing for a couple years now, "Someone to Watch Over Me" by Linda Ronstadt. The other three songs were songs I liked and thought would be easy enough for me to learn: "The Climb" by Miley Cyrus (hey - don't hate, it's actually a good song), "God Bless the Broken Road" by Rascal Flatts (I was going to sing this to Matthew on our wedding, but changed my mind the last minute), and "Chasing Pavements" by Adele (her voice is the bomb!).

I didn't have any CD cases lying around at home, so I decided to make my own paper sleeve. I created a template on Photoshop and designed it accordingly. Using a paper cutter, corner rounded, scissors, and paper creaser, it took 3 minutes to print and assemble the sleeve. In case any of you out there want to make your own paper sleeve, I've attached a template in Word below.

My dad was super surprised with the CD and told me he's been playing it non-stop since.

Some of you may be curious to here what the recordings sound like, but I don't think I'll be posting the full versions any time soon... I did them last minute and the mixing is not the best, so I'm not exactly proud enough to add them here...

However, I will add a tiny snippet of "Chasing Pavements" (I know I'm not nearly as good as Adele - her voice is pretty heavenly, but I just really like the song) (Google Readers will need to click through to see the player)

CD Sleeve Template (for Microsoft Word 2007)

P.S. If you want the template in .PSD, please let me know!

*I don't know where I came up with 98%, but in my experience, if you're Filipino, you're either a singer or a dancer.. major points if you're both! Obv, this is an over generalization... but it certainly holds true in my family.

Graduation Pops

This is a story about my first attempt at trying to be Bakerella.

SIL M2 (not to be mistaken for SIL M) recently entered the next stage of adulthood by graduating high school. Not only did she receive her diploma, but she also obtained a Lifetime Member of the California Scholarship Federation award for her academic success. We were all very proud of her accomplishments and honored her achievements with a super fun graduation party.

I was in charge of the favors and centerpieces, so I took to the internet to copy other more creative people's ideas so I can look crafty find inspiration.

Enter Bakerella.

She is the queen of easy and creative baking! Her tutorials make baking amateurs like me hopeful to complete a project with minimal aggravation.

I happened upon these babies many moons ago and saved the post on my Google Reader. I knew I would make these someday, and that day had finally come:

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Cute, right?! And seemingly easy to make! I had to make 60 of them and was ready to take on the challenge.

Note: the following tutorial is available on Bakerella's site with prettier pictures, but here's my attempt at it.

What you need:

- Mini Reese's cups (each bag comes with about 40 mini cups)

- Ghirardella squares in any flavor besides dark chocolate to match the peanut butter cups (Bakerella used Godiva chocolates, but I had a hard time finding the right kind.. Ghirardelli worked just fine for me)

- Xtreme Air Heads (these are hard to find. I had to get mine from a gas station)

- Chocolate Melts

- Lollipop sticks

1. Put your bags of mini Reese's cups in the freezer for a few minutes to cool. This will make it easier for you to remove the wrapper without causing damage to the chocolate.

2. Take the Reese's cups out of the freezer and start unwrapping! Place them on wax paper (or sealable plastic wrap, like I did) and allow them to get back to room temperature. Don't be discouraged if freezing the cups didn't help that much and you end up with cups that have peanut butter showing. Now, Bakerella suggests tossing or eating any messed-up cups (like the ones below), but I ended up messing up too many, so I used them anyway. No one will notice the difference, right?

3. While you're waiting for the cups to reach room temperature, heat up some chocolates melts according to the instructions on the bag. You will use this as your "glue".

4. Once the cups are about room temperate, dip your lollipop stick in the melted chocolate and insert the stick into the cup. Repeat until you have something like this:

5. While you're waiting for the cups with sticks to dry, you can start working on the top part of the graduation cap. Unwrap all the Ghirardelli squares and lay them on wax paper.

6. Cut apart the Xtreme Air Heads (I found scissors very helpful for this part) to your desired color for the tassel. SIL M2's school colors were orange and black, so I used the orange part of the candy. (Matthew and I enjoyed eating the scraps) Divide the single-colored strips to your desired length (I divided them in thirds). These strips will be used as the cap's tassel.

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7. Take a tooth pick and apply a thin strip of your melted chocolate glue on a Ghiradelli squares in the area you want your tassel to go. Carefully place your tassel on the melted chocolate and allow it to cool. I folded the tassel underneath the square to create a bend.

8. Add a tiny drop of melted chocolate in the middle of the cap and allow it to cool

9. Once the caps and cups have cooled, use the melted chocolate to glue the two together!

The lollipops should be done within the next few minutes. Since I was giving these out as favors, I wrapped them with a favor bag and tied a matching ribbon around the lollipops. I also created labels, printed them out on cardstock and used a 2" circle puncher to cut them out.

Here's a picture of the final product:

Note: This lollipop is about 3 weeks old and the picture was just taken yesterday, but I realized I never took a picture of the final product! Trust me when I say they looked waaaay better the day of the party.

All crappy pictures were taken by me unless noted otherwise

Lovely Lilac Inspiration Board

I love all things pretty. I spend hours staring at beautiful wedding/birthday/shower pictures and envy the creativity and craftiness of all you amazing people out there.

I daydream of throwing my own parties with the same meticulous attention to detail, and from time to time, friends and family throw me a bone ask me to help them decorate a party. I have SO much fun scouring the interwebs trying to find beautiful inspiration and DIY ideas. There is SOOO much you can do and I am in awe with all the amazing creations people come up. Really - you guys are super cool.

Besides my own wedding, I've helped out two of my BFFs on different design elements for their wedding. More recently, I was Chief Decorator (self-given title - hehe) of my SIL M2's high school graduation. Her school colors were orange and black, so I was given the fun task of coming up with cute centerpieces and favors. (I'll post tutorials and pictures of what I came up with later). Overall, my ideas went over very well and I was commissioned to help decorate another event: CIL's baptism!

CIL J gave me the only requirement of using Lilac, Silver and White as the main color scheme. I have free reign to design the invitations, favors, and centerpiece ideas.

I love inspiration boards. They help me envision the larger picture and they are just so darn pretty to look at.

I've been on several party blogs and have been googling images all week. I think I came up with an inspiration board that looks pretty good and hope that CIL J likes it too! Since it's just an "inspiration" board we won't be incorporating everything below, but I hope to accomplish the same feel. I included the invitation design we are going with in the upper right-hand corner of the board, but replaced CIL J's baby with a stock image. CIL J's baby is such a cutie pie though! I hope to show you pictures once the event is over.

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I think I have the decorating elements decided, but I still don't know what to do for favors? Do you have any ideas or suggestions for me?