Happy 4th!

What screams 4th of July more than the bold, beautiful red, white and blue colors of our flag! The ever popular Nautical look has always been the perfect display of our crisp American style! We leave you this weekend with some of our favorite all American, nautical inspiration! We hope you celebrate our Independence safely with good friends, family and fireworks! Please don't forget to thank and remember our service men and women!

images via: Lupi Spuma, 2.bp.blogspot.com, zombierose.tumblr.com, we heart it, Sweet and Saucy, melodyalahna-.tumblr.com, recklessweeknights.tumblr.com

Giveaway: Fabulous Ruffle Cuff Bracelet by Gracie Joe

So, a while back our dear friend Meredith (Bloom Photography by Meredith Price) introduced us to one of her best friends, Danielle! Danielle, recently opened her own Etsy shop...Gracie Joe! She creates hand-made jewelery and head-pieces out of re-purposed and vintage materials. Her items are really unique, fun and very fashionable! We thought it would be great to do a giveaway for one of her vintage cuff bracelets! When Danielle, sent this one to us...we kind of wanted to keep it for ourselves! This black ruffle cuff is created from a 45 vinyl record and wrapped in a black linen with a leopard ribbon interior and finished with a cotton ruffle flower! It is super versatile too, you can wear with just everyday jeans and t-shirt or wear with a dress for a to add a vintage touch! Check our Gracie Joe on facebook and Etsy! All you have to do is leave us a comment and let us know what you would wear it with and we will pick a winner at random and announce on Monday!

Photos via Icing Designs

"Sparkle"

Well, now that you are all acquainted with our sweet Katie, we are ready to share her first DIY project with you! While we are not a printable company, when Katie came up with this project, we just had to make an exception! With the 4th of July right around the corner, we just love these "sparkle" cupcake picks, they are perfect for any patriotic celebration!

All you will need is:
white cardstock
printable stars
scissors
wooden tooth picks
hot glue gun/glue
red and white baker's twine or ribbon of your choice
glitter (optional, but always recommended)
Super easy directions:
download our printable "sparkle" stars here
print on white cardstock
cut out stars
outline the blue of the stars with glue and glitter if you please
add a drop of hot glue to the back of the star, place pick in glue, and let dry completely
tie baker's twine or ribbon to the pick
stick the stars in your favorite 4th of July treat and enjoy!

Announcing....

We are so excited to announce the newest corespondent for our blog! Katie, is one of our dear friends who just happens to be one of the sweetest girls we know and a creative powerhouse! She is constantly coming up with amazing, inspiring and over the top fabulous DIY projects. After we saw a few of the projects that she created for her sisters recent wedding, including the most gorgeous garland of paper flowers you will ever see, we were blown away! We knew we had to snatch her up and give her a platform to share her talents on! We are truly thrilled to have her, so please help us welcome sweet Katie....then sit back and get ready to be inspired! We will be sharing her first 4th of July inspired project with you tomorrow...we can't wait!

This is Katie with her little sweetie, Siena!

Ballerina Bakery Birthday Part Part 2

We were so excited to share the "bakery case" part of or birthday party with you...now we would love to share some more of the party details and the activities that we did with the little girls! First off, we LOVED that all the little ones were dressed up in their ballerina best! We can not tell you how sweet they all looked! We made a little "Twinkle Toes" garland for the girls to hold and it matched their "twinkle toes" t-shirts!

As the girls arrived we had ballerina coloring sheets set up for them to work on to keep them busy until everyone got there.

We really wanted to give the girls some fun things to take home. So we bought plain white canvas bags at our local craft store and hot glued a ruffle across the top and added three little rosettes to the corner. We lightly drew each girls initial on the bag in pencil and they got to glue sparkly gems on the outline to create their very own special ballet bags!



Well, this project made the girls very hungry so we served lunch and pink lemonade in little mason jars complete with pink ruffles and grey and white straws! Above the table where the girls sat, we hung a pretty pink pom and set my first pair of ballet slippers on top of them, from a white chandelier!

After their bellies were nice and full we had a very special treat waiting for them! We made sweet little lace rosette hair clips with a mini rose in the center for each little girls to put in their hair. Then, Kellie's oldest daughter, Annabella, taught the cutest ballet class. They even learned a routine to perform with their ballerina tulle pom pom wands that we made for them! We have to say this was one of our very favorite parts of the party! The girls were so excited and they had so much fun twirling and jumping and pointing their little toes!





But of course all of this dancing made them work up an appetite...for sweets of course! So we sung "happy birthday" to Maia and Sophia with cupcakes complete with tuts and then each little one got to choose a sweet our of the bakery case! As the girls were leaving they got to fill our their very own pink bakery box with treats to take home! We truly had such a fun day with all of our little ballerinas!





To see more of our party see our Ballerina Bakery Birthday Part Part 1 Post!

Photography by Bloom Photography by Meredith Price

Ballerina Bakery Birthday Party Part 1

We are so excited to finally share some photos from our "Ballerina Bakery" birthday party with you! We created this party for my twins 4th birthday! Maia and Sophia are smitten with ballet right now, and what little girl doesn't love sweets...so we decided to combine the two and came up with a "ballerina bakery" theme! Our invitations were created especially for this party, we are really excited about them because they are great for any ballerina party and perfect for twins!
We had so much fun creating the actual party and even had my father in law build an actual bakery case for us to display the sweets in! We set it on top of a 3 foot card table covered with tulle and a sparkly pink table cloth. Above the table we hung a mixture of paper poms from Paperwhite Designs and paper lanterns from Luna Bazaar and a gorgeous pink fabric ruffle garland that our sweet friend Katie made for us. Above the case we hung a “Ballerina Bakery” hand-glittered letter garland.

We filled the case with cupcakes topped with hand-glittered “4” ruffled cupcake toppers that we made and mini pink chocolate ballet shoes, chocolate covered oreos, chocolate covered French palmiers, chocolate covered oversized marshmallows topped with the cutest “peppy toppers” from Potter and Butler, tiny tim cookies, the most beautiful ballerina cookies we have ever seen from JP Creatibles and delicious mini donuts from Dough A Deer! We also made hand-glittered scalloped food labels to go in front of each bakery item.

On top of the case we filled apothecary jars with pink, white and grey gumballs, mini marshmallow wands and pink rock candy. We made DIY tulle tutus to go around the apothecary jars and put a scalloped, glittered food label in the front of them. We also found the cutest pink eyelet bakery boxes so that they girls could fill them with extra treats to take home.



Come back tomorrow for more of our ballerina bakery party!!!
Photos via: Bloom Photography by Meredith Price
(and Icing Designs)