A Christmas Post

I am one of those girls that have all these plans and expectations for myself and I just can't get to everything anymore now that I have Sawyer. I need to learn how to just enjoy the small moments and I recently have tried harder....Sawyer is such a blessing because he slows me down a little. Also, I have made it part of my daily routine to workout...so that means giving up something else I could be doing. It is all about figuring out priorities which is hard for me because I want to do it all! 

That being said I spent most of my holiday focusing on the Christmas Workshop that I was hosting with Andrea Thayne. I am very grateful I put so much focus in this because it kept the focus away from all the shopping and presents this year. I feel like it was successful and I feel super blessed to have such inspiring women in my life. (I know I have an obsession with deers, its a problem)

        

Aren't these deer mugs to die for????

I am so impressed with the creativity of these girls! Here are some of the Instagram Posts and pictures I have received. 

Back to the whole, wanting to do more than I have time for. I had all these hopes to send out a christmas card. Well....it didn't happen. I had Kristy Jean Photography take photos, Andrea Thayne even made me a demo of a card with our pictures for the workshop and I STILL didn't get them out! 

I have all intentions of framing some of these gems and putting them in my urban styled office.....but that is a project that is still not checked off on my "want to do" list. 

Anyway, 

there is a lot of christmas fun going on this week that I will post about later. Until then...enjoy some pictures of my christmas decor in my office that I am sad is going to have to come down soon! 

I do not want to take down my little teepee christmas village. 

the end. 

Part One: how to put together a Cheap & Easy Party

I seem to be always doing things last minute. This is usually because plans are never set in stone in my life. I work well under pressure and I like a challenge. For example: my 3 favorite parties I did this year were the ones that I was asked to do last minute. Seriously though. The ones I had at least a month to plan turned out Fabulous but are oddly not my favorites. It is the last minute, 1 week in advance, "lets have a party!" events that have been my recent favorites. But the nice thing about all my parties (even the ones that I have months to think about and time to mess up :)) are all on a budget and are affordable. People ask, "How did you come up with this?"....My answer? Get creative!

Tips for the last minute or budget parties:

1. Use your creative resources- Pinterest. Instagram. Facebook. We are so lucky to have these resources. A lot of my ideas stem from something I see on social media. And if you don't have time to come up with something totally creative on your own, there are so many tutorials or creative ideas out there that you can re create on your own. Even if you don't mean it to....it will most likely become your own because everyone has different ways of doing things. If you are really desperate there are also free printables, etc that you can just download and print at home.

Examples???

My most recent party was more last minute than anything I have done before. I even have a theme or color scheme the night before. So I went to pinterest and found these amazing thanksgiving printables. 

Left: My Inspiration(The Alison Show) 

Right: My Creation 

Left: Pinterest Inspiration

Right: My Creation

2. Making is cheaper than buying(sometimes): A lot of times I will find something that seems perfect for my party until I see the price. Obviously there isn't always the option to try to make it but in a lot of instances you can find some way to recreate it for cheaper. Obviously if its a 10 dollar piece of beauty than it is probably worth buying over trying to make. Remember: It isn't ALWAYS the best option to make something over buying it, just most of the time :) 

Retail: $26 

Cost to make: $5

Retail: $30 at BHLDN

Cost to make: Less than a dollar

Retail: $50 

Cost to make: $1

3. Use Pictures as Decor: Whether you can go out and take themed pictures for the party to display or if you are just finding unique ways to display beautiful pictures of the couple. Pictures are a cheap way to go. Pictures can really set the mood at a party. 

4. Finding unique ways to use home items or Re Vamp things you already have from past parties: I love being able to turn an ordinary item I already have into something beautiful. I also like to be able to reuse an item at several different parties without it being obvious. 

When I was planning this nautical bridal shower I had recently saved an old crib mattress spring thinking I could someday have use for it. I suddenly got the idea to turn into what looks like a fishing net to display pictures at my nautical party! It was a fun way to put junk to good use! 

I saved all of Sawyer's Formula cans and was able to paint stripes on them for the centerpieces at this fun event. 

At our house Eric is constantly buying those glass bottled sodas. I save them and find tons of different ways to use the bottles in my parties 

In my most recent party for Thanksgiving I didn't have any clue what I was going to do for decor. The night before I was still pretty sure that a stack of paper plates on the table was going to be the way things were going to go. I decided to figure out a theme and color scheme with things I already owned. I knew I owned a a lot of black and gold things so I found a way to make it work for thanksgiving after finding the black and gold thanksgiving printables on Pinterest. I ended up using the "hello" sign from my office, the candelabras from my wedding that have been reused several times, the gold sparkle bottles from a previous baby shower, the black and gold feathers from my office, the black striped table runner from the halloween party, the leftover berry napkins from the halloween party, and some frames from my office. 

5. Decorating with paper : Paper is an inexpensive way to decorate at parties. Nothing is more exciting for me than when I find a paper pad that goes with my theme. I make banners, frame the paper, make stuff on my silhouette, make pinwheels, etc with the paper I find. 

Gothic/Berry Halloween Party

A little over a week ago I got this jolt of Halloween spirit. I always LOVED Halloween as a kid but in my adult years it has slowly became a less exciting holiday. I was not going to let that happen this year. With such short time I went to work to put together a fun Halloween Party for the family. 

I pulled out some stuff I already had from the past Twilight parties I had thrown. I knew I didn't want the traditional Halloween colors and I also didn't want to go the vampire, black route either, even though I have TONS of decor in those colors. I have really been crushing on the berry tones that have been really in lately. I wanted a gothic,fancy dinner feel for the party. I once again(like always) had a small budget. 

As I was putting everything together I suddenly remembered this antique china set that my mom had sitting in here cupboard with dust collecting on it. It was absolutely perfect for the look I was going for. Being there was not exactly 8 settings in the antique china, I had to fly by the seat of my pants and do some mismatched china...that actually ended up looking like it belonged together. 

I had fallen in love with some skull goblets that I had seen at Target earlier in the month. I went back and was lucky enough to find 8 of them! 

I focused a lot on the graphic design for this party. I usually don't do the graphics all on my own. I wanted the whole party to be influenced by a vintage looking skull surrounded by berry-toned roses. I created a invitation, potion labels, thank you sign, welcome sign, menus, and name place settings to bring the theme together. All the potions were made by "The Creepy Crawley Potions" in 1842. I figured I had to put the family name into the party since it was...well...a family party! 

I found the perfect Berry-toned,plum napkins at ikea and made gold fangs as the napkin rings. I came up with creative and inside joke ways that each guest died. I made little tombstone place settings for each guest and put them in gold frames. I pulled out an old chandelier and painted it black. Eric and I found this AMAZING fabric at Ikea that was black and white striped (My Favorite) and so I added the black and white stripe accents to the party and asked my mom to make me a table runner! 

I had so much fun arranging the floral and wrapping it around the chandelier and candle sticks! 

Last minute we decided to turn our pool room(that we never used) into a new party room. We sold the pool table, cleaned the whole room out, set up the vintage fireplace and moved all the decor in there, within 2 days! It all turned out SO perfect! 

We served bloody Shirley Temples, Bottled orange soda (pumpkin juice), Bottled Diet coke (Witches Brew), mountain dew(Poison) at the bar. We ate Pumpkin Chili, Olive pasta salad, quacamole, pumpkin cheesecake, and more!!! 

We all dressed up and had a costume contest. We ended the night watching "The sixth Sense"...It was a successful night!