Candy Land Birthday Party

What a party!! After receiving the game "Candy Land" for Christmas my daughter was all about having a Candy Land themed 4th birthday party. We had so much fun with the planning of this party! We sent out invites to her preschool class in the shape of cupcakes like the ones on the game. The cupcake came out of the wrapper to reveal the invite.

Yanna and I got more excited as the RSVPs started to come in. The party was officially on! Although after getting involved in a number of other activities this month my budget for the party was significantly cut down for this party. So I knew that I would have to edit and really channel that DIY goddess from within. One of the best parts were the giant lollipops! We purchased some really fun donut shaped balloons from Party City and picked up some PVC pipe from Home Depot. We attached the balloon to the PVC pipe and wrapped it with cellophane and some ribbon. We made the base out of cardboard and tin foil. Our livingroom looked hilarious with 15 of these standing all over the place. It was awesome to see the kids faces light up when they walked in and saw lollipops bigger than they were! Each Lollipop ended up costing about a $1.00 a piece!

My mother-in-law Jane and my mother worked side-by-side assembling these party hats that I designed. They were so sweet on the kids! Although, I have to admit, they didn't last long on their heads! Especially on the boys!

I was really inspired by a backdrop that I saw on Pinterest for a flamingo party. I had the 4" circle die for my sizzix ready to go and punched out circles to my hearts content. Jane was then put in charge of putting them up onto the strings. She may still be seeing spots today and may never want to see one again! While it was a little tedious to put together it cost about a total of $5.00!! What a bang for the buck!! I used the Candy Land Font for Yanna's banner.

For food we did all sorts of things and one of the things that I learned about myself...I am not a baker! But hey, I am still learning in my quest of domestic goddessdome. My sister found an amazing bakery Just Baked and brought some delicious buttercream cupcakes. Jane helped me by putting together the cake so that we could decorate. While I was going to dabble in marshmallow fondant we used the M&Ms that we had sorted. It ended up going together quite quickly! I went back to one of my favorite things making chocolates! We did giant chocolate dipped marshmallows, chocolate covered oreo cookies, chocolate covered hearshaped marshmallows, and these amazing cake pops made with crushed Oreos!! The kids seemed to really love everything including the fruit!! We of course had to make rainbow fruit kabobs!

I am also really proud of the candy display. It was so easy. We tiered styrofoam that you would use for floral arrangements and made an arrangement of lollipops!

For activities we played musical sugar dots, gumdrop bowling (beware, boys also like using giant bowling pins to bludgeon each other with) we decorated cookies and played freeze dance. We tried to have them run off the sugar as much as we could! The parents loved me! I sugared up their kids and sent them home with more candy and noise makers!! They LOVE ME!! (Ok, you may want to say a few prayers and send some positive thoughts my way for all of the curses that may have been sent)

All in all it was a total success!! Granted next time I may hire a party planner and I will stick to the designing aspect to save some sanity. But I had such an amazing time for an amazing daughter, with my amazing family and friends!! Thank you so much I love you!

I will post some more pics soon with some tutorials on things like the backdrop, lollipops, display, and the song list that my sister put together with all candy related songs!!

As always, Stay inspired and Stay Posh! Hugs!!

Etsy Newsletter Feature

It has been some month!! Just as I was knee deep in candy land party planning my computer started to go nuts!   When I went to look it was all from my wonderful Etsians! I knew that had to mean that something of mine showed up somewhere and here it was! The Etsy Newsletter Jackpot! Etsy's Gillian Herring released the "Let The Good Times Roll" Newsletter with my Harlequin blossom box in it. I love it! And for all of you who found me due to this, welcome to my crazy world! :-)
Happy Fat Tuesday!! I hope that you Packzis were worth every calorie!! Mine sure were!

Cotton Candy Cake Pops

Yes, I did something horrible!! This planning of the candy land party had made me go mad. I now have a...COTTON CANDY MAKER!!! AHHHH! Not only that, but it is not just any cotton candy maker...oh no it is not...It can make cotton candy out of hard candies! So I can make Chocolate, Caramel, and Coffee cotton candies! You want to know something even funnier? I don't even like cotton candy! (I know, my blog following has just cut in half with that statement) But, something about chocolate cotton candy and I may be made a believer. But seriously, what is a candy land party without cotton candy!? Hmm? Ok...

So needless to say, I have been playing with my Nostalgia Electronics Cotton Candy Maker (Oh, it works with sugarfree candy as well!) and I have been trying all sorts of things out. From making my own paper cones to of course using what I have like the paper straws I recently used for the gliders! Yet another great use for them!

Then I put the cake pops that I was working with into the darn thing and look at what I got! Oh yes, cotton candy cake pops! Soooo happy! So stinkn cute! I also discovered something new. The cake pop stands are little funnels! I got a ton of them with this sand art kit for my daughter so now I have a use for them!
Overall a good day if you ask me!

Well, I shall continue play around with things!
In the meantime, stay inspired and stay posh!!
Hugs,

Brigitte

Freebie Printable - Straw Glider

What do you get when you have two preschoolers, a biologist, a GM exec, a lawyer, and a graphic designer at a Halloween party at a science center making a paper plane with a straw? A bunch of adults acting like little kids throwing planes at one another while the preschoolers stare at them wondering what is wrong with them and then ultimately a free printable designed to share with everyone in time for Valentine's day...whew! That was a mouthful!
So in my quest to become a rock star mom, I took on planning Yanna's preschool Valentine's day party. My hubby outright said that I didn't have enough time to Mrs. Davis and I kicked him under the table and said that I would love to:-) But planning became a little more complicated than anticipated since I tend to sometimes make things rather complex and I had to think more in line with a 3-4 year-old. Plus so many projects for Valentine's day is geared to girls. The other day my package from ThinkGarnish.com arrived for the Candy Land Party that I am planning for later this month and right on top were the paper straws that I ordered. I then remembered this project that I did at the science center! It is normally made with two loops, but I tried to make it more "valentinesy" (yes, that is a word!) by trying to do a heart shape in the back and it worked!! You have got to try this at home with your little one, or gee, do it even if you don't have a little one!

Start out with downloading the Straw Glider Printable Template from my shop for FREE! I have instructions on the sheets now as well.
You will need:
 - Straw Glider Printable Template
 - Straw (I love the paper ones)
 - Scissors
 - Tape

Cut out the strips. You can cut these down as well and try out different sized loops. The big loops tend to glide the easiest while the smaller loops tend to go faster.

The the circular version tape strips to each end of the straw. Roll the paper around, overlap edges and tape. Done!

For the heart shape, fold the long strip in the middle and tape the straw to the middle. Curl the top around to form a heart shape and tape together. Add your front loop to the straw and Done!!

Hold it like a regular paper plane and throw! I mean, how easy was that! You will be pleasently surprised at how well these things fly! I think that this is going to work out well for one of the projects! I hope that you enjoy them too!

As always, Stay Inspired and Stay Posh!

Candy Land Party Planning

After receiving the Candy Land Game for Christmas, Yanna asked for a Candy Land Themed Birthday Party. Oh yes, parents are going to love me when their kids go home hopped up on sugar! I think that I may also go up a dress size or two with just the planning. We have been having so much fun!! Here are the invites that we sent out today. The cupcake invite comes out of the cupcake wrapper. We placed them in some cello bags with twist ties and name tags. I was really happy with how they turned out. We have such fun things we are planning for the party. You can see some of my inspiration on my Pinterest Board  

http://pinterest.com/theposhevent/candyland-birthday-party-inspiration/

Eeep! We are going to have so much fun!!

Party Patisserie: City Chic Girls Night In

Isn't this party stunning! Debbie from the Party Patisserie put together this fun party for her girls. She used my printable blossom boxes as bags! I love it! And she also used the Posh Dots Place Cards. She has a great blog. Check it out and share some love! http://partypatisserie.com/2012/01/party-theme-city-chic-girls-night-in/

Bold Damask Blossom Box

Posh Dots Printable Place Cards

Feature in Meetings and Conventions Magazine!

Today Jennifer of Meetings and Conventions Magazine contacted me to let me know that we were featured as the Daily Hot Idea! I love the idea of our products being used at meetings and conventions! I already got a bunch of ideas from their site. I think that everyone can use their tips no matter if they are planning a small meeting or huge event! Be sure to check them out!

http://www.meetings-conventions.com/dailyhotideas/dailyhotideas.aspx

Thank you so much Jennifer!

My Papas Split Pea Soup

You may hear this all of the time. That certain soups are better than the other. People argue on who has the better recipe. Blah blah blah...Well, I am not here to say that I have the best pea soup recipe in the world, no, but I will say that it is the BEST SPLIT PEA RECIPE IN THE UNIVERSE! Ok, now that I have that off of my chest I can continue. Granted this may be since I grew up on this recipe, but my father has always made the best soups. I mean it is just ridiculous! Back in the day when wind would get out about my father making soup, people would start showing up at the house. We would have 20 people sitting around just to get a bowl of his soup. The two that he is particularly famous for are his Split Pea Soup and his Lentil Soup. He also does a mean Chicken Noodle and the most delicious Kale...but those will be other posts. As I gain experience in my quest for Domestic Goddessdome I have been slowly attempting to learn his recipes. This bitter cold weekend I felt was the best time to learn a soup! Oh my oh my, delicious! Just the perfect soup for the cold days. This will practically serve 20 people or 10 people who want second servings...Maybe 5 super hungry soup fanatics! So get a big pot! (This is a great soup to freeze for later use) I use a large pressure cooker I will look at the size and put it here. This makes life easier! The picture doesn't do it justice. I finished when it was already dark out and didn't want to set up my light box, so ya know, it works right!?

Ingredients:
1/2 lb Bacon cut into small pieces (make sure it is particularly smoky!)
1 large onion chopped (I like the sweet onion for this)
1 lb Smoked Kielbasa slices (did I mention we are making a bunch of this?)
1-11/2 cup baby carrots (you can cut up large carrots if your prefer)
1 Stalk Celery with leaves chopped
a few sprigs of parsley chopped with stems and leaves
1 lb smoked ham cubed
1 bag dried split peas
1 ham bone or pig hock (I used to think my father would say peacock!)
Water
Pepper and Salt to taste (you probably will not need the salt)
(optional: Potatoes)

Heat up your pot. Put the bacon and smoked kielbasa into the pot to brown as they start to release fat add the chopped onion. Let that cook down a bit until the onion is caramelized and transparent. It may almost look like it is slightly burning on the bottom. Don't worry. Once all is browned up add a few cups of water (3-4) and bring to a boil. Add your carrots (you can throw the baby carrots in whole to make things quicker). Put in your chopped celery, parsley, cubed ham. Let it boil for around 5 mins to let the flavors infuse a bit. The pour the whole bag of split peas in and place your ham bone or pig hock in. Cover with water until your pot is about 2/3 full. Bring to a rolling boil as you stir to make sure that nothing sticks to the bottom. Place pressure cooker lid on according to manufacturer's instructions and bring up pressure. Once pressure is built to the point where you can hear the steam, turn down the heat to about half and let it cook for 15 minutes. After 15 mins take off heat and take off lid according to your directions. (if you have never dealt with a pressure cooker before, BE SURE TO READ THE DIRECTIONS! if one of those blow saurkraut into the air and all over your legs you will never move so fast to remove your pants in your LIFE! Trust me on this one!) Stir the pot to make sure that the newly hydrated peas are not sticking to the bottom. Make sure that everything is mixed nicely and is quite loose (if it is thick, add some more water). Bring back up to a rolling boil and place lid back on. I am paranoid, so I tend to do this every 15 minutes for an hour. The soup is finished when the meat on the ham bone or pig hock has pretty much fallen off of the bone. If the soup is still a little too liquid let it cook a little longer without the lid making sure to stir it occasionally. Your soup will be complete!
Make a pot of boiled potatoes (salt the water) Place some potato in your bowl and put a few ladles full over them. Yum!!
Get yourself a bowl and enjoy!
As with most soups, this soup is even more flavorful the next day when the flavors are infused throughout the soup.
I really love this soup! I hope that you do too!!
As always, stay inspired and stay Posh!

Haute Aprons

I have been looking for cute aprons for a while. Today as I decided to look around, I found a whole new take on aprons, glamour aprons! High-end aprons for the hostess with the mostest! (and, well the money to spare as well!) Above is a duprini silk apron by Elizabeth Cokin Productions for $200. It is beautiful, but I am unsure about how I feel about a dry clean only apron. I may have to throw more elaborate dinner parties! Here are more by her below ranging from $125-200

The one below I really want! It must be all of the frills! COOKie by Lukrecja in Poland $300

I also really like this apron by Anthropology. Not as glam as the ones before, but super cute!

 So what do you think? Would you wear any of these aprons? Which one is your favorite?

Tangerine Tango - Pantone Color of the Year

It looks as though it will be a bright year! Tangerine Tango was named 2012's Pantone Color of the Year. Orange always seems like a contraversal color as it seems that you either love or hate it. Since I tend to look pretty darn good in orange (if I do say so myself) I love it! And how can you not when you see some of these things in orange!

Doesn't this just cheer up your day! I particularly want the purse. I have held it in my own to hands and it is divine! My birthday is coming up, so gladly get it for me!

I will be adding Tangerine Tango to my color list this year in my shop. It is sure to brighten my collection!


abstract geo necklace by Ezza Exclusive
Aldo Eggenberg Peep Toe Heel
Prada Nappa Stripe Bag (drool)
Chesterfield Tufted Winged Chair
Safari Orange Pillow 
Posh Dot Orange Printable Gable Box by The Posh Event
Modern Damask Printable Pyramid Box The Posh Event

Soy Crepe Experiment...

Every weekend I make "german pancakes" or crepes for breakfast. It is something that started when I was a kid and my papa would make them for my sister and I. Every now and then we attempt changing an ingredient or changing ratios just to see what happens. Usually they are quite disastrous. Wheat flour for instance, not very good, my father thinking that he had a good enough blender that would pulverize an egg shell that he dropped into the batter to powder...all time disaster! So I am glad to report, that as long as that debacle is on the books, I most likely will always come out with something better when experimenting...unless I try concrete?
So this week I tried replacing half of the All Purpose Flour with Soy Flour (I chickened out and couldn't replace all of it yet) and I replaced milk/creme with half and half. The idea came from me reading the book The Fat Belly Cure by Jorge Cruise where we are to keep our sugars to 15 grams a day and only have 6 servings of carbs a day. I would really like to not have to give up my crepes! Well, they were not bad, but I have a hard time calling them crepes. They reacted differently when cooking them and ended up being significantly thicker than crepes should be and on the yellow side. But both my husband and Yanna ate them all up with no problems and said that they liked them. I am still fighting this sinus thing so I really can't taste anything! Ugh!
Anyhoo, here are the crepes that I made (the unscientific way, I will have to measure this out in a more standardized way one day) I use an actual tablespoon not the measuring tablespoon. We have done this with different sets over the years and it seems to always work.
3 eggs
3 Tablespoons Sugar or Splenda (yes, I know, splenda is against the fat belly cure but baby steps!)
1 1/2 cup half and half
3 Tablespoons All purpose flour
2 Tablespoons Soy flour
dash of salt
I use a stainless steel pan instead of a crepe maker. (once again, if it ain't broke...)
melt the butter in the hot pan
pour 1/3 cup of batter into the pan and swirl it around to spread thin
when the batter is no longer runny on top take a spatula and flip
after a min start making your stack!

I think that I will keep experimenting with this idea and will keep you posted.
Good Luck!!

New Year, New Ideas, New Set Up!

Happy New Year!!

WOW! What a year 2011 was!! I think that I have survived it! (I am still not sure, ask me in another week when this darn sinus infection is gone!) With the past few weeks being out of this world crazy, I mean like ,get ready to jump out of a window, crazy. I have had some time to re-evaluate what I want to do and how I want to do it. I have always been someone with a ton of ambition, when I come up with an idea it's a big idea and I come up with tons of ideas. It has always been my blessing and my curse. Mix that with the fact that I tend to have the attention span of a raccoon (oooooh! shiny new thing to do!) life can get pretty...interesting. I want to accomplish SO much, I want to try so many new things, learn so many new things, share so many new things, all while being a good mom, wife and shop owner. Lately it has just felt to be too much and I want this SO BADLY! So I have decided to step back a bit and reorganize. I need to get myself healthy and organized so that I can make this all a reality. Everyday Posh will be getting a little overhaul. I would love to show how every day can be posh, I believe that this is doable and plan on figuring this out! I love coming up with projects that people can do to add a little more poshness to their lives, but with this comes a lot of trial and error which can be hilarious to say the least. I myself am still a domestic goddess in training and do not have much help to figure these glorious ideas out all of the time especially with a baby on my hip. So I hope to share this all with you on here. What works, what doesn't works, what blew up and caught my kitchen on fire, what my husband just looked at, smiled and nodded and ate anyway...ya know. I am opening up to my imperfect perfect life to you. I hope that you will join me for this journey I am now embarking on and will contribute to it! I want to hear your ideas, suggestions, corrections and well, hopefully a bunch of encouragement! I will need it! 

I am going to be working on:

- getting organized while being a mom and business owner

- loosing the baby fat...holiday fat...ok, everyday fat (it just sounds better when you give it an excuse name)

- phasing into a more healthy lifestyle with the family

- coming up with new ideas and products for my shop and to share

- getting my new shop The Printable Shoppe finally launch!!! 

well so much more! Let me know what you think and join me!
New Year, New Ideas, New Set Up, New Successes!

Big Hugs!
Brigitte

Super Cute, Super Mini Donuts

For the love of all things small! (Ach du liebe bissien! as my dad would say) I am having so much fun with this mini donut maker! How stinkn' cute are these! I received the Smart Planet donut maker and was at first rather skeptical. It received mixed reviews and looked like the George Forman grill I had back in college! I was advised NOT to use the enclosed recipe, so I looked up a bunch of baked donut recipes and made a hybrid of my very own and this is what I came up with! They are way smaller than I had ever imagined them to be. One can fit on a teaspoon. But who cares! They are so cute and are now considered by me a "diet" donut!
Granted, if you have the baking pan you can use that as well, but then you are not making 6 donuts every 4 mins!

Vanilla Spice Super Mini Donuts

2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground clove
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs lightly beaten
2 tbsp melted butter

Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, ground clove and salt. (You can sift it if you have a sifter, I just mix it all up).
Add the buttermilk, eggs, vanilla to the mixture.
I melted the butter and then warmed the buttermilk in a bowl added it to the mixture.
Then hand mix the batter with a spoon until everything is combined. Don't over do it. I let my Kitchenaid take the night off with these.

I placed the batter in a ziplock bag and cut the tip off to pipe into each cavity. I closed the machine for 3.5 mins each. They were ready when they bounced back when pressing on them.

For a donut baking pan I saw to bake at 425F for 5-8 minutes then let stand for 4-5 mins.

I had another bowl with 4 tbsp melted butter and another bowl filled with cinnamon sugar. I dipped the donuts into the butter then threw into the other bowl and shaked it until covered.

For the glaze I used
1 cup powder sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon 
2 table spoons milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. almond extract
Then I added food coloring until it was the color that I wanted

MUST TRY THIS!!! Oh just wait until you see some of the other goodies I have been doing with this thing!!
In the meantime, Stay inspired and stay Posh!

Join me on Pinterest!

Oh my, I am addicted to Pinterest! So many great ideas and inspirations shared by everyone! From the super cute, to great home ideas, and fashion statements! I am starting to put my own boards together. Come on by and see!

Posh Inspirations: Office Chair Makeover

We have been crazy busy over here! This is great, although I also really miss my sleep! We have been working on three very exciting projects. Plus my Yanna started preschool!! I can't believe how time flies! We have been looking into office chairs for the studio for some time now. But it seems as though they are either drab and boring or they are ridiculously expensive. So while doing my daily looksie on Pininterest I got inspired to do it myself! Being a DIY girl, it somehow passed me to think that I could just do an office chair makeover myself. So this weekend I picked up some fab fabric and started small.

Everyone, meet my folding chair from college (hey, small budget, small space) notice the great craftsmanship of my father's duck tape repairs. She's a beaut! And a great starter chair before I tear apart my office chair and end up having to sit on the floor if it is too much to do.

I took the chair apart with a screwdriver. Placed the chair seat and back onto the piece of fabric (1 yard) and cut out what I thought would work. I wrapped the chair pieces in fabric then took the trusty staple gun and started to shoot it. I followed where the existing fabric was tacked down. I placed the trim back on and then screwed each piece back onto the frame. Voila! My new folding chair!

Here are some other fab chairs that people have done.

On howjoyful.com she did an amazing job with her office chair! I love how she even thought about painting it. I have taken some notes for my office chair! She has a tutorial as well on her site.

Lindsay with BetterAfter.blogspot.com may be THE place to go to see what you can do with old furniture! I am in awe of the blog! I really love this little office chair. I am going to have to redo my couches after the inspiration for this site!

Megan with Doityourselfdivas.blogspot.com has this sharp number! Plus a great layout of all of the materials you would need to do this. Definitely check it out!

Well, I will probably be distracted now and will look up fabrics to redo all of the chairs in my house. Reupholstering may be my new love! I would love to see your projects!
Be inspired and Be Posh!