Relief Society Birthday Party Picnic - The Ants Go Marching...

Celebrating the 174th anniversary of the 

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' Relief Society organization

with a picnic themed birthday party!

Mason jar flower vases with a junque bow and a string of buttons

Teacups and Teapots Made of Paper

As seen in my Dream Tea Party, 

and White Elephant Gift Basket Exchange

we handcrafted teacups as one of our activities after lunch.

Cuz what's a party if you don't craft something??

I also included a handcrafted teacup and teapot as part of my gift basket.

Each of my 9 party guests and I chose a separate theme to create a beautiful basket full of goodies that we'd exchange in a white-elephant-rules type of game.  

I chose Tea Party, cuz hey, I was already totally in that mode.

I filled this basket with so many delightful goodies,

the teapot and teacup,

as well as several other paper handcrafted tea-themed items.

(I made an extra set for myself to keep cuz I loved them so much!)

Tea Party White Elephant Gift Basket Exchange

This is all about the delightfully fun and beautiful

 gift baskets that my guests and I created

for my dream Tea Party.

I think this is what first got us all so excited 

and so into the spirit of it.

Way ahead of time, each of us chose a separate theme to 

create a beautiful basket full of goodies that we'd exchange 

in a white-elephant-rules type of game.  

I chose Tea Party, cuz hey, I was already totally in that mode.

I filled my basket with lots of  'British' goodies!

The first rule was to keep it around $30, so I didn't want to spend much on a container.

I found this perfect hat box at Goodwill for only a few dollars!

Cake Plates Made From a Chandelier and a Lamp

Chandy Multi-level Cake Plate

Lamp Cake Plate

My Tea Party Dreams Have Come True!

I've planned a lot of parties,

but they are always for my kids, or on assignment for large groups.

This time it was just for my close friends and me!

I've been planning this party in my head for about 20 years,

so it goes without saying that I had a lot of fun with it!

GUESTS

Good friends who are also crafty and creative.

These gals wore Easter bonnets, which ROCKS!

Here's our whole group in our tiny felt Easter Parade hats

 that we made as one of our two crafts.

Sea Side Reservations, Fish Tacos and Friends

It's that time of year again, when my two Utah BFF's, Janeal and Shelly come to town

 and we head down to Rocky Point for a few days.  

We have become creatures of routine.

First stop is always Combo Taco.

Just the thought of those tacos makes my husband drive faster to get there.

You seriously have not enjoyed Rocky Point to the fullest until you've eaten here.

(day 1 of tacos)

Annual Holiday Open House

It's only the very beginnings of October and
 I've ALREADY HAD MY HOLIDAY PARTY!
Now I can just enjoy the rest of the holidays and be totally relaxed, right?

Yeah, right.  ;)



Meet my beautiful vendors!
Carol from Thirty-One Bags
Jen makes her own jewelry
Meaghan from Tastefully Simple
Andrea from Scentsy, Grace Adele AND Velata
Bethany and Brittany from Jamberry

The party was great!
I had wonderful vendors who worked hard,
the food was delicious,
(much of which was from Tastefully Simple),
and the turnout of friends was even better than last year!
My house was buzzing with ladies having fun shopping, eating and visiting with one another.
I love when I see my friends make new friends with my other friends!!!


The table looks similar to last year, but believe me, the recipes were different.
Next year I may need a new tablecloth just to mix things up!  lol
You can find a few of the recipes from last year's blog post
and yeah, pretty much the rest was provided by Tastefully Simple!

Sooooo here's what happened........

Summer Lovin' at Sweet Salvage!

SWEET SALVAGE

Just when I thought Sweet Salvage's customer service couldn't get any better...

they amped it up with complimentary water bottles and sun umbrellas for all us crazies standing in line in the hot hot sun (yes, it's even blazing hot in Phoenix in the morning).

You are the SWEETEST store ever!!!

Always so much yummy vintage goodness to ooh and aah over!

I wish I could just start over decorating my whole house with all this awesomeness!

Blizzard To Sunshine

As you can read from a previous post, these girls have been nothing but the greatest 

BFF's for the past 15 years!  

I love them dearly!  

Shelly and Janeal live in Utah, where I used to live.

We were neighbors, friends, and co-crafters for such a long time!

I love that they come to visit me here in Arizona every year!!!

This year they visited the end of March....while it was blizzarding in Utah!

We enjoyed nothing but sunshine and perfect weather while they were here!

Oh gosh, I love Arizona this time of year!

So usually the first item of biz is a mani/pedi!

The Arizona nail shops are super awesome!  I've never been this spoiled in any other state!  They offer free drinks {ahem, sodas and water} and have many extras with pedis that I've never seen anywhere else.

Pretty much the highlight of their visit was that we spent two days and one night in Rocky Point, Mexico {Puerto Penasco}.

It's a super special place full of great memories for my family, and now Janeal and Shelly love it too!  I think this is their third time there {we went last summer and two summers before that}.

It's beautiful!

The beaches are incredible!

The food is divine!

Have you ever had Mexican pastries right out of a brick oven?

Then you haven't lived!

The Glitter Academy Brings Friends Together...with glitter!

Welcome to The Glitter Academy Fiesta!  

Ole!!!

Life is short, so let's start with dessert!

I'D LIKE TO THANK THE ACADEMY! {Glitter Academy recap}

Just the words
"GLITTER ACADEMY"
and you already know you're gonna love it, right?

There are a few truly awesome bloggy gals here in Arizona that organize these amazing events a couple of times a year.
This is the first one I was actually able to attend, and from what I hear,
IT WAS THE BEST!
It was definitely MY favorite!  ;)


Truer words were never spoken!

Mexico: We Go There!

If we had a dollar for every time someone......

well, you know, said something bad about traveling to Mexico,

we could pay for another trip to Mexico!

Girl's Camp Handouts and Gifts

Only one week of school left, and it's almost that time again for....

GIRL'S CAMP!

If you're like me

you're already thinking about and preparing ways

 to enrich the experience at camp this summer.

Last year I had the awesomely fabulous privilege of being a cabin mom

 (for the first time) 

over a group of 14 year old girls.  

Ohmygosh, what fun we had!

I loved girl's camp as a youth growing up in Las Vegas!!  

My young women leaders were fun, inspired, and dedicated!

But I gotta say, camp in Vegas was like REAL camping.

I like girl's camp in Arizona MUCH better!

More on that later

....watch for my upcoming post on how to

 make your camp experience more beautiful!  lol

Anyway,

Six days, six handouts

(any of these would also be great to give to your secret sister!)

Our camp theme was 

Happily Ever After

and a lot of focus was on recognizing that you are a daughter of God

which makes you royalty!

And on being prepared to be married in the temple

DAY ONE

Princess Survival Kit

This is the front of a card I made for each girl.

I actually got the 'Princess in training' graphic from my Silhouette software.

We used the same design to make t-shirts for the girls in our ward

(which is different from the girls in my cabin

...although I did have three of my ward girls in my cabin

...which was FUN!)

The inside of the card

The other cabin mom and I signed our names under 'Your Cabin Queens'

I thought this might break the ice

 and let them know right away that we were there for them.

Here is their 'survival kit' that was placed with the card onto each of their pillows.

S.W.A.G. Something We All Get!

It's been a challenge to write about my experience 

of attending SNAP (a conference in Utah for creative bloggers)

because there is just so much to tell 

and I can't figure out where to start.

So, I'm just gonna start with

SWAG!

I had never heard the word SWAG used this way until 

I attended my first blogging conference a year ago.

I'm still trying to understand specifically where that term comes from.

Someone recently told me it stands for

Something We All Get

SNAP recap. Sort of.

SNAP CONFERENCE WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The venue was gorgeous!

The food was divine!

Seeing old friends and making new ones was the highlight of the whole experience!

The swag was RIDICULOUS!!!

I won an AMAZING prize in the drawing on the last night!  

Was so excited and rocked the winner's whoop whoop!

I took TONS of GREAT pictures of the whole event.....

venue, decorations, accommodations, food, swag, 

friends, speakers, tulip festival.... all of it!

But then I LOST MY CAMERA!!

I'M GOING TO SNAP!!!

SNAP CONFERENCE 2012

Tomorrow I'll be journeying to the beautiful land of Utah for the
 3-day SNAP Conference for crafter/bloggers! 

 This will only be my second conference like this and I am BEYOND EXCITED! 

Before I get carried away with telling you about my previous experiences with this kind of event,

I just want to say how excited I am to travel in my 

NEW CAR

with Laura from PinkCakePlate

and Kendra from MyInsanity

These are some great girls and I know we'll have an awesome time

being cooped up for 10 HOURS in the car!  haha
We're armed and dangerous with cases of coke and Costco-sized bags of treats!

Modest is Hottest!

Dedicated to the loveliness of all girls and women

Via

Kids' Handmade Valentine's

(free printables from Shindig Parties To Go)

Christmas Paper Craft Projects 2011 (and 2010)

Are we finished with Christmas yet?  

Nope!

I think Christmas should be celebrated year-round!  

Or at least for more than just a month!  hehe  ;)
(I promise only one more post after this about Christmas...til next year)

I love these little crafts aka GIFTS that we made this Christmas,
so of course, I'd love to share them with you.

These projects were constructed by me but 100% designed by Rachele!


2011 Christmas projects

Here's the sad thing about making these cute goodies at Rachele's......

I like 'em so much I fail to give them away.

Note to self:

Share these with friends next Christmas 

and spread the love!

Annual Ornament Exchange 2011

Please forgive me, but I'd like to post the rest of our Christmas goodies 

BEFORE I start telling you how excited I am about Valentine's Day!  lol 

Remember my friend Rachele that I've spoken of before?  

(We made paper gingerbread houses at her place last month) 

We have good times together and her/our projects are fun to make!

I also hope she starts blogging again, because she's good at it!

(RACHELE, ARE YOU READING THIS???)

Anyway, as part of the craft group that Rachele has organized, 

she has added an annual Christmas ornament exchange.

I am so grateful to be surrounded by such amazing (and crazy fun) crafty women!

I'll start with the ornament I made.  Believe me, it was a huge improvement over my ornament last year! hehe