Big Photo Strips

December 28, 2012 Jenny@NorthwestLovelies

I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted anything! There's been no lack of creating over here, just a lack of a functional computer! I guess my four year old laptop decided to revolt against the 15,000 photos I shoved into every nook and cranny of its memory. Sorry little guy. It's okay though because now we have a shiny new computer!

So in preparation for Thanksgiving and Christmas, both of which we hosted, I decided to complete a few projects that would help fill up our blank walls! This is one of my favorite projects I've ever seen done (I originally saw it here), and now that I've done it I'm trying to refrain from putting them all over my house!! EASIEST PROJECT EVER!

Supplies:

- 2x4 thin plywood (cut in half by the nice people at Home Depot)

- Black paint (I used acrylic craft paint)

- Cute photos of kids printed 12x12 (I had mine printed at Costco)

- Double-sided tape

- Sawtooth hanger and glue

The first thing I did was to have a little photo session with my girls. I hung up a white tablecloth on the wall (I just taped it up) and had them make cute faces while I snapped dozens of pictures. I picked out the four pictures I liked the best of each girl and had them printed 12x12 at Costco. I think each one was $2.99. I chose this route because they were automatically the right size and I was kind of in a hurry! I bought my plywood board at Home Depot, had them cut it, and painted all of the edges black. To hang them, I used E6000 to glue a sawtooth hanger onto the back of each one. I decided to attach the photos with double sided tape because these are hung in a high kid traffic area and if one of the photos gets ruined it will be easy to peel it off and replace it! The hardest part was probably hanging them evenly. These photo strips are hung on the wall of the landing that leads to our basement, so the lighting is terrible (hence the dining room shot above)! Those walls are actually kind of gray if you can believe it. :)

I'm wondering how many of these I can get away with having around the house without it looking too weird... :)

***UPDATE: These have been up for 6 months and the double sided tape is still holding strong! I love that it stays up so well but that I can still easily remove a picture and replace it if I need to, or remove them all for a complete update and not have to get new plywood! I used Scotch brand if that helps, and I'm not being paid to say this. ;)***

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Bloom Designs

Important Dates Art

August 6, 2012 Jenny@NorthwestLovelies

Well, the cupcake liner L finally had to go. We had a wedding shower this weekend for my best friend, and it just didn't go with the decor. As I was making burlap banners for the shower, I came up with the brilliant idea of using burlap to make an important dates sign. I originally saw the idea here and immediately designed one on the computer, but for some reason the burlap was calling to me and I knew that was the direction I needed to go with this project.

The space for the art is 11 x 14, so I created a document on the computer and printed it horizontally on two pieces of cardstock. I used the same technique that I do to make burlap banners, and laid the burlap over the cardstock to use as an outline to paint over. It's really pretty easy to do as long as you use a small angled paint brush. The whole project took under two hours!

I still miss the fluffy L, but I love how this turned out!

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About this Blog

July 19, 2012 Jenny@NorthwestLovelies

Hi! I'm Jenny. I'm currently a stay at home mom to two adorable little girls, but I used to spend my days teaching elementary school. I love being creative and I always seem to be working on one project or another (or half a dozen!). When I discovered creative blogs in the spring of 2011, I would have never thought I'd start one! I realized one day that I really wanted to be a part of the community that inspired me so much. Plus, it was weird that I was taking all my house guests on tours to show them each new project I'd completed and giving them handouts with full tutorials (Just kidding! Kind of...). So Northwest Lovelies was born, and it has been such a great outlet, an excellent motivator, and a way to connect with amazingly creative people! Thanks so much for stopping by!

A Little Birdie Birthday Party

July 18, 2012 Jenny@NorthwestLovelies

** Printables from this party are now available in my etsy shop!**

I had so much fun putting together this party to celebrate Lila's 2nd birthday! As I was brainstorming themes I kept coming back to birds, probably in part because that's the direction I've decided to go with her bedroom, and also because a lot of the books we enjoy reading together feature bird characters. I (obviously!) got a lot of my inspiration for the decorations from the blogs I read and Pinterest! I adored the color scheme of this party Kim at The TomKat Studio threw for her daughter, and could not stop looking at this baby shower from And Everything Sweet and this birthday party from Paiges of Style. My sweet friend Becky of Studio 623 Photography agreed to take some pictures for me, which was awesome because she knows what she's doing! Some of mine are sprinkled in as well.

Some Party Details...

Lila wore a special birthday outfit which included a tutu and fabric flowers accented with feathers. We couldn't leave out big sister, so Camille got a new outfit for the occasion as well, a blue feather print dress from Old Navy. I actually kind of matched the party too, but I forgot to be in any pictures, except you can see a little of me in the picture of the birthday girl. :)

For the dessert table I decided to use the chandelier as the focal point. The poms and lanterns were hung with monofilament and ornament hooks onto the chain of the chandelier. I LOVE how this turned out! In fact, as of now it's still up because I can't stop looking at it!

The table was decorated with a white tablecloth, two painted bird houses on candlesticks and a revamped birdcage from Goodwill. The desserts were displayed on white dishes as well as on diy cupcake stands and my 'rustic elegant' dessert stands.

We purchased the cupcakes from our local gluten free bakery, Crave Bake Shop, winner of Cupcake Wars! Not surprisingly, they were insanely delicious! I made the dipped marshmallows, the butterscotch nests, and the birdie cake pops. I don't even want to post the link to Bakerella where I got the idea for the cake pops, but it's probably only fair that you know what they're supposed to look like. ;) I also made marshmallow fondant topped bird cookies as party favors for the kids.

Since our party was for both adults and kids, we had an amazing food spread courtesy of my husband! I'm super disappointed, but I didn't take a SINGLE picture of the food. My husband always does an amazing job, and I didn't take any pics!! Becky took a couple, so at least we have those! The food consisted of fruits and veggies, cheeses and crackers, meats, deviled eggs, meatballs, bacon wrapped dates (my favorite!), chocolate chip cookies, chips and some kid friendly snacks. It was all really pretty! We served strawberry lemonade and iced tea on the little tea cart and had a variety of other beverages in coolers.

I created the invitations, banners, food labels, cupcake toppers and straw flags in PSE. I bought the bird graphics and blue digital papers that I used from etsy.com. I also ended up making the cupcake liners myself because I hadn't originally planned to have regular sized cupcakes. They were super easy to make though, so I would probably do it again rather than buy them! The paper plates, napkins, cups, paper straws and mason jar lids were all purchased from The TomKat Studio.

There were various other diy decorations- the cupcake liner L in the dining room, the birthday wreath on the door, little painted bird houses etc. The party was a lot of fun for the kids and adults alike (bounce house anyone??)! We had so much fun with the bounce house that we bounced on it with the girls after everyone left and one more time after we put the kiddos to bed!

Daddy bouncing with his girls

Is anyone else in the throes of party planning?? I've got another one on the horizon!

Jenny

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Marshmallow Fondant Bird Cookies

July 14, 2012 Jenny@NorthwestLovelies

We had a pretty big age range of kiddos coming to Lila's birthday party so I struggled to come up with a favor that would work for all ages. Typically I find a book I love that goes with the theme, but with the age gap in addition to inviting a big group of kids, I needed to get creative! A lot of this party was inspired by this adorable baby shower from And Everything Sweet. I fell in love with the marshmallow fondant bird cookies and thought they'd make great party favors for the kids.

I've never made or worked with any type of fondant before, and on a scale from 1 to 10 my cooking skills are about a 2. Basically it was all just a recipe for disaster! I studied two marshmallow fondant recipes pretty thoroughly before getting started, here and here. I also studied a couple of sugar cookie recipes, here and here.

Ingredients

Somehow, the marshmallow fondant came together really easily and was actually fun to make! I really enjoyed working with it too! I think making MMF must lean more towards crafting than cooking. ;) I made the fondant the Friday before the party and stored it at room temperature and it was really easy to work with when I made the cookies Sunday morning. I made the cookie dough Saturday night so it could chill overnight in the fridge.

Here are my little fondant balls all coated in Crisco and wrapped in plastic wrap inside a Ziplock bag. I used AmeriColor Gel Paste in Sky Blue, Deep Pink (the lighter pink one) and Fuchsia mixed with a tiny bit of Super Red.

If I hadn't waited until the morning of the party to make the cookies, I would have spent more time adding details! They still turned out pretty cute though! I was definitely happy with my first attempt at marshmallow fondant decorated sugar cookies!

Here are some things that helped me a bunch while making MMF:

- I followed the recipes and directions exactly and got everything ready ahead of time.
- There was a point in the beginning when I thought I was just creating a sticky mess and I'd have to throw it all away, but apparently that's normal. It all works out if you keep kneading!
- I didn't use my mixer and I don't think I would. It seemed easy enough to just knead by hand.
- I wasn't able to sift the powdered sugar because with our sifter it would've taken me a week. There were definitely some little sugar lumps at first, but because I had to knead so much to add the colors, they were all gone in the end.
- I used a TON of Crisco (or what felt like a ton- in the end it wasn't that much). I practically bathed in it. I just had to keep coating and recoating my hands and my countertop. I actually did most of the kneading just in my hands while I was adding the color because I was using smaller pieces.
- One tip that worked really well was to dip a toothpick into the gel dye and to add it to the middle of the fondant ball and then fold the fondant over it. This kept the color from staining my hands too much.
- I bought a fondant mat and special rolling pin and I'm really glad I did. The mat is non-stick and the rolling pin has little rubber pieces on the ends to keep the fondant at either 1/8in. or 1/16in. thick.
- The fondant needs something to hold it to the cookies so I used regular vanilla frosting from a can.
- I drew the eyes on with an AmeriColor (edible ink) marker.

We packaged the cookies in clear plastic treat bags tied with baker's twine next to a little bag of gummi worms. The treats were in a bird gift box (thank you Target $1 section!) filled with brown crinkle shreds. There were a few babies, so they got books instead. :)

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