Choo Choo it's great to be 2!

My son is obsessed with Trains so of course months before his 2nd Birthday was coming I decided on a train theme. I tend to shy away from the typical and the Disney themed things so I decided to do it all vintage.

It all started with the invitations. We went to a nearby train track one afternoon and took some amateur photos of him in an adorable train conductor outfit I borrowed from my sister. Then I made the invitations in my scrapbooking program, I made them 4x6 because I was able to get the Walgreens Easter deal of buy 25, get 25 free so the invites cost like $5 bucks! I even found envelopes at Salvation Army for cheap.  

Then came the planning! It was at our house because we had some wind and park reservation problems at his 1st Birthday because I'm too cheap to pay for a reservation of Mother Nature. This meant more prep because I had to prepare my house for somewhere between 40 and 60 people but also a little easier because day of we didn't have to keep running back to the house because my husband we forgot stuff.

 I got a bunch of frames from Salvation Army, spray painted them, roughed some up, you know the drill. Then put adorable pics of my son from our photo shoot in them and did some vintage trains, etc. in others.

 The "Snack Station" all ready for the tornado cousins to come.
This is where everyone came to fill treat bags for their party favors.

 I made this train out of gift boxese from Zurchers. Created and printed the wheels from MS Publisher. I had signs at each "station". Gift station, snack station, food station, fuel (drink) station. As well as a sign by the party favor bags informing guests to help themselves. We had hot dogs and sloppy joes, they don't look that cute or unique so I don't have a picture... :)

 The older kids LOVED filling their own treat bags!

 Chocolate candies are SO easy to make. I discovered that from my sister in law and I'm so glad I did. How fancy do these look? You'd never know how easy unless you've done them yourself of course.

The lollipop holder I had my husband make from a box he wrapped then poked holes in and put styrofoam inside so they stuck in good because I used cheap wood sticks instead of candy sticks if that makes sense.

 My very amateur cake. My friend who made his amazing cake last year was out of town so I attempted one on my own. I wanted it pretty similar to how it looks so that's good and it didn't even take that long.

 The entryway, still not sure if the luggage was a cute touch or random...?

That's it, it was a great party! My son LOVED all of the attention and choo-choos around the house!

Easy Spring Decor

A few months ago, I was instructed asked by the Relief Society to decorate for the Relief Society birthday dinner. There was no budget and I had decorated for it last year so I was expected to just use the things I had around the house. Thinking I had a week or so to plan for it, I ignored anxiously awaited the time I would start planning the decor. Well here comes Tuesday and I find out it was that night instead of next week. The simple thing would have been to re-use last year's decor but due to my OCD desire to serve, I couldn't have that. So this is what I came up with during the best time of my day my son's naptime. It's definitely not amazing so don't get your hopes up, but it was easy and the best part was that I now had spring decor for my house after, which was much needed. All I used was some dollar frames I had laying around, ribbon I had laying around, leftover letters and flowers I had from a project years ago, white paper, vases, rocks, skewers (not even the craft kind), glue gun, etc. You get the idea.

A lil of this and a lil of that

This blog will be about my Interior Design projects around my house and for my clients, most specifically the budget friendly / Do-It-Yourself projects. I will post craft projects, design projects and everything in between. I am also going to post related things for sale (by me or others) that will interest people in the Salt Lake Valley, mostly furniture items. Thanks for stopping by, any comments or e-mails are welcome!