Birthday Parties and Pintrest

I love birthday parties. I am the kind of person who will stay up all night to decorate. I start planning the birthday theme months in advance so I can keep an eye out for things to pick up when they are on sale. I make as much of the decorations as I can. For the goodie bags, I try to include as much as I can but spend as little as possible.

I have friends who do not like parties as much as me.  Being the great friend I am, I have told them "look on Pintrest." Yeah, that's not really helpful when you are not a crafty person and don't like parties.

Here are some simple things that you can do to make your party great, without having to be crafty.

1. Use streamers. Streamers are inexpensive and make for a quick party place dress up. If you don't want to hang streamers from the ceiling, just drape them on the wall, or put them up the wall.

I like to bring the streamers down the wall a little.

I removed a picture to cover the wall in streamers.

Streamer flowers

2. Make a birthday sign. You do not have to buy the "Happy Birthday" sign in the store. Use colored paper or book pages to make a unique sign.

The name banner is pages from a winnie the pooh book.

I took pages from a winnie the pooh book that had pictures on them and made a banner for the food table.

3. Cover the tables and surfaces with table clothes. Use solid colors, use the ones from the dollar store, use them on lots of surfaces. If you buy one from the store that has characters, use it on the table that will be the center of attention. Use accent colors for the area where the presents will go or if you have a table on the side with the goody bags. If your character table cloth is not big enough for the table you have, place solid color ones under it and then use it in the center of the table. Don't be afraid to layer them.

The table cloth made this table with the goody bags a part of the decor.

4. Balloons. Balloons. Balloons. We all know that nothing says party like balloons. I use them on the mailbox by the curb to make the party guest feel festive as soon as they pull up. The balloons don't have to be helium filled. I like to blow them up and tape them to the walls. (See picture above.)

5. Have fun. If you do nothing more than the above, the party will look great. The most important thing is that you set the tone for the kids. If the kids think you are unhappy with the party, they will be as well. Remember parties are a celebration. Don't stress if everything is not perfect or PINTREST worthy.

Which brings me back to Pintrest. I think as moms we tend to compare ourselves to other moms. We look at what they do and feel like we are inadequate. Don't fall into that trap. Use Pintrest to gather ideas not to get down on yourself. Use Pintrest as a tool to help you, not as a tool to make you spend more money.

I hope I have helped a little to make that next party less stressful.

Thanks for stopping by,

2009 Lessons Learned

2009 was a little bit of a tough year. By deciding not to go back to work, I cut our annual income almost by half. The adjustment to that has been tremendous.

With that change has come a few lessons I have learned. I would like to share some resources I have found and even some people who's story I have found very moving.


Lesson 1 - Saving Money
Not using coupons is throwing away money. It takes a little bit of time, but the savings can really add up. When you combine a coupon with a store sale, you can get stuff for pennies or free. I like to buy the sunday paper every week and then I use the sites below as well.

Load coupons onto your store rewards cards:
http://www.shortcuts.com/
http://www.cellfire.com/
http://www.pgsaver.com/

Print coupons:
http://www.redplum.com/
http://www.smartsource.com/
http://www.coupons.com/

Product sites that give coupons:
http://www.bettycrocker.com/
http://www.gerber.com/
http://www.target.com/
http://www.kroger.com/
http://www.eatbetteramerica.com/


Lesson 2 - Staying Busy
I am not a fan of house work, so I like to find other things to do. I enjoy paper crafts and teaching myself to sew.

http://www.oneprettything.com/ has all kinds of craft ideas from kids to adults, from knitting to gift ideas
http://www.hp.com/hho/hp_create/ HP creative site for picture crafts and more
http://cp.c-ij.com/en/ Canon creative park has all kids of paper crafts
http://www.craftjr.com/ lots of ideas for kids
http://www.familyfun.go.com/ a great place disney crafts and recipe ideas



Lesson 3 - TV for free
Not live TV, but a great place to catch up on some shows.

http://www.hulu.com/


Lesson 4 - Pray for Others
We all have hard times, we all have our own difficulties, we all have our moments of doubt. I really believe that prayers are a powerful thing. I cannot tell you exactly how I came to find these blogs, but I did. These are a couple of the people I pray for that I have never met. Their stories have really touched me.

http://givehopetobensonandclaire.blogspot.com/
http://kendraandryanwebster.blogspot.com/



I hope 2010 has even more lessons to teach me.