I discovered Pinterest. I'm a little behind, I realize, but when I saw how addicted other people became I was a little wary of jumping in. I thought my sister Sonja's Winter Wonderland themed bridal shower would be a good excuse to introduce myself to Pinterest.
I am now hooked on Pinterest. I have quote boards, recipe boards, DIY boards, teaching boards, etc.
Sonja's shower was a success, and a I have to admit that most of the creative details we stole from Pinterest :) My oldest sister Kristel, the fashionista fresh from California, was the one who had the idea to have a Winter Wonderland theme. In the process of organizing (controlling?) and home-for-Christmas-busyness I only had one meltdown: I threw myself on my bed and sobbed like a baby when I saw that my younger sister had taken the liberty of setting up
my note tree. My husband, poor man who grew up with mostly brothers, tried to rub my back while I blubbered at him to "leave me alone!" It was a pretty embarrassing relapse back to age eleven, but I figure that one meltdown over the whole Christmas season is okay! :)
Some Pinterest-inspired highlights:
- Mason jars + Epsom salts + tea lights = cheap,
wintry candles
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Tissue paper balls from Pinterest! So easy! All I used was eight sheets of tissue paper (for each ball), gift ribbon, scissors and a bit of tape. All you do is fold the stack of tissue paper accordian-style (1-1 and a half inch), tie the middle with ribbon (leave some length to hang the tissue paper ball by), secure the ribbon with a bit of tape, cut the edges sharply or curved (I did a mix), and then separate layer by layer. They're light, cheap, and they don't droop after a few days like balloons! :) Find the full tutorial on my Pinterest board under Special Occassions! My mother, who would be the first one to tell you that she is
not crafty, successfully made several of these into a beautiful piece to hang in the kitchen.
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A hot chocolate bar. The women and the kids in attendance loved this! I borrowed a perk from my super-hostess mother-in-law and filled jars with different toppings from the Bulk Barn. We got Skor bits, marshmallows, candy canes, chocolate sprinkles, cookie straws, blue sprinkles and whipped cream for toppings.
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| cake pops |
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Cake pops! These turned out really well. I was so focused on how they looked that I began to worry about how they would taste -- but they were delicious! I used two double chocolate cake mixes. I baked the cakes and after they cooled I crumbled them finely in a bowl, one at a time. Because the cake mixes were so moist, I only used about two heaping tablespoons of icing (pre-made) for each cake mix. This was enough to roll the mix into balls. I then dipped the cake pop sticks into melted white chocolate and stuck them into the balls (so that the melted chocolate would hold the cake onto the sticks). I stuck these in the freezer for 15-20 minutes. Then I took them out and dipped each cake pop into the melted white chocolate (with a touch of lard added) and sprinkled them with blue sparkles. I didn't think ahead enough to have something for the pops to stand in while they hardened, so I had to do a few at a time and balance them in mason jars so they wouldn't touch each other while they hardened. Even though the chocolate hardened quickly, I got impatient with this process so for the second batch I simple dipped them in white chocolate, stuck them upside-down in some pretty mini-cupcake liners, and sprinkled with the blue sugar. By the time I finished both cake mixes I got about 60 pops.
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| the note tree |
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A note tree. In each wintry invitation, guests recieved two recipe cards. One card was for them to write down their favourite recipe for the bride-to-be, and the other was to write down a piece of advice, a favourite Scripture, or a good quote. To display the pieces of advice/Scripture/quotes we set up a little note tree using a branch I had taken from the side of the road. My younger sister sprayed it with fake snow, which looked very good, I must say! We had extra pens and pieces of paper set out, as well as a jar of pre-cut ribbon. It was a really great way for people to share some wisdom with my sister as well as the other guests.
- This last idea was not from Pinterest. Using my mother's childhood wagon, we set up
a wintry display. White lights under tissue paper, skates, snowflakes, jars of pine cones and a little Christmas tree ended up on the wagon. My mom was so pleased with it because the wagon had special sentimental value for her.
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| gift toboggan |
- This idea was also not from Pinterest:
a gift toboggan! Using a toboggan for the gifts was a fun way to incorporate the Winter Wonderland theme.
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| had to include a picture of mom's chocolate-covered strawberries! |
Kudos to my mom and sisters on throwing a beautiful shower, thanks to all the generous guests who made the effort to come to a shower only days before Christmas, and congratulations to Sonja! Oh, and thanks to all the people out there who freely share ideas on Pinterest!
A few weeks ago I hosted (and attended) my very first clothing swap party. I needed to trim down my closet in preparation for our move to Uganda, so the idea of a clothing swap sounded genius. Our apartment is a little on the small side (and a little on the haphazardly-being-dismantled side) so my friend Lindsay agreed to have it at her place. Her poor husband was informed that he would have to vacate the premises for the evening of April 6 and we set about planning.
2. My guidelines: everyone had to bring a minimum of five items. These could be pieces of clothing, jewelry or accessories. Stains and broken zippers were to be left at home, along with any used bathing suits or undergarments :) Bringing some items with flexible sizing was encouraged.
4. Since we had just purchased plenty of bins for our move, I used them to organize the clothes. I made labels using scrapbooking paper and organized the bins according to short-sleeve and sleeveless tops, long-sleeve tops, bottoms and accessories. I used a clothes drying rack and the curtain road to drape jackets and hang dresses. We got a lot of short-sleeve and sleeveless tops, so we ended up separating them into two different bins.
