Up, Up, and Away!! Cate turns 3!!

Up, Up, and Away!! We celebrated Cate's third birthday party with a balloon theme this year! 

I am addicted to silhouettes lately, so I had to work that into the design of the invitation. 

My friend, Cara, helped me out with the little girl. Isn't she cute?!?!

The dessert table is always a BIG hit with the little ones and my favorite part of styling the party! 

I really wanted an awning this year, so my wonderful hubbie built this last minute! I am so lucky! I am already planning my next dessert table design, so I can use these again. 

The cake was FABULOUS! I sent the graphic to Melissa from Cake My Day and she nailed it! Cate wanted a strawberry cake and this was the best cake we have ever had.

 It was really moist and full of flavor. 

We served PB&J sandwiches in the shapes of balloons.

The cookie cutter I used to make the sandwiches was from Amazon.  I was not sure how well it would cut the bread, but it was amazing. Cate has been requesting all her sandwiches be in shapes now. :) 

 I used the balloon party circles to decorate all the serving pieces, etc. 

I had to think of a few activities that went along with a balloon theme for a group of 3 year olds! That was challenging. :) Especially since several of the girls were afraid of touching balloons because of the "pop" if it burst. I decided on a craft table! I even ordered crayons in the shapes of balloons! The kids used stickers, glitter sticks, and crayons to design their own balloon. 

The balloon artist was terrific. The adults were even requesting shapes.

Finally, Cate gave all her friends a goodie bag filled with balloon treats (balloon stickers, balloon shape crayons, balloon shape coloring book, etc.).

Next up, I will share the tutorial for making these balloon topiaries. :) 

Organization Ideas

I LOVE these ideas for organizing all my ribbon!

This fabulous idea came from Creating Keepsakes Blog! I can not wait to run to Target and buy my hanger! I have a hanger bar in my "entertaining" closet because I also hang my freshly dry cleaned linens. I am giddy with excitement to go home and clean up the mess my ribbon drawer has become!

Oh Crafts featured this great idea! If you do not have a craft closet with a hanger bar, this would be an awesome way to organize your ribbon!

Yummy Valentine's Day Treats

These 2 easy Valentine's Day goodies are on my menu!

First up, Valentine's Day Buttons from Tasty Kitchen! I made these for Christmas and my family gobbled them up quickly! I am going to add a cute printable party circle for Cate's teachers. :)

Next, are these yummy Valentine's Day Blondies from Baked Perfection!

As I was searching for some tasty treats, it occurred to me that lots of the Christmas treats would also work for Valentine's Day if you modify the colors. If you have a favorite treat, please share the link!

Melting Snowmen Cookies

Aren't these melting snowman cookies adorable?!?! I have been wanting to make these for awhile and since Cate's class was learning about snow this week I whipped them up to surprise her class! Cate was so excited and proud to bring these to her class!

As you can tell, Cate was my little helper for some of these cookies. :)

My inspiration for these came from Allrecipes.com. Since I decided to make these very last minute I took a few shortcuts, but here is a great tutorial.

I actually found them relatively easy. Here are my time-savers....

• I bought the good old-fashioned Pillsbury ready- made cookie dough.
• I also bought Betty Crocker cookie icing - Be sure it is cookie icing because you want it to kind of harden on the cookie.
• I used the tubes of color icing to decorate.
• My secret weapon for decorating are Food Color Markers. I LOVE these from Wilton!

Cate loves to use these to not only decorate cookies, but her toast, pancakes, etc. I also purchased a few sets to keep on hand for play dates! Happy Baking!!

I Dig You!

YAY! I just ordered my red plastic shovels from Ebay to make Cate's "I Dig You!" Valentine's treats for her class. Here was the original idea on Family Fun!

Of course, I am obsessed with party circle printables, so I added this "I Dig You!" tag last year.

Use the coupon code "idigu" in the Pluff Mudd Etsy shop and get these tags or any of the Valentine's printables for 40% off. These are personalized with your child's name too!

Do you have a special request for Valentine's Day? I'm ready to add some new goodies to the shop. Send me an e-mail and I will create something custom for you!

pluffmuddstudio@gmail.com

Valentine's Day Digital Art

Happy New Year!!! I had taken a few months off to catch-up on life and I have missed my passion of sharing party ideas, recipes, crafts, tutorials, tips, and anything else that makes like FUN! I am ready to jump back in!!

I'm not sure about you and your family, but we miss our Christmas decorations, so I am quickly looking for some Valentine's Day ideas to get us moving to a new cute holiday! I have stumbled on quite a few adorable ideas that I can't wait to share!

Here is the first.... Have you been wondering how to get your text into a shape? This had puzzled me until I saw this tutorial from Black and White {Side by Side}. Maggie is genius!

Here is what I whipped up in minutes...

Please don't judge... these were just my experiment to see if the tutorial worked before I invested lots of time. :)

Now that I know it works, I am going to design some fun printables to pop in some frames to jazz up the mantle and party table for Valentine's Day. I even followed these directions on a Mac and it worked perfectly!!

I even used a picture to see what would happen. It is REALLY easy and you can use any shape. I can see this becoming a new favorite trick of mine!

Hurry to the tutorial by Maggie and start crafting your own printables!!

Cheesy Meat Loaf Minis

YUMMY!!! I am addicted to ripping new recipes out of magazines and this Cooking Light recipe for Cheesy Meat Loaf Minis was AMAZING!! Even, my 2 year old was munching it down. This has easily become a new favorite around my house!

{Photo Courtesy of Cooking Light}

Of course, I changed things up a bit to make it more mom friendly and save some time! Meals have to be quick preparation and cooking at our house! Here my tips:

• 
  
  Instead of the fresh bread crumbs that needed to be sauteed, I used Publix brand Italian seasoned bread crumbs. Worked like a charm!


• 
  
  The recipe called for cubes of white cheddar cheese. I exchanged that for regular shredded mild cheddar cheese.


• 
  
  I forgot the fresh parsley (imagine that!), so I used dried parsley.

This recipe would be easy to prepare the night before and pop in the refirgerator. Then, all you have to do is stick them in the oven when you get home! Next time, I am also going to use ground turkey for a healthier option.