Make a Balloon Bouquet

If flowers are your go-to gift for holiday celebrations, you might want to consider a balloon bouquet. It definitely brings the “party” to any room you enter with it.

Make Party Straws Out Of Candy

I’m finding that the simplest things can make anything feel like a party to my kids. Throw some sprinkles on a vanilla cone…party! Toss a few berries into seltzer water…party! Slap on some $.25 tattoos…party!

Make Dinner Fun With Meatball Cupcakes

Make Personalized Wine Bottles

It’s party time!

If you’re planning on giving wine as a hostess gift or just serving wine at a party, these personalized wine bottle labels are perfect.

Fourth of July Salad Tongs

I wanted to share a project I shared last year in case you missed it. You still have plenty of time to make these if you want a festive way to serve salad or other dishes this Fourth of July!

All you need are salad tongs (preferably wooden), painter’s tape, white paint, blue paint and red star stickers (teachers, anyone?)

First, wrap painter’s tape around the top of your tongs where you want your paint to stop.

If you have a can of leftover white paint from a household project, this is easiest. Just dip the tongs directly into the can stopping just past your tape.

Hang to dry. If you have one of these broom holders in your garage, they are perfect. Otherwise, you can tie string around the spoon part and hang them from a branch outside or another rack in your garage. Just make sure you put cardboard or plastic underneath. It drips.

After that dries completely, dip into a small container of blue paint to just cover the ends.

Hang again to dry.

Once that is all dried, stick red star stickers around the handle.

Paint over the decorated area with Mod Podge (a glue/sealant sold at any craft store) to seal it all in. Let dry and you are now ready for a party!

Do not put the finished tongs in the dishwasher. Hand wash only.

Enjoy your 4th of July holiday!

 

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Easy Peasy Balloon Garland

When it comes to birthday parties, the main thing I look for in the food and decorations is easy.

When I wanted to add a little flair to my son’s 2nd birthday, this balloon garland was the easiest thing ever.

All you have to do is blow up a bunch of balloons and tie fishing line around the knot of each one.

Make sure to leave a foot or two of fishing line at both ends of the garland to help with hanging it.

Once your first balloon is tied, tape it to a hard surface to keep it in place while you tie the others. Otherwise, the balloons start floating around and you could have a tangled mess.

Once your garland is the length you want, you can tape it or tie it wherever you like!

With any leftover balloons, fill a couple garbage bags full and dump them onto the kids from a loft area 🙂

By using select colors, this garland make an easy decoration for baby showers or other themed parties.

For some reason, the balloons stay full when hanging upside down like this, so this might be a good decoration if you have a longer celebration and you want them up for a week or two!

You could also use this garland to line the doorway of the birthday boy or girl. Here is my daughter’s doorway on her birthday.

 

Easy Peasy. Have Fun!

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Fresh Mango Salsa

If you are looking for a dish to bring to a cookout this Memorial Day or just a fresh, healthy (and low calorie) treat, this mango spring salsa is amazing!

I actually found the recipe in a mailing from Kroger. It looked so good, I had to try it.

And since it was so good, I had to share it.

What you will need:

1/2 cup mango, diced
1/2 cup (each) green and yellow peppers, diced
1/2 cup tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup corn (canned or fresh)
1/2 up canned black beans, drained and rinsed
4 tsp. jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup cilantro, finely chopped
2 Tbsp. red onion, chopped
Juice of 1 fresh lime
1 1/2 tsp, sugar
1/4 tsp. salt

Combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

This salsa is great with chips.

But I also spread it over a chicken breast and it was wonderful.

This would also be great with pita chips or over fish. It has the most refreshing taste and is perfect for the upcoming spring and summer.

I actually had two batches going because I wanted to experiment with a couple different ingredients.

All I can say is this recipe is perfect just as it is!

Enjoy!

 

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Make Your Own Decorative Ice Bowl

Since my dinner party guests usually consist of a husband who will eat anything I serve (God love him) and kids who will spill anything I serve, I don’t spend much time on the visual presentation of our meals.

I thought I’d share this serving idea anyway because it was fun to make and you may actually be looking for a presentation idea right now.

All you need are two different sized glass bowls.

Fill the larger bowl with about an inch or two of water and place in the freezer for a few hours.

Remove bowl from freezer and place the smaller bowl inside the larger one. You will have the inch of ice separating the bowls.

Tape the smaller bowl down to the larger one.

Fill in the gap between the bowls with water.

Now place any decorative items you want into the water between the bowls. I used lemons and orange slices but you could use herbs, flowers, candies, etc. Depending on what you will be serving in the bowl, you could get really creative like filling it with coffee beans if you’re going to serve coffee ice cream. Or  maybe small candy canes to serve peppermint ice cream. I could go on and on here, but I’ll move on.

Apply another strip or two of tape to hold the bowls together well and freeze overnight (or at least 10 hours).

Remove from the freezer and remove the smaller bowl from the middle. Turn remaining bowl upside down. It helps to run warm water over the bottom of the bowl for a few seconds to help break away the ice bowl from the glass bowl.

Carefully remove the ice portion from the glass and now you are super fancy with a decorative ice bowl.

You can make smaller ones to serve single servings of sorbet or fruit to guests or make larger bowls to hold cold items at a party. The bowl should stay frozen for an hour or two indoors but it’s best to keep in the freezer until ready to serve.

Have Fun!

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Fall Apple Cider Cup

Now that fall is here, I’ve been seeing more and more of these cute little apple cups.

They didn’t seem very practical but I thought they would make for cute pictures.

After my daughter chugged the juice in it then started chomping on the apple, I realized they actually were pretty practical….and fun.

It’s pretty self explanatory but just cut a section out of the top of your apple and then use a small spoon to scoop out most of the apple.

Fill it with warm or cold apple cider or juice. You can add a cinnamon stick to make a fun straw if you want.

Then just let the family drink, eat, and be merry.

Happy fall.

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Linking to:
Making The World Cuter and Love Grows Wild

Chocolate Sprinkle-dipped Ice Cream Cones

If you are thinking of ideas for a birthday party or if you just want to make a regular night of the week feel like a party, here you go.

We started buying cones for our nightly ice cream ritual because it was a nice form of portion control. Turns out, it’s so much more fun eating ice cream out of a cone. What is even more fun, is dipping it in chocolate.

All you need are cones, chocolate chips and sprinkles.

First put some chocolate chips in a double burner, or a homemade double burner like I use.

You just put about and inch or two of water in the bottom pan and your chocolate in the top. This will prevent the chocolate from burning in your pot. Make sure the top pan is positioned to leave a little gap for the steam to come out.

Once it is melted, just dip the cone in and then immediately dip it into a small bowl of sprinkles.

This is a fun activity for kids. (If you dare.)

You can make a little cone-drying station out of your cones box by punching some small holes in it.

Let it dry for 20 minutes or so, fill with ice cream and get the party started.

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