Party Favor Idea

You might remember the votive candles I made for my son’s graduation party. I was always planning on them being part of something else to give to guests but wasn’t sure what. Then in the midst of all the graduation frenzy, my son went to a birthday dinner and came home with the inspiration! Mini-bottles of sparkling cider!

So simple and yet never thought of it. Won’t even go into how I should have looked first at the grocery store I go to three times a week and how I convinced myself I had to go to a specialty grocery store or five before looking in my own backyard. Dorothy (Wizard of Oz) was right. Anyway…
I decided to put one bottle of cider, one candle, and then made these:

Homemade peanut butter cups but this time with edible gold stars! I did these in gold foil cupcake liners. I put one peanut butter cup in a plain 3x3 box:

 

And sealed each box with decorative packaging tape. I had some monogramed tape from Michaels that I bought for $1. Perfect! I put the PB cup, candle and a bottle of cider in a cello bag with a little white and gold paper shred and tied each with a gold bow.

I thought this was a fun and pretty simple idea you could adapt for a lot of occasions. Anniversaries, birthdays, showers….

Linking Up At: 

BFF Link Party #6 Wrap Up and Features

Well I’ve been completely MIA for my own party. But I now have a HS graduate and next stop college! Thanks so much for partying on without me and I’ll get back on track visiting everyone again.  As always there were so many great ideas linked up and as always, it’s hard to highlight just a few but here goes!
You will not believe how this gorgeous wall shelf started out. Seriously. You need to go visit FruFru Gal to see the origins ( and read her hilarious description of its transformation)
                             
Vicki, over at Rusty Rooster Vintage shows us how to transform something shiny and new into a wonderfully vintage rusty patina that would look great on this shelf!

Greenbean’s Crafterole showed that there are infinite uses for washi tape which means I have another excuse to buy it whenever I see it.

I love these votives and how she wrapped the candles with the washi tape and of course I love love it since it’s black and white!
Finally, Fonda over at Southern Scraps shared this GORGEOUS tank top transformation. WOWZA!

It’s too pretty to wear! I hope you’ll go check out these and all of the great ideas that were linked up and hope to see you all again on Friday!

BFF Link Party # 6

It's time to party with all my BFFs! I will resume the Blog Feature portion next week after, sniff...graduation's over...sniff. Anything goes as long as it was made by you! I'm sure there are some great Dad's day ideas out there along with Summer themed goodies and I'm sure some of you are getting a head start on Fourth of July! Just no advertising or Etsy stores please and please link to your project page and not your main blog page. Party on!

Prom…The Creative Ask

I’m sure you’re bored to tears with me mentioning graduation etc. but since that’s what’s been keeping my blogging to a minimum lately, I thought I’d share some of what I’ve been busy doing.

My son’s school has all these traditions. Freshman year was culture shock and now, by Senior year, it’s all old hat . Don’t tell…I’ll miss some of them! One tradition is that for the two big dances each year ( Homecoming and TOLO, which is what we in the Northwest call a Sadie Hawkins type dance) and then for Prom, you do the “creative ask”. What the heck is that you ask? Well it’s just about anything creatively done to ask your date to the dance. Never mind that the dates have been agreed to well before the creative ask is done. It’s still expected.

In four years, he’s asked or been asked by: conspiring with lockermates to hide things in and decorate lockers and cars; things have been delivered to the house creatively wrapped ( a box within a box within a box etc each with a clue); a faux turtle terrarium ( luckily the girl got talked out of a REAL turtle; in the middle of assemblies; and one year, before he could drive , I swore we’d end up on the news after leaving lighted luminarias on one girl’s  front steps (her mom was in on it).

He went to prom with a girl he’s been friends with forever and they have an inside joke of being “Cookie Monster” and “Elmo” including having had these on  team sweatshirts  etc. He asked if I could do cookies but I’m horrible at decorating cookies so I did cupcakes! I was really excited to try this stuff :

Edible gold glitter stars! They’re by Wilton and I found them at Michaels. Got so excited I ripped open the package before taking a pic.

The cupcakes themselves were just dark chocolate with vanilla frosting. The gold stars made all the difference though!

To carry out the “Cookie Monster” and “Elmo” theme, I found clipart, created a graphic, printed and then punched w/ 2” circle punch. Cut larger circles on my Expression and then decorated with adhesive rhinestones. Did I mention that the request for these came at 3PM the day before he wanted to do the ask? IMPROV time!

I stuck the cupcake toppers to straws using glue dots, and computer generated the text using a fun font.

Thankfully he and then she loved them. And Prom was last Saturday and they had a wonderful time! And I still have tons of gold stars left for graduation cupcakes!

BFF Link Party #5 Wrap Up and Features

Thanks for your continued patience as I’m winding down towards my son’s graduation! Prom was this weekend…..the “kids” cleaned up nicely and what a wonderful group of young men and women! Working fast and furiously, the Prom scrapbook is DONE along with the overall HS scrapbook and the future College scrapbook.  Some people power walk; I power scrap!
Great projects linked up again this week! Here are a few features:

Christine from Christine and Co, shared these “A”mazing monogramed keychains made using resin.
Gearing up for Summer, Jenn from Rook No. 17 shared these Sno Cone cupcakes that look so real I expected them to start melting!

You really have to check these out!
Paula from JC’s Loft shared a creative twist on party invitations that could easily be adapted to so many different occasions:

Please feel free to add a featured button from my sidebar and hope to see you all again this week! I’ll get back on track with the actual Blog Feature part of the BFF link party next week but we’ll definitely have the party this week!

BFF Link Party #5

Another week that flew by too quickly. I always get thrown off when the week starts off with a holiday. So between that, work, and getting ready for Prom and Graduation , I didn't pick a blog to feature this week but will get back on track week after next. We're still going to party and see what everyone's been up to!!

Dad and Grad ideas? Link 'em. Fun Summer decor makeovers? Link 'em. Delicious treats? Link 'em. If you made it link it...just no advertising or selling please! Party will be up through Sunday so feel free to invite your friends. I  haven't had time to do much visiting lately but as soon as things calm down, I'll be over to see all of you!  Party On!

My First Resin Project!

I may or may not have accidentally prematurely posted this before :) so you may or may not be confused! We'll just pretend that didn't happen OK? 

I have LONG wanted to play with Resin, but have been intimidated to try it. When I recently had the opportunity to try Envirotex Lite by ETI (Environmental Technology Inc) , I was so excited to jump right in! I am not always good at reading instructions…ask Mr. Chocolate. But I CAREFULLY read the instruction sheet that came with the package which was super easy to follow.

EnviroTex Lite has many many uses from finishing furniture to home dec uses to jewelry making. I decided I would do a pendant.

I bought these fun bezels from the Bezels, Frames and Filigree collection by Bead Landing at Michaels. I was so excited I pulled them off the card before I took a picture! I had this great collage paper in my stash by Kand Co so the hardest part was deciding on a focal image.

Decided on this one (you can’t go wrong with Paris) and punched a circle out, then using PVA glue, glued it to the center of my pendant (you can see the glue’s not quite dry here but it dries clear) . Make sure you coat it really well so you don’t get any edges coming up

I also had some glass micro beads in my stash. In doing some prep reading about using resins, I followed the advice not to use plastic or coated beads because of interaction with the resin. I poured some in this bezel as well as a smaller bezel from the same package.

OK GO time on the resin. READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY! Just sayin’…if you’re like me and usually don’t. Mix your resin. Oh man. I was nervous. And I should NOT have been! You mix the two components together in a clean cup (ETI provided plastic cups and wooden stir sticks). When I thought it looked ready ( which I based on stirring it for the two minutes the instructions said) , I was ready to pour!

Sorry , no pics of this part of the process because I was so focused on not goofing up! A little goes a LONG way. I used an ounce each of the resin and the hardener and had leftover.

It’s hard to tell from this pic but this is after the resin has been poured and set. Mine bubbled when I first poured it and the instructions said to go over it lightly with a match or butane lighter.  I chose to do this project when hubs wasn’t home in case it came to this! Also in case it was smelly…he doesn’t do smelly. It was not at all but I ensured good ventilation just to be safe.
I just waved my pencil torch lightly over the top and voila, the bubbles disappeared! You can see the micro beads floating in the resin.

You can see the depth of the resin here a little better on the smaller pendant. I filled it w/ micro beads, poured the resin on top and then sprinkled a few more micro beads on top. Why? Cause I did.

Once my pendant had set and dried ,  I went to work on the necklace, just wire wrapping a collection of crystals, pearls and agate, and using different lengths of chain. But the focal is this pendant which I’m so happy with and LOVE LOVE LOVE working with this resin!

Thank you SO much ETI for the chance to experiment with Envirotex Lite. I am HOOKED!

ETI sent me this product to try out. You won’t believe all that you can do with this product.  Envirotex Lite was created by Environmental Technologies Inc. (ETI), which is the home for many resin and mold making products.
 

The use of resin in jewelry making, mixed media and paper arts continues to grow in popularity. Today, artists are using ETI’s products in many crafty ways and they will be showcasing these works of art on their new blog "Resin Crafts".

Check them out on:
Resin Crafts Blog
ETI on Facebook
ETI on Twitter