Holiday Snob

8.09.2011

Summer Drinks to cool you down

I know summer is almost over, but my obsession with summer drinks is still in full swing! Check out these amazing (virgin) beauties:

Nancy's Fruit Water recipe here

Oopsey Daisy's yummy easy recipe here

Watermelon Straight up here

Citrus Daquiri

Watermelon Frosty recipe here

The Miller Family's homemade icees here

Now this homemade icee recipe has my mind going crazy with possibilities like trying this:

TIGER'S BLOOD Strawberry 60% and Coconut 40%

Snow Cone Syrup2 cups granulated sugar3/4 cup water
1 package unsweetened Kool-Aid®

Bring sugar and water to a full boil. Remove from heat and stir in Kool-Aid®. Chill. It's now ready for the crushed ice.

Or I've tried a lime slushy with just lime juice, sugar, club soda and ice. It was DELISH! And there's tons of lo-cal options, like diet Kool-Aid packets and Splenda. Or diet coke...

lemonade icees recipe here

8.07.2011

Back to School Wreath over at Ducks in a Row!

Hey! We're showing you to make this festive back to school sign (along with faux chalkboard):

over at Ducks in a Row! Head over and check it out!!!

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8.04.2011

Back to School Printable(s)!!!

Well, my friends. It has been awhile since we did a printable (like a whopping month) and when I hear twice in one day (once from Glitta, once from SIL) that I need to do a back to school printable. Well, I take that as a message from the heavens! A direct command! something to do while I'm watching a lame-o romantic comedy. Rachel Bilson! That stalker is not boyfriend material! He's homeless and DOES NOT HAVE A JOB!

Wow. Got away from myself there! So if you are ready to get a classroom in order, get kids excited for school, treat a teacher friend, or just psyche yourself up for fall, then I have not one, not two, not three, but FOUR printables for you! Two are jokes, but I just thought they were funny and the kinds of things I pin on pinterest so I went ahead and made them. They are all sized as 8x10s but should be able to work for smaller or bigger with the right editing. So without further ado:

Again, these are FREE!!! But if you do use them, will you tell me? And maybe follow our little blog?

8.02.2011

Birthday Gift Basket

Glitta and I have birthdays very close together. If you are an avid reader of this blog (as I assume everyone is) then you'll know that Glitta surprised me with an amazing pedi party.

What you don't know is that we had planned on throwing a joint party a week after mine, a week before her's TOGETHER. We were thinking watermelon theme, since there's a bazillion cute treats for watermelons circulating the web right now, and we had a cute watermelon wreath and it's the summer, blah blah blah.

So then that sneaky Glitta throws me an amazing surprise party with all of our friends invited and smugly tells me that she likes throwing a party better than being the recipient of a party. I left my birthday pedi party thinking, "That was so fun. Such a good idea. Now w-t-h am I going to do for Glitta's birthday???!!!"

I couldn't compete. But I did make a pretty cute little present. So in case you need an idea of how a holiday snob gives a girlfriend a present, here it is:

I wrapped a cardboard box in purple fabric, hot-glueing to secure. Then embellished it with ruffled ribbon and a bejeweled cupcake. I made a pennant bday banner glued to twine to come up from bamboo skewers stuck into the sides. And then filled with goodies.

I themed the basket with, "On her birthday, a girl needs to:____________"

"A girl needs to relax" was with a cupcake bath bombe.

"A girl needs to bling" was with a cute pair of rhinestone bow earrings from Forever 21.

"A girl needs to shop" was with a J. Crew gift certificate for a thousand dollars. Because I'm super rich and just a really good friend. (hahahahahahaha - that's why I'm selling crafts on etsy, because I'm super rich!) So maybe it wasn't a thousand dollars but it had some dough, ok? Glitta is a J. Crew girl all the way.

close up of the stamped banner

Cute, right? Hopefully a good comparison to a surprise party. Hmmm maybe not, but whadda do? I did surprise her with yummy Lara's Donuts early for breakfast that day. Still not? Well, I'll tell ya what, I am NOT planning a joint party next year!

Linking here:

Sunday:

http://iheartnaptime.blogspot.com/, http://niftythriftythings.blogspot.com/

Monday:

http://craftomaniac.blogspot.com/, http://makingtheworldcuter.blogspot.com/, http://diyhshp.blogspot.com/, http://www.skiptomylou.org/, http://sumossweetstuff.blogspot.com/, http://marvelouslymessy.blogspot.com/

Tuesday:

http://todayscreativeblog.net/, http://ladybug-blessings.com/, http://tipjunkie.com/, http://www.sugarbeecrafts.com/,

Wednesday:

http://eisymorgan.blogspot.com/, http://www.paisleypassions.blogspot.com/, http://somedaycrafts.blogspot.com/, http://www.bluecricketdesign.net/, http://www.mybackyardeden.com/, http://reasonstoskipthehousework.blogspot.com/

Thursday:

http://www.momnivores-dilemma.com/, http://www.houseofhepworths.com/, http://nightowlcrafting.blogspot.com/

Friday:

http://www.whipperberry.com/, http://www.thegirlcreative.com/,http://tidymom.net/, http://sassysites.blogspot.com/, http://shabbynest.blogspot.com/, http://tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com/, http://www.findingfabulousblog.com/

Saturday:

http://www.bedifferentactnormal.com

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7.31.2011

Low Key Pool Party Ideas

I'm getting a few friends together tomorrow for a low-key pool party. I hate to even call it a "party" because then my psycho snobby brain starts thinking I need favors, labels, a dessert buffet... you get the jist! But, "pool get-together" doesn't have the same ring. I think I'm calling it a pool play-date. Ooo-kay, this is turning into a tangent that needs to end!

Anyway, here's a few ideas that are inspiring me:

I am thinking of giving the girls this cute free printable in 4x6 from Vintage Marigolds:

I don't have a source, but I have this on my pinterest board and it looks easy enough:

This one is like the pool party in my dreams! The Joys of Home Educating has the cutest idea for serving food at a pool party, I might end up with a version of this if my friends are lucky!!!

And MMMmmmm, I think I must make these pina colada cupcakes from Keri at Pressed Down, Shaken Together:

*update!! Of all my fun ideas, I actually only did the pina colada cupcakes, here's mine:

They were sooooo good! But they seemed slightly more pineapple upside down cake that straight pina colada. I did use the pineapple juice I had leftover from the can to add to the buttercream instead of as much milk. I liked it better than I was feeling about the buttercream. So just FYI :) But head over to her site and try this recipe out!

And I saw a recipe in the latest issue of Family Fun, but there isn't a picture. It's for a "pool noodle" salad. You use ziti pasta so that it looks like pool noodle toys, cucumber rings, and watermelon cut into balls. And it doesn't have mayo so it should outlast the heat. I know it needs a picture, but here's the recipe anyway from Family Fun's website:

Hands-on Time: 25 minutes
Total Time: 35 minutes
Serves: 4

Pool noodles, swim rings, and beach balls -- this splashy pasta salad has it all. Plus, it's mayo-free for easy, delicious picnicking.

Ingredients

1/2 pound ziti pasta
3 pickling cucumbers
juice and grated zest from 1 large lime
1/2 cup vegetable or light olive oil
1 tablespoon suger, 1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 clove garlic, finely minced
2 tablespoons slivered fresh mint
1/2 cup crumbled feta
2 cups balls cut from a seedless watermelon

Instructions

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, cook the pasta until just tender, and drain.
Cut the ends off the cucumbers, then use an apple corer or run a wide drinking straw through the center to core them. Slice them into rings. Whisk together the lime juice and zest, oil, sugar, salt, and garlic.
Toss the still-warm pasta with half of the dressing, then add the cukes, mint, and feta, toss again, and taste. Add more dressing and salt to taste, then fold in the melon.

7.26.2011

Dinosaur Birthday Party- Rawr! Part 2

I know, I know, you've been waiting with bated breath for part 2 of my son's Dinosaur Birthday Party. You have been in endless agony waiting to see what the snobby food choices were, and how we spent the 2 hours from 11am to 1pm. Well, wait no longer! The best part of the party!

I made tags for each section of Dinosaur dietary concerns: carnivores, herbivores, and sweetivores. Sure, I could have just said done one that said "omnivore" but where's the fun in that??? I got the idea from a party I saw here.

Since it was a party for a two year old, there's some turkey sandwiches on white bread, back in the corner of the carnivore section. Then dinosaur boiled eggs, and for the Mommy dinosaurs: Chicken Teriyaki Spinach salad. MMMMMmmm, that salad is good! The herbivores were given a selection of fresh fruit and salad. The sweetivores also had a selection of cupcakes, chocolate covered marshmallow dinos on popsicle sticks, and chocolate dinosaur eggs (or leftover Cadbury eggs....)

These eggs weren't exactly delicious, but they looked cool! I saw them at Our Best Bites, go check out their tutorial here.

The kids also got to slurp some juice right out of Gatorade swamp. Hey, it's a fun color! Reminds me of dinosaurs. That works, right?

Saw the idea for these "Dino Bites" here at My House of Giggles. They're chocolate covered marshmallow pops. I used starburst cut into triangles for the spikes. I was debating whether I wanted to make these, and then saw those candy eyes at Michaels and couldn't help myself!

I used the same green melting chocolate to pipe polka dots onto these Cadbury chocolate eggs.

For activities we had a dinosaur egg hunt, for these redone Easter eggs.

There was a plastic dinosaur figurine inside each egg, making these a hot commodity for the little dinosaur hunters.

And there was a "dino dig" as well. We made our own salt dough a few days before, cut into bone shapes and let them dry out. (I'll do a post next week with the recipe and pictures) We buried those and more plastic dinosaur toys in four buckets. There were about 2 kids to each bucket.

This was a surprising popular activity that went on for a long hot while!

I made cupcake wrappers to go around the cupcakes from regular bright cardstock. I have a Cricut Lite cartridge that just does wrappers and these were the "grass" choice but looked wild enough for dinosaurs. Then I made toppers with stamps on the same colors of paper.

This face made it all worth the effort:

And if any of all ya' all want to recreate this party, feel free to use these tags I made. Just let me know! (That's right, my only payment is in flattery! And we wouldn't mind if you decided to follow our blog!)

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Linking here:

Sunday:

http://iheartnaptime.blogspot.com/, http://niftythriftythings.blogspot.com/

Monday:

Tuesday:

http://todayscreativeblog.net/, http://ladybug-blessings.com/, http://tipjunkie.com/, http://www.sugarbeecrafts.com/,

Wednesday:

http://gingersnapcrafts.blogspot.com/, http://www.paisleypassions.blogspot.com/, http://somedaycrafts.blogspot.com/, http://www.bluecricketdesign.net/, http://reasonstoskipthehousework.blogspot.com/

Thursday:

http://www.momnivores-dilemma.com/, http://www.houseofhepworths.com/, http://nightowlcrafting.blogspot.com/

Friday:

Saturday:

http://www.bedifferentactnormal.com

7.24.2011

Dinosaur Birthday Party - RAWR! Part 1

You may not be surprised to hear that we enjoy a good birthday party and might get a little carried away at times! I'm trying not to spoil my kids when it comes to presents, but they are becoming birthday party snobs. Awhile ago, I'd seen the most adorable tutorial for dinosaur tails and I couldn't wait to find an excuse to make them. So when my little guy turned two a few weeks ago, it was the perfect excuse to RAWR!

I made the invite on Picnik as a 4x6 and then ordered a few prints at Costco. I sewed the invite onto these egg shaped plates (leftover from Target's Easter stuff) along with some chocolate "dinosaur" eggs.

Here's the graphic minus my address:

We set up a dinosaur cave that was basically an impromptu fort. I bought the silk plants at garage sales the weekend before and after the party immediately ran those bad boys to Goodwill.

The frame of the cave is another garage sale find. I don't know what it's called but it looks like this without the brown paper:

I made dinosaur party hats from generic ones from the party store with embellished spikes and dinosaur stamps.

Of course, I had to make the tails that inspired it all! They were way easier than I thought they'd be and I ended up making one for each party guest, plus all the cousins we saw for a second out of state party. I think I totaled out at 20 tails. Whew! I used fleece and felt remnants and sales and it probably cost a total of $30 bucks to make them all, and about 5 or 6 hours of work over different days. Not that bad for the result!

Here's the birthday boy in his tail and hat:

I also made a photo booth for all our adorable guests! My cartoonish art skills came into effect for a piece of posterboard transformed into a dinosaur with landscape. And I needed a ruffly "RAWR means happy birthday in dinosaur" banner as well.