Wonder Where I have been all week???

Warning: this is going to be a very long post...... :) you deserve it!

HI everyone! Have you wondered where I have been since last week????? Sorry I haven't blogged since then - but I do have an excuse.....MINNIE WAS IN THE HAWSE!!!!! LOL!!

My daughter's birthday party was this weekend - and her theme was minnie mouse - minnie mouse from Playhouse Disney - in other words, a minnie mouse with a pink dress instead of the typical red dress......oh my! Hey - she originally wanted Cars - you know, lightning mcqueen and tow mater......so minnie was a wonderful compromise!

Well....as it turns out, Shelli's Creative Challenge this month is Birthday - What could be better than her theme contest being birthday the same month as my daughter's birthday????? Sweet!!!

While I was getting things planned in my head of what colors I would be using, Stampin' Up! introduced our current In Colors to demonstrators - not only did they introduce a perfect color for minnie, Melon Mambo, but they have a coordinating polka dot ribbon!!!! HELLO.....DOES IT GET ANY BETTER?!?!??!?!?! So I knew right away I would be using those two things for sure!

I wanted the invitation to be a pocket card. But what to do from there???? This is what I came up with:I'm sorry, there are contraband stamps here - which I hardly ever use.....I just needed to be sure that people understood that it was a minnie mouse party. And besides, they were acrylic stamps and let's just leave it at this - In my opinion, THERE IS NOTHING BETTER THAN A WOOD MOUNTED STAMP! Ok, with that off my chest, I can move on :)

The card pocket is Melon Mambo. I folded down the top front panel to create a pocket and adorned it with a piece of Basic Black card stock that had been punched with the Scallop Edge Punch - Perfect! I really wanted to create a "graffic"minnie from my punches to get my decoration theme introduced. So I printed my invite information on the computer onto Whisper White card stock and then layered it with Basic Black. I used my 1 1/4 inch Circle Punch to make the head and the 3/4 inch Circle Punch to make the ears. You can't leave Minnie's bow off, so I took the Melon Mambo 1/2 " Polka Dot Grosgrain Ribbon and tied a little knot and trimmed the ends before securing with a Mini Glue Dot. Before securing my pocket card closed on the sides with Mini Glue Dots, I punched the center of the fold with the 1 3/8" Circle Punch to allow a place for minnie to fit.

So....next off of my list was to be the treat bags. I used cheap white lunch sacks because I wanted to create a thank you tag. I filled the bags up with goodies and folded the top towards the back of the bag and punched two holes with my Crop A Dile. The tag was created by layering Whisper White card stock onto Melon Mambo. Both layers had been punched at the top with the Tag Corner Punch. I then adorned it with the same minnie as the invitation, punched with circle punches. I then stamped the bottom with "thank you" in Melon Mambo Classic Ink from Short & Sweet. Then I punched a hole in the top with my Crop A Dile and secured it to the white bag with Black Gingham Ribbon.I knew that I was going to make a sheet cake and cup cakes for the party. I made the sheet cake in white cake and the cup cakes in chocolate - And you have to make a little something for the cup cakes, right???
I ran Melon Mambo card stock through my Big Shot using the exclusive Stampin' Up! Pennant Bigz XL Die to make the scallop circles. Did you know that the scallop circles that are on the Pennant Die layer perfectly with the 1 3/4" Circle punch???? Well - They Do!!! So I layered my punched minnie onto a 1 3/4" Circle punch of Whisper White card stock. Here is where the pick making comes in: I layed my white minnie circles face down on a piece of scrap card stock. I put down a 1 inch stripe of Tombo Mono Multi glue at the bottom of the circle and layed a tooth pick into the glue and let dry. Now the magical thing about Tombo Mono Multi, as well as a 2 Way Glue Pen, is that they are also an adhesive when they are dry. So when the toothpicks were dried onto the back of the minnie circle, I adhered it to the scallop circle with the same glue that was around the tooth pick. Does it get any easier than that????
And what party would be complete with out a banner????? I had it in mind that I was going to put it on the edge of a 10x10 easy up tent, since our party was going to be outside this year. So Spelling out "Happy Birthday" was going to be too long for my needs.....So I decided to make her a banner with Minnie in her name. I will then be able to hang it in her bedroom after the party. She has a Hello Kitty bedroom....but hey - She will love this in her bedroom all the same! So here is what I did:

Are you thinking to yourself...."Hey, I thought she was hanging this onto a tent, outside????" Well...they predicted scattered storms the day of her party....argh!!! So we cleaned out her toy shed and put the food tables up in there so I hung the banner inside the shed so it wouldn't get wet. And BOY AM I GLAD I DID THAT!!!! We had three down pours, I think. Just as the food was done.....It started to pour down rain so we had to run under tents and inside her shed and some for the house. Usually I would be hyperventilating and in tears at this point...but I just went with it - what can you do about the weather??? When the rain slowed down, we carried all of the food inside and we "picniced" inside, outside and everywhere in between! lol!

Sorry - I got totally side tracked, huh??? At any rate - her banner was safe and sound.

The scalloped banner is Basic Black. Soooo easy with the Big Shot and the exclusive Stampin' Up! Pennant Bigz XL Die. There are two sizes of pennants on that die, I used the larger one. To make the top panel of the pennant, I cut a pennant out of computer printer paper and cut the scallops off and traced it onto the pieces of Melon Mambo Patterns Designer Series Paper. I then cut along my traced lines with the Table Top Cutter. Perfect! I used white and black Basic Jumbo Grommets in the upper corners of the pennants so I could tie my ribbons through them and allow it to swag nicely.

I will show you a couple of panels up close:

Both end panels have a minnie mouse cupcakes on them. The large cupcake is from Simple Birthday Thanks Stamp. I stamped the bottom onto Basic Black card stock and cut it out. I wanted to give it a cup cake liner look so I ran it through my crimper. I then stamped the top onto Whisper White and cut it out. I made another punched minnie for the cup cake topper. I punched the "sprinkles" from card stock left from the banner letters - I'll get into that with the next panel description ;)
Her name is spelled out throughout the middle of the banner. I cut out scallop circles with my Big Shot and Scallop Circle Bigz Die in Whisper White. I adhered them to the banner with Stampin' Dimensionals. I wanted her name to be glittery. Do you know that a piece of glittered cardsock can cost you upwards of $4-$5??? That is INSANE!!!!! Did you also know that you can make you own for pennies using your Stampin' Up! supplies already in your stash?? You can! I took pieces of Whisper White card stock and inked them with Versamark ink and poured heat and stick powder over the ink. Shake off your excess powder and heat with you Heat Tool just until the powder gets shiny. DO NOT over heat or you will lose your stickiness of the heat and stick powder. While that is still warm, dump fine glitter all over it and shake off your excess into a Powder Pal so you can funnel your excess powders and glitters in their bottles. The glitter I used here was the rose pink fine glitter from the Fine Cosmo glitter collection. When I had my Whisper White card stock all glittered up, I cut out my letters with the Serif Essentials Alphabet Bigz Dies and the Big Shot. LOVE IT!!!!!! I adhered down a punched minnie onto the Whisper White scallop circle and then adhered my letters down over it with Stampin' Dimensionals. I adorned the entire banner with Black Gingham Ribbon and Melon Mambo 1/2" Polka Dot Grosgrain Ribbon.

What do you think of that??? I was happy with her decorations.

I also did her cake.....Her cup cakes were adorned with Minnie Mouse picks and the cake was just Minnie.

I would love to know what you think of her little party ensemble.