Giant Balloons with Party Tassels

Hey guys, I'm sharing today at Tiny Prints Blog.  Head on over for all the details on how I made these balloons float without spending money on expensive helium.

While you're there, if you haven't had a chance to spend some time on their blog you've gotta check them out. So many great party ideas by so many great bloggers!! 

See ya there!

DIY Glam Graduation Party

My baby girl graduated from High School people!!

I don't know where the time went, but it's so exciting watching them grow and become young adults.

To celebrate this big occasion, I threw her the party she requested. A little bit of sparkle, Tiffany blue and glam.

The entire thing was done with a mixture of love and lots of DIY.

Here's the results!!

The center cupcake stand was made from one of my dinner plates hot glued to a bowl turned upside down. The smaller stands are decorative wooden circles from Michael's glued to several different kinds of candle holders and then painted white. 

Cupcake wrappers and flags were cut out of glittery scrapbook paper. The flags were hot glued to lollipop sticks.

I purchased $2 frames from Michael's and printed out my daughter's Senior pictures on my home printer. I scattered these around the room allowing guests to see additional photos from her shoot.

Glitter letters were made by painting Mod Podge on paper mache numbers, dumping glitter all over them, then when that dried, coating them with clear sealant spray to limit the "glitter infestation" that would inevitably happen without it.

I had 4 of her Senior Photos printed out and hung across the mantle with polka dot garland for fun. We ran a slide show throughout the party of pics from her entire life. It was a HUGE hit!!

These are the pics that I hung from the mantle. Sophie B Photography did an amazing job on all her photos! I especially loved these pics that show the progression of her blowing glitter out of her hands. We had so much fun that day!!

Oh, and I almost forgot the little front door decoration. It was simple, quick and fun.

The empty wall behind my couch got a paint job in white, (yeah!!) and dressed up with a beautiful senior photo and lettering.

The letters were all cut out of gold poster board found at Hobby Lobby. I cut them all using my Silhouette, and was even able to use my 12"x24" Silhouette mat to cut the M and G. They are tacked to the wall with removable poster board sticky.

I had tassel garland hanging throughout. It was DIY'd from tissue paper and hung on twine.

My favorite decoration though was by far the giant balloons!! They were utterly amazing to look at, and added such a fun addition to the decor. 

I decided the amount of money it would've taken me to fill all of them with helium was way more than my budget allowed. So you guessed it, I DIY'd a way to make them stay up without it. I'll be sharing how I did it very soon on a post at Tiny Prints Blog. Stay tuned for that, and I'll make sure to let you all know when it's live. {it's live, see the full DIY HERE} 

Well I think that about covers it. I hope you enjoyed checking out my girl's party even half as much as I did creating it for her!! 

These are some of the fun blogs I link up to on a regular basis.

Do yourself a favor and check them out... you won't be disappointed!

Sunday

DIY Showoff, Flamingo Toes, Nifty Thrifty Things, Twigg Studios, Under the Table and Dreaming

Monday

Alderberry Hill, Boogieboard Cottage, The Dedicated House, Flour Me With Love, Home Stories A to Z

Tuesday

The D.I.Y. Dreamer, Elizabeth & Co., Ella Claire, Homework, House on the Way, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Not Just a Housewife

Wednesday

Fine Craft Guild, My Girlish Whims, Savvy Southern Style, Sew Much Ado

Thursday

Embracing Change, A Glimpse Inside, No Minimalist Here, Sweet Bella Roos

Friday

French Country Cottage, Link Party Palooza, Nancherrow, My Romantic Home, Redoux, The 36th Avenue,  Shabby Nest

Saturday

Classy Clutter, Funky Junk Interiors, It's Overflowing, Too Much Time on My Hands

What Happens When a Blogger Disappears for Two Months

If you haven't figured it out already, let me clue you in.
I'm a terrible, awful blogger.
Yep, no question about it.
If you've been around here for long, then you've probably already noticed that I get really good at sharing with you guys for a few weeks, then I disappear for a month or more. 

I'm sorry!!

Life just keeps happening, then a few weeks go by and I ask myself how to tell you all what's been going on and I can't decide the best way to do that, and while I'm thinking about it another week goes by, and another, and before you know it, it's been well over 2 months since we've chatted.
So ya, you know what…
I'm a terrible blogger!

So I'm here today to give you a quick run down of life since my last post in March.

I've been crazy busy with this.

That's my Morgan, the blondie with glasses in the middle. She graduated from High School last Tuesday.

And that's her just before the ceremony getting her most requested ever gift. A Mac Book for college.

Then we also had Senior Prom to prep for. She was absolutely stunning in this amazing red gown! I think there should be an entire post with lots of pics, cuz you guys really must see the back of this dress!

We've been attending a lot of this. Kylie {#34 in the middle} hadn't played soccer since she was 8, and was one of only 4 Freshman selected to play on the JV Soccer team. It's been amazing watching her improve.

I designed and created a chalkboard for a friend.

Sophie B Photography did a breath taking job of taking Senior Pictures of my baby girl.

Signs, signs, signs. I love designing and making them, and it may just be a new venture beginning very soon. 

Stay tuned for that...

Invitations from Tiny Prints went out for Graduation.

My Silhouette Cameo was priceless for addressing the envelopes.

I spent a day creating party inserts.

And there's been weeks and weeks of planning, prepping and DIY'ing like a crazy woman for a wonderful Graduation Party we had this past weekend. Much more to follow on that soon.

My mom and I had the fantastic privilege of taking a Mother's Day painting class at All Dolled Up Wichita.

If All Dolled Up sounds familiar to some of you, it's probably because the owner is the amazing Abbe Doll. She's the primary educator for Miss Mustard Seeds Milk Paint. Yes, we are lucky enough to live just miles away from this amazingly talented lady, and we got to meet her and learn from her in person.
Such a fantastic day.

And here's Abbe herself. Just after shaking a paint can whose lid wasn't all the way on. Oops!

But in true Abbe fashion, she handled it with a big sweet smile and a "well I guess I have a new paint shirt" attitude.

Needless to say, we had fun.

Yes, I've also developed quite the Instagram addiction! It seems to be so much easier to take a quick iPhone pic and upload to Instagram then to plan out a blog post. Even so, I'm going to try to do better cuz I miss you guys!

I miss blogging and sharing details of all my little craziness that goes on here. 

So I will. I will do better. 

Just in case though, if you wanna follow along on Instagram, there's a great likelihood you'll get to see much more behind the scenes pics. You can find me at username ConcreteCottage. Plus, there's so many fun people to meet there! You may just find you develop an addiction too.

Ok, I think that's all for today. See you all soon!!