Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Landon's Curious George Birthday Party

I can't believe that Landon is 2! We had fun celebrating a couple of weeks ago with a Curious George themed birthday party. Landon LOVES George and I must admit that I am a big fan as well. I think what really inspired the theme though is the close resemblance Dave has to the Man in the Yellow Hat. Since Landon's birthday is about a month after Halloween we got a lot of use out of the costume.



Here is the Man in the Yellow Hat during "story time". We used fabric dye to color a shirt and old pants yellow (from Goodwill). I made the hat out of card stock and spray painted it and the tie is made out of felt. On Halloween I was a banana and Landon was Curious George :)

As all of Landon's little friends arrived we played in the front yard with some big bubbles....




 I made Landon's shirt by designing it in a program called inkscape and printing it on paper that you can iron onto fabric. I don't know how long it will hold up in the wash, but I like how it turned out! I bought the white shirt for $3 at Wal-Mart and already had the paper...party on a budget!


After the bubbles, we came in to make monkey paper bag puppets! I remember making paper bag puppets as a kid. I drew the Curious George face and printed him on our home printer. I think they turned out pretty cute, but Landon thought his was trash and threw it away. 


I made the "hats" by just placing a yellow cup on a yellow plate. I used some black contact paper to add the strip around the bottom of the hat. This was super easy to do and so cute! 


I LOVED being able to use bananas as decorations and my friend Raeanne found the fruit snacks at the Dollar Tree. Landon was so funny about them and for a while didn't want to eat George's head. 


I found these straws at the dollar section at Target. I totally got them for the cuteness factor because I don't think anyone actually used them (isn't that how it always goes with those fancy straws?!) My friend Amanda let me borrow the jars/cups they are in. I remember when you could buy jelly in them. 


I actually found the invitation for free on pinterest and my friend Bethany helped me change a few things on it by using inkscape. I printed them at home and bought some inexpensive envelopes at Michael's. 


And here is the cake! I made the cake topper out of polymer clay...I really hope to make one for him (and his brother) each year. 


I made the banner with paper  I had left over from other projects and check out that chalkboard! I made it by spray painting an old frame and covered it with chalk board contact paper. Super easy and super versatile...it is now hanging in our house with "Merry Christmas" on it. 



Here is my big 2 year old ready to blow out his candles! For some reason he knew exactly what to do and blew them both out. 



Let me tell you, this boy LOVES cake and most of the time I am telling him "no, you can't eat that one...it is for someone else." I guess he was super excited that this one was for him and he decided to devour it like this...


My silly little Curious George...



I love that I was able to use what we already had around the house for this party. I put a lot of books up and I found these coloring books at the Dollar Tree to use as party favors! 


Thank you Karoline for taking awesome pics of the party! 



Monday, December 2, 2013

Cake Topper Auction!

Well, I must admit that I have fallen behind on keeping up with my Darlin' Designs blog. I have still been making a TON of cakes, but I want to share a new blog that I have been working on for a few months. Some of you may already heard, but we have decided to adopt a little boy from China! If you would like to read more about our adoption journey you can check out A Beautiful Mess

I also want to fill you in on an great opportunity if you are in the market for one of my polymer clay toppers! We are currently having an online auction from Dec. 1st-10th to help raise funds for our adoption. Adoption from China cost approximately $30,000, so as you can see, we can't do it alone.



Also, my friend, Bethany Keown, makes cakes and she donated a cake/cupcakes to our auction as well! Here is her flyer:



If you want to bid on either one of these hot offers or any of the other awesome items (including an iPad Air) check out the bidding album on Facebook:

Check out this cake topper I made for my now 2 year old last week....



Landon turned 2 on Thanksgiving, and the Saturday before we had a Curious George themed birthday party. He LOVES Curious George and well he reminds me of George. Landon is quite a curious little monkey these days. 



I hope to make one of these cake toppers each year for him as a birthday tradition. Hopefully it will help us remember the theme of each one of his parties (although I am not sure how he will feel at 13 with a "themed" party topper ;) ) 

I hope you will check out our auction and adoption blog! Happy belated Thanksgiving!