Wordless Wednesday

Printables

As promised!  Here are the printables that I am offering up to you.  These are all originals created by myself and would appreciate it if you'd only use them for your personal use.  Thanks!

Lego Banner  This is the birthday banner
Lego Man Straw Heads  These are for your straws...or whatever you'd like to do with them
Lego Dots  The dots were used for the invites and goody bags
Cupcake Wrap  Pretty obvious :)

All of these were cut out using the Silhouette.  My friend did it for me, so I don't know how exactly she did it, but if you have a Silhouette, then you probably know how to do it :)  If you have to do it manually, I'm sorry :P

Lego Birthday Party

My little Angel turned 7!  Well, I guess he's not so little anymore.  For his birthday, we went to a bowling alley and he wanted a Lego themed party.  I did what any mom would have done...I got onto Pinterest!  As those of you who frequent Pinterest know, there are a TON of ideas for practically anything you want to do.  So I found some examples and started my projects.  I made Lego invites, goody bags, cupcake wrappers, marshmallow Lego heads and built a robot for each of the goody bags.  Just a warning...this post is particularly picture heavy, so I apologize in advance.

Here are the invites.  I used 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock split down the middle (I split it down the 11" side so I had 2 long pieces when I was done cutting)  then folded them in half.

My good friend Emily let me use her awesome Silhouette to cut out the Lego circles which I then attached to the front of my folded invite.  In the picture above, I tried to get a shot of the tiny piece of foam that I used to raise each circle, but it didn't work.  But, it's there.  I cut out tiny squares of foam and glued them onto the circle then glued the circle onto the invite.  It was tedious, but I think it turned out well :)

Here's the inside.  I cut a contrasting color paper and glued it on the inside of the invite then glued the white paper with the info on it on top of that.

Next up, is the Lego marshmallow head that I did.  It's a small marshmallow, a large marshmallow and a lollipop stick (I got these from Michaels - a bag of 24 for a few dollars).

Push it through...

Then dip them into the candy coating, which I got in yellow, then let dry.  I can say now that I've done it, that the picture above, seemed like it would have been a better way to dry them so as not to get a flat spot, but they started to slide down the stick.

So I had to do it this way.  NO biggie though.  They still looked cute.

Next was making the faces and the faces were made with the edible marker above.  

It was really hard to write on.  I found out that had I used real chocolate instead of the Wilton's candy coating, the pen would have worked properly.  Something to do with the oil content in the coating vs. the chocolate.  I had to go to a professional baker to get my tips.  They didn't turn out like I wanted them too, in fact, I was really disappointed at how "homemade" they looked, but the kids didn't care.  My good friend Sarah said that I should do one of those 'Nailed It!' photos!!!  I died laughing when she said that and it put me in a much better mood!  OH!  I forgot to mention.  Since the edible pen didn't work very well on my candy coating, I decided to use a gel icing...DO NOT USE GEL ICING!  It will NEVER dry and you will end up with a face that looks like it's being melted off when you put the wrapper on it (cause the gel got stuck to the wrapper and smeared down the plastic - I was SO NOT happy).  So, don't use gel icing...

Here's the finished product, along with the robot that we made for each of the kids and the "lego" block candy I found online.

The bags were bought at Michael's and the circles were cut from the same awesome machine, except this particular cardstock had a sticky back on one side.  It was great!

By the way, the robots that we made for each of the goody bags ended up costing us less than a dollar a piece.  I was trying to find a cheap but cute Lego toy to put into each bag, but didn't want to spend $4 a toy for 20 bags.  So we went to the Lego store and thought 'What if we make a robot and then get enough pieces for 20 of them?'  That way, all of the pieces fit into the large Lego cup, which was about $15 and we got an original Lego toy that the kids could use as a robot or take apart and add to their current Legos!  WIN, WIN, Right?

The bowling alley...with bumpers :)

balloons

Party Participants :)

 The Birthday BoY

birthday boy with his brother

A good time was had by all and the goody bags were a hit!  I forgot to take pics of the cupcakes :(  As a consolation prize, I am offering up a few free printables for your personal use!  

I got all of my ideas from this blog.  I pretty much re-created what her pictures were.


**Disclaimer**  All of the printables are originals from me.  I created them myself in photoshop.  They are similar, but are definitely mine.  Please use them for your personal use only.  Thanks!

I am working on how to add my printables to my blog.  Sorry for the delay!

Baking Fail

Yesterday, I tried making some no bake chocolate oatmeal cookies.  I subbed the sugar for agave nectar only to realize an hour or so after I had plopped them onto a cookie sheet, that the agave nectar is NOT going to harden like sugar will.  FAIL.  So they sat overnight until I could think of what to do with them.  Well, I decided to go ahead and bake them.  They turned out great!  I'm so shocked to be perfectly honest.  They still look like they are sticky, but they are hardened and chewy.  Plus, the oatmeal tastes way better now than yesterday.  I used regular oats and not quick oats.  Even though the recipe called for oats, I think quick oats would have been a lot better.  Here's the recipe I used:

1 stick of unsalted butter
1 1/3 cup agave nectar
4 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 cup of milk
1 cup of almond butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups of oatmeal

Place first 4 ingredients in a pan and bring to a boil.  Boil for a minute then take off heat.  Add almond butter and vanilla extract and mix well.  Then add the oatmeal.  Stir until combined.  This makes a semi runny batter.  Spoon by the tablespoonful onto parchment paper on a cookie sheet.  Bake for 25 minutes at 325.  Let cool completely.

They are blobs of chocolate-y goodness!

Busy Week

It was very busy last week.  My oldest son turned 7 and his party was this past Saturday.  So, I spent the entire week getting ready for it...mostly mentally, cause the physical stuff wasn't so bad.  I don't know why I stress over things like this.  There's no need for it.  Whatever happens, happens.  And, it's usually not the end of the world if it does.  I think all moms have this anxiety button built into them.  We want everything to be perfect so we try to do everything home made or from scratch and, for me, that just isn't realistic.  I have 3 boys.  Trying to be Super Mom is very stressful and unhealthy.  I do what I can for them and they're usually happy.  My goal for the next party, which thankfully doesn't happen until December, is to plan plan plan and do it as stress free as possible.  If the hubs were reading this, he'd laugh.  But, seriously...I am going to try and make it as stress free as possible.  Part of that, is trying to get everything organized in my life.  I find that I am a much happier mama if I am uber organized.  I'll keep you posted on that :)

I also made some home made Lara Bars last week.  I did not post them, because they were horrible!  I tried it once and didn't take pictures, and they were fantastic.  I tried it again, took pictures and they were horrible.  I tried a different recipe and eye-balled all the ingredients.  That was a mistake.  So...back to the drawing board, or should I say food processor.  Once I get my recipe perfected, I'll post it for you :)

Sanding Sunday has come to another road block (I just watched the Amazing Race, so all the lingo is stuck in my head).  I have things started but have yet to finish anything.  We've been a busy family on the weekends and this coming one is no different.  So, once again, I will post pics when I've actually done something.