It’s been a fun week of Minnie Mouse!  I feel like I could really do this theme all day long.  There are SO many ideas out there.

But alas, this is my last post for this series and probably my favorite!  This centerpiece was so simple.  It was just plain fun.  I’d estimate that it took less than 20 minutes (not counting drying time).  So, let’s get started.

Here’s what you need:

• Small Styrofoam Balls (2)
• Medium Styrofoam Ball
• Bucket or Container
• Black Spraypaint
• Green Foam
• Toothpicks (2)
• Wooden Dowel

1. Insert the dowel about 2″ into the large styrofoam ball.
2. Insert a toothpick into each of the small styrofoam balls.
3. Insert the other end of the toothpicks attached to the small balls into the large balls at 10 and 2 o’clock. (like mouse ears).
4. Set up for painting: I used the container that I was using for the final centerpiece, but if you are concerned about damaging the container I’d us another one.  Pretty much anything will do approximately the size of an ice cream bucket.  Simply put the green foam into the container, covered it with a plastic bag and poked the dowel through the bag.  Using old cardboard and/or newspaper create a paint booth.  I have done this a few times and generally use a large box and some newspaper.  It’s just to protect anything that is not your target.  :-)
5. Paint away.  Be sure to get a good coat of paint everywhere.  The first time I did this I missed some spots.
6. Let dry.
7. Remove plastic bag and fill the container with something decorative – shredded paper or tissue paper work.  For this one I used some shiny white garland.
8. Add a bow for Minnie!

Happy Minnie Mouse week!!

Tara

So, parties are a family affair at our house!  My kids love a good party!

Here is my cast of characters “helping”.  You will notice the little one on the left…ummm, yeah!!  The middle one loves to help and is missing those 2 front teeth.  Our oldest only jumped in on the action at the end!  Here we go!

Step 1:  Make Rice Crispy Treats

We went old school and used the recipe from the Kellog’s website:

3 TBSP Butter

1 Bag of Marshmallows (10 oz)

6 Cupse  Rice Crispies

MICROWAVE DIRECTIONS:
In microwave-safe bowl heat butter and marshmallows on HIGH for 3 minutes, stirring after 2 minutes. Stir until smooth. Follow steps 2 and 3 above. Microwave cooking times may vary.

Step 2:  Shape Treats into Minnie Mouse

To create the Minnie/Mickey Mouse Shape, we used a glass to make the larger circle.  Then we put smaller balls of rice crispy treats into ziplock bags, rolled into a ball, flattened and shaped with our hands.

Step 3:  Eat!

As you can see the family continues to “help”!  Dad even jumps in to lend a hand!  All in all, pretty fun night with the kids!  You can see below my husband is eating the one I attempted to dip in chocolate…then realized that I was really bad at dipping them.  So, I scrapped that idea.  I would say it makes them all the yummier and worth attempting. I am certain you will be better than I was at that.

This was actually pretty quick.  The kids loved to help and they were cute for the party.

I hope you enjoyed this as much as we obviously did!!!

Tara

These were so simple to make, but aren’t they cute!!
Ingredients (1 Dozen):

• 12 Oreo Cookies
• 24 Mini Oreos
• Chocolate Candy Coating
• Plastic Sandwich Bag
• 12 Lollipop Sticks
• Wax Paper

1. Melt candy coating as instructed on packaging.  I normally start with 1 minute in microwave, stir, add 30 seconds, stir until melted.
2. Spoon some melted candy into a plastic sandwich bag and clip a small hole in the corner of the bag.
3. Pipe a small amount of chocolate candy into the side of one mini Oreo (ear) and place on wax paper.  Push a regular sized oreo at 5:00 position into the mini Oreo.
4. Add another ear by piping some chocolate candy into a mini Oreo and placing it 2:00 to the regular sized Oreo.
5. Dip a lollipop stick into the melted chocolate and gently press it into the cream filling and between the sandwich cookies at the center bottom of the Oreo Pop.
6. Let cool for 15 minutes.
7. If desired, add a plastic bag and bow.

I am excited to kick off a week of Minnie Mouse.  We are a little Mickey & Minnie Mouse Crazy this year since we hit Disney World in December.  I also got to throw this fun Minnie Mouse party!! The week actually kicked off yesterday over at Piggy Bank Parties Silly Sunday.

My Crew entry for this month was this fun party.  My favorite Piggy is giving away a Mickey/Minnie Party Starter Kit. Head over and get all of the details.  Stay tuned this week for fun tutorials!

Happy Monday party people!

Tara

One of the great things about living in the time that we do is that it’s easy to write and publish your own books. When my 6 year old came to me a few days ago with a plan to write a cookbook with her friend, I thought it would be a great use of a photobook. You can purchase a 5×7 photobook for about $10. I have started laying it out with a few recipes we have selected. It’s been a really fun project for us. Tonight we completed our first recipe complete with photos of the event for our Cookbook.

Aren’t our little chefs cute?

Here is the debut of our first recipe, Rainbow Cookies!

We are targeting kid friendly recipes.  This one has only 2 ingredients:

• Pre-made Cookie Dough
• Food Coloring

There are only 6 easy steps:

1. Divide the dough evenly into 4 sections.
2. Add a different color food coloring to each section and mix work the dough until the desired color is reached.
3. Take a small piece of dough from each section/color.
4. Gently roll the small pieces of dough into one ball.  Be careful not to mix the colors.
5. Bake as directed on the package.
6. Cool & eat!!

For Christmas we got a new DSLR.  I love the new camera.  We got a Canon Digital Rebel T3.  It’s a newer version of a camera we already have.  It’s not even the best version out there, but I much admit even though it’s better than I had anticipated it being nothing really new.  I will say it just seems to be way better!  Unfortunately, I am still trying to figure out where all of the buttons are, but that will come.  Overall, I love it…BUT the big winner this year so far is the Eye-fi card!  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it.  For about $40 your photos magically go from your camera to our online Flickr account.  It still amazes me every time.

 We went to Home Depot today and when we got home I flipped on the camera and viola!  It’s on Flickr.

Got a new hat for Christmas…bam there it is on Flickr!

Take our American Girl dolls to the bistro for dinner.  There it is on Flickr!

It’s really like magic!  I LOVE IT!  I couldn’t recommend getting one enough!  AMAZING time saver.

I was really honored to be asked to be a contributor for PrintCandee.  Do you know this website?  It’s a really great place to get fun and fantastic graphics.  I contributed a post last month and wanted to share some of the photos, but you can get all of the details at http://www.printcandee.com/party-decor-new-baseball-party-kit/.  This all american baseball party kit can be found on Print Candee and I think the very talented Ashlyn out did herself on this party kit.  The printables were fantastic.  It served as an outstanding jumping off point for the party.

The party was double the fun for me because the party I created was for a very special little boy.  This party was in honor of a little 8 year old boy that had never had a real birthday party.  Oh, my goodness. So, to be planning a party for a sweet 8 year old that had never had a party was so cool.

 New addition?  Maybe? I set out to find some glittery food spray and found this: Duff Metallic Gold Cake Graffiti.  Love this!

 I really love easy ways to add pop and wow.  This product is available in a wide variety of colors.  I love the metallic though.  It’s really easy to transform store bought stuff into “homemade”.  We have a rule at our house if you present it in a way that is different than the way they came, we call it homemade!

Here’s how to do it:

1.  Gather ingredients:  Food item of choice + Duff’s Graffiti Spray
2. Cover area with paper, place food item on paper, spray.
3. Serve.

 Here are our results with a cake and white fudge covered Oreos:

Happy spray painting!

So, we had our New Year’s Eve-Eve party with the kiddos.  On New Year’s Eve, we spent it with a few good friends.  Dinner at one of our favorite Minneapolis restaurants: 112 Eatery.   Then we came back to our place from drinks and games…hubbies favorite is Killer Bunnies!  Anyone else love Killer Bunnies?  It seems to have a cult following.

I didn’t go crazy on decorating for New Year’s Eve, simply refreshed the party decor and mixed it up a bit.  It’s important to remember that parties that feel over the top, don’t have to be expensive or too much effort.  This re-mix was easy and inexpensive.

For Christmas I was trying to decide what to do.  I asked my sister if I needed a treat table.  She said “it’s your signature”.  Okay.  She’s right.  It’s usually my favorite part of a party.  This one I used mostly stuff I had on hand.  Added some treats and here it was.  I like to use gift wrap for lots of things in parties.  It’s an inexpensive way to add a punch to a party.  You see I used gold wrap for this one as a backdrop.  The only draw back is that it doesn’t photograph because of the shine.

I wanted to add a little glittery fun to the food and set out looking for some gold glitter food spray and found some at the local craft store:  Duff’s Cake Graffiti.  Here is how I did it.

A few sweet snacks.

The table centerpiece was simple.  I used a black tablecloth, some silver gift wrap for pop.  On top of that, I layered on a cake platter with some clearance ornaments, clearance gold beaded candle and a few votive holders I had on hand.  Easy peasy!

For this New Year’s Eve decor, I re-used some things we had on hand and for the night before.  I didn’t really buy anything new.  Sometimes it’s amazing what  you can pull together with what you have.

Purchases Reused from the Previous Night:

Silver Gift Wrap – $2.50

Gold Gift Wrap:  $2.50

Gold Candle:  $3.50

Giant Bin of Gold & Silver Ornaments:  $12.00

Happy New Year!

Tara