This Year's Over-The-Top Children's Party

As some of you may have guessed (based on my post of last year's Wonderland festivities) that I like to go a bit overboard with theme parties. I freely admit to it. :)

This year when my girls' birthdays rolled around again, I already had a plan in mind. For now, while they're small, it's much easier (and more fun!) to throw a joint birthday party. Lilly turned 4 on June 14th and Evie turned 2 on the 25th, so we chose a free June weekend and went full throttle. (And by 'we' I mean that Hubs said "Whatever you want, dear," and I went full throttle.)

What better way to celebrate childhood than with Dr. Seuss?

I chose only Seuss themed foods:

Green Eggs... No Ham. Just green food coloring in the yolk mixture!

Purchased... not homemade. 

Pasta salad with cheese, pepperoni and veggies topped with Italian dressing

Layers of Jello and Cool Whip

Cheeky ;)

Pink lemonade - AKA Yink Drink

Red velvet 'Thing 1 & Thing 2' cupcakes with blue tinted frosting!

It's lovely that the birthdays are in June because we're almost always assured nice weather. We had a very brief rain in the late afternoon that day, but most of it was beautiful! We decorated the cherry tree and set up the tables underneath.

We enjoyed the day, ate our cupcakes, had a cooling water balloon fight, and enjoyed the company of our friends and family.

Even Mommy's friends got in on the dressing up. :)

Watch out for this one... he carries a Wocket in his Pocket!

The birthday girls and their cousins

Lots of friends!

Can't wait to see what we think up for next year! Hope you're all having a great summer!

Gala Dress

I've been putting off my Vintage Sewalong dress in order to finish a formal dress for an event that came up last minute. Well, not exactly last minute. I knew it was going to happen (as it does every year) but I didn't have a date for the event until less than two weeks ago. The company gala. My husband's company Winter Gala, to be exact, and it's January 29th.

So, I dug out my list of formal wear patterns (of which there are very few) and chose Burda 7470.  I first noticed in the inside cover of my November Burda Style magazine. I'm generally not the 'butt bow' kind of girl, but this one just looked so elegant. I even chose a very similar color, a deep maroon.





This is as close as I could photograph of the actual color. It's really close.

The instructions on this one were actually pretty good. I've heard some horror stories of Burda instructions, but I didn't have any problems at all. Of course, I'm not a beginner, so that could make a difference. It seems like it took forever to put together, but that's mostly just because the plague hit our house (or at least it seemed that way) last week and both the little girls and I were quite under the weather. So, that meant that when I felt like sewing (which wasn't much) it had to happen late at night after the girls were in bed. It probably only really took a few hours.





















Sorry for the horrible lighting. It's very late and I have harsh florescent lighting in my basement studio. And the material is shiny. I used a really delicious feeling crepe backed satin and lined it with black charmeuse. Don't look too closely at the bottom of the photo - it's not hemmed yet. I'm getting there tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll be able to take some pictures of the dress on my body, too. You won't get the full picture until after the masks are finished. That's right, I didn't mention that it's a masquerade ball! You can't even imagine how excited I am about it. I love a good theme party. This is the ultimate. A fancy hotel ballroom filled with 200 adults dressed in black tie and feathery/sequined masks. There will be copious amounts of pictures, I promise. :)

Wonderland!

Both of my daughters were born in June. Lilly in 2007 and Evie in 2009. When I aked my oldest, Lilly, what king of birthday party she wanted, she immediately told me an "Alice in Wonderland" party. I should've guessed, since she'd been completely obscessed with the Disney version for the previous 6 months! But the more I thought about it, the more excited I got. I LOVE a good theme party (next blog may be a photo homage to my and my husband's combined 30th birthday last year where we sent our 20s packing in Roaring 20s style!) So I set to making the best and greatest un-birthday tea party (mad hats included) you've ever seen for a 3 and 1 year old. I started with the dressed. Lilly is adorable, with blonde curls and just an overal 'Alice-ness' so, naturally, I would make her an Alice style blue and white pinafore. Evie was a lot more difficult. There really aren't any other main female characters (other than the Queen of Hearts, but she's too sweet for that!) so it took a while to figure her costume out. I eventually decided on a Cheshire Cat inspired sundress in a purple gingham with a big, wide grin sewn on in felt.

Lilly is 'posing' and this is the best photo of the dress I could get of Evie... little bugger is so fast, all the pictures of her were blurry! :)

Here are some other photos from the party. An amazing time with some amazing memories! I'm sure I enjoyed it even more than the girls, but 4 months later and Lilly still remembers it (and asks to wear her dress... often) so I guess it was a hit!