Have a Holly Jolly Christmas!

I know posts have been slim lately. My holiday season has been both very busy and enjoyable. I have a pile of ideas that I am working on for January so stay tuned! Until then, from my family to yours,

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Photo by Maggie Russo Photo

Get a Jump on Thanksgiving

Get a head start on your Thanksgiving planning with a few FREE printables! Included in this file are two 5x7 quotes for framing, Give Thanks Gift Tags, a blank Menu and Punch out tags that work perfectly with the EK Success Square Flourish punch. Enjoy!

CLICK HERE FOR FREE DOWNLOAD

Apple Pickin'

Today I had the pleasure of going on a fun play date at an apple orchard with my preschooler and her pal. The two of them are very good sports so I brought along my new printables to capture under the apple trees. These printables would be great for any fall occasion....I love to send invites for everything so naturally I will be sending these to family as a reminder of our annual trip to the apple orchard.

You can find the invites and everything to match in my shop now.

How cute are these girls?!

{Apple Orchard Treats}

The first day of fall is in one week....are you ready? I am! I am!

CAMP TYLER {Celebrating 9 years}

Backyard Camp Party

My oldest son turned nine this month and we celebrated by inviting friends and family to CAMP TYLER. We had a nice backyard camping party complete with a bonfire to roast hot dogs and marshmallows. The kids had so much fun competing against each other in the nature hunt and playing flashlight tag! I genuinely enjoyed every bit of this party and all of the old fashioned fun!

All of the wonderful memories and details have been captured by Maggie Russo Photo and the Delicious Texas Chocolate Cake and Smores Brownie Pops were by Little Miss Sweet Tooth. A HUGE thanks to them!

You can find this entire printable party set in my shop www.homespunhostess.com

Annabelle's {Vintage Strawberry Farm} 3rd Birthday

As we say good bye to summer here is a little bit of berry cuteness on a sunny day in May!

Way back in early February my sweet little Annabelle got a new Strawberry tutu from Gymboree and as soon as she got it she told me she wanted to have a strawberry party so she could wear it for the party.....and so the planning for her May 23rd birthday began! I knew in my head I wanted the style to be vintage strawberry, homespun and farm chic all wrapped into one! I used red gingham, fun polka dots and accented with a bit of retro aqua. The dessert table was filled with goodies that my very talented sister {little miss sweet tooth} made....gorgeous strawberry ruffle cake, strawberry cake pops, strawberry cookies, truffles and strawberry french macarons! The food table had more of a "farm chic" rustic look with vintage popcorn bags, wrapped sandwiches tied with yarn and custom tags, mini homemade strawberry pies, individual strawberry spinach and dill potato salads and red lunch bags of chips. I love the pop of aqua against the red...it adds that little bit of retro charm that I love.

{the SWEET birthday girl}

 We have a big long picnic table that was perfectly set with red geraniums in red polka dot pots and mason jar cupcakes at each place setting with wooden stamped forks and vintage strawberry tags with each child's name.

 Strawberry milk with classic paper straws in glass bottles went perfect with the gorgeous cake my sister made! {find the straws in my ETSY shop}

 I used mini chalk boards as food labels to add a little bit of homespun charm.

 We served fried chicken from a picnic basket lined with red gingham fabric. The pinwheels from {paper polaroid on ETSY} were the perfect thing to top the tiers of salad cups.

 Fresh strawberry jam with custom labels were sent home with all of the guests.

I made red and white flower hair clips for all of the little girls and redesigned my Anna Bananna packaging  (my other little company) just for this party {a Berry Special Edition}

I hope you enjoyed this last bit of summer as we head into fall! Next up....I will share the details of Tyler's rustic camping party! Stay tuned!

 Photos by Maggie Russo.....for more photos of this party visit her blog post here!

For invite and other party printables visit my shop www.homespunhostess.com

{Strawberry Party} Sneak Peek!

I have been waiting all summer to share my daughter Annabelle's Vintage Strawberry Farm party with you! Next week I will share ALL of the details of this fun {May} Party....but for now....here is just a little peek...

So much more to come!! Stay tuned next week for a fun feature and a full details post.

{Photos by Maggie Russo}

Back to School Free Printable

Well it is getting to be that time again....BACK TO SCHOOL! Although I will sure miss the carefree days of summer, I am trying to get organized for sending the kids back to school on the 17th. One of the things that gave them a perk last year was surprising them about once a week with a little note tucked into their lunch box! I was always greeted with a big hug and a smile after school on those days! So today I have a rainbow of happy little lunchbox notes for you to download free right here!

We are finalist!! PLEASE VOTE!

This is so funny....when Annabelle's party won Project of the month back in February Andrew immediately said "mom...I want my party to win that next"....and I thought to myself, "There are so many good parties out there, we would never be lucky enough to be chosen as a finalist again!" ....so we had a fun surfer party for Andrew and I uploaded into Project Nursery photo gallery and forgot I did. The other day I got an exciting email. GUESS WHAT?!! It was chosen as a finalist!!

Now we need your help! Please VOTE for Andrew's Surfer party!! He would LOVE to win!!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!

I am so honored to even be in the top three here anyway!

Family Gatherings {times two}

I have had a really wonderful month filled with family gatherings! Last night we gathered around 45 people from my husbands family for a fun little reunion while the kids from Norway and Colorado were in town to get to know the family! We had a blast as we always do with this big family! I kept the theme simple {CELEBRATE FAMILY} because that was the point! I decorated in Navy and Orange and made sure to use plenty of printables to pull the theme through.  Here is a little look...

In the beginning of the month we had my husbands godparents from New Orleans visit. We hosted a casual breakfast. I was able to get everything fresh from the farmers market that morning and made 2 homemade quiches to go with it. I also made homemade honey butter and gourmet bagel spreads the night before just to make our fresh bagels and pastries a little more special! Once again, I love visiting with family so I had a great time. Feeling very blessed!

Now I am looking forward to some quality beach days with my kids before they have to head back to school! I hope your days of summer are filled with family and fun too!

 

Visit my NEW blog and shop www.homespunhostess.com

 

Surf's Up!

A couple of weeks ago my sweet little Andrew turned 7! We had a fun surfer party for him with blue and orange as our color theme. My very talented sister made desserts that made the party awesome and Maggie took pictures to make it all look magical!

For starters...look at my little surfer boy! he enjoyed every moment of his surfer party and that makes it all worth it!

Have a look at these amazing cookies and cake! They tasted just as good as they looked too. I used brown sugar as "sand" in my galvanized tiered tray. I also made little cups of blue jello with  gummy sharks swimming around with little "caution SHARKS" flags. You can personalize this printable collection to fit your party too! Now available here in my shop!

This party really did not break the bank, and I am going to share my secrets for being frugal and still throwing a very pulled together theme party.

For the favors, I set up a shelf that I already had at home with "Andrew's Surf Shack" goodies. We got sunscreen (Bonus...in matching colors!) at the dollar store, sunglasses in white and shades of blue, also from the dollar store, we got the perfectly matching lollipops at Easter for $1 ea at Walmart, the bubbles were less than $1 ea at Target and the custom labels tie them right into the party, the sunshine cookie sticks were from Dollar Tree with my custom tags added to them and even my little candy jar was filled with inexpensive orange candy. The kids loved the free for all!

 We had a cookout and served food from "Andrew's Beach Grill" in retro blue baskets. The fruit and coleslaw was packed in mini 4 oz cups with custom "Andrew's Beach Grill" picks. The water and soda bottles were simply wrapped with matching labels to pull it all together.

Gotta love Target.....$4 beach towels that I took to a sports shop to have the kids names embroidered and a super cool shark fin ice mold!

Those surfboards that the cupcakes are on....$2.50 cork boards from...you guessed it- TARGET! And the lanterns were also from the $2.50 section.

Hope you caught a little inspiration! Surf's up!