Congratulations Graduates!

It's a busy time of year for graduations and celebrations! It was easy to make a beautiful invitation for Adrianna, considering how gorgeous this photo is of her. Hope the party was awesome! Congratulations!

Fourth of July Place Cards

The Fourth of July is sneaking up on me! My friend Ronie contacted me last week and asked me if I could whip her up a place card design for her fourth of July celebration. Of course my mind started racing as I had not had any requests for patriotic goodies before this one. The 4th is such a festive holiday with all of its red, white and blue and is usually more casual with outdoor barbecues in place of indoor dining. I knew I needed something fun to pair with Ronie's amazing yard complete with inground pool and beautiful gardens in sunny Sacramento, CA. I found these adorably festive straws (her grandsons will love them :) and decided on a round place marker rather than the traditional rectangle. I made them double sided which gives it a small pocket where the straw will fit when slid on from the top. These little bursts of red and blue are sure to compliment any fourth of July table. You can even get creative and float some sliced strawberries and blueberries in each water glass!

Happy Fathers' Day to all the dads out there. I hope it's a great day for you all!

Easy OREO Truffles

Last summer I celebrated 4th of July at my friend Laura's grandmother's lake house. Laura's family is filled with amazing cooks. They make the kind of food that you just die to eat. Amid many delicious cookies on the cookie trays were these chocolate covered balls. I am a bit of a chocoholic so I was immediately intrigued. Laura told me that were OREO truffles made with Oreo cookies, cream cheese and melted chocolate. Are you kidding me? Each bite was like a little taste of heaven. They are very rich, and I wasn't used to eating sweets to this magnitude, so I immediately felt a buzz after eating it. You know that chocolate buzz feeling, otherwise known as a sugar high. They were SO good. I knew I wanted to make them for Carlie's party and Laura was nice enough to share the recipe with me.

All you need are three ingredients (my kind of recipe) - one package of Oreo cookies, one 8 ounce brick of cream cheese and chocolate chips for melting and covering the truffles.

See the step by step recipe here.

Now what?

There is a certain level of sadness once an event that you've spent months planning has come and gone. Since we traveled from NY to RI for Carlie's party, I had to pack up a lot of stuff! Now that we are home and the suitcases are unpacked and the laundry is done (finally), I still have three plastic rubbermaid bins filled with the leftover party decorations, goodies and some presents. What to do with all of these personalized goods? Some made it to the "keepsake" box, but sadly some were recycled. There are still many other items that I need to find a home for, a use for, or get rid of...sniff, sniff.

I have about four yards in total of the pink and white polka dot fabric that I used for table coverings. I wanted to take a stab at trying to make one of those adorable "age" tank tops. While I was in JoAnn Fabrics today picking up some fabulous fabrics for a baby shower that I have in the works, I decided to grab a new blade for my Circut. The deep cut blade is able to cut fabric, so I got it along with some two sided iron on adhesive. The adhesive paper was pretty thick and sturdy so I worried that the new blade wouldn't be able to cut through it.

I was correct in thinking that. I adhered the polka dot fabric to the adhesive, put it on the cutting mat and set the Cricut to cut out the number 2 in Roly Poly at six inches in size. The blade did cut through the fabric and make a nice score in the adhesive, but it did not cut through it totally. Afterwards I went with a sharp scissor and finished cutting out the number 2.

Then I adhered the 2 to the tank top and tried my hand at getting fancy with my sewing machine. I looked at the illustration of the stitches on the front of the machine and picked the one that I thought was best.

Although far from perfect, I am proud of the final result! Carlie's actual birthday is Monday the 21st so she can sport her new shirt on that day. Now...what to do with the rest of the container's contents (and the other 3.75 yards of fabric)...