Spring Birthday Party

A couple of weeks ago my aunt and I threw a birthday party for my mom's big 5-0 birthday. I made all of the decorations- pinwheels, paper medallions, tissue paper puffs and flowers, banners, and garlands. It was such a fun project! We chose to use pink, orange, yellow, green and blue in patterns of dots and stripes.

My aunt set up this darling candy station next to the door so guests could take their party favor on the way out. The candy colors all matched the party scheme.

The boxes on the left were for the guests to fill with their candy.

As guests walked back into the kitchen/family room area, they was a little book for them to sign and leave a birthday wish for the guest of honor.

I made this polka dot garland using my Silhouette Cameo. My aunt found the matching balloons.

The house then opens up into this nice kitchen/dining area where we set up the tables. Some of chairs were missing in this shot, but we provided plenty of chairs.

I made this banner with the Silhouette cameo too. If you need a tutorial on how to make the paper medallions (attached to the stone) I wrote one last year at this link.
Here are a couple of close up shots of the pinwheels. I was able to find a lot of cute paper.



I made this garland similar to the scrappy bird garland by cutting out the shapes and sewing them together using the machine. We strung it between the lights and it was the perfect length!



Here's a few shots of the delicious food!

My little brother, me, my mom

Happy birthday Mom! I hope you had a wonderful party. A big thanks to Aunt Lisa for hosting and doing the food and giving me the opportunity to this!

Origami Heart Valentines

Hi Friends! Just dropping in to share my last minute Valentines. While I planned on making cookies (red velvet mmmm....) for our parents and siblings for Valentine's Day, I didn't think I would be doing anything else. Then I saw this adorable video tutorial on how to make origami heart Valentine's. I shared it with my Facebook followers the other day, then decided to make a few myself for my friends at work. It only took a few minutes using my scraps of leftover Valentine scrapbook paper and stickers from past projects to make these. They are so cute! Just don't be too jealous of my mad night time last minute photography skills!





I hope you have a great Valentines day. It's going to be epic over here.

Book Page Valentines

I don't really have any plans this year to make Valentine's Day crafts. It doesn't fit into my plans for the holiday (which are epic, just not heart themed). So instead I am sharing all the book page crafts I made last year, in case you forgot about them or are new here. Enjoy! : )

Book Page Flowers

Book Page Pinwheel Valentine Garland

Book Page Hearts 1...

... and Book Page Hearts 2

Paper Flower Tutorials

Over the weekend I went a little crazy collecting tutorials and ideas for making paper flowers. I have only tried one so far, but thought I would share a few of the ideas I found. I know I usually share my favorite pins on Fridays, but think of this as more just tutorial ideas, but I am using Pinterest for the ease of posting the pics!

(You probably already know this but to get to the tutorial, click the picture which will take you to my Pinterest page. Then you can click the photo again to be taken to the original site.)

Source: meholder.blogspot.com via Aubree on Pinterest

Source: omgdiywedding.blogspot.com via Aubree on Pinterest

Source: kindawonderful.typepad.com via Aubree on Pinterest

Source: cheekymagpie.com via Aubree on Pinterest

Source: whimsicalworldoflaurabird.blogspot.com via Aubree on Pinterest

I tried the second one yesterday. Not too hard, but very time consuming. I used my Sillohoute to ease the cutting, but it still took a long time. The next one on my list is the last one. If you try any of them let me know how it goes!

To see more of the ideas I have found you can follow my paper crafts board here.

Paper Christmas Trees

I really didn't mean to go the whole week without posting. I had several things planned, but I had more to do to get ready for Christmas than I thought. In fact, I still have a few gifts to wrap and my entire house is covered in spray adhesive and glitter, but I am going to take a minute to share one of the Christmas crafts I did this year (and I will do a second post on my favorite pins since it is Friday). It's likely too late to be of any use to you now, but pin it for next year!


I originally saw the idea for these paper trees in my paper copy of Better Homes and Gardens and didn't look twice at them because there weren't any instructions in the mag, rather one was to go online for the template. Later I saw them on my favorite local lifestyle show and have even linked you there before. The pattern was posted so I downloaded it and printed it off.

They were really easy to make. I filled the trees with candy and a little gift for the recipients.

The guest on the TV show suggested using wrapping paper... because that is what company she represented. Wrapping paper is decidedly less expensive than scrapbooking paper so I tried it. The wrapping paper I used was too lightweight and the trees collapsed a little bit. I gave them to some eight year old girls in my church and would wager that by the time the trees got home a few no longer resembled trees. You should make some, but I would suggest using heavier paper.

Merry Christmas!!