26/26: A Golden Birthday!

A little while ago, I celebrated my 26th birthday. Yay, me! I don't post too much about personal stuff on this blog though, so you may be wondering, why is she telling me that she had a birthday recently? Because, it was my Golden Birthday. The birthday I have been waiting for my whole life, the day I turned 26 on the 26th. Um, awesomeness! I have been excited about this birthday from the moment I realized that someday my age and my birth date would match!

Because I have the blessing of being born later in the month, I got to be old enough to celebrate in style. Unlike Lover, who a) does not care at all about birthdays, and b) had his Golden Birthday at the tender age of 10.

As you can imagine, especially because I am posting about this, I decided to celebrate this once in a lifetime event in style. I pestered Lover for months for ideas about what I should do for my birthday bash. He indulged me with his typical patience, all the while hiding a smile at the fact that his wife was acting more like an excited 6 yr old than an almost 26 yr old. After tossing around a bunch of ideas, like taking a trip together, riding in a hot air balloon and a shopping spree, I decided on something relatively simple, a fun evening with a bunch of my girlfriends. I wanted to all go out to dinner, then come back to my house for an enjoyable evening and dessert. Lover's idea, which totally made this party ROCK, was to have 26 desserts. It was amazing. :-)

So, I wrote out a list of the girls I wanted to be there, and whipped up some invites. I have been having a lot of fun this year with little graphic design projects,  so I gave myself the challenge of designing my invites. I browsed for inspiration on the WWW, and came up with these.



They're just a simple design on kraft paper cardstock. I wanted the invites to set the tone for the evening - casual, but fun and girly. And I loved the texture of the cardstock. I lined the envelopes with some flowery wrapping paper, and embossed a flower stamp on the front of the envelopes. They looked great and I loved them. The RSVP's came rolling in, and before I knew it, it was time to partay!



We all met at the Castle, then went out to hibachi, which was so much fun. In hindsight, I should have chosen a restaurant that doesn't stuff you to the rafters with food, right before we went home to a literal table full of desserts. It was worth it though. :-)





I wanted to keep the decorations simple, so I made the infamous tissue paper puffs out of a varied pack of paper, and hit up the dollar store for party decorations. Sticking with my kraft paper theme, I taped kraft paper wrapping paper directly onto the dining room table as a table runner, and then brightened it up with flamingo plates and hot pink decorations. I have never, ever liked pink in my whole life, but apparently I am turning over a new leaf because I LOVED these! And, I can keep them for the year we do pink for our color party. :-)



Each dessert had a number marker. We tried a version of musical chairs where we switched chairs every five minutes in order to be closer to a new set of desserts. That was a lot of fun. I also tried to eat one of every dessert, from 1-26. I made it to 12. :-)  In case you are curious, here are the desserts I came up with:

1. Gummies; peach rings, gummy worms, gummy letters, etc.


2. Cupcakes; chocolate with chocolate frosting. Delicious!


3. E.L Fudge Cookies


4. Banana Pudding Cups


5. Watermelon


6. Peanut Butter M & M's


7. Grapes


8. Mango


9. Layered Jell-o in shot glasses


10. Oreo Truffles


11. Andies Candies


12. Three Musketeer Bars


13. Runts


14. Cookies and Cream Ice Cream


15. Peanut Butter Cups


16. Yogurt Rasisins


17. Ultimate Chocolate Cake


18. Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies


19. Sixlets!


20. Chocolate Covered Strawberries


21. Junior Mints


22. Cream Puffs


23. Cookie Dough Ice Cream


24. Razberry Dip with Pretzels


25. Lindt Truffle Balls


26. York Peppermint Patties

Amazing, right? Everything was my favorite. :-) We had a wonderful time gorging ourselves on the treats and I even made little Thank You boxes for the girls to take a bunch of the treats home. They were generously sized so that I was left with as little leftovers as possible. I am well aware of my lack of willpower. :)





Of course the girls were super generous with gifts, but my favorite gift was actually a tradition that my friend Andrea lent me. The girls all went around the table and shared their favorite thing about being my friend. It was so sweet and heartfelt, and really made my evening even better than it already was.



I had found these little thank you notes just a few weeks before my party, and they ended up going perfectly with the theme. And we all know how much I like thank you notes. Aren't they adorable?



So all in all, it was a wonderful night, shared with some of the most important girls in my life. Even Jen was able to make it, which made the night super special. :-)

Laptop Bling

Does anyone else think that laptops, while incredibly convenient and useful, can be quite boring? I definitely thought so, so I dressed mine up with some bling. :-)  I saw these vinyl decals at my local Michaels, and liked them immediately.



While in the store, I couldn't think of any way to use them, so I left without purchasing them. But, happily, a few days later I came up with the idea of putting them on my laptop cover. I hadn't wanted to purchase a skin for my laptop, but was put off by the price and the overwhelming amount of options. That's why these little flowers were perfect. They're easily removable, so they don't damage the computer at all, and they add a little pop of color to the otherwise boring case. The only catch was, when I went back to Michaels they were no where to be found. I had half expected that, as they were clearanced out on my last trip, but I tooled around the store, looking at other fun stuff and hoping I might find them in some forgotten corner. I may or may not have spent copious amounts of time in the art aisles, admiring all of the oil paints, canvases and brushes. Brushes are my weakness. :-) Anyways, I took one last trip around the store, and voila! There they were, hiding in a dark corner of the scrapbooking section.

Putting them on the computer was easy peasy. I simply cut out around the shapes, and positioned them on the back of the screen.





The decals included a little plastic piece the size of a credit card that worked very well to smooth out any stray bubbles.  Now my 'puter has a little bit of sizzle to it. Isn't it pretty?

Etsy has tons of vinyl decal options, and most of the sellers are willing to customize something for you. Think of the possibilities! :-)

Centsational Girl is having a "Where I Blog" party. Because we travel so much, I don't really have a stable spot that I blog from, which is why I love my super portable laptop with its long battery power. So now the "where I blog" is a little prettier! Go see all of the fabulous spaces that these girls have!

Also linked to the Sunday Showcase @ Under the Table and Dreaming:-), the DIY Project Parade @ The DIY Showoff and Metamorphosis Monday @ Between Naps on the Porch

Friday Fav: One Night with the King

I know that this movie is not a recent release by any means, but I just watched it again last night, and I was reminded of what a great film this is. This is the original Cinderella story. :-) I have always loved the story of Esther, so there was a good chance I would like this movie. But, on top of my love for this ancient love story, there are so many other things to like about this movie. The sets, the costumes, the tender interaction between the king and Esther, did I mention the costumes? :-)  The film is made in the style of the old Hollywood epic films, which I grew up loving. Esther is played by a relatively unknown, Tiffany DuPont. She does a great job transforming from humble innocent Hadassah to the royal and regal Esther. I'd love to see her headlining another good movie.

King Xerxes is played by Luke Goss. The story, according to the movie's website, is that he auditioned for the part of Xerxes, and was told "thanks but no thanks" They told him he didn't really have the look they were trying to find. So he asked his agent to help him get into the character, and flew up from South Africa to audition for the part again, despite being miserably sick. Happily, he convinced the producers, and the role was his. I think he did an excellent job portraying a king who was bound by protocol, but wished for love.

There are a bunch of well known actors who play the other key roles in this film. John Rhys Davies plays Mordecai, each time I see this actor, I am just in awe of all of the different roles he has played. Although he does an excellent job here, I think his favorite role of mine is Gimli the dwarf in Lord of the Rings.

Omar Sharif plays Memucan, the voice of reason to the king.

John Noble plays the evil Prince Admantha, who plots against the king in any way he can. Up until Fringe, I had only seen John Noble play tortured, mostly creepy roles where he is definitely the villain. Do you watch Fringe? As Walter, he is still tortured, and sometimes a bit creepy, but mostly he is sweet and endearing.

Tommy Lister plays the harem eunuch, Hegai. He says that this movie was an opportunity for him to show off a softer side that his size and looks have never allowed him to play before, having always been typecast as the scary huge giant. :-) Softie, or not, I still wouldn't want to cross him!

Oh, and I mentioned the costumes before, here are some of the awesome outfits that Tiffany DuPont and Luke Goss got to wear for this film.





Stunning no? Do you think I could pull this look off? :-) In conclusion, if you haven't seen this movie, run, don't walk to your nearest video store or kiosk and rent it to watch tonight. Trust me, you'll thank me tomorrow. :-)

Deck Makeover

Last summer our focus was on the front of the house. We figured that we had ignored the outside for long enough, and that our neighbors would appreciate us improving the curb appeal a bit. So we slaved and toiled all summer long, and into the fall to take the front of our house from drab to fab. All of our efforts paid off, when we ended up with the front looking like this:

But the back of the house received zero attention. :-) We've tried really hard to balance out our life with our renovations, and not allow them to take over completely. With that in mind, last summer we decided to only work on the front. Which meant that the back of the house still looked like this:

Not quite as pleasant, right? So this summer we thought we would tackle at least part of this mess in the back, and at the same time spruce up a fun little deck area that we could enjoy throughout the summer. My other two goals were to mostly tackle projects I could do myself, and to not spend huge amounts of money or time by changing anything. We would simply work with what we had, using paint, new light fixtures and simple accessories to make everything liveable. And here's what we accomplished:

Quite a difference, right? I need to mention here that we ignored the left side of the house entirely. Its time will come, but we need to kill some weeds, get rid of some garbage and take out some planters before we can even think of "sprucing up." So this is two thirds of the back fixed up. :-) We continued with the yellow and green color scheme we started with in the front, and then added in some fun shots of red, blue and colored glass to make it very festive.  As you can see, the difference is drastic.

Painting all of the exposed wood, and caring for the neglected deck wood really changed the overall look. For all of the wood that I painted, I simply sprayed off any dirt, then followed with a coat of Kilz primer, and finally with outdoor paint. I love how sunny and warm the yellow is, with the bright pops of green. Caring for the wood of the deck floor was a little more tedious. It took me several hours to sand it all smooth, then I sprayed a deck cleaning solution on, and scrubbed that off. Finally, after everything was clean and dry, we spent a Saturday afternoon applying an outdoor deck stain to the freshly scrubbed boards.



The color is super similar to the concrete paint color we used on the front porch floor. Although not intended, I love that there is such a continuity from front to back now. The other thing that made a huge difference was painting the storm door that leads into the house and swapping out the old handle for a new black one. It's just a simple plastic door, so it looks much better painted.



The deck isn't large, just 10x11 feet, so there was just enough room to add two chairs by the door, and a table and chairs on the opposite side. We made the table from a table base found on Craigslist, and an old cabinet door screwed on as a top. Eventually, I'd like to make a nicer top, but for now, covered with a red and white gingham cloth, it looks sweet and allows us to eat out here in the summertime.

See how rich the wood looks now? And it is splinter free, which encourages bare feet. :-)

The plants, other than the silk poppies on the table, are mostly clearance finds at the garden centers. Next year I hope to grow some healthy geraniums and petunias to fill up all the pots, but for now, these bargain babies provide some much needed splashes of color.


These last ones, the red petunias, are my favorites. We found the little red pails at Target for $1.00 a piece, and I filled them with a six pack of red petunias from Walmart. They are the perfect scale for the corners of the deep windowsills, and they make me smile every time I see them.

I ordered a new light from Overstock for the funky pole in the middle of the deck. The halogen spotlight that was previously there was broken, and had way too much wattage for the small area. This little wall mount lantern was a much better fit. We purchased a decorative halogen bulb at Lowes for inside, and I love how it looks through the glass of the light.

The aqua colored votive holders on either side were clearanced out to $2.57 at Pier 1. I used some floral wire to string them from the ironwork above, and they are so pretty with the sun shining through them, or with tealights inside at night.

I wanted this area to be slightly reminiscent of the balconies in Spain, so I hunted down some pretty plates to hang on the wall, as they so often do there. Beneath them are some colored glass jars and bottles I thought were cool, and a metal smiling sunflower from Christmas Tree Shops.

Lover also made up a bunch of glass tiki torches. We simply collected some little bottles we liked, and filled them with tiki fluid. The wick is a length of sisal rope, threaded through a hole made in a bottle cap. Once the sisal is saturated, these torches burn super clean and work wonders at keeping the bugs away from the deck. The green torches below were made from cooking wine bottles, and we repurposed their tops to hold the "wick" in place.

We also painted the front of the entryway, and it looks tons better. I'm slowly building up a pretty flower garden for this planter, and already it looks tons better than it did before. My beautiful morning glories from last year naturalized, and I love how they look climbing up either side of the window.

So that's how we transformed our less then stellar deck into a fun, relaxing retreat. I can't decide if my favorite part is the yellow wall color, the happy red geraniums or those cool plates on the wall. What about you?


Linked to Sunday Showcase @ By Stephanie Lynn, Metamorphosis Monday @ BNOTP, DIY Parade @ DIY Showoff