Posts
All Comments
I found this really cute idea for a small gift, party favors, teacher's gift etc...
You can buy the glaze in a few different colors at a local paint store (they don't carry them at Lowe's or Home Depot) and it's much like a stain when you look at it. I used a chocolate glaze here. You'll need to paint it on pretty thick into the creases. Take a thin cloth towel or rag and using your finger wipe out as little or as much of the glaze to get the look you are going for. It may take a few times to get the technique down. If you are doing a large area, you will need several disposable rags to work with. The trick is to make sure that each time you wipe off your excess glaze you have a clean spot on the rag to work with. And work in small areas at a time.
This card was one of the biggest hits. I met a caricature person at Sea World in San Antonio who I worked with on this card. I sent him a family picture of us and gave him the basic details of what I wanted. Once he was finished, he simply emailed it to me and I had them printed and put on card stock cards.
The party favors were stuffed monkeys with pink bows tied around the neck. I also dressed the party girl in a pink top with matching animal print leggings.
A great place to have the perfect monkey party is your local bounce place so they can jump around and be the monkeys we already know they are. 
The invite I found at Scraplesspress.com.
I personalized her shirt with an iron on transfer. I simply bought printable iron on transfer that can be found at any hobby store or even at Walmart in the sewing/craft section and printed her name on the transfer.
A family friend makes these "to die for" angel food cakes and this is the only shape she makes, so I turned it into a ladybug by adding my own touches. The black dots, eyes and mouth are fondant that I made and put on. Very easy intro to fondant because you simple roll it out and cut out circles. The antennas are piping that I bent and curled for the antennas. And of course topped with a cute coordinating bow. The party girl should have her own antenna as well, made with the same piping on a plain headband.
No ladybug party is complete without actual live ladybugs. Depending on the season, you can buy ladybugs at your local nurseries. Early spring. However, since this party was in August I had to find them online and have them shipped in. Beware, they come in big quantities. 1,200 and more. I found these cute bug containers at Dollar Tree. Added this cute saying, and gave these out as the party favor for the kiddos to "help their own gardens grow."
Here are some pics I took of the steps along the way.
And the finished product! These do take a little bit of time, but will be worth it as everyone raves about them. Next, I'd like to try the Oreo and white chocolate cake balls. They sound very yummy!
Recipe:
To make: I purchased a few small board books (kids books with the thick pages) from the dollar store. These are about 6x6 in size. I sanded them down a bit to remove the gloss on the pages. I then added the ribbon on the front and back so that I could tie it shut when I was finished. Embelished with coordianting paper, cardstock, rub-ons and a few black and white pictures (I used diamond glaze scrapbooking glue for adhesive as it is really strong to hold up wear and tear). 
Small smash cake for the birthday boy was made to match. It had fondant construction cones on top with a big "2".
You can cover water bottles in coordinating paper to match.
The invite was found at Hobby Lobby and printed out. The back of the truck dumps out to show the party info.
My boys aren't big fans of cake, so we came up with a few alternatives. The cake bites were a new thing I had tried to make (I'll post something on them later). Basically cake, covered in chocolate and on a stick. The toolbox was something my husband whipped out with some scrap pieces of wood and I painted it with some old red paint from the garage. It's filled with some brownie bites that I just picked up from the local grocery store (Albertsons bakery).
