Vintage Noah’s Ark 1st Birthday

I am finally back to writing here on the blog after more than a year away.

I am back and I wanted to share with you some of the projects that I worked in 2013.

The first one I am sharing is my son’s 1^st birthday. Yes, we had another baby, a baby boy that keeps bringing joy to our lives everyday.

This party was by far my favorite! I had so much fun planning it and bringing it to life (in just 3 weeks). My husband had asked me to do a Noah’s Ark theme and I loved the idea. Once I knew the theme I started to plan it but wanted to do the Ark my way 🙂

Our baby is such a fun boy, and he loves his toys, his food and Sophie (his teething Giraffe). Based on that I decided to create his ark, with the things he loves.  And if you know me and my designs you already noticed that all my parties are a reflection of the invitation I create for such event. This one was no different. Here is the invitation I created for the party:

And from there the party took shape… 

It is hard to tell you my favorite detail as I loved everything about how it all turned out.

We had in our backyard and the poles from the rented tent were the frame for the rainbow background I created using yarn. There was a lot of DIY projects for this party.

We had a naked cake (or almost naked) by Dona Doce Cakes as the centerpiece of the cake table and his name was used throughout.

A friend of ours used his carpenter skills and made the Ark that I used as the centerpiece for the favor/dessert table.

We had cars, trains and giraffes cake pops (amazingly delicious) by Cake Pops by Xpressive Designs.

Lots of candy and bonbons as part of our Brazilian tradition, and of course, my latest obsession: MINI TO GO CONTAINERS! They were personalized with Noah’s name and inside I baked my favorite Orange Cake (recipe here).

I want to thank everyone that made this afternoon so enjoyable:

The amazing pictures (aside from the invitation that  I took with my phone) were by the ever talented Renata Rivera.

A huge thank you to my husband for supporting me ( and my out of the box ideas :P), to my mom and mother in law that were a huge help, and to the amazing Neide Lima, from GIF Floral and Events Designs, for bringing her talent and her friendship all the way from Orlando. To my dear friend Luciana from  Arts and Glamour Events and her husband for creating the Ark, and all the help and patience with me :).

Hope you enjoy the pics!

 

Have an awesome Tuesday!!

Clemens Bastos

Diving into fun – A 3rd Birthday Party Splah – Diver Party

 I know, I know , Christmas is only 19 days away and here I am showing a summer party…but better late than ever, right 🙂

Now, I do understand that Summer is gone and that everywhere you look all you see are winter parties or holiday related things, but hey, I live in Florida and it seems that Summer is here to stay 🙂

 I showed you the invitation I designed for my son’s 3rd birthday. Today I will finally show you how it all turned out.

Like I mentioned before, the party was supposed to be at the club house, by the pool, but hurricane Isaac decided to be part of it and we had to have it in our house, something we decided on the morning of the party.

The theme was easy, but coming out with the decor took a bit longer. This party was very different from the other ones I did for him.

This one was really planned last minute, and when I say last minute I mean the week of.

Thank God for Homegoods!!

We used a net that my mom brought from Brazil  and the decor I had from my Homegoods as the background.

The sweet table had an Octopus cake, Snorkel cupcakes, yummy sea creature cookies ( by Brooke from  BB Sweets), Octopus Pops ( made by yours truly), Divers Mousse ( Aren’t they so cute???), Ocean Jello, and all the Brazilian favorites – brigadeiro, beijinho and doce de leite ninho 🙂

Oh, and my favorite, the cake pops – I could not believe my eyes when I saw what Ximena from Cake Pops By Xpressive Designs  created.

They were PERFECT!

She even made the diver with curly hair.

We had a Hot Dogs and Hamburger Bar, along with Seaweed Salad 😉

And make sure you take a look at the sea turtle we had. Nice from Marvelous Brigadeiro made the cutest watermelon sea turtle I’ve ever seen!!

I incorporated the logo we created for the invitation on all the paper goods, and personalized even the hamburger’s wrappers.

Guests took home chevron paper bags ( for sale on my shop) with lots of sweets ( hey, it’s a kids party) including delicious cookies made by the talented Janet from Sweet Dough.

I won’t hold you much longer, be prepared for a ton of pictures. 

Look for all the vendors at the end of the post.

Enjoy!

Party planning and design – Clemens Designs

Paper goods, paper straws, paper suitcases and chevron bags – Clemens Designs (Facebook)

Cake Pops – Cake Pops By Xpressive Designs  (Facebook)

Cookies ( Sea horse and turtles) and cupcake toppers – BB Sweets (Facebook)

Cookies (Favors) – Sweet Dough (Facebook)

Sea Turtle – Marvelous Brigadeiro

Cake – Target

Decor – Homegoods

Tablecloths – TJ MAXX ( on sale for $5- YAY)

 

A 3rd Birthday Splash – Invitation

See, I told you here that I would be back 🙂

My sweet boy just turned 3 – ok, it was in August, and we are in October, but who is counting….

This year he asked me to have a diver party – after watching Finding Nemo for a billion times I guess he became attached to that diver’s mask.

And being a loving mom that I am ( and a party planner trying to avoid the characters for as I long as I can) I went for it.

I have to say that the party was planned in 4 weeks.

“4 weeks of working 40 hours outside the house and then putting everyone to sleep to start working on the decor”  kind of weeks.

We decided to have it at our clubhouse, by the pool, but just like last year, an uninvited guest decided to show up.

This year was Hurricane Isaac.

Who decided to come on the DAY OF THE PARTY….REALLY??????

I decided ( Isaac forced me to it) to have the party at our house, and I actually loved how it turned out.

The first thing was coming out with the invitation. I knew I wanted to be colorful and wanted to have some kind of texture ( not just straight out of my printer), so my sister in law from Tudo de Bom Arte Festas   and I came out with this diver, that looked jut like Josh, with curly hair and all.

From there it was easy peasy.

My dear Sil worked hard to make every detail of this invitation, and if the help of Michaels the result was one ( more like 40) adorable invitation.

 

What do you think?

I will be adding these one to the shop soon

🙂

Happy Wednesday!!

Can’t wait to show you pictures of the party

Yes, we are back!

I know, I know you missed me and I know you thought I might had decided to join the CIA or become an undercover agent….but no, after all this months I am back, hoping someone still following me (besides my mom).

Since the last post so many things happened, and I am not kidding. We went from living here:

to here:

Went from being a family of 3 to an almost family of 4:

And although sweet Baby Noah is not due until November 11th I’ve been having contractions and feeling like he might decide to come meet us all sooner then expected.

So yes, a lot of things changed, and I feel like my day ends before my to do list, but I am back and although I’ve been working full-time I do have a lot of parties to share with you.

So if you are reading this, thank you!

Thank you for not giving up on me ( or not hitting the unsubscribe button).

🙂

Stay tuned….there is a lot more to come.

 

A Picnic 1st Birthday

Spring is here!! At least on the blog it is!

I’ve been working on a lot of things behind the scene and I am sorry for the lack of posts.

The month of January came and went and I can’t believe February is here.

I received pictures of the cutest 1st birthday party ever.

My little niece turned one and my sister in law did a great job at creating this amazing party !

She decided to go with a Picnic theme and came to me for ideas.

The result was beautiful!!

The pictures are from the talented Helio Campos, a Brazilian photographer that lives in Brasilia.

The party was done by my sister-in-law herself , with supplies from my Etsy store and all the customized party goods done by the talented Tudo de Bom company, in Brasilia.

I loved the colors and the mix of textures, the bird houses used all over the decor, the fabric tulips, my paper straws used on the Pinwheels and all the CANDY, oh boy, they look divine!!

I even spotted my favor tubes.

Hope you are ready for some eye candy images.

Credits:

Paper goods and Paper straws: Clemens Designs

Personalized paper goods (favor tags, invitation, etc): Tudo de Bom Arte e Festas

Photography: Helio Campos Photography

You can see more pictures here

Happy Wednesday!!

Anthropologie Mugs + Hot Chocolate on a Stick = The sweetest gift

Christmas is just a couple of days away and I wanted to share with you an idea for a last minute gift that is very much a gift to the bank too.

A couple of weeks ago I saw this post on Makes and Takes about hot chocolate on a stick and although I’ve seen it in a few parties before, I never done it myself. So I decided to give it a try and make them this year. I wanted to give something extra to the whole idea so when I saw this monogrammed mugs at my local Anthropologie I just knew that the hot chocolate sticks and the mugs were made for  each other.

The recipe given by Jane from Makes and Takes is very easy to follow, so easy I made a batch right before making breakfast.

Here is the recipe as written on Makes and Takes

Hot Chocolate Blocks

• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• One 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
• 3 cups semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped or in chips (Jane note: I actually used 1 cup 60% cacao chips, 1 cup semi-sweet chips, and 1 cup milk chocolate chips)
• One 4-oz bar unsweetened chocolate (broken or chopped into smaller pieces)
• Wooden or cookie/lollipop sticks
• 8″x8″ pan, lined with parchment paper

Heat the cream and sweetened condensed milk over medium-low heat until it starts steaming, stirring periodically. Remove from heat and add chocolate. Stir and let sit for 10 minutes, then put back on medium-low heat and stir with a whisk until chocolate is completely melted and shiny. (At this point you could add some flavoring…vanilla, hazelnut, peppermint, whatever fits your fancy!)

Pour chocolate into prepared pan and spread chocolate as level as you possibly can. Let sit overnight (12 hours or so).

Adding a note here, I used Nestle Toll house Morsels – a bag of the dark and a bag of the chocolate milk  (it was a bit over 3 cups); and also used the same brand for chocolate chunks- dark instead of the unsweetened bar.

Jane also used homemade marshmallows  and I just went with the store bought ones. 🙂

I followed the recipe and waited 12 hours before I cut the chocolate fudge into squares.

Here is how they looked:

Once they were bagged and tied with a fabric ( I wanted them to have a rustic feel to it so I used  fabric I had from the Sock Monkey baby shower  instead of ribbon) I placed 2 of them inside the mugs and created a card with directions for the chocolate – used the text from Make and Takes (click here to download the cards with directions) but added a bit of Clemens to it 🙂

The result was one sweet gift.

I have to say I loved making it, and the best thing is that I was able to give a little something to  the people we care without going over budget.

Gotta love that!!

Here is the result:

So what do you think?

And in case you still have people on your list you can put this together in less than 24 hrs.

I used mugs from Anthro because it was convenient but your local Dollar Tree can be just as good. What matters here is the thought and the effort you put into it.

A sweet idea, just my way of wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas!

For the full post on how to make the Hot Chocolate on a stick visit Jane’s blog Makes and Takes

Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer

Who knew that I would finally get to meet this famous reindeer.

Rudolph, the reindeer with the red nose…

As I was minding my own business something just flew by me and before I knew it there he was…

The cutest Santa’s helper of all…

He came to help my Joshua deliver some goodies to his friends

and oh was I thrilled…

Just thought I would show you what I created for Joshua to give to his friends.

Once again very budget friendly, stickers and candy, what a kid doesn’t love that?!!

And the fact that Rudolph is bringing it makes it way special.

Have yourself a sweet and Merry Christmas!!

A SNOWLADY SHOWER

Oh dear Internet, things in this side of the coast have been chaotic to say the least. With my school,  Joshua going to school (another post on its own…), relatives visiting, parties being planned and the whole mother/wife thing,  it just seemed that 24 hours were not enough. But we are now slowly going back to our regular routine.

I was asked to plan a baby shower for a sweet mommy-to-be expecting her first baby – a baby girl. The grandma’s to be were the ones hosting the shower and they wanted the party to have a wintery feel to it.

A few months back I came accross a post from Hostess with the Mostess where Jennifer created this adorable Yarn Pom Snowpeople and I knew right away that I wanted to create that for this baby shower too. It was just too YARN cute!!

I went with an apple green and fuchsia color and the first thing I created was the invitation. From there I started to work on the SnowLadies ( so easy to make and came out so adorable!!) and the rest was history 🙂

I created a dessert table using a vintage iron Corsican crib.  Once again may favorite cake stands came to play and oh did they play… I just love how versatile they are…a change of ribbon and voila…PERFECT!!

We had baby vanilla cupcakes, baby jars with coconut custard, pink and green M&Ms, Coconut bonbons and Hazelnut bonbons. Delicious!!!!

S’mores wrapped in cellophane and tied with ribbons were placed on each table set with a little poem chosen by the family.

I also did a diaper cake ( my second one, YAY) and I love how it came out!And I also made table runners for this party ( NO SEWING REQUIRED) using just fabric, ribbon and a hot glue gun 🙂

I had a so much fun creating the special things for this shower and I hope you enjoy how it turned out.

Credits

Event styling, design and printables ~ Clemens Designs

Floral Centerpieces ~ Twin Brooks Garden Center

Happy Saturday!!!

An Amazing Giveaway – with glittery prizes!

And I’m back, dear Internet. We just recovered from a serious case of INEEDAMAC ilness. Both my computers went down with virus and also hard drive issues, but thank God none of my data was lost and I’m back in business.

 

Let me just tell you that timing is perfect, because today I have the privilege of being  part of simply the best giveaway EVER. I’m talking about The Great Grape Glittery Giveaway that’s happening right now at The Purple Pug website.  Kristy put together an amazing giveaway with over $2000 worth of prizes from amazing vendors. The giveaway starts today, and goes until November 11th.  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Head over to her site (click on the picture above), see the amazing prizes,and  who knows, you might be one of the 53 winners :=)

Good luck and happy Tuesday!!!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Sock Monkey Inspired Baby Shower

Couple of months ago I had the privilege of styling a Sock Monkey Inspired baby shower for  my dear friend Juliana. You might remember her invitation from here.

I went with the same color I used for the invitation. I made a personalized wreath using fabric and the baby’s name Caleb (yep, Gigi did her thing).

We wanted to have a diaper cake ( my first one) instead of the cake – there were cupcakes instead made by Gabi Walker, and I just love how it all turned out.

I was so excited to show off my newest acquisition – a mirrored dresser that I found at Homegoods ( I just heart that store so much!!).

Instead of having the clothesline with the oneses I decided to use the vintage frame I got at Material for The Arts the last time I was there and display the oneses inside as if they were some Art. There were mason jars decorating the tables and my favorite party item: red stripped paper straw ( love the vintage look paper straws bring to any party)

We sent guests home with chocolate covered honey breads wrapped in ribbon.

There were also  personalized thank you cards with M&Ms and handmade crochet monkeys by avapapernewyork

Pam Rodrigues was in Boston on that day photographing Bella Angel’s 1st Birthday so my dear friend Joyce Walker was the girl behind the lens this time.

Hope you like all the details.

I had so much fun styling Juliana’s party. Congrats amiga on the arrival of baby Caleb ( he is now almost a month old)

If you need paper straws or looooove the Monkey invitation please stop by my Etsy shop

Hope you have an amazing Friday!!!