Cat in the Hat Party

I can't believe it's been 2 months since I've posted on the blog. Yikes!  Well, mainly it's because I went back to work full time.  And, then, I planned 2 parties in one weekend - Nikhil's 3rd birthday party and my parents' 40th wedding anniversary party.

So, I'm finally posting pictures from Nikhil's birthday.  The party just kept getting bigger and bigger - I'm not sure how.  I did a Cat in the Hat theme, since he loves the TV show, it's one of his favorites.  But, I did want to use all the Dr. Seuss pre-made stuff that's for sale, I wanted to do things myself.  My friend, Daphne Hargrove, took most of the pictures.  She's an amazing photographer and was so sweet to come armed with her camera.

I swiped the idea for the invite from this blog.  It had a lot of great ideas on there for Dr. Seuss food ideas, but since we were having the party around dinner time, I didn't really use any of the food ideas.

When guests arrived, they were greeted with a Dr. Seuss book to sign.

I rented 3 kids tables with these cute chairs (I think the total was like $30!) and then put them all together.  I wanted the kids to have their own table, since there were 25 children invited and they seemed to love having their own seats.

I made coloring book Cat in the Hat placemats and the orange fish out of cloth as table decorations.  I was surprised how much the kids enjoyed coloring.

For the adult tables, I made red/white striped hats out of Gerber puffs cans and red flower pom poms.

The big splurge was getting a bounce house.  But, it was well worth the money - everyone enjoyed it, and I loved seeing Nikhil's face as the castle was inflated.

And, after the party, my parents and my mother-in-law jumped in the bounce house too!

Instead of a gift, my parents got Nikhil a balloon guy and this guy was terrific.  Nikhil was so happy.

 Of course Nikhil wanted a Thomas the Train balloon.

Here's the food stations.  I didn't keep with the Cat in the Hat theme just because I wanted to have food that people would actually eat. I had a separate adult and keiki menu.  And, we also had a sushi bar - it was actually a really good deal and we had more than enough food.  

I spent the most time on the dessert table.  It was the first dessert table I've made though i bought cute red and white striped straws for bottles of milk and I totally forgot the milk.  I made the birthday sign on my printer and strung it with ribbon.  Our surgical coordinator made the delicious cake pops and the cake.  They were such a hit.

 The same blog had this great tutorial on this DIY cupcake stand.  I pinned it on pinterest and it's been repinned like 60 times. Kind of neat.  My parents helped me make it.

 I've seen tons of Thing 1 and 2 cupcakes with blue cotton candy topping all over the internet. But all the sites reported how the cotton candy melts after like 10 minutes and since we live in Hawaii, I didn't think it was a good idea.  Plus, even though I like sugar, even I thought a red velvet cupcake topped with cotton candy didn't sound that tasty, so I just dyed the frosting blue.

My mother-in-law bought this singing candle which unfolded into a flower when lit.  It kept singing, even after we threw it in the trash for 2 days (we were warned about this!)

 My niece, Maya, who came all the way from Boston to celebrate her cousin's 3rd birthday!

 My dad and Taj

Family portrait

My good friend, Hope, and her son.

Our AWESOME nanny Shawna and her fiance.

And, here's the final shot of the gift bag table.

And, yes, I was crazy enough to hand paint those little clothes pins.

All in all, a great birthday party for Nikhil!  You can see all of the pictures from the party here

It's a Blue Christmas

It's a blue Christmas - not because we're sad, but because this is the year of  blue for us.  Blue car, blue dresser, and now a blue tree. Maybe it all started with Thomas the train and my son's love of the color blue.  Though, our house is also very blue/brown as well, and I can't credit Nikhil with that one.  I usually do red/gold ornaments for our Christmas tree, but I was at Walmart the other day and saw these "shatterproof" ornaments, so I decided to try them out.  They had these beautiful turquoise colored ones, so of course, I had to get those.  And, let me tell you, shatterproof is the only way to go with a 2 year old boy.

The ornaments did live up to their name and at $5 for 12, they are a good deal.  Every year, we are always cleaning up shards of cheap glass from ornaments that have accidentally fallen off the tree and this year, we've been lucky with the new ornaments.

 

In addition to the tree, I saw this DIY Christmas ornament tutorial on younghouse love's website from their Pinterest challenge.  The step by step instructions are here (with a video tutorial).  I thought it would be a neat thing to do with my son, since he really loves arts and crafts.  We added a bunch of different colors to each ornament to make it more fun.  My niece, Bella, was visiting, so we did some more ornaments together.  I found the plain glass ornaments at Ben Franklin and had a bunch of acrylic Folk art paints from other projects.  

Aren't they pretty?  I love the swirls.  Merry Christmas everyone!

Turquoise is the new black - my refinished console

Lately, I've been loving the color turquoise.  One of my favorite stores in Honolulu is Pacific Home and they have these beautiful vintage turquoise pieces there that cost upwards of $2000.  Well, I've been on the hunt for a dresser that can serve as a console in the room that my parents use as their living room at our house.  I'll post pics of that soon.  I've found craig's list here in Hawaii is nowhere as good as it is on the mainland, but the key is to keep looking, even when you're not really looking.

I finally found this item for $50.

 All wood, dovetail construction, I saw the beauty in this piece.  Jeff was not so convinced. He saw the scuff marks, the fact that none of the drawers on the third row closed all the way and the missing hardware.  But, I saw a gem.  Originally, I was going to paint it white, but when I was talking to the very nice man, Richard, who sold it to me, he suggested an aqua blue and once he mentioned that I was sold. 

I scoured the blogosphere for tips on how to glaze furniture since I've refinished lots of pieces in my life, but have never glazed before.  I found this inspiration pic which I pinned on my pinterest board.

I emailed Julie from Less than Perfect Life of Bliss blog, and she helped me with suggestions of how to glaze.  Don't you love the color green she chose for her console? Thanks Julie!

So, originally, I went on maternity leave at 38 weeks, leaving 2 weeks to do all these awesome DIY projects.  Of course, Taj wasn't in on the plan, so he arrived just 2 days after my last day of work, which meant I didn't get to do anything before he was born.  So, my father was a huge help.  He did all the boring stuff - sanded the whole dresser, fixed the drawers so that they shut properly, cleaned all the original hardware (since I wanted to keep it) and primed it.  That left me able to do the fun stuff, paint and glaze.

Here's what I used.  The paint color is Hotel Cincinnati Abbey by Valspar.  We primed (or Dad primed) with 2 coats and then I did 2 coats of the paint.  Then I mixed in a 3:1 ratio, clear mixing glaze to stain (I was going to just eyeball it, but my dad being the retired electrical engineer that he is actually measured everything exactly).  We applied the glaze with a paint brush, left it on for about 10 minutes and then wiped it off.  We reapplied a little more in areas where we thought it was needed.



Here we are, hard at work. And, the finished result was well worth the effort.

I love how the glaze really makes the details of the dresser pop. And, since one of the drawer pulls was broken, I just moved the top center one down and bought a simple bronze, antique knob at Lowe's to replace it.

And, I'm loving the color.  I think I'm going to repaint a bunch of other furniture pieces this color.  It's turquoise, but not an in your face turquoise, which is great.

DIY Airplane Crib Mobile

For Taj's nursery, I already had this cute crib mobile my dad had bought for Nikhil, but I wanted something a little different.  I was googling mobile ideas and found the following pic:

However, this retails for $130 - yup, over $100 for a mobile!  It doesn't sing, dance or anything else other than look very cute, which it is, but no way would I spend that much.  And, then I remembered that I have an awesomely talented Mom who is like a crochet and knitting genius.

So, I googled around some more and found a cute free pattern here for an airplane crib mobile.  I decided on planes because I'm doing a very loosely based travel/cultural theme for Taj's nursery.  The big nursery reveal is coming soon.  But, for now, just the mobile.  We made one small tweak to the pattern.  I bought these music buttons for $1.69 at Jo-Ann Fabrics (and yes, they actually ship to Hawaii, though it takes 2 weeks).

So, my mom glued these little buttons into each airplane.  She made them with yarn which coordinated with my crib sheets (from Nikhil).


And, here is the final result!

Nikhil loved it so much that when he saw the planes before they were attached to the embroidery hoop, he took them to his own room and hid them in his bed.  It took us forever to find them.  Mom was going to knit more, but then we finally found them.

Of course, the best part of the mobile is that it was made by my mom especially for Taj.  Totally worth more than $130!