The Pinterest Diaries: Princess Party!

Yesterday was my daughter Zibby's 2nd birthday, and we celebrated this past weekend with a Disney Princess Party.  I researched and researched for ideas and, of course, looked on Pinterest for ideas.  But I couldn't find much that I liked.  So I had to figure it out on my own (except for one thing, which will be pointed out below). 

Also, my mom was in California, so I REALLY had to figure it out on my own.  She is super creative and always helps my sister and I out with things like this.  This is the first party/event that I did all by myself.  I'm pretty proud.

Zibby is OBSESSED with everything Disney and everything princess, so it seemed fitting to do a Disney Princess themed party.  She has a Snow White dress that I bought her around Halloween, so naturally, she was Snow White for the party.

 

 

I dressed up as Belle (well, a makeshift Belle:  long white sleeved shirt, blue dress, ponytail, blue ribbon...with how much money we spent on food, I had to wing it with stuff I had for the costume)

 

 

For food, I thought it would be cool to pull something from the princess movies.  All the dishes were really easy to do.

 

I made caramel "poisonous apples" for Snow White

 

 

 

For these, I sliced up apples and melted some caramel dip.  I then dipped the apples in the dip, and put them onto wax paper to dry.  Before they set, I sprinkled some red crystal sprinkles onto them.

"Frying pan" spinach artichoke dip for Rapunzel

This was pretty simple.  I bought the Costco spinach artichoke dip, and just baked it in a cast iron skillet at 350 degrees until it was hot in the middle.  It will start to brown on top, but let it cook all the way through, or the outside will be heavenly and creamy, while the middle will be a cold, chunky mess.

 

"Gus Gus' cheese platter" for Cinderella

 

 

 

I just bought a couple packages of cheese at Winco and arranged them on a plate.

 

"Pumpkin Cupcakes" for Cinderella

 

I made these with Betty Crocker spice cake mixes and cream cheese frosting.  I piped the frosting on with a #12 tip and then sprinkled on blue crystal sprinkles.  I also found Disney Princess cupcake holders at Walmart, which went with the party perfectly.

**ADVICE:  I know this sounds obvious, but put the sprinkles on RIGHT after you pipe the frosting onto each cupcake so they stick.  I thought that I had time to pipe all the cupcakes and then sprinkle, but the first have hardened enough to where the sprinkles slid off the cupcakes.**

"Sand dollars" for The Little Mermaid

This was the only thing that I pulled from Pinterest.  And I was in such a hurry to get stuff done (I do things best under pressure) that I didn't even pin it, and now I can't find the original pin.

For this, I got the platter at the Dollar Store, then sprinkled brown sugar on it to look like sand.  I got Double Stuffed Vanilla Oreos and took the tops off (not as easy as it sounds.  We ate some of the Oreos before I made these, thinking that we'd have more than enough, but some of them broke, so we had a lot less then what I originally wanted to serve.)  The pin said to get a starfish stamp, but since this party was on a budget, I figured I could just use a fork to draw the sand dollar into the cream.  This did not work so well.  The creme bunched up, and I had to scrape it off (wasting valuable, delicious creme).  I tried to push the fork into the cream to make the shape, but then the Oreo broke.  If you are going to try this, for the sake of the Oreos, just go buy the stamp.  Losing all those Oreos is worth the $3.99 for a starfish stamp.

For the signs, I just made them out of construction paper.  I looked up the Disney font online and just hand-drew what I wanted with a pencil, then traced over it with a sharpie.

To hold up the signs, I also used construction paper and then taped them onto the signs.  I cut a strip of paper the width of the sign, the folded it up to make sort of a rounded...holder upper thingy...for lack of a better word.

 
For Zibby's cake, I made a Betty Crocker triple chocolate cake mix, then used a bowl to mark out the two layers for her cake.  I bought 3 pounds of buttercream frosting from my local grocery store's bakery.  A lot of stores will do this for you.  They'll even color it to the colors you need, as the store did for me here.  I wanted to do an ombre look for Zib's cake, so I got a pound of hot pink, regular pink, and super light pink.

**ADVICE:  3 pounds of frosting was WAY too much frosting for a small cake like this.  BUT the good news is that since it's pink, I'm just going to use it for cookies for Valentine's Day.**

I used the #12 piping tip again and just "ruffled" the frosting on.  I found the "2" and the star candles at Walmart, and then used the crown from Zib's Snow White baby doll.  (Don't worry...I washed it.)

To add a personal touch to the party, I went through pictures of Zib over the past year, and my friend Darcy was nice enough to print them out for me.  I then taped them onto construction paper and made little "frames".  I didn't have time to make the holder-upper-thingys for each picture, so I just laid them out on a counter.

 





Being obsessed with Disney myself, this party was really fun to put together, but it was even better to see the reaction from Zibby and all the fun she had :)

The Pinterest Diaries: Bills, Bills, Bills

Having a baby is expensive.  Therefore, over the past few months, I've had bill after bill come in.  Since we are planning on paying them off with our tax return, I open them, look them over, and then just toss them in a pile on my nightstand. 

Now a little insight into Jamie:  I'm the kind of person who lets clutter pile up for, at most, a week, then it's like I'm possessed and I have to do everything in my power to get the clutter put away and organized.  I would pick up the pile of bills, organize them in some way, then get distracted and just put them back on my nightstand.  Since more bills were coming in, I'd have to reorganize them everytime I went through them.  Finally, I said enough is enough, and found a pin on Pinterest for organizing bills.  Here is my inspiration:

Budget Binder

This is what I started with:

(see?  crazy amount of bills)

I organized them by place, then date, then stapled all the duplicates together (you will find that I have major OCD issues).  I had gone to my favorite place, Target, earlier in the week and purchased the following:

• sticky labels - I got these instead of page dividers because then I could move them easily instead of having to make new labels every single time I got a new bill
• stapler
• a cute binder

We already had the sharpie, as I'm sure everyone does.

I then put the bill piles into alphabetical order (again, OCD), wrote up all the labels using the sharpie, and placed them in a binder.  I also made a separate section for 'Paid' bills. 

Whenever I pay a bill, I write directly on it when I paid it, how I paid it (debit, check, etc.), the communication I used to pay it (over the phone, online, mail, etc), and the confirmation number, if they give me one. 

**ADVICE:  I recommend you ALWAYS do this and ALWAYS demand a confirmation number.  There have been too many times that a bill collector has called me saying that I haven't paid a bill and I've had to give them this information because they're system made a mistake.**

I plan on keeping the paid bills for two years, because I know the second I throw them away, I'm going to need them for something.  (That's the hoarder in me coming out.)

This is the end product:

You can purchase printable labels if you want the writing to be prettier, but I just wrote them out.  I find that the printable labels are a pain in the neck.  Also, I don't have a printer.

This project was relatively easy.  I just had to get motivated enough to sit down and do it.  And also prepare myself to face how much money we're going to have to spend in the next couple weeks.  Blech.

The Pinterest Diaries

I figured that I could put my Pinterest addiction to good use, and have decided that while I'm on maternity leave, I will try to do one thing from Pinterest a day, then when I go back to work, one thing per week.  It's better than all those pins just sitting there doing nothing.  I will do my best to document everything I do.  Hopefully they won't turn into Pinterest fails.

Work it out, yo!

For those that don't know, I had a baby a couple of months ago. She's adorable. Here is proof:

Before having this gorgeous child, I wasn't skinny. I wasn't even thick. I was fat. Still am. Pretty much always have been, really. But I'm cool with it. I'm italian, I love pasta, pizza, and really anything with marinara sauce on it. My dad blessed me with sizable hips that will never go away. So after having this gorgeous child, my size hasn't really changed. My 2 year old, Zibby, is starting to imitate what she sees, and I want her to develop the healthy eating that I never did. I figured now is as good a time as any to get my ass in gear. I've been really bearing down for almost 2 weeks now, and as of last Thursday (my "weigh in day"), I'm down 4 1/2 pounds. Why Thursdays, you ask? Because that's the day I usually go over to my parents, and they have a scale. It works out. Anyhoo, I found this workout on Pinterest (of course) and gave it a go:

I did a variation on it, as I am also doing 30 minute walks, either on the treadmill or outside, so I skipped the 15 minute mile, and I also skipped the squats, as my knee, from taking over 15 years of pitching fastpitch softball, will not allow me. But I completed everything else. In doing this list of exercises, I realized that even after all these years, wall sits still suck. Afterwards, I sat down on the couch and enjoyed a delicious smoothie. I sat with Zib, and we enjoyed a quick segment from the Jimmy Fallon show from the DVR. I went to get up to start a load of laundry, and could barely move. My legs were saying "F you, lady!" I slowly knelt to the ground, wherein Zib started to laugh at me, thinking that I was being a silly mommy. Somehow, I think Mike has trained Zib to laugh at me in situations where I look silly, so that in his absence, SOMEONE will be laughing at me. I finally got the strength to stand up. Once I started moving, I was fine. We even went out for a walk and enjoyed the sunshine. But wall sits still suck.

Welcome!

Hiya! With this being my first post, I should probably tell you a little about myself and what the mission of this blog is intending to be. Most of you (if not all) reading this blog know me, so I'll keep it short and sweet. I'm 30, was born and raised in Spokane, WA, have two beautiful daughters, Zibby (almost 2 at the time of this writing), and Aria (2 months), and engaged to Mike. I love cooking italian food, eating, being Italian, painting, Disney, White Russians, laughing, baking, and my family. I also have a boderline-dangerous addiction to Pinterest. But, in future posts, that will come to light, I'm sure. The mission, or point, of this blog is many things. I like to write, and since as of right now, I am a stay-at-home mom because of maternity leave, I don't get a whole lot of adult interaction. I have a lot of conversations in my head. This is a way to talk about all the things that I want to talk about without bugging Mike about crafts, or that cool recipe I saw on Pinterest, or the crazy lady that I ran into at the store. Because let's be honest...like most men, unless you are talking about sports, bacon, or video games, Mike pretty much checks out. So hopefully with this blog, you can get a few tips on things, find a few recipes, and laugh. A lot. Because I'm, like, way funny. Enjoy!