Sippy Cup: Man with Yellow Hat party decor

So pretty much this week has turned into "link up to Kojo" week. But I wanted to show you another idea we used recently... and it just happened to work perfectly for Kirst's Curious George Shower (just like the Banana Puddin-tinis did).

It's the perfect craft to do with you little ones and decorate for a birthday party, costume party, or in our case a baby shower, that involves some kind of hat theme (Curious George, or what about cowboy/cowgirl/western/toy story party? Wouldn't that be fun?)! Even better, it's cheap (dollar store cheap) and easy (again, perfect with a little-r one).

I first saw the idea here . It's one of those ones that you see and think "how brilliant!... why have I never thought of this before?".  It'd be a great way to set the table for a party (like Sarah did on her blog), or a fun way to decorate cake stands, tables, and apothecary jars (like Kirst did).

Here's how to make it so it goes on top of an apothecary jar/cake dome/whatever else might stick up:
1. Wrap a yellow cup with electrical tape or brown vinyl (we couldn’t find any electrical tape). You might have to make several slits for it to sit right.
2. Cut an “x” in the middle of a yellow plate. *careful with your little with the cutting, but you already knew that:)
3. Tape the cup in place over the “x” using packing tape (put a little on the inside of each side of the cup).
4. Slide the top of your apothecary jar or cake dome through the “x” cut.

(obviously to just use it as a placesetting or to put across a hurricane there's no need for cutting "x"s.)

Like I said, cheap, easy, quick, adorable...perfection.

Can you think of another use for these little hats?

**for more details about the shower and other decorations Kirst used, check them out here**

Sips Launch Party: Chocolate Stirring Spoons

Happy Monday! 

Hope your weekends were restful, productive, fun, or whatever you were expecting them to be, and more. (Adam's and mine was a mixture of productive and fun--not a lot of resting involved, but there's always next weekend for that.) Did you get around to trying out the Sam Adam's Winter Variety Pack or the Pumpkin Chai "Martini"? What did you think?

This week we have a few more details to share with you from our Launch Party and a couple of other surprises in store for you.

But today, we thought sharing how to make Chocolate Covered Stirring Spoons might make your Monday a bit more exciting.

We hope we were right...

You might have seen the original idea on pinterest, like I did. (I've found I spend most of my free time browsing these pages...). I thought they would be a great idea for the favors for our Launch Party.

 But, unlike a lot of the ideas I get on pinterest, I actually followed through with these, and I'm so glad I did.

So if you want to do it too, Here's what you need:

Plastic Spoons

Melting Chocolate

Toppings of your choosing

***Kirstin will laugh that I'm writing this on here, but I was super self-conscious about it at the party, so I want to share with you. Don't choose your toppings based on what goes well with chocolate. You'll see I chose to top some spoons with pretzels and peanuts...good in chocolate BUT NOT IN HOT CHOCOLATE OR COFFEE, gross. So learn from my mistakes so you don't get embarrassed come party time.***

Here's how to do it:

First spread out your spoons in a line on top of wax paper (for easy clean-up)

Melt your chocolate according to package directions

Using a spoon, drizzle melted chocolate onto each spoon.

My chocolate probably wasn't as smooth as it should have been, but I just tapped the bottom of each filled spoon as I went, and it smoothed out just fine.

After filling the spoons, top with whatever toppings you chose.

Again, I suggest avoiding peanuts and pretzels.

Let cool until hardened.

Then, if giving away as favors or gifts (wouldn't this be a fun Christmas present idea too?), wrap each in a baggy, and tie closed with a ribbon. You can even tie on a label if you feel like going the extra mile.

And that's it!

 Very low maintenance, and very cute--which is usually what we go for around here!

Fun, huh?

The "Recommended by YOU" Bar at our Sips Launch Party

Saturday was our Sips Etc Launch Party!

To say it was fun would be quite the understatement.

Kirstin and I had such a good time planning and decorating and creating, and TheAdams would probably admit they had fun coming up with their contributions too.

You can see more details about it here, but I can tell you that it included lots of fun Sips- a Latte Bar, a Pumpkin Chai Martini (with a twist), an H2O Bar, and homemade cider.

And of course we had some great Bites- delicious dips, and fried pickles, and all kinds of red and white sweet treats like red velvet whoopie pies, red velvet cupcakes, Red Vines, and an assortment of other red and white candy.

Lots of these things will show up as tutorials in the coming weeks, but today we wanted to highlight one of our favorite features: the "Recommended by YOU" bar.

The invites requested that each guest (or couple) bring their favorite drink to share. It could vary anywhere between your favorite beer or wine (Moscato was Kirstin's recommendation), to your favorite flavor of Izzes (Grapefruit? Pomegranate? That's a tough one), or even Diet Coke (my recommendation). Katie even brought hot apple cider. In a percolator. That's dedication!

To prep for the bar, Kirstin made a "Recommended by YOU" sign so guests knew exactly where to put their drinks.

She also made little tags that said "Recommended by" with a space for the guest to write their name so everyone knew who brought what.

 

Guests tied their label to their drink with a color coordinated ribbon so that everyone's recommendations were clear. And of course, we had several Sharpies on hand for proper labeling!

Not only did it look great (if we can say so ourselves), but it was fun to try people's favorite drinks, and made for a great conversation piece.

Throwing parties this holiday season? 

Might we suggest that you add a "Recommended by YOU" bar to your party plan?