New look for designed by Diana!

I had been toying with a new look for designed by Diana for a while now. I loved my previous logo, but I felt it was too much about the aprons. Though I still love my retro aprons, I feel that I've expanded to so many other things. I didn't want to be boxed in as the apron girl, when I'm also the baking girl, and the running girl.

Thankfully with FL Blog Con looming, it gave me the jump start I needed to get moving with a design overhaul for designed by Diana.

I know I wanted something clean and simple, just highlighting designed by Diana. I've been on a green kick lately, and I love me some grey, so I went out hunting.

Luckily Danielle over at Sometimes Sweet had recently redone her blog with one of the templates from 17th Avenue Designs. I visited their site after seeing Danielle's clean simple new layout and fell in love. This is exactly the kind of things I was looking for. And installing this template would be a LOT easier than trying to figure this all out myself, as I had in the past.

I went over to the site, found a great template and a few add-ons that I knew would make my site feel more me. I'm loving the result!

How do you like the new designed by Diana?

(NOTE: I was not compensated for this nor did I receive my template for free. I just really loved it.)

Bright ruffly 1st birthday

Last weekend was a whirlwind of activity, but all worth it to celebrate my niece, Veronica's, first birthday!

Veronica's mom, Kris, is one of my best friends and we have planned tons of parties via the internet, and this one was no exception. We went with a bright and ruffles theme and just went from there. I think this is the first party that we've done with Pinterest in our lives, so there were tons of Pinterest ideas everywhere.

Here's the food table. Kris found some bedskirts at the thrift store and knew they would be perfect tablecloths. We kept the food simple, chicken and tuna salad sandwiches, pb&j for the kids, popcorn chicken, meatballs, chips, fruit and cupcakes, some M&Ms and lollipops.

 

First Kris dyed the lemons for the lemonade. They came out pretty good. Just a little food color and soak for a bit.

I brought my cake decorating supplies to make the ruffle cupcakes. I think they came out pretty good for being my first try. My wrist was aching after frosting about 40 cupcakes though.

Kris made this adorable lollipop tree. Xander couldn't wait til he was allowed to dig in and have a lollipop.

Kris and Eddie made these adorable clothespin people. They spelled out "Happy 1st Birthday Veronica,"so cute. I, of course, sewed up about 10 feet of this colorful bunting.

 

And I made the matching ruffle tablecloth. I was so happy that Kris loved the tablecloth. And it was so funny that without even consulting about the colors, we used the same ones. I'm telling you, sometimes we share a brain.

And before the party was over, the birthday girl put on her ruffle butt diaper cover. It's so much cuter to see it on her, don't you think? I think the chubby baby legs just make it so much more adorable.

 

And here's the happy family. (I told Eddie he needs to shrink to get them all in the frame!) I just love these guys. I can't wait til the next time we get together.

How did you like the bright ruffly birthday party?

Grandma's birthday hat party

I'm back in home and I can't wait to share all of the pics and stories from my trip. I'm currently sorting through and editing my over 1000 pictures, so the Paris posts (yes, multiple posts) will be up starting later this week.

But first, I want to share all the fun we had at Grandma's birthday party on Sunday. Grandma's birthday was actually on August 27th, but since I was in Paris, we had the party once I got back.

Grandma mentioned a little bit ago that we should have a hat party. So Mom and I ran with the idea and decided to throw her a southern-style ladies luncheon birthday party, hats required. We decorated with a floral theme, and instead of traditional pink, we used the colors teal, lime and lilac.

apparently the dining room fits 20 people

As everyone arrived we started out with some champagne punch and homemade cheese straws. They were both so yummy and a made a great little appetizer.

Grandma's sisters, sisters-in-law, nieces and grandnieces came to the luncheon, there were 20 of us. They came in their hats and looked totally fabulous. We all chatted as we drank punch and munched on the cheese straws. Then, we all sat down for lunch.

For lunch, we served a southern menu of fried chicken, smashed potatoes, veggies, salad and cornbread. We also had big pitchers of lemonade to quench everyone's thirst.

I love seeing all of the hats!

For dessert I served up some of my Super Easy Peach Cobbler. I made a way bigger batch (2 large pans worth, actually). I topped the warm cobbler with vanilla ice cream. It was a total hit, everyone loved it.

There was great food, great people and tons of laughs. We all had a wonderful time and got to share with family all while enjoying a delicious lunch. Grandma loved that so many people were able to come celebrate with her.

Mom and I love to throw a party, and were so happy to have this one for Grandma. Finally, here Mom and I are with the birthday girl.

Felicidades Abuela!!

Mom's 60th Birthday Beatles Party

So it's finally done! I've been super busy the last few weeks with work and secretly planning my Mom's 60th Birthday Party! Mom loves the Beatles (and so do I) so a 60s Beatles themed party was perfect!

Last minute it got a little hectic, since Mom stopped by my house while we went to pick up the cake and saw some of the food. But luckily, we got it under control and she was still surprised when she got there.

But let's start at the beginning. First was the invitation. I took the album cover (yes album, not CD!) of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and altered it. I covered all of the faces with my Mom's pics. The Beatles in the front are Pop (as John), Angel (as Ringo), Mom (as Paul) and Richard (as George). Now I couldn't let my brothers have all the fun, so I put Grandma and myself in there too. I also added Grandpa, Angelito (my Mom's brother) and Mama and Papa in the background.

The invite wording had to be Beatles-y too, so I incorporated 7 song titles (and some lyrics at the bottom) to let everyone know about the party. Even the people that weren't able to come were totally psyched about the invite.

I themed out the food to all have Beatles song names as well. This got kinda hard when it came to the croquetas, but I figured it out. We had: Let It Brie, Chips & Glass Onion Dip, Octopus's Garden Potato Salad, Wild Quiche-y Pie, Cheese Please Me Taquitos, And Your Bird Can Wing, Piggies, Because the World Needs Croquetas, Something Bocaditos, and Happiness is a Warm Meatball.

The decor was pretty easy, just making sure my colors (teal, red, orange and yellow) were out there. I floated some balloons in the pool (which all got caught in the tubing for the vacuum), and with $2 worth of tissue paper, I made tissue paper tissue paper pom poms. You can see a couple under the slide.

 

I also placed a few pom poms underneath the tables on either end of the pool area. These tables got yellow tablecloths, which was a bit of a mission, since I had to cut them to get around the unbrella poles.

I pulled out the pop-up tent (to protect us in case of rain) and put the food under there. I had initially planned another table for the desserts, but the threat of rain all day on the news had me scared, so I kept it to one table. I did use the lanterns I bought for the cousins party on the tent again. I also put up some streamers behind the food table, but the humidity made them droopy.

The favors were fun but simple, love beads and buttons. I had buttons for each Beatle and ones that said Rosie's 60th too. Having a button maker does have its advantages. And everyone got into it and put on their buttons and chose which beatle they wanted to represent.

Of course it wouldn't be a Beatles party without the music, so I had all of my Beatles music on repeat throughout the party. Everyone loved hearing their favorite hits. And I had my Mom's (and some of my brother's) original Beatles records out on display.

I asked my guests to come in Beatles chic/retro 60s attire, and they didn't disappoint. I had some hippies, greasers, preppies and awesome mod girls. I went for the girls waiting for Beatlemania look. I even brought over some clothes for Mom, so she could change and be in fashion for the 60s!

One of the highlights of the night was the photobooth. I found this great free software on Curbly.com that made the photobooth super easy. Even my great aunts and uncles had a great time in the booth. The pics are so awesome. The software is for Macs, but all you need is a printer and a computer and you're good to go.

After we had all the photobooth fun, it was cake time! I had some desserts in addition to the cake: Apple Records, Strawberry Fields Forever, Marmalade Skies Cookies and Marshmallow Pies.

The Birthday cake was so fun. I had it made at Publix and it came out so cute. I wanted something more than just the regular cake we usually get to make it special.

 

After the cake we watched a video I made of Mom's pictures, from when she was a baby until now. Everyone loved seeing the pics. Then, like they did in New York back in the day, Mom opened all of her presents.

It was a great party. Mom loved it, she told me she just wished she could have helped with the planning. I'm so glad she had a good time and everyone else did too. 

I gotta thank everyone that helped me: my assistant photographer and sneak Mom around guy, Pop.

My beer and ice procurer, as well as sneak around the house and get stuff before Mom notices partner, Angel and my sneaky partner-in-crime, Abuela.

Happy Birthday MOM!! Here's to many many more!

Surprise 50th Celebration

It was one of my co-worker's 50th birthday last week, so we wanted to do a little more than the usual cake. We decided to have a breakfast party (with cake as dessert).

our delicious breakfast (with pastelitos & Colombian empandas!)

We found some cute decorations online from the party store. But when I went to the store to buy them, the store was closed. Can you believe they close at 8:30pm on Wednesday nights? What is up with that? Since we had already ordered the cake in the same colors, I decided to DIY it and headed to the dollar store and made some other decorations at home with the help of Photoshop.

Here is my 99 cent wall (actually about $4 worth). Since there were no pink and black streamers, I got some white ones and added a pink and black ribbon to make sure our colors were there.

Here's where the Photoshop magic happened. I made these from scratch on Photoshop. I think I'm getting a little better at Photoshopping, cause the three different designs I used took me less than an hour to create. And I modified them to make them all a little special. 

At last, the cake. It was custom made to match our decor by Cake Designs by JC. My friend has most of her special occasion cakes made by him. His cakes are beautiful and delicious, I can see why she keeps going back to him.

 

So here's the room all ready for the party to start. Not to bad for some DIY and dollar store goodies. See you can make a party on any budget, you just need to know how and where to use your dollars.