Some rocking recognition!

I'm happy to report that the party planning website 'Catch My Party' has featured Alex's Rock Star party! Check this fun website out, they have tons of great party planning ideas!

Thank you to Jillian and the staff at Catch My Party!

A big rock star Celebration

My little man turns 6 this Thursday and we decided to celebrate in style. Since he was a little boy he has loved to dance, play instruments and sing so what better way to celebrate his special day then with a rock star theme!

Some of you may think that Justin Bieber has only affected the young girls but that's not true! My son and several of his little guy friends think he is the greatest. There is no better way to get my son to light up them to mistake him for a young Justin Bieber....! So to start the party off we created a 'step and retake' like at the Hollywood premieres. We had a red carpet, Hollywood stars with all the kids names in them, a backdrop and of course Justin.

After the kids had their photos taken they were given an all access VIP pass which guaranteed them unlimited candy and entertainment.

It is August so of course we had lots of swimming going on along with custom order snow cones for the kids.

No child can ever leave a party without lots of sugar so we made sure to cover our bases along with some fun items to remember Alex's party like Rock star lip gloss and pencils. My son also LOVES Jones Soda so I had custom labels made for him that turned out awesome!






Over the dessert table I got these great 36 inch balloons (thank you Shop Sweet Lu Lu) and also made two newspaper pom poms.


Of course what is a party without cupcakes and cake. I made the guitar cake with the help of Duff's cake kit and found this fun idea online for microphone cupcakes that turned out pretty cool!

Alex loved his cake so all the time to make it was totally worth it....


The centerpieces also turned out pretty cute! I ordered a pick punch online and made custom guitar pics with Alex's face on them and from pieces of the invitation. They made perfect confetti for the tables!


Thank you to everyone who helped make this such a memorable party for Alex. Lots of work went into this party from family and friends. A special thanks to all the vendors who made it possible and were so helpful. If you are interested in finding certain items from this party here are the main vendors I used:

Invitations, labels, VIP passes and soda labels done by DeanWorks on Etsy. (Kara from DeanWorks was extremely friendly and helpful!)

Balloons, cupcake holders, straws and goody bags are from Shop Sweet Lu Lu

The pails and containers holding the candy are from JoAnn's.

Rocker duckies, tattoos, and blow up guitars were from Oriental Trading Co.

Lipgloss and rocker pencils from Michael's.

Guitar pics were made with the help of Pick Punch.

I made the cake and cupcakes with help from Duff's cake kit at Michael's.

All of the amazing photos are from Sarah B Photography and my sister in law Cristina DaSilva.

Happy birthday to my beautiful baby boy!!!!!!

Girl's Night Out

My good friend Mellissa just started selling for 31 Gifts so I offered to host a party so I could get some great hostess gifts, and what better excuse for a wine and dessert party!

If you aren't familiar with 31 gifts I highly recommend you check them out, I know have accumulated quite the collection and have 3 or 4 bags in my car at all time. I especially like the bags that double as a cooler to have in the car or when I take Alex to soccer practice.

Lately several of the blogs I follow were discussing desserts in a jar so I decided to give it a try. I made triple chocolate brownies in 4 ounce mason jars and topped them with a buttercream frosting with salted caramel. These were the hit of the party and looked so cute! The 4 ounce jars were the perfect serving size and also very convenient for the girls to take one home for their hubbies. When searching for recipe ideas I came across this site that has 15 different idea for desserts in a jar, I took their idea for the salted caramel brownies and tweaked it just a bit.


I also whipped up some pink champagne cupcakes that turned out pretty but taste wise just couldn't compete with the salted caramel brownies. I also found a beautiful apothecary jar at Michael's that I filled with dark chocolate wafer cookies from Trader Joe's. It was definitely a night full of my favorite things - sugar, chocolate, wine and great friends.

Beach babies

A recent trip to the beach gave me a chance to take some great photos. Lucky for me my sister in law, who is an amazing photographer up in Canada, gave me some tips on editing my photos. I am really happy with the new tricks I learned.

All of these are done on the FREE program of Picasa which is a google program.

This one was done using 'focus' color. You turn the photo black and white and then choose what area you want featured in color. I love this photo of her, makes her look like Ms. America!

Me and my mini me! I love the soft glow effect.

Got some great new photos of me and my love.

My niece Livy came to visit for a few days. The girls were so darling together and I got some really beautiful shots of them. Just love it!

Learning all these new tricks will come in handy for Alex's big birthday party coming up. Lots of 'Rockstar' photos coming soon!