Old Mirror - New Chalkboard!

I came into contact with this old beautiful mirror a little while ago. The only problem? There was no glass in it any longer. It sat in my living room for months just waiting to be re-purposed but I couldn't figure out what to do with it.

 Here is the before:

After much thinking, I painted it with chalkboard paint I had left over in the garage and took off to find the perfect poem. Here is the final result and it was not as hard as you would think! I found a tutorial that suggested keeping the chalkboard damp as you wrote on it and I would suggest it too. It made the writing neater and easier to continue the writing. 

Hallway Collage

After seeing so many amazing posts with canvas collages, I knew I needed to do one ASAP in my upstairs hallway. You can see this wall from downstairs as well, so it had to look fabulous. I found a couple great collages and waited for a good coupon to come my way.

Well the day came last week when I received 70% off of an online canvas people site and I went on my way with ordering. Imagine my frustration though when every.single.collage I pinned had a size canvas on it that this company did not offer! So to my computer I went and worked hard to find a good amount of canvas that would fit my wall while utilizing the coupon I needed.

Here was the result! I am so happy with it (see below for dimensions)

My wall is 88" long 

The two outer pictures are 16x16

The next ones are 11x11

And the large center one is 18x24

I hope this helps someone else on their canvas design journey!

Little Mermaid 5th birthday

Last weekend was my daughter's 5th birthday and we decided to go all out for it. We even had Ariel attending the royal celebration!  I searched all over pinterest for ideas for a classy, fun, beautiful party and here was the outcome!

Royal guests were directed into the clubhouse. I made this sign from scrap wood, some tulle, and flowers with shells glued inside for a beach effect.

Once inside, the royal guests were able to select wands and crowns (for the girls) while the boys were able to pick out an eye patch and sword.

The dessert table was a huge success! I worked on cupcakes with brown sugar on top and chocolate shells all week. The chocolate shells were very easy to make with molding chocolate (bought at a local craft store) and a plastic mold also bought at the craft store. I handmade the seaweed as well. This was probably the easiest part of the party! I found tulle type material at the local fabric store (on clearance even) and cut into long strips. I tried to make the edges uneven for a better seaweed effect. Then I took the strands and sewed a straight line down the middle so it would bunch up. Looked great and got a ton of compliments on it!

The blue cups are actually blue jello with a sweetish fish inside. Also easy to make and were a big hit. Just take blue jello, refrigerate, and right before serving cut a slit in the top and place the fish inside.

 

The marshmallow octopus were not hard to make at all but, were time consuming. Making sure all parts of the marshmallow was covered and making sure the legs were long enough to show after the marshmallow was placed on top. I did these 2 days before and stored in an air tight container.

 

Rock candy made a nice effect to the table and the bonus was I didn't have to do anything to it other than place in a nice cup!

Stained and decorated treasure chest with the party favors in and around. I decided on small sand toys along with a bottlecap necklace for each kid. The girls had princesses to chose from while the boys had pirate necklaces.