Giraffe Baby Shower

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We made a trip to the zoo last week, and the giraffe’s were a favorite among our kids. The tall beauties have been loved by Jessica’s son for a long time. Thanks to Sylvia Strauss of Special Events and photographer Finishing Touch Roelien Visser, now we know they can be the inspiration behind a pretty baby shower, too.

Sylvia was inspired by the blue and yellow color of the striped flower pots on the table. Of course we love the DIY details, such as the wool letters and the spray painted plastic animals.

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VENDOR LOVE

Venue: Mountain Breeze Stellenbosch
Cookies: Krummelkuns
Decor & Planning: Special Events
Photographer:  Finishing Touch Roelien Visser

 

DIY Marbled Coasters & DIY Yarn Wall Hanging

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We are still dreaming orange and blue from our Super Bowl 50 Broncos party yesterday. If you haven’t seen it, take the time. It’s got it all – fashion, pretty girls {Jodi and Kaitlin from The Every Hostess}, a bar cart with really good Vodka and a special cocktail recipe.

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As promised here’s DIY #1 from the shoot yesterday, DIY Bronco Marbled Coasters.

Keep reading for the second tutorial – DIY Yarn Wall Hangings.

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Materials:

  • 4X4 white tile, The Home Depot
  • Nail polish
  • Disposable Container
  • Warm water
  • Toothpick
  • Disposable Gloves
  • Felt pads

Directions

Fill a throw-away container with really warm water.

Drop 4-8 drops of nail polish into the water. We chose to do one color for each coaster.

Swirl the polish in a swift manner with the toothpick. Quickly, dip the entire coaster into the water with your gloves on. Once the coaster dips under the water, it will ‘collect’ all the polish.

Pull the coaster up out of the water. The nail polish will be swirled on top. Let them air-dry.

Once dry, add felt pads to the bottom.

Add them to your serving tray or bar cart.

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Love the pop of color from the coasters. They make for a lovely hostess gift, too.

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Finally, here’s tutorial #2 from our Super Bowl party – DIY Yarn Wall Hangings.

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Materials:

  • Yarn
  • Wire hangers
  • Scissors

Directions:

Cut long strands of yarn.

Decide on a color pattern, or see where your creativity takes you as you go.

To tie it onto the hanger, fold the yarn in half, and loop it through. No glue needed. Tighten the knot.

Repeat until the hanger is covered.

Lay the hanger on a smooth surface and straighten all the yarn ends. Cut the ends of the yarn at different angles.

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We like all the pretty stuff and looking good, but we get really into the game too! Go Broncos!

Cheers!

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VENDOR LOVE
Photographer: Meredith Moran | @meredithmoranphoto
Clothing and Jewelry: Denver Street Boutique @denverstreetboutique
Cocktail: 10th Mountain Whiskey & Spirit | @10thmtnwhiskey
Event Stylist: J. Sorelle | @jsorelle3 and The Every Hostess | @theeveryhostess
Models: Jodi, the beautiful brunette of J. Sorelle | @jsorelle3 and Kaitlin, the bombshell blonde of The Every Hostess |  @theeveryhostess
Bar CartWest Elm
DIY coaster and yarn wall hangings: J. Sorelle

A Super Bowl Party for the Ladies

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The men in our lives {and our mom} LOVE football. We love sports in general, but on Super Bowl Sunday, we expect the men to sit all day to watch pre-game, game and post-game coverage. With our hometown team, the Denver Broncos, in Super Bowl 50 the whole family will be wearing orange and blue with all eyes watching. Not just for the half-time show and commercials, but to cheer on our boys.

With the exception of Jenna, we like football, too. As women who watch football, we can make any game a fun event for us and our girlfriends! To prove this, we teamed up with fashionista and party planner Kaitlin of The Every Hostess, Lindsey, the chic and sweet owner of Denver Street Boutique {its fabulous fashion on wheels}, our go-to photographer Meredith Moran Photography and our favorite local distillery 10th Mountain Whiskey & Spirit. We couldn’t resist a few DIY’s for the party either.

Here’s some tips for all you ladies throwing a Super Bowl party.

What to wear?
Wear your team’s colors. We cheer for Bronco orange and blue, the whole way through, so Lindsey helped us find cute orange and blue options without wearing a jersey. Jodi paired her long blue sweater with slits on the side, with white jeans, booties and Bourbon and Boweties stone bracelets.

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Kaitlin paired a blue and orange chunky knit sweater with jeans and booties. Her wrists were adorned with stunning bracelets…plus she had a pretty braid.

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Lindsey’s biggest piece of advice for all your ladies is, “Stylish comfort,” she says. “Without wearing sweats you can watch the game and not feel constricted!”
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Follow Denver Street Boutique on Instagram to see where she will be, so you can shop for the game {and everyday after}. She will be at iThrive women’s marketplace on Saturday from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

What cocktail to serve?
Make a specialty cocktail. One of favorite stops in Vail is the 10th Mountain Whiskey & Spirit tasting room. If you’re ever in Vail, make it a point to visit their beautiful tasting room and raise a glass. Their alcohol is a must-have on our bar cart. We’re Whiskey girls at heart! We take after our dad on that one, but we went with Vodka for this shoot because well, we wanted an orange drink. Jodi named this cocktail Bronco Babe. It’s a delicious cocktail with a bright orange color and it has sherbet – yum!

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Bronco Babe Cocktail 
serves 2

Ingredients:

  • 1-2 cans orange Izze, chilled
  • 2 large shots of 10th Mountain Vodka {or more – based on preference}
  • Orange Sherbet
  • Ice
  • California Cuties or orange slices, blueberries for garnish

Directions:

Add 1-2 scoops Sherbet per glass.

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Pour the 10th Mountain Vodka. We just poured, but it was probably 1-2 shots per glass.

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Pour 1/2 can Izze per cup, or more if you want.

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Add garnish. We added a touch of blue with blueberries on a gold star toothpick, and another touch of orange with a slice of orange on the rim of the glass.

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Cheers.

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A drink is always better with friends, don’t you think?

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How to decorate?
You can throw a Super Bowl party without spending a lot of money. Don’t go overboard – keep it simple and pretty.

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Incorporate color and current trends. Balloons are an easy and cheap way to add a pop of color. Buy your teams colors, blow them up or add helium.

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Weaving art and yarn banners {the ones that were big in the 70s} are trendy now. We incorporated fashion with a white hanger, and bright colors and pattern with blue, orange and white yarn. Here’s the tutorial for this affordable DIY art.

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Incorporate DIY details. A simple way to add color and pattern to a bar cart or serving tray is with coasters. We made DIY Marbled Coasters for the shoot with orange and blue nail polish. You can {and should} make them. Follow the tutorial here.

© 2015 Meredith Moran Photography

How cute are those DIY field goal drink stirrers made with popsicle sticks painted yellow, and of course the DIY football pennant drink stirrers?

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Another easy way to add your team’s colors to party decor is with edible foods. For a touch of orange on the tray, we couldn’t resist California Cuties and orange Tic-Tacs.

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The invite list can include little furry friends, too. As long as they are well-behaved and smell good, like Winston.

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VENDOR LOVE
Photographer: Meredith Moran | @meredithmoranphoto
Clothing and Jewelry: Denver Street Boutique | @denverstreetboutique
Vodka: 10th Mountain Whiskey & Spirit | @10thmtnwhiskey
Event Stylist: J. Sorelle | @jsorelle3 and The Every Hostess | @theeveryhostess
Models: Jodi, the beautiful brunette of J. Sorelle | @jsorelle3 and Kaitlin, the bombshell blonde of The Every Hostess |  @theeveryhostess
Bar Cart: West Elm
DIY coaster and yarn wall hangings: J. Sorelle

 

Lashes or Staches Gender Reveal Baby Shower

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Jessica couldn’t get enough potato chips, clementine oranges and egg salad with her pregnancies. Jenna loved candy – Twix and frozen Snickers to be exact – while pregnant with her boys. Jodi devoured vanilla ice cream on a nightly basis with both her kiddos.

This Staches and Lashes gender reveal baby shower is so adorable, and has a salty and sweet food spread pregnant women dream of…and a touch of gold sparkle which satisfies, well, everyone!

Momtastic has all the details here!

Thanks to Sylvia at Special Events for sharing all the details, and Lizelle Lotter Photography for sharing the beautiful photos with us.

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4th of July Picnic with Astrobrights Papers

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Growing up with sisters, we shared many experiences together. We shared closets and fought about clothing daily. We shared cars as we made the 45-minute commute back and forth to school. We shared a bed every Christmas Eve before we awoke to presents under the tree. We lived and studied abroad in Florence, Italy. We were teammates on our High School tennis team. We stood next to each other at each other’s weddings.

But, our most recent endeavor is our most favorite. We became moms…together. Our children span from 6-years-old down to 7-months-old, and our children now have the amazing gift of growing up with their cousins.

Now, we text and talk in the wee hours of the morning as we breastfeed our babies. We share photos and videos as our kids take their first steps. We relate to being totally and utterly exhausted, yet blissfully happy when we see our children smile. And, we are overcome with joy when we see our children playing together.

Our children are blessed to spend every holiday together. Watching the fireworks together on July 4th is one of our favorites. So, when presented with an opportunity to plan a 4th of July picnic with ASTROBRIGHTS® Papers, a line of vibrant color paper, we were delighted to bring our families together to celebrate. Armed with a stack of red, white and blue paper, sharp scissors and a really big donut, an Independence Day picnic can be really fun, inexpensive and absolutely adorable.

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Here are some of the details we used to #Colorize our red, white and blue picnic!

INCORPORATE FUN FACTS

We wanted to educate our children, and talk about the history of our fine country. So, we incorporated facts about the U.S.A into our picnic. We used the round labels on top of the mason jars, and to seal our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

The round labels with interesting facts are available for FREE. Click here for the free printable.

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LEARN ABOUT AMERICAN GEOGRAPHY AND ALL 50 STATES

We learned a little geography 101 prepping for this picnic. We wanted to incorporate the shape of good ‘ole U.S.A and all the states that make up this fine country in our picnic. So, we cut, and cut, and cut some more. You can find the shape of the U.S.A, as well as all 50 states for free online. Our Silhouette electronic cutter came to the rescue when our eyes were blurry at 1 a.m.

Who doesn’t love a gigantic donut?! Cut outs of the 50 states on toothpicks were positioned all over the donut. So, as the kids devoured, we talked about the shape of the states.

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We made DIY patriotic paper fans, both large and small, with ASTROBRIGHTS® Papers. Click here for the full tutorial. We used the fans to cover the wagon wheels, and decorate the wagon handle. Each fan represented the U.S.A with a cut out of the country in the center.

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All the picnic essentials were made of paper, of course. Follow this tutorial to make a DIY paper chip bag {we used 8×8 paper}. We sealed the chip bag with a cut out of the USA. The blueberries were propped up in a paper cone, and each child had their own brown paper bag with their name stamped at the bottom of it. Everyone was happy!

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A paper cut out of the U.S.A served as our sparklers sleeve, and the perfect decorative stakes around our picnic site. We covered match boxes with red, white and blue stars and stripes because you can’t light a sparkler without a flame, and a matchbox on July 4th isn’t a matchbox unless it’s red, white and blue.

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PLAN AN ACTIVITY

The most important part of our country’s Independence Day is to remember, honor and thank the men and women that serve our country. Their sacrifice is more than we can imagine, and our children may not know first-hand what it’s like to live in a military family, but they do need to understand that we always need to take the time to thank our military, no matter how big or small our thank you may be. With this free printable from Fleur de Lis, you can print these postcards, draw a photo on the back and mail them to someone in service. Or, they can be dropped off at a military establishment. Click here for the free printable.

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CELEBRATE WITH STARS & STRIPES

No 4th of July picnic is complete without our flag’s stars and stripes. We covered a Radio Flyer wagon with the American flag, then accessorized with paper.

We had the perfect setting under a large Willow tree, and our hanging stars made it all the more festive. The stars are easy to make. Learn how to make them here.

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We created DIY flags for the kids with a large USA on top and flowing strings of red and white paper stripes below. The kids loved to run around with their flag banners.

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May the stars and stripes forever fly, and may you have a wonderful, sparkling July 4th!

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You can find more inspiration and ideas to COLORIZE your life at COLORIZE.tumblr.com and the following social feeds.

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Thanks to Meredith Moran Photography for spending the evening with us and our crazy families to capture these photos.