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

 

Coloring Outside the Lines

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We are big fans of Sex and the City. We remember so many lines and favorites scenes from the sexual and charming sitcom. One in particular made us laugh, and inspired today’s DIY project.

In the first Sex and the City movie, while at lunch, the ladies were talking about sex, as a result of Miranda’s dry spell with Steve. Charlotte’s daughter was at lunch, so the ladies had to use code for the word sex. Remember this scene?

It went a little something like this…

Miranda: How often do you guys…
Carrie: “color”?
Samantha: Well, I can’t color enough. I would color all day, everyday if I had my way. I’d use every crayon in my box. 
Carrie: We get it, you love to color. 

When asked how often she and Big colors, Carrie replied: But I will tell you this. When Big colors, he rarely stays inside the lines.

So, naturally we made translated this scene into a DIY project. An ordinary white mug was transformed into a DIY black and white heart mug with a colorful, marbled handle, and filled with bright markers!

The message here is either a PG-13/R rated version about sex and coloring outside the lines in bed. If this is your goal, this DIY black and white heart mug is a funny gift to give girlfriends about “coloring” with their man, in a #howoftendoyoucolor kind of way.

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The G rated message of this DIY black and white heart mug can be more inspirational – in a black and white world, be the person who adds color. Be bold. Be yourself. Color the world with bright colors, happiness and kindness. Color the world pretty.

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Even if you’re not a Sex and the City fan, coloring is all the rage for kids and adults these days, so this would make for a great Valentine’s Day gift, birthday gift, or overall fun gift for a friend. Combine it with a pretty notebook, and write your message inside the notebook. #coloroutsidethelines #howoftendoyoucolor #sexandthecityforever #takethetimetocolor #colortheworldpretty #nevertoooldtocolor

Materials:

Directions:

Design a small heart with the Silhouette editing software. Print the mini hearts on the vinyl, following instructions provided by Silhouette.

Cut the hearts individually while they are still on the Silhouette vinyl backing. Use a small strip of Frog’s Tape on top of each heart to remove it from the vinyl backing. Place it on the mug. Use a credit card or straight-edge to smooth it out.

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Remove the tape. The heart should stay in place on the mug.

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Continue to add all the hearts in a scattered or organized manner on the mug.

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Tape off the handle of the mug with Frog Tape.

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Pour really warm water into your disposable container. Drop 4 drops of each nail color inside the water. Swirl the colors around quickly {really quickly} with a toothpick. Insert the handle of the mug inside the water till its fully covered and then lift it out. Let the handle dry. Once dry, remove the Frog Tape. If the nail polish gets on the mug, remove it immediately with nail polish remover.

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Fill the mug with markers.

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DIY Tea Organizer Gift

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We love tea. It’s a recent can’t-live-without routine these days. We also can’t get enough of the Target Dollar bins – seriously, we can’t get out of that section in under 30 minutes. Those 4 mini aisles bring us joy, and fabulous finds. We combined a recent Target find with tea, and we’re obsessed!

Everyone needs a tea organizer like this for the office, for the classroom and for the home. It’s pretty, efficient and simple. We organized our tea by moods and needs because there is a tea bag for just about everything. Our teachers are the lucky recipients of this one, but we have a feeling this will be a go-to DIY gift.

Materials:

Directions:

Gather your favorite tea bags. We used some of our favorites from Yogi.

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Design the tabs/labels in Silhouette Design Store. We chose to organize with the words Energy, Healthy, ZZZ’s and Namaste. We layered the file folders so there was color behind the letters. Make sure the tabs fit inside your organizer. Cut {let the printer do the cutting} and glue.

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Design and cut the coffee mug with Silhouette. We did not have the vinyl transfer paper, so we used Frog’s Tape, and it worked like a charm.

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Here’s the white box before…

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and after.

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Place the tabs/file folders and tea bags inside the wood box.

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Print the free You’re a Wonderful Tea-cher label, and hang from a piece of twine and tape from the inside of the wood box.

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You’re My Jam, Valentine

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This Valentine idea is a non-candy, peanut, gluten, and dairy-free option. Hooray. Plus, it’s fun, gender-neutral, and it’s got rhythm. Jessica’s son loves music, so he wanted to share some of his faves with his friends this Valentine’s Day. Not many classics made his list – Everything is Awesome, I like to Move It and I’m in Love with a Monster made his top 3.

Jenna had a good point when she asked if anyone actually uses CDs anymore; however, our kids still listen to CDs in the car. So, with some leftover CDs, colorful paper from Astrobrights, a camera and computer, we went to work.

Materials:

Directions:

Take a photo of your child with headphones. This part was fun. Edit the photo with the free and amazing editing software, PicMonkey. We made the image into a circle in this software, and added the words, You’re My Jam. Print and cut the photos.

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Burn the CDs.

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Make DIY cd sleeves with paper by following this tutorial. It’s super easy, y’all {we didn’t use the template – just looked at the photos}.

Insert the CD into the sleeve, close and glue the photo of your child onto the CD holder.

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Don’t forget to check out some of our past Valentines.

Ryan Gosling on your underwear. Yes, please.

You’re a Cutie Valentine.

Got some fuzzy feelings this Valentine’s Day. We’ve got some DIY emoji’s for that.

DIY heart magnets that are as good as gold.

You’ve been hit by Cupid’s pencil arrow.

Wear your heart around your neck.

We love you like Hot Chocolate loves Marshmallows.

 

 

Painted Aloe Plant

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We have always had every reason to believe in love. This year our grandparents will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary {once celebrated by our other grandparent’s, also}. Our parents will celebrate 38 years together in August. We had an amazing childhood in a house full of love, and a large family that loved us unconditionally. We fell in love with and married our high school sweet hearts. Love was easy. Until it wasn’t. Love hurt us in 2015. It hurt us, particularly one of us, bad.

For the first time, love wasn’t enough. What? Love is always enough, isn’t it? Well, not when the person on the receiving end stomps on it, cheats on it, is reluctant to receiving it and lies through it without any remorse. Can you tell one of the high school sweet hearts wasn’t really sweet after all?

So, does love really just stink? Some of you may answer yes and some may answer no – either is ok and the answer is likely based on your current situation or your life’s circumstance thus far.

Well, we are not love experts, but we do know that love is complicated and hard, love is essential, love can unite, love can instigate change, love can cause heartbreak, love comes in many forms, love is passion and ultimately love heals.

We have a little aloe plant, also known for it’s healing properties, we lovingly named Hope. Hope because we are hopeful for all the wonderful things love will bring our way. And, because now she has LOVE HEALS and hearts written all over her! It’s a good, hopeful reminder for us all.

This is a 5-minute project anyone can do. And, it may just bring a little love to you.

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Materials:

  • Aloe plant
  • Sharpie Oil-Based Paint Pens

Directions:

All you have to do is draw. Sweet!

Give the DIY painted aloe plant as a gift this Valentine’s Day, or any day! Love isn’t just limited to one day in a calendar year – it lives in us 365 days a year – if we let it!

Maybe it’s not about the fairytale ending, it’s about the journey. Make love a part of your story, in whatever form it may be. There is no sense in living our lives without love.

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