Red and Turquoise Gender Reveal Party!

Last weekend I hosted a Gender Reveal Party for my amazing sister-in-law and brother-in-law. They are expecting their 4th baby and wanted to find out the gender of their baby together with lots of friends and family! It was so much fun to plan and put together. One of my favorite parties yet!!

Here is the invite! I wanted to stray away from your classic baby pink and baby blue for this party. I choose turquoise and red! I LOVE how it all came together!

I love how this display table turned out! I found the adorable blue and red frames at Michael's in their dollar bins! You can grab a FREE download of the boy and girl profile along with the two cards that can fit in a 4x6 frame. I changed the names to boy and girl on the free download. 

Click here to download! 

We colored on some Hershey bars "SHE" in red and "HE" in turquoise. They were a big hit with the kids, along with the matching color Sixlets!

I used some coordinating scrapbook paper to make a banner. I free handed the letters, but you could also print them off or use stencils or stickers! 

It turned out darling! I just love it! I used similar table decorations from my Graduation Party I threw a couple weeks ago. I simply used empty glass soda bottles with some helium balloons and some matching flowers. I love the polka dot flowers. I found them 2 for $1 on sale at Micheal's! 

We did matching punch and straws in the colors of the different genders also. These punches were delicious. We mixed different flavors of Hawaiian Punch with Lemonade! Delicious and so refreshing!  

My sister in law gave an envelope with the results of the gender to her very talented friend who made these absolutely delicious and beautiful cupcakes! Inside was the color of the gender in frosting! 

 And finally.... the results of the Gender Reveal Party....

We all couldn't be more thrilled for them! The ratio of girls to boys in our family is 9:3 right now. So we are very happy to have a boy to spoil!

Congratulations Jenna and Jason! I loved throwing this party for you!

Thanks for taking time to look! Come back again for more ideas to Teach, Create, and PARTY!!!

End of the School Year Parent Volunteer, Room Parent, or School Aide Thank You Gift

I have so many parent volunteers, amazing room moms, and school aides that help out in my classroom throughout the year. I wanted to get them all a little something to say THANK YOU! I came up with this idea.

Click here to download a FREE copy of  2nd Grade the tags! 

Click here to download a FREE copy of the tag for ANY CLASS!

I have 2nd grade specific tags and also tags for any class.

I simply attached it with a ribbon to a box of muffin mix with a spatula and wire wisk. It turned out really cute! (p.s. UPDATE.... I got a picture of the cute gift! )

It was super easy and lets all the amazing people who helped during the school year know how much you appreciate them. I hope you like it!

Enjoy!

Teacher Appreciation Gift - "Thanks for helping me learn and GROW!"

It's that time of year where we are all finishing up school and looking for the perfect way to say THANK YOU to the wonderful teachers in our lives. I made these cute tags to go along with pencil flowers for my little girl's Kindergarten teachers. They LOVED them! I bought flowers from the dollar store and used floral tape to wrap pencils to the stems. Then we put them in a cute deep mug so they can put them on their desks to use every school year. As a teacher myself, I have some of these pencil flowers on my desk and I use them almost daily. It's the perfect teacher gift!!

You can download a copy of the tag here!

Happy Gifting! And a shout out to all the wonderful teachers out there! THANK YOU!! Summer is almost here!! :)

Graduation Party {UPDATE - Class of 2016!}

This must be the year for graduations in my family. My amazing husband graduated from Dixie State University with his Bachelor's Degree in CIT-IT. My little sister earned her Associates of Science degree from Dixie State. My 6 year old is graduating from Kindergarten. My sister in law earned her Bachelor's of Nursing from Dixie State University also!  My older brother is graduating from Med School at the University of Utah and I have two cousins who are also getting their Bachelor's Degrees this year!

With all these wonderful graduations, a celebration was absolutely necessary! With the help of my amazing Mother-In-Law, we threw the most amazing graduation celebration. Here are the photos from our Graduation Celebration! Be sure to scroll to the bottom for a FREEBIE to download. You can get all decoration labels, banners, and tags to throw your own celebration for the graduate in your family!

The menu for our party was super simple: croissant sandwiches, potato salad, macaroni salad, veggies, chips, and of course lots of yummy goodies for dessert!

Don't you just love this idea for a veggie spread, rather than just a platter? I love how we display the vegetables in glass as if they are art! It adds a whole lot to the display of the table and makes it look so festive! I love it! We will be doing this from now on for our veggies!

On to the dessert!!! Yummy! These chocolate diplomas are simply swiss rolls wrapped with a bit of ribbon. Super simple and so cute!

You can't go wrong with chocolate covered strawberries! Thank you Costco for the GIANT and delicious strawberries!

These little graduation hats were a big hit! All it takes is mini peanut butter cups, chocolate covered graham crackers, Twizler's Pull 'n Peel and Mini M&Ms for the tassel. Again, super simple, but looks adorable!

Another HUGE hit at the party were these graduation sodas! All I did was add a square of construction paper and a string for a tassle to the glass bottles. Love how they turned out!

Our centerpieces for our outdoor tables were also very simple. I used empty glass soda bottles with a few simple flowers inside of them. Then we added helium balloons and a bit of burlap. I love how these tables ended up looking. 

You can't throw a party for a bunch of graduates without giving them a little gift to say how proud we are! I made up these cute labels to go along with some candy buckets.

 You can download a copy of this graduation gift label for FREE by clicking here!

I made a bunch of tags, labels (water bottle label is shown above) , and banners to go along with the party as well. 

Grab the Graduation Banner and Labels here! {UPDATED to CLASS OF 2016!}

Thanks again for visiting. I hope you like my things and share them with your friends and family. Come again soon for more ideas to TEACH, CREATE, and PARTY! 

"Just Keep Swimming"... The end of the school year is almost here!!

The school year is fast approaching us! As teachers, we get so excited to see the light at the end of the tunnel. However, that light seems very hard to see on some of these LONG end of the year, spring/summer-fever kind of days. The kids are for the most part out of control and it is hard to even want to try to control them any longer. We had our last team meeting on Friday for my K-3 team. I hosted our party in my classroom. Every month, a different teacher hosts our meeting and gets to choose a pot-luck theme for lunch. I choose to do a salad bar with all the fixin's! It was so delicous!

I wanted to do something fun since it was our last meeting. I thought of how hard teachers work and how hard it is to stay focused somedays to get through the day. Let's face it... the kids are done and so are most teachers. We only have 4 weeks of school left. I kept thinking of Finding Nemo and Dori's famous line, "Just keep swimming! Just keep swimming!" I thought that was perfect for our theme for our last team meeting. I decorated my room up a bit with fish, bright colored lanturns, sunglasses, beach balls, and other sea related items. It turned out to be a huge success and was perfect for our last meeting. I made some really darling tokens for everyone to take with them. I used small baggies and filled them with Sweedish Fish and stapled a tag to the top. It was so simple, and made a huge impression.

Sometimes all you can do at the end of the school year is just endure! So to all my fellow teachers out there, you can do it! Just keep swimming! It will be over soon!

If you need something for your coworkers, teacher friends, child's teacher or just anyone who needs a bit of encouragement for the rest of the school year, you can print a FREE PRINTABLE of my Just Keep Swimming sign and also my treat tags!  Click Here to Download!

Thanks for reading! Come back soon for more ideas to TEACH, CREATE, and PARTY!

Candyland Birthday Party with FREEBIES!

Last week, my 2nd oldest turned 4! I can't believe it! She is such a sweetie and as sassy as they come. We love her so much! Since she LOVES candy so much, we threw her a Candyland Birthday Party! It was so much fun to plan! Everything bright, colorful, and made of sugar was on the guest list! We transformed my husband's parents backyard into a Candyland wonderland!

I made simple yellow cupcakes and put a cute mini lollipop in them. Super easy and so festive! I purchased the mini lollipops from Oriental Trading. They were super cheap and came with lots in the package. The kids loved them! 

We served watermelon lemonade, cream cheese, turkey, and roast beef roll ups, yummy fruit salad, and lots of delicious, sugary treats! We even made sugar cookie lollipops!

I made a cute topiary out of colorful gumballs from the dollar store. I just hot glued them onto a foam ball, used a wooden dowel in the middle, and put it all inside a small planter pot with some foam in the bottom. I then used cupcake wrappers folded in 4ths to hide the foam inside the pot. I just hot glued them in as well. It turned out so great! Perfect for the Candyland centerpiece!

This is what we used for the gift table I purchased a vintage Candyland game at our local thrift store and propped it up with wooden dowel. I made tons of these cute balloon suckers. Just wrap a balloon in clear cellophane and attach a wooden dowel to the bottom, add some ribbon and it looks just like a giant sucker. The kids got to take these home as gifts when the party was over.

The kids also got to take home a box of candy, of course, and also a small toothbrush. I attached a small saying that said "for your sweet tooth." The kids loved getting a toothbrush too! Go figure!

Here is a copy of the SWEET TOOTH tags! You can DOWNLOAD it for FREE. Click here!

We painted colorful squares using spray paint all over the back lawn. This created a huge Candyland game board. We used extra large balloon suckers to mark the start of the game.

First stop... Peppermint Forest. I made candy canes out of red and white pipe cleaners. Just twisted them together and formed a candy cane. (Let's face it.... who sells candy canes during April! I wasn't going to special order any in either!)

Second stop... Gumdrop Mountain! I wish I could have had more of a mountain for this one. The trampoline/garden area had to do! ;)

Next stop... Ice Cream Slopes! Perfect spot to have a break and play on the playset!

Last stop... The Candy Castle! We borrowed a jump house for the end of the game. What a perfect destination! It was a great incentive to win the game! I used 2 more giant suckers and placed them at the entrance to the jump house.

And the winner was... my oldest daughter! I don't know how she sneaked that one by us all, but she won. Fair and square! She was pretty excited! The birthday girl was too interested in the jump house, her friends, and all the CANDY to even notice! ;)

You can DOWNLOAD all of the Candyland Signs here! For FREE!!!

The kids had so much fun playing this life-size Candyland game. Having lots of friends and treats along the way wasn't so bad either! It was a total success!!

I loved throwing this party for my sweet little girl! She deserved it and everyone had a blast. I hope you enjoyed and can maybe use some of my ideas at one of your parties. Thanks for reading. Come back again for more ideas to teach, create, and PARTY!