ClassiclyAmber » party

Lovely Handmade Pottery: by Jeanette Zeis

classiclyamber — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 12:30:12 +0000

Does it truly get any more charming than this? – - Than to dine off of innocent pastel colored ceramics, all made by the talented hands of Jeanette Zeis? Zeis runs a shop on Etsy called Vessels and Wares, where she sells lots of handthrown pottery – anything from plates to hanging planters, to mugs and single cupcake stands. You will love to know that it is all food-safe, lead-free and dishwasher-safe.

Can you handle all of these scalloped edges? Oh my. I would love to have an entire set with each piece a different color. It would be the perfect touch for a garden party or a bridal luncheon.

And speaking of weddings, wouldn’t this make a beautiful wedding or anniversary gift? What I love are the personal touches. Have the happy couple’s names hand written into the side of the cake stand. Add in some hand carved touches. It is perfection. If you are bride, consider registering with Zeis’ shop instead of getting something mass produced.

Jeanette also has a blog where you can keep up with some of her latest happnens’, so be sure to check her out here: http://vesselsandwares.blogspot.com/

And to get your hands on some of her lovely pottery, head over to her Etsy shop here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/vesselsandwares

Simple Celebrations – on The Reluctant Entertainer

classiclyamber — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 11:05:58 +0000

I’m not here today – I’m actually guest posting [for the first time ever!] over at Sandy’s blog, The Reluctant Entertainer. She’s been in my Links above for a while now, but if for some reason you’ve never checked out her blog before, then you certainly need to get on it – and add it to your Reader. She will definitely inspire you to be the best doggone hostess you could possibly be, encouraging a true love for family, home and hospitality.

I will be talking about how our family does simple parties – so be sure to click over and check it out. Don’t be nervous [like me]. Use that Comment button over on her blog to speak to me – and show the love! I will see y’all over there! <3

Easy Handmade Birthday Table Mats

classiclyamber — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 15:49:48 +0000

We recently celebrated our oldest daughter’s 3rd birthday. Yep, I’m still sitting here wondering how she could be that old already, reaching up for balloons and being so cute with her messy smoothie-face…and I have a feeling that I will feel that way for the rest of my life each time on of our kiddos has another birthday or milestone event. They don’t stay as babies forever, do they?

Not too awful long ago, I used to feel pressured to put on a big shuhBANG or a shuhZAM or a shamWOW [no, wait...that's something else, I think] for my kid’s birthdays. I used to put my sanity on the back burner as I’d scramble to do anything and everything I could do to make my child’s birthday party be the best one around. Looking back, I really have no idea how I got suckered into that vicious cycle of every passing birthday needing to be bigger and better than the previous! Augh! Let me repeat: It. Was. Awful. Please don’t get me wrong. There is absolutely nothing wrong with planning out extravagant birthday parties for your youngsters if you can handle it all and if the birthday kiddo feels just as special as they should on their big day, but in my case it was really starting to wear me out!! It’s hard to bake 3D cakes from scratch, make icing from scratch, spend several hours assembling them and piping on icing, making invitations and mailing them out, coming up with games and gathering all the ingredients to play ‘em, cleaning the house or wherever to prepare for guests, making the whole meal for everyone, wrapping presents, decorating…Oh my word. Just typing all of that out surely made my heart fall into my stomach where it’s now floating around. [Don't worry. I'll fish it out later.] When I used to be that mother, I was so stressed out and BUSY that I couldn’t even enjoy my birthday kiddo on their big day! There was WAY too much to do! “Yeah, yeah, hon…I’m trying to finish this up in time! I will see you in a little bit~!” Uuuum…WHEN?? Okay. I finally realized that something was not right when in looking back on their birthday celebrations, I couldn’t so much remember the memories that I had created with my child, but instead all I could think of was all the stress and chaos surrounding the planning and execution of this elaborate party. And I hate that.

So now our party celebrations are simplified. Even though we don’t do a whole lot, what we DO do has more meaning and things are much more peaceable around the homestead. I still love the idea of planning parties and making things special, but I guess you could say that I’ve learned my limits. This year for Gianna’s birthday, I decided to do more party decorations in the dining area. I haven’t done as much of that in the past couple of years, but I did it for her because she really gets into that sorta thing! I mean – REALLY! You have no idea. She absolutely loved it, too. In fact, she loved it so much that I’ve yet to take down the decor off the chandeliers in there. Anyway, in learning my limits, I tried to come up with other ideas that would be easy to do – and that I could customize especially for them and make them feel extra special inside. Something that is a pretty big hit here are our birthday table mats, and they are so easy to whip up. You can decorate this however you want to, but all you need are:

cardstock or even just plain paper
clip art/digital scrapbooking elements/etc. on your computer
regular scrapbooking elements [papers, stickers, rub-ons, etc.]
clear packing tape

Design/print out your child’s table mat and be sure to include their fav colors, animals, etc. Write on special notes and phrases to them…
Using your packing tape, start taping across the paper, overlapping the edges so that no paper is visible. When you get done with this part, it will be taped to the table, so peel it all up carefully and turn it over to repeat on the back, too. This step makes your table mat waterproof to last through several meals!
Press down the tape all over, front, back and edges, and then cut off the excess tape all the way around. Don’t cut right next to the paper; instead leave a small gap all the way around so that the tape will stick together and create a nice sealed off edge [of course, if you have one of those fancy laminating machines, then you can just use that instead!]

Then place it at your birthday boy’s/girl’s spot at the table. Put a balloon and ribbons on their chair and make their favorite foods for the day! Seriously, you have no idea how much younger children just love this to death! It’s the simple things, folks…but it means so much to them. I never let my kids see their table mats until their birthday breakfast, so it’s a nice surprise for ‘em. Sometimes I will use cardstock or scrapbook paper to make up quick crowns or hats for them to wear, too. They also love that!

We are also pretty big into homemade smoothies right now. It is SUCH a treat for breakfast and is so easy to make! For Gianna’s birthday, I made a yummy raspberry banana smoothie – and we also had the Lemony Blueberry Muffins that I’ve shown you before. To make Gianna’s place setting extra-extra special, I just took a flower design off of a greeting card that a friend had made me a year ago [I save all those things so that I can reuse them]. Then I glued it onto a toothpick and then glued on a piece of circle-shaped cardstock onto the back of THAT with a handwritten note for our girl! She LOVED it!

So I know that every family has to do what works for them, and THIS is what works for US! Click HERE to go straight to our current fav smoothie recipe!

Have you entered to win my current giveaway yet? It’s pretty fabulous! And there will be multiple winners! It’s called The “I Never Win Anything” GIVEAWAY – With Lisa Leonard Jewelry! Yeah, Lisa rawks. And so does her jewelry.

Click the pic below to go straight to the post to enter…

Paper Flower Bouquets

classiclyamber — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:56:23 +0000

It’s going to be a GORGEOUS day here, peeps! So bring on the flowers! Even if you don’t have any in full bloom just yet, you can make some beautiful blooms yourself. Check these pics for inspiration and click through to the tuts!

Lolly has some GREAT tutorials and printable PDFs so you can make your own paper bouquets right here! I love the way that she’s used different centers for these pretties.

And when I think of making paper flowers, of course I automatically think of Grandma Martha. Scroll down to see all of the flowers that she’s made with her own two hands. That’s right! Her own two hands!

This says that it’s for kiddos – which would definitely be lovely in their cute lil’ Easter baskets, but I’d also love ‘em for myself! Get the tut here.

Who doesn’t love a party with big, poofy pom-poms overhead? Get the tut here.

This is the cutest party favor idea! Get the tut here.

I love these basic flowers mixed in with other types of flowers, too. Get the tut here.

There is a ton more inspiration and tuts for paper flower crafting over at Martha Stewart Weddings.

If you are having a party and don’t want to make your own pom-poms, then there’s always Etsy! Check out PartyPoms:

I don’t know about you, but I think it will be fun to make these – and I’ll get the kiddos to help make some, too! My new office space is in need.

Have a beautiful day, everyone~! <3

LiveLaughLove Custom Banner

classiclyamber — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:31:08 +0000

This is what I’ve made for Mandy – who was one of the winners in my Win-Win Giveaway recently. I was glad that she loved it! And it really works for Valentine’s Day, doesn’t it?

All of it is totally made by hand and totally made by moi. =-D Yeppers, I drew it all and then cut it all out and added ribbons.

If you would like a custom banner, simply message me to get started~!

Is everyone ready for Valentine’s Day? It’s almost here!

Surprise Bebe Shower

classiclyamber — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:38:31 +0000

So I have a friend who is pregnant with her first baby. I have known her since way back when (explanation: since our young schoolin’ days). Another friend, Becca, suggested that we definitely needed to give her a party in celebration of her baby boy – and we wanted to make it a surprise!

She WAS surprised! Her hubby did a fantabular job keeping it secret and keeping it safe until the Big Day.

He also stuck around for some fun games and we’re glad he did!

We all sniffed some dipes:

And Daddy showed us that he was already skilled in bathing small babies.

1. Get the whole baby soaped down, including the ears, nose and eyes.

2. Rinse the whole papooska off, paying attention to dunk baby’s head into the water. That also helps remove all the soap from the child’s eyes.

3. Dry ‘n dress however the CRAP you can!

Momma actually did REALLY well with bathing and dressing the baby! She’s so new at this and already at pro level.

We chowed down on some handmade grubs:

Strawberries and a homemade Cream Cheese Dip

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with a Chocolate Mascerpone Cheese Ganache

Grubs not pictured:

Chicken Spread w/Whole Grain Crackers

Deer Balls Fake Sausage Balls (My sis, April, actually made these out of regular ‘ole hamburger and some spices. Somehow, it REALLY tasted like yummy snausage! Anyhoozit, she was supposed to bring deer balls but couldn’t find any at the last moment, so she brought this instead. No one complained.)

Becca and her mother made some cutesie and doubly effective decorations:

The doubly part? These are actually soft baby washcloths that Momma took home with her! How genius is THAT?!?

Next, Becca had a fun table set up so that while Momma opened gifts…

…the rest of us decorated onesies for the baby…

…and created scrapbook pages for his baby book!

{Becca}

{April}

Everyone always wants their picture taken with the star of the show:

…but since he’s still playing inside Momma’s tummy, we had to settle with getting our picture taken with just Momma instead! That’s okay by me! I love her and plus – we’ll be meeting you face to face soon enough, cute lil’ bebe!!

[An Encouraging] Garden Party

classiclyamber — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 22:14:47 +0000

You know…these days in America, it’s starting to be a pretty rare thing indeed for people to be married for life – just like they commit to in their vows.

Heck, even just 20 years of marriage is a feat, isn’t it?

So when I was invited to take pictures for my good friend’s parent’s 20th anniversary party, I was encouraged.

20 years is a long time for two people to be together.

My own parents were married for 30 years before calling it quits. If your parents are still married, be ever so thankful. Let them know – frequently – how grateful you are and how much it means to you that they love each other and the family enough to keep it together.

I took it for granted and assumed that mine would be together ” ’til death do they part”. It just didn’t pan out. Quitting seems to be a very popular trend and I don’t like it. It hurts so many…

But don’t be discouraged! There are still plenty of people out there like this family who keep pushing through. Me and my own husband will be celebrating our 10th anniversary in just 3 months. A lot of people our age have not made it that far. We are thankful to still have the time to spend with each other. We are thankful for the family God has given us. And yeah, we pray that He continues to bless us with more children.

And I pray for this sweet couple – that they will never take each other for granted…never allow their love to fade away…and that their marriage heaps many more blessings.

The whole family was sweet! Thank you for letting me be part of your celebration…

Thank you for the encouragement…

…and for the reminder that love can be as lasting as you want it to be.

***By the way, the cake topper that you saw featured above is one custom created by a good friend of mine. She has just started her own little shop on Etsy and it’s called “The Vintage Trunk”. Check her out there if you are interested in having her custom create a cake topper for you!***