Bachelorette Party

I was fortunate enough to spend some time this past weekend celebrating my friend Megan who's getting married in October.  Megan works for Spencer Special Events, a luxury wedding planner here in the Lowcountry and I am great friends with the founder, owner and mastermind behind the areas most spectacular and truly luxurious weddings, Amanda.  She's done a lot for me and I am forever grateful for her!

We stayed in an oceanfront villa at The Marriott Surf Watch for our staycation bachelorette party. The property is so beautiful! The rooms are luxuriously appointed and modernly decorated with just about everything you need.  The rooms are immaculate and the service is world class.  I cannot say enough wonderful things about the staff here! We were treated like queens. 

We lounged poolside in our cabana to start the party off right! 

We headed back to the villa which Amanda spent time decorating! I worked on some party details like cocktail napkins, food flags, wine charms and a take home favor for the girls which we incorporated into the party.  I will be doing a tutorial on each in the next couple of posts so stay tuned. They're all easy and fun ways to bring a personal, DIY touch to your party.

How cute is this idea for a bachelorette party? "Crush Soda" drink favors. Love it!

I'll be sharing tutorials and details on how to make each one of these elements in the next couple of posts! They're fun and easy and use PSA Essentials Peel & Stick stamps. After getting ready in the villa, we headed to Santa Fe Cafe for dinner! 

Then it was off to The Lodge for another drink and further affirmation that I am way to old to be at The Triangle on Hilton Head on a Saturday night.  I am thankful for my husband, two children and for normally going to bed at 9:30 on a Saturday night.  This gal is too old to be hanging at the bar, but it was a fun time with friends! 

It was a great evening with friends celebrating Spencer Special Events gal, Megan! Congrats to her on her upcoming New Hampshire wedding. It's going to be gorgeous and I couldn't be happier for her!  Stay tuned for DIY party tutorials this week! 

Kids Activity Idea

I discovered these blank, make your own puzzles at Michael's recently and thought they'd make a perfect activity for kids using our PSA Essentials Peel & Stick stamps.  We had a playdate with the Spencer Family last Friday afternoon -- Molly and Connor's friends Griffin and Russell came over for a few hours. This made a great activity! 

I loaded 3 PSA Stampers up with various Peel & Stick stamps from Hello Kitty Summer Days. I let them go to work!  Stamping with PSA is really easy and kids love it. First they stamped and then they colored in. They colored pictures on them, too! 

The kids were eager to try out different stamps and they shared nicely! It was a great way to spend 30 minutes around the table together.  And the make your own puzzles at Michael's were only $1 so it was an inexpensive and easy craft. 

What are you doing this summer to keep your kids busy? Share your ideas with us! (I am running out of ideas!) 

Cards for Summer

This summer is flying by! Hard to believe kids are headed back to school in a few weeks. I've been so busy working that I feel like the summer is just passing me by.  This weekend, I had the opportunity to spend some time at the Marriott Surf Watch on Hilton Head for a bachelorette party "staycation" with some friends.  It really felt like summer down there with all the tourists!

In honor of summer, here are some beautiful cards using PSA Essentials Peel & Stick stamps by our design team. Cards use either Life's A Beach or Anchor's Aweigh Peel & Stick packs.

Hope that you are enjoying summer! 

DIY Party Hats

My cousin Reed, turned 18 years old Saturday and my parents threw him a little family celebration at their home on Hilton Head. We had a cookout, swam in the pool, enjoyed each other's company and celebrated with cake from Ronnie's Bakery. I spent some time Friday afternoon making my own birthday hats. I had attempted this several times before, but I think these ones were my best yet!  Here's a detailed look at how to create your own party hats from scratch (as well as some cute party pictures!)

You will need:

• 12 x 12 scrapbook paper 
• Scissors
• Scalloped hole punch 
• Circle hole punch 
• PSA Essentials stamper 
• Just a Note Peel & Stick stamps by PSA Essentials
• Glue gun 
• Painters tape 
• Small hole punch 
• Twine from The Twinery or Ribbon 
• Pom poms

Quickly and easily sketch out the cone shape on paper. It doesn't have to be perfect.  If you want it to be perfect, use this party hat template that I've used before from Oh Happy Day. Find it here. Also, these cones on 12 x 12 yield rather large party hats.  Smaller hats, you can make on 8.5 x 11 paper.

Roll the paper into a cone shape once you've cut out.

You will want to use painters tape or Scotch tape to temporarily secure the cone.  Then heat up your hot glue gun and secure permanently with glue.

To make them uniform, cut out using your first shape.

Load your PSA Stamper with "Happy Birthday" from PSA Just A Note Peel & Stick pack. Stamp onto white paper. Then punch out using your circle punch.

Using coordinating cardstock, punch out scallops on colorful paper.

Now prepare to glue by heating up your hot glue gun (best invention EVER.)  Glue the cones together. Glue the round stamped sentiments onto the scalloped ones. Then glue that to the cones. Use pom poms and ribbon to decorate the hats!

Your last step is to hole punch the sides and tie in ribbon. This is so the hats can sit securely on your guests heads!

I used a combination of ribbon from Paper Source, twine from The Twinery and white tulle.

They turned out really great, I was happy with how colorful they were and also how sturdy they were (that glue gun!)  Here's my daughter, Molly, modeling the "princess" style. This is the only one I used with tulle. I prefer how the twine looked. 

Here are some party pics! Here's Reed holding Molly in the pool! 

My mom had a cute idea to print out pictures of Reed and display them all over the house. 

My cousins Reed and Ben are the sweetest, nicest boys around. Since I am an only child, my cousins are like brothers to me. This summer, Reed has been my manny (male nanny!) The kids love spending time with him and we've been having fun together too. Happy 18th birthday Reed! 

Let me know what you think of the party hats!