Super Cool Springtime Project...Inspired by Pinterest

I am *loving* Pinterest for creative ideas, since I've been sorely lacking in that department for a while.  If you are not on Pinterest yet, I highly recommend it.

Anyway, this is my 2nd Pinterest project, completely inspired by (copied from!) a pin to this blog: http://www.positivelysplendid.com/2012/03/polka-dotted-tiered-planters.html.  She did a 3-layer tiered planter, and I did two layers, but I absolutely adored painting our house number on it!  This blogger is one inspired, creative lady!

Use her instructions - I did.  This is how it turned out.  I'm really happy about it!  Oh, I *did* use those planter "feet" thingies, and painted them instead of the saucer like she did - that's the only difference.  I thought they were cute and looked sort of like shoes!

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

This week, I hosted my book club, Read 'Em and Eat, for dinner and a discussion of the wonderful (and eye-opening!) book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  You can view the book here at Amazon.com.

There was a seriously science-y, lab-y, medical research-y component to this book - but don't let that scare you away from reading it - so I decided to run with that for the silliness I always go through when I host my group.

I ordered a bunch of stuff from www.homesciencetools.com for the night.  Readers of the book will get the reference on the place markers I made out of petri dishes, glue, and something AWESOME I happened upon at Michael's: Martha Stewart Microbeads. I wrote each guest's name "HeLa style" in the petri dishes, then sprinkled the microbeads in and swooshed them around so the beads would stick in the glue.  I thought it looked neat and sort of like bacteria, which was actually desirable in this instance!!

Then, another one of my www.homesciencetools.com purchases turned into a centerpiece and party favor holder, commonly known as two plastic test tube racks.  I bought some Giant Test Tubes from the same place, and put hydrangeas in them, then put the party favors in more test tubes with lids.  They were all in the rack, and I labeled each test tube with the guests names as if they were specimens (it's summer, and we're bored already in our house - what can I say?!)  Here's how that turned out:

Admittedly, the centerpiece looked tons better when I had all of the favors lined up in it, but I was too frazzled getting ready for dinner to remember to take a picture of it!  The favors were beaded bookmarks that I like to make.  I picked out beads that were sort of ethereal looking so they'd look nice and cell-like in the test tubes.

The last research lab-inspired sort of thing I did was put the cream and sugar for the coffee in beakers. 

I absolutely *love* doing this sort of thing.  You can draw inspiration from all sorts of places for dinners you host or parties you throw!  I made a conscious effort not to go the gross-out route, which could have EASILY been done, but given that we had to eat dinner at this function, I decided it would be a bad idea!

Anybody know what I can do with my test tube racks, leftover petri dishes and test tubes, and beakers? 

Oh well, let me know what you think.  As usual, please be nice! 

End of year Teacher and Staff Gift

Okay, so it really seems that I'm using all of my creativity on school things, which is fine, because by boys don't seem to appreciate that sort of stuff so much anymore - birthday party invitations that look like a bowling shirt or a pizza in a delivery box are more embarrassing now than ahhh-inspiring!  They're getting too macho for these sorts of things.

So, my dear compatriot Jenna, whom I have mentioned before here, and I came up with this little gift for all of our teachers and staff as an end of year gift.  Jenna is quite the poet, even though she doesn't "know it" (don't judge - I had to say that) and came up with this text for our gift:

"Working with kids takes a lot of guts,

they can really drive you NUTS!

But you were always extra sweet,

so please enjoy this little TREAT.

Well now the school year is done
and you're overwhelmed with pride,

put this last gift on your car,

and take it for a ride!

We put in the gift bag a package of chocolate covered almonds (the NUTS part!), and an individually wrapped Rice Krispies Treat (the TREAT part!) and one of those rub-on vinyl decals that has our school pawprint insignia and school name on it.  We're lucky enough to have a woman in my neighborhood who has a vinyl decal business!

We got all the almonds and treats from Costco, and Jenna and I spent a couple of hours one day dividing up almonds and treats (we didn't eat too many, I promise!!) and putting them in bags and tying them up with pawprinty ribbon.  I hope the teachers liked them!  They were presented on the last day of school, so we were OUTTA there, so we didn't see their reaction!

Hey, can you tell that our school colors are burgundy and gold?  We got a little theme-crazy...

Banana Split Party!!

As you know if you've read my very first blog entry, I am on the Staff Appreciation Committee at our Elementary School's PTO.  We had a blast doing fun stuff for the teachers during Staff Appreciation Week this year (it was in May...I know I'm late in writing!).  In my opinion, the most fun activity was the Banana Split Party. 

We ordered all of the ingredients - except the bananas (more later on that!) - from our local Bruster's Ice Cream joint.  To lure the teachers and staff to our secret celebration, we put these in their mailboxes early the morning of the event.  And by "we," what I really mean is my friend Jenna did it.  Love that Jenna!  What the invitation said was,

"Don't MONKEY AROUND after school today,

or you'll miss all the friendship and fun...

Bring this banana (it's your ticket!),

have a snack and see what you've won!

Come to the Media Center at 2:15,

be there or be square.

Give the PTO the chance to show you

how much we really care!

I saw the ribbon at Michael's and I simply could not resist.  It was perfect!

The funny part is that I think the biggest hit of the day was my handy dandy banana slicer.  Everybody was fascinated by this thing, which, by the way, was seriously ridiculed when I'd put on my facebook status that I was looking for one.  Really though, how could we keep our banana split buffet running without one of these?

It was *I* who had the last laugh.  Take THAT, Facebook friends who said things like "isn't that called a knife? (insert snarky attitude here)" when I asked if anyone knew anywhere locally where I could buy one. 

Read 'Em and Eat - March 2010

Thankfully, this time that I hosted book club, I didn't end up vomiting like the last time I hosted (an unfortunate low-blood sugar/headache/headache medicine on an empty stomach combination...).  Everything went very well, if I do say so, but I have low standards after last time!

We read The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley, and everyone seemed to enjoy the book!  Not too fluffy like some we've read, and not too complicated or boring or depressing like others (hello, I'm speaking to you, Atonement).

So, my plan for dinner was to make sort of old fashioned recipes, since the book took place in the 1950's.  I made that ubiquitous salad of butter lettuces, mandarin oranges, blue cheese, and candied almonds, and I grilled a flat-iron steak and sliced it on top.  It was deeeeelicious!  I *love* that salad!  For dessert, I made (again, the ubiquitous) Nabisco Famous Chocoate Wafer refrigerator cake.  More deliciousness.  I also had a pie with a slice missing as a reference to our book.  I intended it as sort of a decoration, but people wanted to eat it!  Who am I to keep a dear friend away from Key Lime Pie?  If you've read the book, yes, I *do* know it was a custard pie, but I wasn't going to try to bake for this.  I had to go with what was available in the freezer section!

My favorite part was our party favors:  I found the cutest black iron birds in the Smith & Hawken aisle at Target, and used them as placecards.  If you've read the book, or even looked on the cover, for that matter, you know the thing about the bird with something stuck through its beak.  I stuck a faux stamp with each member's name on it through the iron beaks.  It was cuter than it sounds, I think.  But I had to lay the birds down like they were dead like in the book.  Here's how it looked:

I was excited about it.  It's the little things, you know?  Oh well, I feel like a big goober/Martha Stewart wannabe, but I guess I should own it, right?

So next book club is at Katherine's, and we're supposed to read The Scarlet Letter.  I'm interested in seeing it through my older eyes, and in this modern context of political and sports figure adultery.  You know who you are...

Book Club

I'm *so* excited about my upcoming Book Club meeting - we call ourselves Read 'Em and Eat for a reason.  We eat first, then discuss the book.  The the host makes a meal that somehow associates with the book (if possible) and sends each member home with a party favor to commemorate the occasion.

This month, we read The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The heroine, Flavia, is just the sort of girl I wish I would've been.

Anyway, I have a neat plan for part of our menu, and for the party favors. 

Stay tuned...

Lego Birthday Party Invitation

I have not been feeling super-creative lately, mostly because I've been in a whirlwind of painting in my house!  We hit up the big Labor Day paint rebate-a-thon at Lowe's and I've been using all the paint we bought.  So I've painted my old craft room (good bye argyle wall!) so my husband can use it as his office (hello Man Tan!), both boys' bathrooms (they're now Cosmic Lime, and yes, it's exactly as green as it sounds), and our Master Bath a nice, soothing yellow.  Ahhh.  But with all this work I worry that all my good creativity is behind me, thus this blast from the past:

Ian's Lego Birthday Party invitation.  I was super proud of this, and it was SO easy.  I usually end up mired down in some serious paper-crafting for the boys party invitations but this may be my easiest invitation ever!

Here it is:

I even got all poetic - if you can't read the small print, it says,

"Birthday cake, ice cream, and Lego bricks,
Ian (last name) is turning SIX!

Build the coolest house, the biggest tower,
the fastest car on wheels.
The party will be GREAT
as long as YOU are part of the deal.

Sunday, April 19th at 3 o'clock
That's when you should arrive.
In case you don't already know,
we're at (blankety blank blank) Drive!"

This thing was SO easy.  The boys and I just found all the brown and white legos we could, made candles out of some lego flames we happened to have (what kit did THAT come from - Harry Potter castle maybe?), and threw the piece of cake on Ian's special birthday plate - along with a cool Lego fork that Daddy made! and took a picture of the whole thing!  Adding the invite wording is easy.  Off to Costco to print 5 x 7's and you're in business for something like 79 cents an invite!

It was a fun party.  Lego cake was involved, but the icing didn't turn out quite vivid enough...it tasted good, though!!