A sweet 16th birthday with Basic Invite!

With all that's been going on, I haven't posted about my first born turning 16! I must admit I would find myself feeling teary the days leading up to her birthday. It's not just that she was turning another year older, but also what the past years signified for me. Having been pregnant with Serena at 19, I was never an adult without her. She made me a mom. Several big milestones one completes as an adult--she was with me every step of the way. 

Even now just writing this, I can feel that familiar lump in my throat. My baby girl is 16. She has a huge heart and makes the world a better place with her presence in it. She's also beautiful and so smart, but entirely too humble to say nice things about herself. Instead of always hanging out with friends, she chooses to be an asset in her community by spending several hours volunteering every week without fail. Serena is one in a million, and she makes us so proud! 

A few weeks before her birthday Basic Invite reached out to me about collaborating and I'm so glad I did! Serena and I both enjoyed scrolling through all the party invitations online and she picked the one that best represented her.

She wanted to do a small slumber party with some of her closest friends and it really turned out so cute and charming. 

Obviously the first step in planning a party is a theme or color scheme. After that, you settle on an invitation. Basic Invite was very user friendly and the whole process was simple and fast. 

Basic Invite customization options:

Almost Unlimited Colors - Basic Invite is one of the few websites that allows customers almost unlimited color options with instant previews online. Once you select a design you can change the color of each element on the card to over 180 different color options so you can make sure the card is exactly how you want it down to the littlest detail. This is what we feel sets us apart from almost any other online stationery company and is what we feel is our biggest draw. 

Custom Samples - Basic Invite is one of the few websites that allows customers the ability to order a printed sample of their actual invitation so they can see exactly how it will print as well as the paper quality before they ever have to place their final order. 

Over 40 Different Colors of Envelopes - Basic Invite is just as colorful with our envelopes as we are with our invitations. Customers can choose from over 40 different colors when it comes to their envelopes so that they can make their invitation stand out even before it is opened. All of our envelopes are peel and seal so the envelopes can be quickly and securely closed. 

Address Capturing Service - Basic Invite offers an address capturing service that allows customers to simply share a link on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any other form of social media to request their friends and family’s addresses which will be stored in the customer’s account and can then be selected during the design process. Basic Invite offers recipient address printing at no cost on all Christmas card orders. 

Foil - Foil cards are available in gold, silver, and rose gold. Customers can choose flat or raised foil on all of Basic Invite’s foil designs.

Check out some of their simple birthday invitations, super cute and for every age group. 

Right now Basic Invite is offering 15% off with coupon code: 15FF51

Disclosure: I was provided with the product. All thoughts and opinions expressed herein are my own. 

Tuesday talk: Catching up edition

I never got around to sharing Mariam's 5th birthday pictures, Serena's 15th birthday pictures or Thanksgiving pictures--which thankfully too much time hasn't passed since then. There just isn't enough hours in the day! I'm going to need longer days around here. Instead of writing individual posts at this point, I'm just going to combine everything and catch ya'll up on the latest.

Mariam turned 5!

Our 3rd baby turned 5 on November 5th! Originally I was going to throw her a big party, but with big sister's birthday just one week later--who also wanted a party, it was just going to be too difficult for me to pull off. I can throw parties together successfully at the last minute, but I've been so exhausted lately and there was just too much going on in life. Serena convinced Mariam we should just do something low-key, just the family, and she was happy with the idea. For her pictures, I bought one single lilac balloon and cut some flowers from my lawn and attached them with tape. For the number 5, I first made a 5 out of floral wire and twisted the same type of flowers around the wire. I cut out small pieces of wire to serve as clips on some pieces of the flowers. Floral wire is a great thing to keep in your craft box year round. There are a lot of things you can make with it.

Serena turned 15!

I can't believe she's 15! Our girl is so big. We have been blessed with an amazing teenager and I'm just so thankful for her! We didn't really do a theme--since she's a big girl, but we did have a color scheme. She wanted white, caribbean blue and silver. The decorative highlight were the big 36 inch white balloons. Those were the first items purchased and I worked around that. I'll link the sources below. I originally had planned on having 8 balloons floating above the pool, but Party City forgot to blow one up and one popped on the way home. It was quite an adventure getting them home along with several small ones I purchased. I had to make 2 trips since I didn't want to crowd them in my SUV. 

Right before I was ready to get them in the pool, I attached silver foil tassels to them. I purchased the tassels on Etsy, but next time I'll just get them from Target. They had similar ones but more full and already assembled. Plus they were cheaper! You must be wondering what is holding them in the pool. Originally I had planned on buying balloon weights but I would have needed two each. Instead I cut 6 fabric squares out, made 4 holes and placed rocks inside. I had also cut 4 holes by each corner to tie the balloon string through. It worked like a charm! I had several other decor I had purchased but didn't get any good individual pictures of them. Serena had a great time at her pool party with her friends and I'm so glad she enjoyed herself. 

36 inch party balloons: Wrapping me up

Silver foil tissue tassel kit: Paper supply station

Silver foil "party" sign: Shop Celebration Lane

FHJ Baby turns 5!

Time sure does fly. Thankful for another year in business and getting to do what I love. It's not easy trying to juggle a family of 6 and run a business, but I've hung in there. The past two years have definitely been challenging with Ava still not sleeping through the night, but hopefully she will one day. I'm also so proud to announce that one of my products was featured in another magazine! Pregnancy & Newborn magazine featured one of the bibs in their November issue.

FHJ Baby bib: Charlotte white lace

Thanksgiving 2017!

Last week we celebrated Thanksgiving on our own again with no family. No relatives were in town and we thought we wouldn't put any pressure on ourselves by inviting any friends. With our family size, we really are our own party sometimes ha-ha! We did a traditional turkey with all the fixings and I'm happy to say we just threw out the last of our turkey last night. One can only eat turkey for so may days amiright?!

I made an apple pie as I always make every Thanksgiving, but this time I made a decorative lattice top. It was soooo much easier than I thought it was going to be and it turned out great!

H cooked 90% of Thanksgiving dinner including some delicious sourdough bread from scratch. Like the yeast starter and everything. He's gotten really good at breads now. 

I think I've covered the highlights in the past few months. We just wrapped up our first trip to Disney World this past weekend so I'll be writing about our trip this week.

Have a great Tuesday!

Ava's simple & pretty 2nd birthday party!

I've been meaning to blog about Ava's 2nd birthday party since September when it happened. Yet it's about to be November. Well! Better late then never right?!

This year I wanted to do something small again for Ava, but invite close friends and have it at the house. With this year being crazy busy and just entering the second month of having 3 in school, I didn't have a lot of time to spend on it. She's not big into characters or has too many favorite objects, but she is into farm animals. I did some research and felt like a girly farm based birthday party was going to be too much of a hassle at this stage in my life. I decided to go with a theme utilizing a few things I had already and just go from there. I find it's easiest to plan a party by finding one decor piece you really love and building it from there. 

With Ava, I had a pink, gold, and white tassel I had gotten back in 2015 and decided that those were the colors I was going to use. I also drew inspiration from the party fashion blogger Rachel Parcell threw for her little one. I loved the floral details!

The first things I purchased for the party were Meri Meri gold foiled kraft placemats, glitter candles, birchwood forks and pink paper plates.  

I searched high and low for a green leaf garland but could not find one I liked! I ended up making it myself based off a tutorial from The House That Lars Built. 

I prepared the garland ahead of time and added fresh pink roses about an hour before the party started. 

I like to say that it's all in the details. As you can see, there's nothing too elaborate on the table, but it's the tiny details such as the pop of pink, scallops on the place mats, and the cutlery that made all the difference. 

For her cake I went with a simple 9 inch round cake from Publix. the baker gave me a little funny look when I told him I just wanted a plain white cake with no decorations, but he didn't know what I had in mind. I found an adorable gold glitter cake topper off Etsy and just added a rose with a little bit of greenery.

I loved the way everything came out! This party was definitely one of my easiest to plan and not expensive either. For food we ordered pizza, and snacks were: veggies, fruit, and chips. I'm not crazy about having tons of sweets around when I throw a party. For drinks we had water, fresh squeezed limeade, wine and cocktails. All in all Ava had a great time and it was nice sharing her birthday with her little friends. 

Gold foiled scalloped place mats: Amazon

Fancy birchwood forks: Shop Celebration Lane

Meri Meri gold glitter candles: Shop Celebration Lane

Pink paper plates: Shop Celebration Lane

Cake topper: Glitter Topper

Green Crepe Paper (color moss): Amazon

Pink, gold, white tassel: Love Pretty Details

Gold glitter happy birthday banner: Hobby Lobby

Have a great Monday!

Layla's mermaid inspired 6th birthday pool party!

In the beginning of the year, Layla and I started brainstorming birthday themes. We went through many, and I think one of her suggestions was a monster party. Ultimately...with a few suggestions from myself we settled on a mermaid/under the sea theme. I thought it went perfectly since we planned to throw it at our community pool.

The day before the party it stormed pretty much all day, but in true Florida fashion, the next day was perfect albeit a tiny bit chilly. Everything worked out great. In my usual way I ended up using about 80% off my energy on decor and DIY brainstorming, so by the time I really needed to get serious about selecting what to serve to our little guests and the other aspects of the party, I just couldn't think anymore. My husband suggested pizza, so we went with that alongside a veggie platter, crackers, homemade chocolate chip cookies and drinks. One small snafu was the cake the day before. Instead of using the baker I used last year (which I should have done), I used Publix and they got it completely wrong. They graciously gave it to me free of charge so I quickly went to Michael's and bought some faux embellishments to spruce it up. For entertainment I had my daughter make a playlist of all the favorite kids songs these days and we had music going along with a bubble machine. We also had coloring pages and crayons. All in all she had a great time and that's what matters the most. Even though it was a lot of work since May has been absolutely crazy with all the girl's activities, and mine and not getting enough sleep. Seeing her enjoy it made it completely worth it. 

{DIY Mermaid sign: Tutorial here}

The balloon arch was made by me and I was really surprised by how fast, easy and inexpensive it was. I plan on doing a DIY post in the future when I make another one. 

This gorgeous mermaid banner was custom made from Brandalyn's Paperie. Find them here!}

{Mini seahorse pinata: JazzysCreation}

{Gold foil chandelier: Hobby Lobby}

Speaking of which, I love that gold foil chandelier! I've used for my last two parties and it's easy to put away and reuse again and again. 

For party favors we did DIY starfish wands and goody bags filled with treats. I didn't have time to do a post on the startfish wands, but you can find the wooden dowels at any craft store or amazon. Starfish you can find and any craft store as well, but for a pack of 12 for cheap, go to HomeGoods or TJ Maxx, though it could just be that I live by the beach so they stock nautical decor here often. 

Layla got some really cool gifts but was especially ecstatic to receive some really pretty sealife jewelry. I hadn't realized how much she's loving jewelry these days and she's at the age where she's careful with them now. 

How adorable is this custom silver starfish bracelet. It even has a tiny L for for name! I'll be sharing more about this handmade bracelet in a separate post. 

{Silver starfish bracelet: Jmesjewelrybox}

{Handmade mermaid doll: whimsyadoration}

Super cute seahorse necklace. I think I want one for myself! More on this as well later. 

{Seahorse pendant: FabulousCentral}

I hope I covered everything and shared some inspiration. If anyone has any questions about anything in this post, feel free to send me an email: itsapinklife@gmail.com. I'm pretty much an open book and I love to help wherever I can. 

Ps. Wish me luck in November. Mariam wants a big unicorn party at the park for her 5th birthday. At least my close neighbors mentioned wanting to do a joint 2nd birthday party for our babies since they are all one week apart. My oldest also turns 15 this November but she's at the age where she would much rather do something small with a few friends then a party. Phew!