Aside from all of the cake orders I have received over the past couple of weeks (awesome stuff!!), I am also in the throes of party planning for my own two kids.

Their birthdays are three weeks apart, one near the end of February and one on St. Patrick’s Day, and normally they would each have their own party. The two of them live and breathe anything Harry Potter – my son reads the books, they listen to the books, watch some of the movies, have most of the Lego and of course they both have wands. My daughter even does a great impression of Hermione complete with British accent. So this year they decided they wanted to have a joint Harry Potter themed birthday party. Plan one party instead of two, I can do that.

I am also a huge Harry Potter fan, so I am having a great time planning this party and have scoured the Internet for inspiring ideas. In fact, the other night I was so overwhelmed with all that I want to accomplish for this party, that I actually sat down and typed everything out on a spreadsheet! I just don’t want to over look anything.

The party is slated for March 10th, so over the next few weeks, I am going to share the planning and ideas with you. First up will be the invitations.

But for now let me leave you with one of the banners I created for their shared bedroom, which is slowly being turned into the Gryffindor Common Room.  This will give you a hint as to what I am doing with the invites.

Thanks for taking a look.

My nephew T is now a six year old. Six!!! I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around that since my daughter’s six birthday is not far behind.

Anyway, this year he decided he wanted Lego Ninjago to be the theme of his party. Now if you know my sister at all, you know that she loves to buy paper goods, particularly those found in a party store. So just imagine how she felt when she discovered you could not buy Lego Ninjago themed party goods. The horror!

What do you do when you can’t buy what you want? You make it. We scoured the Internet for ideas, although there weren’t many and managed to come up with some ideas that made the birthday boy very happy.

It was my job to create the birthday banner and cake. First I found a good template of a Ninjago Mini figure and used the head for the banner. This is what I came up with:

For the cake we decided to do a cake / cupcake tower combo.  T’s favourite Ninjago character is Kai, so I based the cake portion on him and my husband created a Japanese Torii to go on top.  The cupcakes were simple with the faces of Kai, Jay and Cole. I was very happy with the way the icing colours turned out, especially the black!

My sister also got crafty and created some Ninjago balloons using yellow balloons, tissue paper and photocopies of their eyes. Awesome aren’t they!

Last but not least, she also created some themed cups and loot bags.

The kids had a great time, the birthday boy was extremely happy and maybe, just maybe I may have cured my sister’s addiction to party good stores. Well a girl can dream can’t she.

It has been forever since I felt any real desire to blog or jot anything down.  But I have found a new creative output that I am so passionate about, that I find myself bursting to share it with the world.

The short story –  about a year and a half ago, I was invited to a Stampin’ Up party by  a friend of mine.  I was curious so I went. I enjoyed myself, even bought a few things.  I thought this would be great, I could start making my own cards and never have to buy a store bought one ever again.  I had the best of intentions but my new stamp sets and ink just collected dust for about six months.

Then another friend of mine, who is a Stampin’ Up demonstrator, invited me to become part of a monthly Stamping Club and I haven’t looked back since.  Not only have I found a new creative output, but I have gained some wonderful new friends and a life!! Cause I’ll be honest, I was lacking in both those departments, but that’s another story.

So I guess I’m back and am looking forward to sharing my creations with you.

First up are some birthday cards I created for family members who are lucky enough to have birthdays in the month of December.

The first one I created was for my nephew, who turned four.  Since I am still in the process of building my arsenal of stamps and punches, I am a little limited in what I can create, but was happy with this.

Cupcake Happy Birthday Card

Next up is a card I created for my grandmother. I used one of my favourite stamp sets from Stampin’ Up called Elements of Style.

Elements of Style Birthday Card

And finally one I created for my sister. I think this is my favourite so far.

Butterfly Birthday Card

December was a busy crafting month around here, so I will have future posts on creations I came up with for the kids teachers and grandparents.  I am loving all that I can create using paper, some stamps, ink and a little imagination, so stay tuned!