Passport to Paradise Auction

This month our church hosted their annual dinner auction. Proceeds of the auction benefit youth and young adult ministry, religious education programs and our school. 

Since I'm the coordinator of youth and young adult ministry I have a very active role in this event. Each year I am honored to be in charge of decorating. I love throwing parties especially theme parties so this is right up my alley. 

Over the years we have hosted a Mardi Gras night, a western event, back to the 50's, St. Patrick's Day, Hollywood, medival times and last year was Disney.

This year's theme was Passport to Paradise. 

An overview of the room 

We had two sets of tables - the long rectangle for general seating and the round for premium seating. Premium seating included table linens, real plates and silverware and each table had their own server. 

My Mom with the help of some awesome parents volunteers created all the table centerpieces. Thanks Mom! 

The centerpieces on the premium tables each had a beautiful tropical flower. 

Here is a closeup of the centerpieces from the other tables

In addition to the amazing items for auction we always have a secret gift table. Guests could pay $10.00 and pick an umbrella. Each umbrella has a number attached to it that matches a gift on the table. Each gift is valued at $10 or more. The main draw is always a beautiful piece of jewelry that you can win. 

I have to say this is my favorite . I just loved my hula trash cans.

I found this fun Keep Calm sign at  The Keep Calm-o-matic   it fit nicely with this display at the bar.

I think the night turned out wonderful and several children, teens and young adults are going to reap the benefits. 

I am so looking forward to our auction next. I will truly get to play with decorating on this one. Our theme is Vintage Circus. 

Until next time, 

Karri

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Dizzney Mania

In April our Church had it's annual dinner auction to benefit the school, religious education program and the Youth and Young Adult ministry program. Once again I was in change of transforming our gym into our version of the Happiest Place on Earth. (So no one thinks I can't spell we decided to spell Disney as Dizzney to avoid any copyright problems in our advertising)

From the beginning I knew I wanted surround the room with silhouettes of some of our favorite Disney character. I was very lucky to have a former teen from my youth group who is an amazing artist. Every silhouette was hand drawn and inspired by a picture she had on her phone. They were amazing.  

To help pull the rest of the theme together I went to Pinterest. (If you would like to view my Pinterest board full of great ideas including the ones I used click here.)  

Enjoy our Dizzney Mania Auction........

Semi full view of the room

One of the auction tables 

This year we had featured premier tables. Premier table holders received a bottle of wine, real serving pieces, two personal waiters and bottled waters. Each table featured a different Disney character or characters.

(Pictured here clockwise: Princess, Minnie Mouse, Mickey Mouse and Goofy)

It all started with a Mouse! Mickey and his better half were our featured characters of course.

The Mickey Mouse theme table. (Pinterest inspired) 

One of the two Disney Princess theme tables. 

The Donald Duck table. I also had a Goofy table, a Minnie table, a Pooh Bear table, an Alice in Wonderland and Tinkerbell Tables. 

These decorations would have never created if it were not for the wonderful people who volunteered to help.  I am very grateful to all of them. They made the week of decorating stress free. Well not totally stress free, I'm not going to lie but they did help to keep my stress to a manageable minimum. 

So now it's time to gather ideas for our auction next year. We've decided to go to the Islands! Now my mind is focused on grass skirts, coconuts  and tiki tourches. 

Until next time,

Karri 

Picture Frame Wreath

Back in November, Linda from Two Succulent Sisters shared her Pumpkin Square Wreath post at my Our Favorite Things Link Party. I thought it was so unique and fun that I had to try and make one as a gift for my best friend Jackie.

I wrapped my picture frame with some white cotton fabric I torn into strips. At first it looked very Halloweenish. Jim said it reminded him of a mummy. So I took my red stamp pad and distressed the heck out of it. Jim then said it reminded him of a bloody mummy. This was not the look I was going for so I added green stamping ink and found it gave the frame the rustic look I wanted.  

Add some garland, berries, pine cones and this adorable bear. Jackie loves Teddy Bears

A close up of the sign I made using wooden pieces I bought from Michaels. 

I gave Jackie the wreath last week so she could enjoy it during the season.  I'm happy to say she loved it.

Until next time,
Karri

Linking to:

Monday:  
Craft-o-Matic, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Skip to My Lou, The Gunny Sack,

Tuesday:
 Lil Luna, Sugar Bee Crafts, The Blackberry Vine, Today's Creative Blog, Not Just a Housewife,  Clean and Scentsible, Natural Nesters, Crystal & Co, The Well Crafted Home

Wednesday:
 Polkadots on Parade, Fireflies and Jellybeans, The Trendy Treehouse, Somewhat Simple, Ginger Snap Crafts, Practically Functional, DIY Crafty Projects

Thursday:
 Delightful Order, Suzy’s Artsy Craftsy Sitcom, My Turn (for us), The Shabby Chic Cottage, The Crafty Blog Stalker, The Frugal Girls , The Mandatory Mooch

Friday
It’s a Hodgepodge Life, Blissful and Domestic, Chic on a Shoestring, Craft Envy, Just Us Four

Saturday: 
Tatertots and Jello, Craft Envy, While He Was Napping, Six Sisters Stuff, Just Us Four; Cheerios and Lattes, Or so she says

Sunday:
 I Heart Naptime, Flamingo Toes, Blissful and Domestic, 

Paper Ornaments

My friend Karen and I made these beautiful paper ornaments for the ladies who sat at our table during our churches annual Ladies Dinner over the weekend.  To read about the event and see more pictures of our table please click here.
We made the fans using my Cricut and the Artiste cartridge from Close to My Heart and the graphics came from doing a Google search of "girl with poinsettia". We printed, cut out and glittered each of the images before adding them to the fans. We attached a ribbon and that was it. We placed them at each of the place setting for the ladies. All the ladies loved them.

Until next time,
Karri



Linking to these great link parties

Starting the Season with the Annual Ladies Dinner

Each year my church has a Ladies Dinner on the first weekend of Advent. It's always a beautiful night and a perfect way to begin the Advent Season. Each year women sign up to host a table, hostesses are in charge of inviting guests for their table, all the decorations, the tableware, appetizers, beverages, and a favor to give her table guests as a reminder of the night. The hostesses are also responsible for finding waiters for their table and selling raffle tickets to the ladies. It's really fun to see how each of the hostesses decorates their tables. I have hosted a table for about 5 years but it wasn't until last year that I began hosting with my wonderful friend Karen. We have so much fun that we have decided to never host a table by ourselves again. Last year our table was a snowman theme. When we were decorating that table we came up with the theme for this years table. On Friday as we were decorating this table we decided on our theme for next year. It's a secret though. This year we choose the theme: Poinsettias enjoy!

Until next time,
Karri




Linking to these great link parties

Alexa's Sesame Street Party Part 3

Today I'm sharing the last part in my series featuring Alexa's 2nd birthday party. If you happened to miss the first 2 parts check them out at Part 1 and Part 2.

Putting together Alexa's party was super easy because I used of my favorite computer tools - Springpad and Scrapbook Max.

Springpad is like Pinterest with the exception that you can keep all of your information hidden and you can create your own list and notes.

Here is my board for Alexa's party. I was able to keep my decorating, favors and recipe ideas together and also create my menu, to do lists and shopping lists. Since I have Springpad on my phone, ipod touch and Nook, I was able to access my lists from anywhere. 

Scrapbook Max was also my lifesaver this party. I was able to create all of my food table signs, the invitation and sign decorations. I used Walgreens photo to print everything because of the reasonable price. 

For my food table: Each of these was cute in half and placed on a photo holder stand. 

Each of these was printed as a  4 x 6 photo and placed in acrylic picture frame.

I had this printed in 8 x 10 and I used a white wooden picture frame. I placed it near the favor table for guests to read as they were getting ready to leave the party. 

So there you have it, Alexa's 2nd Birthday! It's still crazy to think she is now 2. Since 2 came up so quick, I'm already thinking of party #3. Thank goodness for Springpad to keep my organized.

What are your favorite tools and tricks when planning a party? 

Until next time,

Karri

Linking to:
Monday:  
Craft-o-Matic, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Skip to My Lou, The Gunny Sack,

Tuesday:
 Lil Luna, Sugar Bee Crafts, The Blackberry Vine, Today's Creative Blog, Not Just a Housewife,  Clean and Scentsible, Natural Nesters, Crystal & Co, The Well Crafted Home

Wednesday:
 Polkadots on Parade, Fireflies and Jellybeans, The Trendy Treehouse, Somewhat Simple, Ginger Snap Crafts, Practically Functional, DIY Crafty Projects

Thursday:
 Delightful Order, Suzy’s Artsy Craftsy Sitcom, My Turn (for us), The Shabby Chic Cottage, The Crafty Blog Stalker, The Frugal Girls , The Mandatory Mooch

Friday
It’s a Hodgepodge Life, Blissful and Domestic, Chic on a Shoestring, Craft Envy, Just Us Four

Saturday: 
Tatertots and Jello, Craft Envy, While He Was Napping, Six Sisters Stuff, Just Us Four; Cheerios and Lattes, Or so she says

Sunday:
 I Heart Naptime, Flamingo Toes, Blissful and Domestic, 

In the Christmas Spirit-Decorating

The morning after Thanksgiving, my first words to Jim were, "Honey, could you get the boxes?" I'm so lucky he got right on it and by Friday evening we were all done decorating the house. I was teased by a few of my friends who saw my Instagram pictures announcing my plans for the day. I look at it this way, I want as much time as possible to enjoy my decorations and at least I didn't start to decorate after Halloween. 

This year decorating was a breeze because of a single step Jim & I took last year when putting everything away. I labeled the boxes. Such a simple thing to do, I don't know why we hadn't done it before. With all my boxes labeled I wasn't spending my time searching for items. I was able to move from one area to another opening one box at a time. 

My labeled boxes - ready to be emptied. I will also be filling them up again with the everyday decorating items that the Christmas decorations will be replacing for the season.

Now for my home:

Our Christmas village - it's a hodge podge of Department 56 collectibles and Mervyn's department stores houses.

My 2nd village of Clayworks candle houses. I use battery operated candles with these because of the fake snow. I don't want to start a fire.

Our mantel - I'm starting a collection of Nutcrackers. I would like to find stocking holder's that are Nutcrackers so I can have the entire mantel in just Nutcrackers.

I love snowmen and now have them in two separate spaces in my house. I love my snowman tree.

My collection of angels also expands for the season. My Jim Shore angels are always on display throughout the year and each Christmas they are joined by these ladies.

Can't have decorations without Santa. I feature my collection each year on my ledge above the dining room.

Each year we have two trees. A real one in the living room that we will get in a few weeks and this one, my favorite tree. It is located in my family room and is filled with stuffed animals and homemade ornaments. All the ornaments are one Jacob made when he was young. I'm so excited to start adding Alexa's handmade ornaments this year. 

My prayer table is transformed each holiday and becomes my Nativity table. I feature all my figures depicting Christ's birth. The tree has small nativity ornaments and we will be adding Jesse Tree ornaments each day during the Advent season. 

The reason for the season. We await the arrival of our Savior. On Christmas Eve when we return home from evening mass we will add him to our Nativity scene, until then we prepare. More on that later. 

How do you decorate for the holidays?

Until next time,

Karri

This post will be included in the Christian Home Magazine

Linking to these great link parties:

Fall Decorating

Now that Halloween is over it's time to decorate the house for Thanksgiving. Usually I coordinate both holidays in my decorating so I have a Fall theme with some Halloween splashed in from about mid September to the day after Thanksgiving. I do take down the Halloween once it's over. This year I decided to decorate each month individually.

For my dining room table I found these fun leaf placemats at Bed, Bath and Beyond. I used my favorite vase set as always and fill them with some fall leaves and plastic fall pumpkins I purchased from the Dollar store last year.

 Every year my mantel is home to my scarecrows. I love them, they are so cute. I tend to buy a new scarecrow each year so don 't be surprised if a new friend arrives on my mantel before Thanksgiving. The leaf vine I purchased at the Dollar Store last year, my pumpkins were left over from my Halloween mantel. I had the orange pail and "Give Thanks" sign from years ago. I filled me pail with some leaves.

On my side table I have the kid's baptism pictures and their albums. I didn't want to take them down so I decorated around them. Again I used a leaf vine I purchased at the Dollar Store and I added some plastic pumpkins, ghords and Indian corn. My turkey basket took the place of the usual rectangle basket that sits on the shelf. I use the basket to store my keys, my iPod, or any of them many other little items I tend to loose on a daily basis.

This is all I will do for this year. I have a big birthday party for Alexa in a few weeks that will require a major decorating redo and I don't want putting it back to be too complicated.

How are you decorating for Fall?

Until next time,
Karri

 This post will be included in the Christian Home Magazine, a weekly e-magazine.


Linking to:
Monday:  
Craft-o-Matic, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Skip to My Lou, The Gunny Sack, For Love of Cupcakes

Tuesday:
 Lil Luna, Sugar Bee Crafts, The Blackberry Vine, Today's Creative Blog, Not Just a Housewife,  Clean and Scentsible, Natural Nesters, Crystal & Co

Wednesday:
 Polkadots on Parade, Fireflies and Jellybeans, The Trendy Treehouse, Somewhat Simple, Ginger Snap Crafts, Practically Functional

Thursday:
 Delightful Order, Suzy’s Artsy Craftsy Sitcom, My Turn (for us), The Shabby Chic Cottage, The Crafty Blog Stalker, The Frugal Girls 

Friday
It’s a Hodgepodge Life, Blissful and Domestic, Homemaker in Heels, Chic on a Shoestring, Craft Envy, 

Saturday: 
Tatertots and Jello, Craft Envy, While He Was Napping, Six Sisters Stuff, Just Us Four

Sunday:
 I Heart Naptime, Flamingo Toes, Blissful and Domestic,