The winner will receive one of these adorable handmade Kylie Cake Stands in their choice of colors by Delightfully Lovely (value $30), and $25 store credit to My Little Love — an online party boutique!

Here’s a little more info about Delightfully Lovely by store owner, Danielle:

She says:

Delightfully Lovely is a dream come true for me. I get to work from home and make products that I love. Everything is designed and handmade by myself in my little shop with floral shutters. Every stand is unique and the perfect way to dress up any party!

I’d like one of each, please! You can find all of Danielle’s beautiful cake stands here:

www.delightfullylovely.com (etsy site)
delightfullylovely.blogspot.com (blog)
facebook.com/delightfullylovely (Facebook)

Here’s what store owner, Becky, says about My Little Love:

I started My Little Love after Noah-Paul was born..he is my little love of course! In Hawaii, a baby’s first birthday is a big event and I wanted to design and style a party filled with vibrancy, color, and lots of fun, fun, fun!!! Once I got started with the party plans, I had an epiphany..why not create a website filled with fun, vibrant, super colorful products for the party stylist in everyone, and most importantly, for the Little Loves in their lives? So, I set out to do exactly that and here we are!

The store is full of all kinds of pretty things for your parties and gift giving! Again, I’d pretty much like some of it all!

You can find My Little Love here:

http://mylittlelove.bigcartel.com (store)

http://www.facebook.com/shopmylittlelove (Facebook)

https://twitter.com/mylittlelove24 (Twitter)

Thanks to both our sponsors for providing such great prizes for our winner. It isn’t too late to join the party! The linky closes Sunday night, so hurry!!

• The Party occurred in 2011 (That way, you wouldn’t have linked it up before).
• It was a REAL party (not just a product photoshoot–as much as I love to look at those!  I want to see the real parties with real guests and all of the variables that come with them!
• You (the submitter) played the major role in the planning and execution of the party (others can have helped, but this needs to be your own work and your own post).
• Your entry will need to display my party party button so I know you’re playing and others can come and play too!

I think all my yammering is bringing this party down. Just link-up your party, grab some refreshments, and have fun party surfing!

ENJOY!

There’s a pretty good change you’ve already been to the website One Charming Party–the internet home of our 2012 Party Party Celebrity judge, Brittany Egbert. Her work has been featured on television, as well as on websites and publications such as Amy Atlas and Real Simple Magazine. She even has her own internet TV show over on My Craft Channel! But just in case you don’t know the eye candy that is One Charming Party, let me enlighten you and introduce you to Brittany, its founder!

I got to meet Brittany at EVO Conference last summer. I actually got to meet lots of amazing bloggers last year, but I have to admit to being especially star-struck at the thought of meeting Brittany! I am such a fan of her work that I wan’t sure what to say! Of course, she is super-nice and put me right at ease. I am so excited that we get to work together on the team for SNAP Conference in April. Brittany is in-charge of the party track of the Conference. Did you see some of the amazing party people she has lined-up to come and speak? We hope to get to meet many of you fellow party girls (and guys?) at SNAP!

If you go to the One Charming Party site you’ll quickly understand why I am such a fan! You’ll find post after post of perfectly planned and photographed parties. It was quite a task to figure out which ones to feature here, since I pretty much love all of them! Here are a few which are particularly inspiring to me:

I love how the art party is held in a gallery and the children’s works of art are on display for all to see! The rainbow hues against white space are such a visual treat! I’m sure any child would feel inspired at this party.

I have yet to throw a full-blown superhero birthday party, but when I do, I’m sure I’ll be borrowing a lot of the elements from this one. The comic book banner and cardboard box buildings are favorites of mine!

I kind of have a thing for Cupcake liners (if you haven’t noticed). How perfect to have them decorating this baking party where the guests get a hands-on culinary experience while looking adorable!

Another fantastic thing about One Charming Party is that all of these parties I have featured and several more are available as a full party plan to purchase and download. You have to go and preview the plans. Each plan is like a full-blown magazine with gorgeous photography, step by step instructions, and printable invitations.

Can you tell I’m a little excited that Brittany agreed to be our guest judge? And she will be looking at each of YOUR parties! Make sure and come back on MONDAY to link up your great parties from 2011! I’ll see you then!

 I’m including my inserts here.  Click on them to see them full-sized. Save them to your computer and print them out on 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock and cut them out. You can insert them in your own garland, or maybe just hide one each day for the kids to find each morning of the countdown.

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Yesterday, my little blog turned 4 years old! I had no idea when I clicked “publish” on that first post 4 years ago what I was doing or how big of a part of my life “My Insanity” would become. Thank you to everyone who has read, left comments, pinned, liked, shared and/or been inspired by my posts. Your support means so much to me!

I know many of you have not been with me for the whole of this four-year journey, so here are links to my “best of ” posts from each of those years, in case you want to go back and see what insanity you may have missed.

And since I am a party girl, you know I can’t let a momentous occasion such as this pass with out throwing some sort of party, so I am happy to announce that we will be having our 4th annual Blogiversary Party Party right here next week!  What is a Party Party? It is a linky party/contest celebrating the best parties in blogland from the previous year. So make sure your posts are ready and come back and link them up! I will also be starting Pinterests boards by category of all of the submissions so we can have a library of party inspiration!

Check out the amazing finalists from our Previous parties:

2011

2010

2009

I am super excited to let you know who our Celebrity Judge will be this year…

The amazing Brittany from One Charming Party! I will tell you more about Brittany later, but for now will just say that I adore everything she has ever posted and am so excited that she is heading up the Party Track at SNAP! Conference this April!

I have a few slots available for Party Party Sponsors. There is no charge to sponsor, but I am looking for Party Related prizes for our winners (valued no less than $25). Sponsors will be featured in a separate sponsor post, and linked to in the other Party Party posts. If you have an awesome prize to donate, please email me at kendrascreations@gmail.com.

So are you ready to get your party on? Meet me back here next Monday! In the meantime, I think I might finally be ready to bust out a Valentine’s post, and stay tuned for me to gush more about Brittany and the brilliance that is One Charming Party!

Thanks, everyone!

Cakewrecks blog shared this cake on their Facebook page (they share the cool as well as the comical) and thousands of people rushed to see it. I had many requests for tutorials, and was just  finally able to acquire the pics and instructions from the cake artist herself, exclusively for my blog! The rest of this post is by Terri.

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After watching so many Cake Competitions I absolutely had to make a cake. The last (and first) cakes I made were my daughters wedding cakes in 2001.

No idea what to make…then inspiration struck. My neighbor loves Wild Turkey and he was retiring. Hmmm. A victim and a theme! Scrapped my first idea of sculpting a bourbon bottle. A keg would be more interesting. At first I designed it to stand on end. Not a good idea since everything had to be put together at the last minute. Setting it on it’s side allowed me to make a tremendous amount in advance.

I had no idea how much cake to make. This served about 40 people…for 3 days.

First step…building the base out of foam board. It looked more like part of a nativity scene than a keg at this point.

The cake part will sit on the platform. The section on the right will house the bourbon bag.

Barrel staves for the keg bottom side. Foam board with grooves cut in so they can curve.

The barrel staves will be covered in Chocolate Clay like these “cradles”.

I covered the pieces and then pressed them into my deck railing…scrubbed

clean of course…then rubbed the surface with a mixture of cocoa powder and cocoa butter.

I was also able to pre-make all of these parts: clay pot, slate base, geraniums, “nails”, barrel lid and bottom.

Here’s the Wild Turkey bag in place. It’s made out of  a seal-a-meal bag. It’s actually the second bag the first one having been punctured with one of those skewers I was using to hold things until the frosting glue dried.

Rice Krispy treats used for the upper barrel staves then covered with modeling chocolate. The cake itself was carved and  frozen.

Delivery day these staves were installed and rubbed with the cocoa butter/powder mixture.

Then the straps and nails were put on.

The finished product…no one more amazed than me.

The kids loved the staves and the adults loved the cake.

The cake was a repeat of three layers. Dark Chocolate made with espresso and spritzed with Kahula and frosted with dark chocolate ganache. German Chocolate spritzed with Tia Maria and frosted with milk chocolate ganache and, White spritzed with white Crème de Cocoa and frosted with vanilla butter cream with toffee bits.

If making the cake for children or non-drinkers just boil the liquors for a bit to cook off the alcohol and leave out the espresso.

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Isn’t that cake simply amazing! I’m still not sure I can believe it was only her 2nd time attempting cake decorating. She must watch LOTS of Cake Boss, right? And I think Terry could have a new career, if she wanted! She just sent me this picture:

She says:  

“Here’s another easy fun cake you might like…our Buche de Noel wasn’t big enough so I made a Stump de Noel too.”

I’m not sure that looks easy to me but it sure looks fun!  Thanks so much, Terri for sharing your secrets with us today, and let me know if you are going to be in town around birthday party times! I could always use a little help with the cakes!

I’ve been promising a post about my word of the year for a while now, I think I was just hoping to have it all better defined before writing it, but this word encompasses so many smaller goals that it has all been swimming around in my head and I hardly know where to begin.

I’ve known what my word would be for a while, mainly because it is so necessary in my life at this time! But how to achieve it is something that is still eluding me, somewhat.

What is a word of the year? Each year for the last three years, I’ve chosen a word to focus on, rather than trying to remember a lengthy list of New Year’s Resolutions. I was first introduced to the idea through the blogging community and love how it feels so much more doable than the old way of doing New Year’s Resolutions. You can watch the video on this post to hear more about my thoughts on the matter.

I’ve had some pretty good words in the past:

2009: JOY — as in “Joy in the Journey” and finding joy through whatever experiences may arise.

2010: GRATITUDE — as in having an “Attitude of Gratitude”

2011: PURPOSE — “Living Life on Purpose” which to me was both making sure that the things I am doing have value and merit, but also, being the one that chooses what I will spend my time on, rather than happening to find myself busy without understanding why.

I haven’t been perfect at any of them, but I’ve appreciated having a focus to come back to–especially when I get overwhelmed with it all. This year’s word is probably harder (for me) to achieve than any other. I’m not great at routines. I’m always thinking of something new or better or prepping for the next big event. I’m also notorious for over-committing myself and underestimating the time/resources various commitments will take. I have felt a few things slipping out of whack this year, and this is why I know I need to focus on finding BALANCE in 2012.

***NOTE: This turned out to be a rather lengthy post. If you’d rather gloss over my self-analysis (which I would totally understand), you might want to skip to the end of the post where I’m sharing resources that are helping me and may be helpful to you!***

I like balance. I find it necessary and calming to have visual balance in design. Why would real life be any different? I find balance necessary in politics and in discussing issues. I’ve even been known to vote the opposite political party of the majority of the people in a whatever state I’m living in, in an attempt to provide balance to the situation. I have two boys and two girls (in alternating order) — and while I couldn’t have planned that, I appreciate the balance it brings to our home.

With my affinity for balance, one wonder that I struggle so much with adopting it in my own life. But I do. Rather than living by routines, I tend to push from one big event to the next. I want to be able to enjoy my day to day life and time with my family, rather than always stressing about the next big thing. Of course, my 2012 calendar is already full of several big things, so that will make my goals particularly challenging. I just don’t want to always live in survival mode.

Here are a few areas that I need to improve in, in order to achieve some form of a balanced life:

HEALTH: I am not happy with my state of health at the moment. While I am blessed to be free from serious disease or illness, my general state of well-being is not what I would have it be presently. Too little sleep, Random eating (and sometimes forgetting to eat), little exercise, and stress and pressure, have left me with low energy most all the time which makes it hard to accomplish any other goals. It’s kind of a vicious cycle. I’m too tired to get much done during the day with the kids, and so I wait until late at night to get productive. Then I don’t get any sleep and I’m tired the next day. I’ve got to figure out how to get the sleep my body needs. I’ve also been planning to get serious about the baby weight from my son for a while. He’ll be 2 in a few months. It’s probably time I quit planning and start doing.

SPIRITUALITY: I don’t love forcing spiritual things. I don’t think spirituality is checking off a to-do list. But I know I haven’t been taking the time to allow myself to have spiritual experiences. I need to carve out the time in my day to strengthen myself spiritually, or I won’t have the spiritual strength I need to make it through each day or to handle the trials that inevitably come. It’s not that this is totally broken for me. It just hasn’t been taking it’s rightful place on my priority list.

SAYING NO: This one is killer for me. I genuinely want to help people! I’m honored when others recognize my talents or come to me for advice. I honestly wish I could help most everyone that asks for my help and many people who don’t. I get sympathy pains for others and genuinely care about their predicaments. BUT if I were to make a list of all the little (and big) things I did just this last month to help people out–in the middle of my chaotic Christmas preparations–you would all shake your heads and laugh at me.

The trouble is figuring out who and what to say “no” to. I saw a quote on Twitter that made an impression on me. I need to plaster it on my walls. It said something like, “Choosing to say ‘yes’ to something is choosing to say ‘no’ to something else.” I just need to make sure it isn’t my children, my health, my marriage, etc. that I am inadvertantly saying “no” to.

MY HOME: While I love doing projects for and decorating my home, when I am in the midst of a project or a party (which is pretty much all the time), my house pretty much disintegrates into total chaos. No one in my family is particularly good at routines, so things don’t get clean until we have a major cleaning event. There has to be a two-parts to the solution here. I need to work on my own routines and habits. (and gaining the energy to carry them out). I also need to make sure my children learn good work habits and teach them routines that will minimize the chaos on a regular basis.

BLOGGING vs FAMILY HISTORIAN: I began blogging years ago to document the happenings of my young family and share them with my family and friends. I found myself wanting to share more of my projects (and didn’t want to bore those who were just reading the blog to see the kids) so I started a separate blog. I didn’t know what I was doing or what all would happen with it. I slapped some Google Ads on there and waited for the money to roll in. It took 3 years of blogging to get my 1st check from Google. Yet, as I found other creative bloggers, many were so supportive of my blog and my ideas, I kept persisting in developing my blog to be one that would help support my family. It is finally becoming somewhat of a profitable venture for me to blog, but there is still so much I have to learn and so many mysteries to solve (like why a post can be viewed thousands of times but only get 2 comments). I can be a little obsessive about looking at the numbers or seeing what has been pinned. Then there is all of the social media and self-promotion to be done if one is trying to grow a blog. The point of all of this is that I spend hours at the computer, and do you know how many of those hours were updating my family blog in 2011? Zero. I didn’t write a single post. I take beautiful pictures of my children and since scrapbooking is complicated when you are me, I’m not doing anything with them. My kids LOVE going back and reading the family blog. Before it got destroyed by one of them, they were so excited the get the Blurb book of our blog (from 2007) and sit down and read it. I need to do more to record, preserve, and present our family memories, while we are in the middle of making them! I have some ideas about how I will do this, but am nervous that I might not be able to always follow through.

RESOLUTION SOLUTIONS:

I am open to suggestions big or small, that will help me achieve my goal of balance (or at least less chaos) this year! Fortunately I have found several tips and nuggets of inspiration through the blogworld already! I’ve started a board on Pinterest (Resolution Solutions) to track some of the more inspirational and motivational sayings as well as tools to help me get organized. Such as:

Calendars:

I’ve printed a couple of the the calendars from this round-up on the SNAP! blog to start plotting the big things that are coming up this year, as well get a better feel for how I can manage my time on a weekly/daily basis.

Chore Charts:

I’ve nearly had a system in place for a long time now, but was getting hung up on making the chore charts cute, and figuring out exactly what should be on them. I printed out Mique’s charts, filled them in, and laminated them, and have started using them with the kids this week. If I need to adjust the chores, I can always print out a new chart. Take that, perfectionism! Thanks, Mique!

You also might like this printable from 1825! It’s beautiful and I like the idea of having the family working together on goals. Theirs is meant to be adaptable and visual!

As for things to think about. I just found this article while searching for a graphic for balance. I think the exercise they describe could be really helpful in determining what parts of your life are out of balance and charting it visually, since I am such a visual person.

I really liked this post over at Centsational Girl about balancing the blogging thing with real life. It is a great gig, but it doesn’t come with corporate training or even an instructional manual. It was nice to see that we all deal with the same issues and concerns, and to hear some of what these amazing and successful women have done to manage them! It’s got me thinking: how much money do I need to be making, before I can afford a personal assistant? Hmm…

Have you found a state of relative balance in your life? I would truthfully love to hear any suggestions big or small you may have. What routines have worked for you? When do you feel that your life is best in balance?

I was getting ready to post about how organized and on the ball I am going to be this year when I got distracted by sparkly things!

I love Valentine’s Day–I do. I blog about it all of the time. But when the stores fill with Valentine’s merchandise before Christmas is even over, it makes me a little sick to my stomach–like when I’ve been eating too much candy sick. My eyes and my stomach need a little breather.

So because of that, and the fact that I’m a bit in love with my cupcake liner winter trees, I’ve put together a little winter decor to live on my mantle for a few weeks, until I’m feeling the hearts and lace again.

Here are my trees in my home hanging out on either side of the mantle.

I kept the design pretty minimal, symmetrical, and clean on purpose. Hopefully it will inspire clean minimalism in the rest of the house, as I try and reclaim it from the holidays.

I found the candlesticks on clearance at Michaels last month and had used them on the table for Christmas dinner. On either side I used mercury glass candlestick (clearance from Target a few years ago) as pedestals for clear vases filled with Espson salt.

The mirror needed a little bling, so I cut the numbers out of thick white card stock with my Silhouette machine, and glittered them with Mod Podge and course white glitter (Martha Stewart brand). I punched holes and strung the numbers through some white tulle ribbon.

Someone decided to play Secret Santa to our family this Christmas. Among other things, they left us this beautiful clock. I thought it was the perfect nod to the New Year and I placed it right in the center of the mantle.

The light and frosty mantle feels refreshing after all of the holiday fussiness.

And so what if it is 80 degrees outside? In light of the the triple digits we will be enjoyig in a couple of months, I’m going to milk this “winter” for all it’s worth!

So what about you? Are you reveling in winter, or have you moved on to Valentine’s Day?

Just popping in to say Happy New Year!

We celebrated by throwing a make-shift celebration with some friends in one of the side rooms of the church while the adults took turns chaperoning the youth dance there. It was a fun night! The kids came in for the balloon drop and were so excited (yes, they made it until midnight!)

How did you welcome in 2012?

I’ll be revealing my word of the year soon. I’m still working on my plan of attack–that, and cleaning up the Christmas hurricane that hit my house! Have you made New Year’s Resolutions? I’d love to hear about them! Maybe we can motivate each other.