Crafts |

Hi! So, here’s a little fact about me. I love hosting parties! I usually throw Friendsgiving, a Christmas party and Daniel’s bday party, but this year I thought it would be fun to do a Valentine’s party with all of our friends. I was initially going to make invitations and send them out, but I didn’t have time. Kayaking was way more important. (Link to Kayaking post here) It took me a week to plan and prep for this party. I literally didn’t go to bed until 1 or 1:30 every night well morning. By Wednesday I was a hot mess. Poor Daniel had to deal with me being a scatter brain! For this party I wanted to play games, eat good food and have a lot of treats that were all catered to the Valentines theme. The first game that came to mind for the V-day party was of course the newly wed game. Everyone who was there is married or engaged so I thought it would be fun and appropriate. For food I instantly thought of Olive Garden so I recreated their Fettuccine Alfredo. Someone brought bread sticks from Olive Garden and someone else recreated the salad from there. It was so good. I’ll have to share the quick and easy recipe with you one day. Okay, now for the treats. I love candy and treats so much! I got a fondue recipe from my sister-in-law that is amazing! Then I got strawberries, pineapple, pretzels, vanilla wafers, bananas and angel food cake to dip it in. Guys, the angel food cake is to die for with the chocolate fondue on it! If you haven’t tried it you need to. It’s life changing! I also made chocolate chip cookies with Valentine’s M & M’s and white chocolate popcorn with sprinkles. Here’s some pics from the party. I had so much fun making everyone’s Valentine and place setting.

Xxo

Melissa

Processed with VSCOcam with g1 preset Processed with VSCOcam with s2 preset — I always make a cute banner for a photo booth wall. This time I wanted to take all the pics with my Polaroid instead of my camera. I love the way they turned out! I got my Polaroid from {Here}. Also {Here} is where I got my film and it’s the best deal I’ve ever seen!

Processed with VSCOcam with s2 preset — I am obsessed with Kraft paper. I bought 30 feet rolls at the Dollar Store! I wrapped the tables with it because it’s cute and such an easy clean up!

Processed with VSCOcam with a6 preset — Here are some party favors and games we played. I always love playing Bingo at a party. It’s so fun. I found this template on Pinterest {Here} and we used the conversation hearts as the markers. The fox and raccoon bags are from Target. They were filled with fruties and the winners of Bingo go a bag full. My Polaroid again is from {Here} If you don’t have one get one. They are so fun! The photo squares that say I love us are from Chatbooks. I downloaded a template from them to use on the front of my book, but thought it would be cute to attach to the Polaroids.

I’m so excited that this is my first craft on my blog. I am seriously obsessed with dishes. Anytime I am in Target, Anthropologie, Ikea or Crate and Barrel I have to “look” at the dishes, which most of the time “look” means buy. I really don’t have any more room left in my cupboards, but I will make room. I was joking with my mom saying I might have to start storing dishes under our couch in the living room! This craft is super inexpensive. I got the plates from Tai Pan and the Dollar Tree. Obviously, the plates at the Dollar Tree were $1, but they were also $1 and Tai Pan. Really, that’s the only expense you have unless you don’t have Sharpies at your house, but if you don’t they are only a few dollars at the store. First I decided what pattern I wanted to do. I wanted two of my plates to say “Eat” on them so I used my Cricut machine and cut “Eat” onto vinyl and made it 4” tall. I also choose the skinny text mode so all my text would fit on the plate. Oh and I wanted square dishes because all my other ones are round. I am a perfectionist so it took me a while to do all of these plates. By looking at my plates you probably are thinking it wouldn’t take long, but I couldn’t decide what to put on the plates that didn’t say eat. I tried arrows, triangles, hexagons and finally decided on the simple dot border. I redid the dot pattern about 5 times on each plate. Windex or rubbing alcohol will be your bff If you are like me and need to try a million different things before deciding on something. Just put it on a paper towel or directly on the plate and wipe it off. Once I was done with my design I let them sit overnight. The next day I set my oven at 425 degrees and placed them in there for thirty minutes. Don’t take them out until they are 100% cooled. Also, note that the dishes you buy may say dishwasher safe, but if you put them in the dishwasher your design could wash off. Hand wash them if you want them to last! I hope you all try this fun craft! If you do #themelissaedition on Instagram or DM me @themelissaedition.

Xxo

Melissa