{Tutorials} Personalized Halloween Treat Bucket

My crafty friend, Amanda, always comes up with the cutest DIY projects! This particular one even looks easy enough for me. I'm craft challenged!

Supplies: a plastic bucket, acrylic paint (orange, white & black), paint brushes, polyurethane spray along with tissue, ribbon, a gift tag and candy.

Directions:

First, spray the bucket with polyurethane spray. This will help the paint adhere. Next, paint a white ghost on the bucket. Then, using white paint, paint the monogram, name or phrase you wish to use. Also, paint the large white dots on the side; 2 coats.

Using the black paint, add your ghost face, "Boo" and "2010" to your dots. Then, apply 2 coats of orange paint to the monogram, name or phrase. Next, add letter "shadowing" to your lettering using white paint. Finish by spraying the bucket with polyurethane spray once again.

Now all you need to do is include a gift sticker, fill tissue paper with candy and tie ribbon on the handle for a BOOtacular Halloween treat!

This is such a cute and easy Halloween bucket you can make as a gift or even for your child's treat bucket! Thank you Amanda for sharing!

**Amanda found this particular bucket at HEB in the candy aisle.**

{Real Parties} A Very MAD Hatter Tea Party

If you are leaning towards the gothic side this year and are in the need for last minute Halloween inspiration, look no further! The lovely Chris of Celebrations at Home has designed a very MAD Hatter Halloween Tea Party that is perfect for your party.

Chris pulled this table together in less than a week and you can too! Lucky for you...Gwynn of Gwynn Wasson Designs created all the printables for the table (excluding the clock cupcake toppers) AND is offering them to you for FREE!!!

You won't want to miss LOTS more pictures on Chris's site as well as her Facebook page. No only does she share more photos with you, but she maps out a party plan that is easy to follow.

Happy Halloween Week!

Real Parties: Woodland Forest Birthday Party

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Kelly from The Party Dress and WH Hostess is a true talent and her latest children's birthday party for a 5-year-old boy is perfection. Kelly created a modern version of the popular whimsical woodland forest theme we have seen lately.

Focusing on an owl, toadstool, acorns and moss, a color palette of rusty red, olive green, chocolate brown and robin's egg blue was born. I love the clean-lined version of this cute theme and the rustic feel that in Kelly's words, was "oh so boy"!

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I have fallen for Kelly's centerpiece sticks which are the perfect addition to a kids party. At this birthday, cylinder vases were filled with moss stones and green lentils and topped off with one of the sticks.

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The children's table was set perfectly with a rattan placemat, lemonade bottles embellished with stickers and and box lunch. Each place setting also had a favor wrapped in the cutest way! The favor was wrapped in burlap fabric and tied with a polka dot ribbon and adorning gift tag.

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The dessert table stole the show! I adore the rustic, yet modern feel. To enhance the setting, Kelly used wooden boxes from Ikea in various places. Coordinating cupcake toppers, candy jar tags and woodland forest banner were found around the table as well. The children got to indulge in lots of yummy candy such as candy raspberries and swirl salt water taffy and custom cookies by the talented Allyson Jane Designer Desserts.

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Another picture of one of my favorite elements...the burlap wrapped party favors!

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I always get so excited when one of Kelly's parties lands in my inbox. We were able to collaborate on a girly monkey party not too long ago and we are both dying to see the pictures!!

And did you know that Kelly was just featured in InStyle Magazine as one of "best of the web" entertaining sources?!

Operation Give Thanks: An Amazing Way to Give Back AND Party!

My friend Amy from Stem Parties is such an amazing person and is constantly giving back to others. Near and dear to her heart is Operation Shower and now Operation Give Thanks. I cannot explain this wonderful cause better than Amy can, so please let me share with you what Operation Give Thanks is through her own words...

Operation Give Thanks is a nation-wide fundraising campaign to help Operation Shower continue our mission to throw amazing baby showers for military families to ease the burden of deployment.

We are asking people across the nation to host a party, big or small, between now and the end of the year to raise money for Operation Shower. What a wonderful way to express your gratitude and thanks at this special time of year — and have fun!

What an easy and fun way to help such a tremendous cause! AND to make it that much more fun, 5 of your favorite bloggers have donated free printable collections for your parties!!! HWTM, TomKat Studio, Paper & Pigtails, Paper & Cake and Parties by Hardie are all on board!

I am hosting a Halloween playgroup this week which will be my party for the cause. Can't wait!

A New Look!

{image via style me pretty}

Welcome, dear readers to the new look of P is for Party! I can't tell you how excited I am and over the moon about the new blog design! I hope you like it as much as I do. I started P is for Party on a whim one day and I am truly humbled by the love and attention the blog has received. Thank you for giving me a reason to write!

{image via Flickr}

I could not have done this without the creativity and patience of Carolyn...a dream to work with! If you are interested in a small update or an entire blog makeover, she is FABULOUS. You can visit Carolyn's blog, Life in Graz, to learn more about the process. I really cannot say enough nice things about Carolyn!

Please stay tuned for an amazing giveaway I have put together to celebrate the NEW look! I will have details soon. Thank you again for stopping by and for your continuous support!

Lots of Love ~ Christi

A Quick Break - New Blog Design Coming SOON!

Hi friends! I am going to "take off" for a few days while I finish up the last minute details of my new blog design! I.CANNOT.WAIT! I am smitten with the new logo design and color scheme! {The above photo from KiKi La Ru gives a hint to the new palette}. Carolyn has been amazing to work with and I love all that she has come up with. I will be back soon with a tremendous giveaway to celebrate the new launch of P is for Party...hopefully in a few days!!!

{Real Parties} A Farewell Blackout Party

I get so excited when people not only send me children's parties and showers, but grown up parties too! So many of us spend countless hours on parties for our kids, that we forget to host fabulous shindigs for ourselves or significant others. This particular party was a farewell party to a group of friends who were saying goodbye to the apartment they shared together for many years. Meghan of Everyday Inspirations thought of a clever theme...a BLACKOUT party called "Farewell to 3930!"

The highlight of the evening was the DIY photo booth she created. Meghan typed up simple instructions and placed them in a baroque style frame to coordinate with the party theme.

A blackout party is such a fun and unusual theme! Checkout Everyday Inspirations to see more party pictures and to see what else Meghan has to say.

Sneak Peek: The Friar Tuck Cup

I am gearing up to attend a "Wimbledon Whites" tennis party on Saturday night and I couldn't be more excited! Not only is it a fun theme, it is being thrown by my good friend, Christine and her husband. If you follow this blog, you know that Christine throws spectacular parties. Her parties are full of style, originality and she never misses a detail. The party is being photographed by an amazing photographer friend of ours, so I will have fabulous pictures to share with you in the next few weeks. I might sneak my camera in and hope I don't look too foolish! But for now, I'll leave you with links to stunning parties Christine has planned in the past. Be prepared for some serious eye candy...

Perfectly Pinkalicious

Cirque du Sadie

Butterflies

Sadie's Christening

Olivia's Christening

I wish you could have seen the invitation and how it arrived on my doorstep! I opened the door one afternoon to see a small box sitting on our front step. When I opened the box, I found a tennis ball packed on white crinkle paper and the invitation placed neatly inside. The invitation was in the shape of a ball, of course, and it consisted of several papers which were held together by a small chain. It was one of the most amazing presentations I have seen! The incredibly talented people from Atelier du Papier designed the invitation as well as the other paper goods which will be used on Saturday night. I look forward to sharing those details with you too!

Hmmm...now I need to decide on my all white outfit!

{Real Parties} A Tea Shoppe Party with a Hint of Hello Kitty

One of my absolute favorite things to see is someone take a popular or conventional theme and give it their own twist. Bird Crafts did just that! She had been itching to create a party around Hello Kitty and here is her pink and red interpretation with a dash of aqua blue!

Hop on over to Bird Crafts to see more pictures from the photo shoot! Bird Crafts also has a wonderful Etsy store where she sells her creative party printables.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week!

{Real Parties} A Wedding Day Picnic Full of Lovely Details

This incredibly gorgeous picnic is one of the loveliest table settings I have ever seen...and it comes to us all the way from Spain! The details are sweet and simple, but elegant at the same time. Nina of Designs by Nina styled a beautiful picnic table for her wedding...

I was thrilled to see this intimate picnic in my inbox and to discover Designs by Nina!