Cupcake Cake

The following day - after my birthday night celebration - my mom baked a large chocolate cupcake cake, which my niece and nephew were excited to decorate. Joseph was super excited to give me my present (money for our trip to Clearwater, FL with a special Joseph touch and recorded card from my two faves) and join in on the festivities.

The beginning...my mom made it simple!

Joseph waving to the camera!

I don't think Liv was ready for the photo - what do you think?!

The Final Product

(It was super yummy and extremely moist!)

Birthday Bests

Each year, for my birthday, my niece and I celebrate some of our festivities together. Having birthdays exactly a week apart, I absolutely LOVE celebrating with her. But first, I celebrated with some adults - friends and family - enjoying dinner at local NJ Italian restaurant, Cotardo's Ristorante, with a few close friends on Saturday, February 26th, followed by some drinks in a low key, roomy environment not too far from home.

With so many events happening in the first few months of the year, I wanted to keep my birthday low key, but enjoy it just the same.

Cousin Jenn

My sis-in-law Diane

Cousins Jenn, Kim, Ken, Gina and Steph, my brother Joey and sis-in-law

Lori, Karen and I

Maia, Freddy and Mike B popping into the picture!

Joe and I snag a shot!

The BOYS - Rob and Mike B

Then apparently, as with most birthdays, it was time for shots...chocolate cake!

And, then George showed up...just as we were about to leave, which made Joe, Lori and I stay for a bit.

 Siblings!

We LOVE George!

Thanks to everyone who came out and celebrated my bday this time around...one more year closer to 30 is scary!

(Not pictured: Eva and Mike and Karen - sorry guys, the camera didn't come out until later)

What to Blog?

I've been thinking about changing the name of my blog and also trying to organize posts better. That being said, I've also been thinking about maybe having two blogs...one for family and friend posts and the other for gift ideas, events and creative things I love to do when I have the time. We'll see what comes in the next month or so.

Candy Table Labels

As a gift for their cousin’s daughter, Valentina’s combined confirmation and birthday party, Freddy and Maia put together a candy table. That being said, Maia asked if I could help design a label for the candy bags.

Since Valentina loves Juicy Couture, Maia came up with the creative idea to doctor up the juicy label with the date of the event and Valentina’s initials in the middle. After "googling" and making sure I had the right fonts available, I went to work with setting up the design...check out the end product below. Rachel, Valentina's mom, even dropped off some extra goodie bags to the Juicy store and they loved it!

Using circle labels, we left the outer design plain white while the actual design was black with her party colors being red and pink.

I think the candy table turned out great – they did a LOVELY job!

Mosaic Mojo

When my friend Maria asked me if I wanted to make mosaics one weekend, I said yes right off the bat. I love artsy things and never crafted something mosaic before! And, although the weather wasn’t the best, my cousin Gina, my niece Olivia and I headed down to Swedesboro, NJ for an afternoon of glass cutting, staining, and a tissue gluing fun time at Mosaic Mojo! My cousin Jenn and friend Maria along with her cousin - also named Maria - met us there.

Jenn arrived first and went right to business on decorating her glass heart with red, pink and grey tesserae or small glass pieces. I’m a bad decision maker – I may have mentioned this before – so although I thought I made my mind up about doing a mosaic, I changed it at the last minute. Gina mentioned on the way down that we could do decoupage - the art of decorating an object with different types of pieces of paper. I liked this idea because I had the opportunity to make something useful and not just decorative. Gina and I both decided to decoupage trays while Olivia began piecing together her frog - so cute!  After Maria and her cousin arrived, they both chose to make mosaic candle holders, which required extra visits to set the clay in between the glass.

Supplies

Since I couldn't decide between making a funky heart mosaic or decoupaging a tray, I thought it would be a good idea to combine the two and have the heart as the central design on my tray.

The containers of colored green and blue glass Olivia used for her frog.

The zebra tissue paper - Gina helped me pick it out - I used for my red tray.

Mod Podge glossy glue didn't just keep the pieces all together, it also gave the trays a nice glistening coat.

The beginning of Olivia's frog...she did a GREAT job! 

Olivia worked hard cutting glass pieces to make them fit just right.

Jenn put together a tray of different colors before working on her heart.

The girls were hard at work...

but stopped for a picture.

Gina and I had our own decoupage table!

She stained her tray a portabella brown color - it needed a couple of coats - while I combined bright red and purple for my painted edges.

Progress Shots

Gina's antique looking tray - loved it!

Can you see the heart in the center?!

One piece of zebra tissue paper at a time.

Liv finished her frog so quickly!

Maria's heart candle holder.

Jenn put the last touches on her multi-colored hearts within a heart.

Gina's clock tray.

Almost done. I think the red and zebra combination turned out well and definitely goes along with my love of the color RED!

Jackie, the owner, and Maria chat about how she initially started constructing mosaics.

Our Final Products!

(My tray is still a little wet and the Marias came back for some future sessions)

Jackie, thank you for your instruction and helping us come up with some great ideas! I think we all had a blast and would definitely be interested in coming again.

Olivia loved it so much that she wanted to have a decoupage birthday party, which we are planning! 

Look for a future post on more artsy endeavors.