I created almost the entire party with the CTMH Cricut Artiste Cartridge. I saved a ton of money by creating the party items but more importantly - there wasn't anything like them that I could even find locally regardless of price. Cricut Artiste is a must have for doing parties!
It all started with the Tiffany blue and Silver Shimmer Trim invitation. I used our new black pigment ink to stamp the front on inexpensive cardstock. What did I discover? Pigment ink doesn't bleed on cheapie pre-made cards that you can buy in multi-packs at Michaels so the invites came out great!
I used Cricut Craft Room to remove the stars from the birthday hat on Artiste and cut these at full page size. I cut the black roses at 5.5" for 4 per page. The crepe paper rosettes were edged with silver glitter and pre-made as the glue took a little while to dry. The girls folded the hats, added the crepe paper trim, the baker's twine ties and glued the bow and rosette/rose embelishment on. These were SO cute on the girls!
Here is the scrumptious desert / candy bar I set up. My boys were looking forward to chowing down on the leftovers. Little did they know how much a group of teen girls can eat....
Check out the awesome 3-D chandelier I made by cutting 4 of the 2-D cuts from Artiste, scoring down the centers and gluing them together. I added some white gel pen lines to define the candles, silver glitz for the gems and yellow pigment inks/Stardust glitz for the flames. I adore this piece and will probably shift it to my craft room!
I cut 27 white roses at full page size and rolled them up - they are about 9" across finished size. The giant rosettes are (4) 12" segments of Cherry-O paper (the blue reverse) all put together in one big circle with a silver (only non-CTMH paper I used) metallic center circle. These are about 18" across.
I found these awesome zebra striped cupcake liners at Michaels and put my chocolate dipped GIANT marshmallows in them. They are on rock-candy wooden sticks and tied up with adorable baker's twine bows. I used dark chocolate and a light blue chocolate on these - they were delicious and adorable!
To get the delicate blue chocolate swirls on the marshmallows, I put some of the melted chocolate into a plastic sandwich baggie and cut a tiny tip from the corner to make a quick piping bag. Worked GREAT and no-mess clean up as I threw the bag out when done.
I baked Ghiradelli brownie mix in these shiny foil liners and added a flower of blue frosting on top. I found light blue pre-made frosting at Target (I think it was Pillsbury) for $1.99 and it was the PERFECT shade of blue!
Yummy carrot cake muffins with cream cheese frosting and colored and clear sugar crystals. Don't you love those chalkboard labels? Its black cardstock cut with I think the Artiste cartridge and then I used our Chalkboard Marker to add the words. I loved the look - it was like a French pastry shop!
Even regular Hershey bars got a pretty update by wrapping them and adding a black CS cut out plus a beautiful rolled rose. The girls took those home with them in treat bags I had for them to fill up at the end of the party.
I placed some of the giant rolled roses around the treat table to give it some pizzaz. The soft carmels were a Costco find. Soooo yummy!
Absolute hit of the party - homemade caramel corn! I found the recipe HERE but after reading the reviews I cut the butter in half. It was the best caramel corn I have ever had in my life - seriously! I made a double batch which was good as my boys nearly cried when they saw this huge bowl was almost gone after the party. The girls were scarfing this stuff down!
Giant flower balloons - aren't these fun? I used blue 11" balloons and blew them up about 3/4 full. I tied two together and then took another set of two and crossed them over to create a four petal flower. I added a fifth petal by simply tying one to the center and then added a 5" black balloon to the center. At this point they looked like giant molecules - they weren't even sitting flat and looked nothing like a flower.
Here comes the magic - I tied a loop of curling ribbon to the back and then used 3-M command hooks on the wall and attached them to the hooks. The hook allowed the puffy balloons to stick to the wall (they were too puffy to stick with blue tape) and the wall pushed all the petals out evenly. Once they were hung I went in with a silver sharpie and added polka dots to the black center balloon and some curling ribbon stems. ADORABLE! The party store was charging around $13 PER FLOWER to do this with helium!
Close up of my cutie-patootie flowers.
And, last but not least a re-posting of my earlier prize post of the picture frame we made.
Whew! Thanks for sticking through all the photos! I used a ton of my scrapping stash (yay!) for the party decorations so it was mostly buying the cupcake liners, ingredients for food, black plates and napkins, the frames and balloons for cost. Somewhere around $50-$60 with enough non-perishable supplies left for another party.
I hope you find some inspiration in all of this! Like I said, my Cricut Artiste and Art Philosophy cartridges created pretty much ALL the stuff - from the picture frames to the party hats, the chalkboard labels, the giant flowers, the rosettes and anything else papery - it was all on the Cricut. If you have a party to plan, the CTMH Artiste cartridge is truly your go-to source for everything from holidays (Easter, Valentine's, Thanksgiving and Christmas, etc.) to boy and girl birthday parties and more. There are 14 themed holiday keys and an incredible number of images (700+) you can use for party planning.
If you don't have this little beauty yet, head over to my website at www.Paige.CTMH.com and pick it up for your next event - it will pay for itself with the money you save by creating your own party stuff that is WAY better than anything you can get at the store!
Thanks for sticking with me through this LONG post! The party was a blast and I hope you find some ideas to use for your next bash! Stay crafty my friends!
Paige
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