Free Printable Wine Tags

Wine is an easy gift to bring someone when you are invited over to their house or to a party.  Why not jazz it up a bit with our free printable wine tags?  These are perfect for all of the holiday parties this weekend.  They are very simple to make.  Simply print them, cut out the tags and the hole for the bottle, fold it over a bit under the hole, and put it over your wine bottle.  The backside is blank so that you can write a message to the host or hostess.

There are three different designs on the printable page.  Feel free to print them as many times as you like.

Download the wine tags here.

I hope you all enjoy the holiday season.  I wish you lots of joy and happiness and most of all quality time with your loved ones.

Cookie Garlands

Image Source: Haniela's

I usually make some cookies or cinnamon rolls for my neighbors at Christmas.  This year, I wanted to do something different so I started looking around on the Internet.  I found so many ideas and have decided on what I will make for them (hot chocolate sticks, for those who are interested).  But during my search, I came across these cookie garlands. I think they are a great idea and would love to make some with my kids to hang around my house. We might not have enough left over to make a garland if the kids are around, but it would certainly be fun (and not to mention yummy) to try! I think they would look great hanging in the kitchen under the cabinets or from the mantel along with the stockings.

The santa garland above is from Haniela's blog.  Click here for the link and you will find instructions and some tips on how to make a cookie garland.

Read on for more cookie garland inspiration...

Image source: Glorious Treats

I love the colors of this garland from Glorious Treats.  She also made matching cookie ornaments.   This blog has so many great ideas for Christmas treats.  If you are still looking for items to bake, this is definitely a good place to start.

Image source: Balzer Designs

This one is so cute! I love how simple it is. It's made by Valerie Mangan and incorporates her love of paper crafting and baking.  You should see the painted frame tags she made too. Gorgeous!

Image Source: Better Homes & Gardens

This one adds cranberries and popcorn to the garland.  I think it looks beautiful!

Hope that inspired you to make some garlands of your own.  These don't have to only be used for the holidays.  I can see them used for birthday parties as well.  You can make fish-shaped cookies for an under the sea party, dinosaur cookies for a dinosaur-themed party, cupcake- or candy-shaped cookies for a sweet shoppe party, and so on.  The possibilities are endless and the kids will love eating some of their birthday decorations. Happy baking!

Free Printable Merry Christmas Banner

It's the week before Christmas.  Are you ready?  I am almost ready.  I just have one more present and a couple of stocking stuffers to shop for and then I am done!

In case some of you are looking for last-minute ideas to decorate your home for the holidays, I created a free Merry Christmas banner for you to print out. It's very easy to put together...simply cut out the banner, punch holes in the top left and right corners, then string it together using your favorite ribbon or twine.  

This banner matches our Chalet Chic dinner party collection.  It would be a great addition to those pieces to complete your Christmas dinner decor.

To get the files to download, please click here.  I hope you enjoy it!

And The Winner Is...

Anita!  I used random.org's random number generator and got the number three.  The person who left the third comment was Anita, so Anita is the winner!  Anita said that she would use the Chalet Chic dinner party printables for a Christmas dinner. You'll be receiving the printables in your mailbox soon Anita.  I hope you will enjoy a fabulous Christmas dinner!

Thank you to all of you who entered the giveaway!

A Chalet Chic Dinner Party and a Giveaway!

Last weekend I had the pleasure of going to a dinner party at a chalet up in the mountains.  Since one of my good friends was hosting the dinner party, I helped her to jazz up the dining table a bit by designing a set of dinner party printables. I created a menu, place cards, paper napkin rings, and wine glass flags. The whole house, which is a gorgeous chalet and decorated beautifully, was lit with candles. It made for a very cozy and chic evening. Read on for more pictures and to see the giveaway at the end!

Since the printables would go perfectly with a Christmas or winter theme, we made a Christmas sangria to go with our dinner that was excellent!  We used red wine, cranberry juice, grand marnier, cointreau, sprite, cinnamon sticks, star anise, fresh cranberries, apples, oranges and strawberries. It was delicious!

We had such a fun night and since it is so close to the holidays, I decided to make a printed set of these and host my first giveaway!  You will receive eight 5 x 7 inch blank menus, a set of 8 paper napkin rings, 8 wine glass flags, and 8 placecards.  All you have to do to win the set is to leave a comment below letting me know what event you would use these for if you won. If you want to, you can also like my facebook page, but that is not necessary for entry. And it doesn't matter where you live, I'll mail it to you :-).

The winner will be chosen at random (by random.org) on Saturday, December 1st.  

If you would prefer not to wait to see if you won this giveaway, these are available as printables in my Etsy shop.

Party DIY :: Cupcake Stands

Even though I have many cupcake and cake stands, sometimes none of the ones that I have fit with the table that I am decorating.  So, I've found that making my own cupcake or cake stands helps to solve the problem.  They are really easy to make and don't cost a fortune either. You'll find many tutorials out there already, but here's what I do:

First, I gather my supplies. For this, you will need a glue gun, a candle holder, and a plate.

Once the glue gun is ready, place some glue around the top rim of the candle holder as shown above.  Then, before the hot glue gets cold, center the plate on top of the candlestick.

 And that's it! Please note that this is not a permanent solution. The glue will eventually wear off the plate.  The good news about that is that you can reuse your plates and candle holders to make more stands!

You can use this method to make many different kinds of stands.  You can make multi-tiered stands, or use bowls instead of plates and use them to display chocolate or candy. You can also spray paint the candle holders to match your plate for a more seamless look. There are so many possibilities. Have fun!

Expat Expo This Weekend

On Sunday, November 11, Paper & Party Love will be exhibiting at the Expat Expo in Luzern. For those of you not familiar with the Expat Expo, it's an english-speaking exhibition that is held a few times a year around Switzerland. I'm so excited to have a table there and get to meet some of you.  It will be at the Transportation Museum, so it should be a fun day out for families.  Take the kids to the museum and then come to the second floor conference center and say hi!  I'll have some new Christmas items like gift tags, advent calendars and wine labels, as well as some party items from the shop.  Hope to see you there!

Expat Expo Information:
Sunday, November 11, 2012
11:00 am - 5:00 pm
Museum of Transport Conference Center, located on the second floor above the main entrance
Lidostrasse 5, Luzern
Admission is free to the conference center!

Our Halloween Party is Featured on Amy Atlas!

I am so excited to be featured on the Amy Atlas blog today! It's the first time that I have been featured anywhere and I am jumping for joy. I read her blog almost every day and have been inspired by so many of the ideas and dessert tables that she features.  I still can't believe that they have chosen the Halloween party that I submitted!  Below is the invitation for the party, but for more pictures, please visit the full party feature on the Amy Atlas blog. And if you would like to have these printables for your Halloween party, they are now available in my Etsy shop.  Happy Halloween everyone!

Invitations:: Pirate Party, Dinosaur Party & Cupcake Party

I designed these invitations this past summer and love the way they turned out. They are available as fill-in invitations in the shop at 4Times, and will be available soon as printables in my Etsy shop.  In the meantime, if you would like to have these personalized for your next party, please feel free to contact me!

Also, I have to say a big thank you to my friend Fides, who helped me to take these pictures.  I appreciate all of your help!

We're going to have a shop!

I know that I haven't written in a while, but that's because I've been working hard on new designs and party products to stock a shop that Paper & Party Love will be a part of.  I'm so excited to announce that the shop is opening in just two weeks, on September 8, in Hirzel in Switzerland.  It is a kids boutique, called 4Times, selling new and secondhand kids clothing, handmade gifts and accessories, and our party products.  We'll have things like invitations, cupcake toppers, birthday banners, favor bags, and some party supplies ready-made in the shop.  All of those items can also be personalized and handmade for your party. You can still have the option to get the items as printables if you prefer. 

We'll also have ready-made party boxes with party themes like pirate, dinosaur, cupcake and movie, just to name a few.  Just pick up a box and you'll have everything to make your party pretty! The goal is to make it easier for you to have memorable events. 

I look forward to meeting some of you in our store!

Gabriel's Magic Party

You saw the magic wand invitations and the tutorial, now see the party!  The magic party for Gabriel was held last week. I've known Gabriel since he was born and it was great to help his mom create a party for him at home.  His kindergarten class has been learning about magic and he invited everyone to the party.  He was so excited in the days leading up to the party that he kept asking his mom "when is it?". All his waiting paid off and the day of his magic party finally arrived. From face painting, to "magic" food, to a magician that kept the kids laughing throughout, there was lots of fun to be had for the kids.

The food included things like Hocus Pocus Jello, a Magic Drink that changed colors when it was filled, magic popcorn with edible glitter for the magic effect and Disappearing Pizza, which really did disappear quickly!

And of course, we can't forget the cake.  It was in the shape of a top hat with rabbit ears sticking out of it.   Naturally, there were cupcakes also.

At the end of the party, the kids all received a goody bag filled with all kinds of magic treats.

Thanks to Sharon and Gabriel for letting me help out with their party.  Looking forward to brainstorming more ideas for next year!

Magic Wand Invitation Tutorial

On Monday, I showed you the fabulous magic wand invitations that my friend and I made for her son's upcoming magic themed party.  Today, I'm going to show you how we made them.  They were not that hard to make and used supplies that you probably already have at home.  

Supplies:

Black Construction Paper

White Copy Paper

White Crayon

Glue

Ribbon

Scissors

Hole Punch

Step 1: Cut a sheet of black construction paper in half lengthwise.  We used a large piece of construction paper, so we ended up cutting it in fourths.  Roll it up and glue the end to close it.

Step 2: Cut two strips approximately 1 inch/2.5 cm high from the white copy paper.  Make them long enough to go around the wand about 2 times. This helps to keep the wand closed up.  Glue one strip to each end of the wand. Allow to dry.

Step 3: Use a full sheet of white copy paper and write your party details on it with a white crayon.

Step 4: Punch a hole in the top of the paper and attach a ribbon to it.

Step 5: Tightly roll up the sheet of paper and insert it into the wand that you made.

Step 6: Attach the envelope with the instructions inside to the ribbon. Curl the ribbon.

Step 7: Abracadabra...you're finished! Hand deliver them to your guests and watch them smile.

This is what they will see when they paint over the paper...

Magic Wand Invitations

I am so excited to show you these invitations! One of my good friends asked me to help her with her son's upcoming magic themed birthday party. After some brainstorming, we came up with these fabulous magic wand invitations.  They turned out great and the kids were so excited to receive them!

The invitations were made out of black construction paper and regular white paper.  The black construction paper was used to make the wand itself and the white paper was used to make the white tips on both sides of the wand. Inside the wand was another white sheet of paper where we wrote the party information in white crayon. It was then rolled up tightly, had some ribbon attached to it, and put inside the wand. It slid out of the wand when you pulled on the ribbon. Inside the envelope were instructions on how to magically make the information appear by painting over it with watercolor. View the video below to see how it all worked. The kids loved it! Talk about getting them excited for a party. 

Here's what the invitation revealed when it was painted over...

And below is a little video so that you can see the how the wands worked. Enjoy!

Come back tomorrow for a tutorial on how we made the wands.  They were not difficult to make, it just took some time since we had to make so many!

Happy Friday :: Sponge Balls

We love Fridays around here.  It's the end of the (usually stressful) week, and we like to celebrate.  And by celebrate, I mean doing something a little different, not a big party, just something that is fun for everyone.  Sometimes we order pizza and watch a movie, sometimes we eat dinner on our balcony, or sometimes, like tonight, we have friends come over for a drink.

It's supposed to be hot, hot, hot, so I'm going to make some mojitos for the adults.  And since the kids are invited too, I made them these sponge balls to play with.  They are so easy to make and the kids love playing with things that make them wet.  You simply take a few sponges, cut them into strips, and then tie them together with some string.  I used about 9 strips for the ones that you see above.  For a more detailed tutorial, view this post. They are easier to use than water balloons (just drop them in a water bucket) and there's no danger of the littler ones eating the remnants of the popped balloons.

I'm looking forward to tonight.  The kids can enjoy the summer weather outside and the adults can enjoy mojitos and snacks.  Who knows, maybe the water fight will be too fun to resist and we'll all join in :-).

Hope you enjoy your weekend!

Surf Pool Party

Those of you that know me know that I love summer and the beach. There's just something so relaxing about the sand, the sun and the sound of waves. With summer coming up soon, I wanted to have a printable collection that reminded me of summer and the beach.  So, I drew surfboards, used hibiscus flowers and chose sunny colors to remind me of one of my favorite places. 

This was a fun dessert table to create.  My favorite part of this table has to be the sandcastle cupcake stand that I made. I love different ways of displaying cupcakes. It's actually made out of cardboard boxes and covered with sand. I found a great tutorial for making this here. I used the straw flags on the cupcakes so that it would look like the sandcastle had flags blowing in the wind. The starfish and burlap add to the beach feeling, and the desserts are sitting on plates lined with brown sugar to look like sand.

This collection has everything you need to set the mood for your summer party...invitations, a welcome sign, banner, party circles, straw flags, food labels/tent cards, and favor tags. I styled it as a pool party, since not all of us are lucky enough to be close to the beach, but I can picture this table right on the beach too.  The colors look great against the sand.  

You can now get these items in the shop.  Look for a blue version of this coming soon! 

Scroll down to see the rest of the pictures...

New Printable Collection :: Red, White & Blue Party

Glee had an episode where the whole group sang a song while they were synchronized swimming. The girls wore these adorable red, white and blue swimsuits with white flowers in their hair. I loved the styling of that part so much, it inspired me to create this collection. I think it would be perfect for a 4th of July party, a nautical party, or a french-inspired party or baby shower.

I was lucky enough to have a great location to photograph it.  The location is in the south of France in a small town close to St. Tropez and was taken at a gorgeous private residence. Being in France also made it easy to get the beautiful desserts that are shown here. They sell a large selection of beautiful desserts in the regular supermarket. It was difficult to pick just a few!

If I had to describe this collection, I would say it is a little bit retro, a little bit French, and a little bit nautical.  It is now available in my Etsy shop. Here come all the pictures!