Chalkboard Party Décor

I love using chalkboards for party décor. It’s a very versatile blank canvas. Let me show you four ways to incorporate chalkboards into your party themes.

1. A chalkboard can serve as a tray for both display and labeling. I’ve used a plain thin board painted with chalkboard spray paint for this application. These Bistro Chalk Pens are ideal for labeling. They produce vibrant colors and wipe clean with a damp cloth.



2. Signs and backdrops are another great way to use chalkboards. This way you can use the board over and over. Here, I attached the cherry piece with removable adhesive.



3. Go bold with a chalk wall! My friend, Katy, painted her dining room wall with chalk paint. She now has an instant backdrop for any party.



4. Finally, I love taking advantage of the printable versions of chalkboards for food labels. You can find a printable chalkboard background here and some of my favorite chalk fonts here.



Ikea Tolsby frames provide the perfect means for display.



I used some of my favorite washi tape to dress up these white Tolsby frames.



So, there you have four ways to accent your party with chalkboards!

Jello Clouds

When I set out to make the Jello Clouds for the Mary Poppins Party, I could not figure out what to use for the cloud. I knew I wanted the end result to be something like this. At first, I thought I would try a 7-minute frosting, but I like to get all my food prep done ahead of time. I think that frosting is meant to be used immediately. The Pin that provided the inspiration sent me on a hunt for ready made marshmallow clouds. No luck!

Not to be detoured, I set out to make my own. I didn’t take many pictures along the way, but I will give you the gist of how I did these.
First, I lined my pans with parchment paper. I drew the outline of the top of my glass on the reverse side of the paper to know what size dollops I was aiming for. I sprayed the parchment paper with non-stick cooking spray. Then I made the marshmallow recipe at the bottom of this post. Working quickly, I put the marshmallow mix in a piping bag (or ziploc) and cut the tip end off. I squeezed the dollops by keeping the piping bag close to the base at first. Then, I released pressure and pulled up on the bag.

As, the mixture starts to set, it is harder to control. This recipe made a ton of dollops, so I just used the best ones. Once the marshmallows set, I rolled them around in powdered sugar to store.

Prior to placing them on the jello, I dusted off as much powdered sugar as possible.

Vanilla Marshmallow Recipe
Adapted from Martha Stewart

• Nonstick cooking spray
• 3 (1/4-ounce) packages unflavored gelatin
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2/3 cup light corn syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• Confectioners' sugar for coating
• Piping Bags

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and lightly spray the parchment paper with cooking spray. Lightly spray the inside of the piping bag with cooking spray. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water; let stand for 10 minutes. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water. Place saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil; boil rapidly for 1 minute. Remove from heat, and, with the mixer on high, slowly pour the boiling syrup down the side of the mixer bowl into gelatin mixture. Add salt and continue mixing for 12 minutes.
Add vanilla extract; mix until well combined. Spray a rubber spatula with cooking spray. Transfer gelatin mixture to the piping bag. Pipe dollops onto prepared parchment paper. Let stand for 2 hours.
Place confectioners' sugar in a large bowl. Carefully remove marshmallows from pan. Add marshmallows to bowl and toss to coat.

Cake Pops on Spoons Tutorial

When I was looking around for methods to use spoons for cake pops, I found lots of photos of completed pops without any instructions. This is how I created these spoons full of sugar for our Mary Poppins party.

These are by far the most comprehensive instructions I’ve found for making cake pops, so start there with your preparation.
Once you have the cake pop mix, form the mix into balls and place them on a cookie sheet. Freeze balls for 15 minutes.

Shape the lightly frozen balls to match the spoons you are using.

Place the spoon shapes back on the cookie sheet and place in the fridge while you melt the candy melts.
Melt 12 oz candy melts with 1 tsp shortening. Dip the shaped ball lightly into the candy melts and position on spoon. You just want a small amount of the candy melt on the underside of your shape. This should help the ball stay attached to the spoon for dipping.

Return the spoons to the fridge for 15 minutes for the melts to harden. Then, let them sit out on counter 5 minutes.
Press the spoons into the melted candy melts (reheat as needed) and twist slightly to cover the edges. Gently lift the spoon from melts. You may need to swipe away any trailing candy melt with your finger. Immediately, sprinkle with colored sugar or sprinkles.

Let sit to harden.

Store in an air tight container. I made mine 5 days ahead of time and they were great!

Mary Poppins Party

It’s hard to imagine that Tandy is two. On one hand, it seems like she’s been with us so much longer, but on the other hand, she doesn’t seem like she should be out of the baby stage. It was so much fun to celebrate her along with something she loves so much. Mary Poppins filled our thoughts and imagination for the day, and it was quite a jolly holiday.

You’ve seen the outfits and the invitations, now here’s the rest. If you haven’t watched the movie in a while, you might miss some of the tie ins, but I assure you everything was inspired by the Mary Poppins movie.

We started with a couple crafts.

The kite decorating kits set up in a carpet bag came from Oriental Trading Company.

We also made bird feeders similar to this tutorial.

A carpet bag center piece was a must. Thankfully a friend of a friend had one we could borrow. It’s filled with a few items Mary pulled from her bag of tricks.

The snacks included peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut with a penguin sandwich cutter, penguin crackers (Walmart), umbrella cheese, popcorn, and lemonade. I used some of the painted cocktail umbrellas to make the number 2.

The umbrella cheese is made from Babybel cheese rounds cut in half. I trimmed some black straws from Ikea to make the handles.

The Ikea cart I’ve been using in my sewing room made the perfect paper goods station. The lower shelves housed musical instruments and vintage Mary Poppins books.

Finally, we’ve arrived at the sweets table! I made the banner from copied book pages from our vintage Mary Poppins books.

We had dipped marshmallow chimney sweeps.

The Jell-O clouds were blue Jell-O topped with a homemade marshmallow dollop. I’ll have more on those in a future post.

Can we pause for a moment and imagine those cute cups above adorned with one of the cocktail umbrellas like the photo below. Yep, somehow those got missed. Thanks for using your imagination instead!

Well, it wouldn’t be a Mary Poppins party without a nod to the spoon full of sugar that makes the medicine go down. I bought these cute sundae spoons at Joann’s on clearance. I’ll try to do a quick post on the cake pop spoons in the future too.

I added some washi tape accents to my cupcake tower and topped it with the same image I used for the invitations. My favorite lemon cupcakes were a hit with both kids and adults.

The final table was home to the favors.

The sugar cookie garland spelled out Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. I used this letterpress cookie cutter set to make all 34 letters.

Chocolate “tuppence”, bird whistles, and sidewalk chalk rounded out the favors.

There’s the birthday girl eyeing the gummy penguins her grandmother scored at Trader Joe’s.

Big Sis was ready to lead the musical parade.

The older kids had a blast making their music while leading the younger guest around.

All in all, it was a very happy day!

Love this sweet photo of Tandy captured by Matt Bateman.

Pinterest, of course, provided tons of inspiration, so check out some of the ideas I found and more here.

Mary Poppins Party Invitation

I thought I’d wet your appetite for the Mary Poppins party pictures coming soon with the invitation that kicked everything off. I found this awesome Mary Poppins image on Flickr, but apparently it has since been removed. I contacted the creator for permission to use her work for our party invites. She was very kind to allow it! My sister created this perfect invitation that set the stage for our party.

Painting Parasols

I’m busy prepping for Tandy’s Mary Poppins Party, and a Mary Poppins Party would certainly be incomplete without a few black umbrellas. I’ve got a fun idea for these cocktail umbrellas, so I wanted to pop in to show you how easy it is to customize their colors.

Basically, I stuck the umbrella sticks in pre-punched holes in a box much like my tutorial for painting shower curtain hooks. This way I’ve prevented painting the umbrella stick, so I can still use the umbrellas for food or drinks.

If it’s a little quiet on the blog next week, you know I’m a busy bee behind the scenes. I’m hoping to have plenty of party details to come!

These little black umbrellas made the perfect addition to the Mary Poppins Jello Cloud Desserts! Be sure to check out the Jello Cloud Recipe.

Mary Poppins Costume Times Two

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

I guess presenting two versions of Mary Poppins as costumes requires a bit of an explanation. Tandy’s absolute favorite movie seems to be Mary Poppins. She may not have told us in so many words, but we can tell from her response to the movie and ability to watch it on repeat on road trips. So, we have decided to throw her a totally Mary birthday party at the end of the month. Since it precedes Halloween so closely, we thought costumes might be in order. I tried to convince Avery to be some other character from the movie, but she would not have it. So, I present our two sides of Mary Poppins.

Tandy’s Mary Poppins costume is inspired by the Jolly Holiday scenes in the movie.

I love to hit thrift stores for costume accessories, and I scored bit with a few trips. The hat came from one such shop. It is a tad big, so I put some batting in the top and sewed in two strips of tulle to tie under Tandy’s chin.

The umbrella was huge score from Goodwill. It came complete with a stand. I crack up ever time I try to think of it’s original purpose. It’s certainly perfect for our little Mary!

She swapped accessories on me here, but I wanted to show the back of the dress as well. The pattern I used is the Farbenmix Josefin. It has very puffed sleeves with long cuffs that suit Mary’s version so well. I flipped the facings to the outside to add the piping accents. The belt is actually part of the pattern as well. I simply divided the front of the belt into sections to add the vertical white piping accents.

This brings us to Avery’s version of Mary Poppins as she arrives to Cherry Tree Lane. Again, the accessories make this one! I purchased the adorable umbrella from The Playbill Store with the thought of selling it on eBay after Halloween to recoup the cost. It is so darn cute though, we may have to keep it! Avery’s grandmother scored the ideal carpet bag during her thrift store hunts. It will make the perfect candy bag for Halloween.

The hat was another Goodwill find I embellished.

Do you recognize the white fabric daisies? They came from the cape used for the garden gnome costume and the daisy costume. Talk about repurposing!!

I once again used the opportunity to sew a nice coat for Avery that won’t be recognizable as part of a costume after the fact. The pattern is Dear My Kids Stylish Double Breasted Coat. I used a navy fleece from Chez Ami for the main fabric and some Flower Sugar for the lining. The red piping just barely peeks out from the thick fleece.

So there you have it! Two Mary Poppins costumes for Halloween. We’ll see if Daddy can work up a Bert costume, and I may swing something for Mrs. Banks.

The birthday party is sure to be practically perfect in every way, so be sure to check back for all of those details!