The World Around Her: Birthday

Showing posts with label Birthday. Show all posts

Birthday Celebration Giveaway!

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

It's time to party y'all...two more days until my birthday!
But lucky for you I'm celebrating early and today I'm throwing a party for YOU!! I have 8 prizes for 8 winners!! Look at these awesome gifts I have for you, too bad I can't enter my own birthday celebration giveaway!

I'm so grateful to all of these amazing shops for helping me celebrate my birthday. Each one is unique and has a little story and history behind it. Please be sure to stop by their pages and give them some love.

1. Rust-Oleum

Rust-Oleum® opened its doors in 1921, shortly after its founder Robert Fergusson, a sea caption, accidentally spilled fish oil on his rusty, metal deck and discovered that it stopped the spread of corrosion. This discovery led to the world's first rust-preventive paint. Today, Rust-Oleum® manufactures coatings for home and commercial use. If there's a surface, there's a Rust-Oleum®.

{Giveaway Prize: One Case (six cans) of Rust-Oleum® spray paint in winner's choice of color!}

2. Dawn Nicole Designs

Dawn is the DIY & Lifestyle blogger/Graphic Designer behind By Dawn Nicole. She is an Air Force Wife and mom of 3 who believes in “throwing kindness around like confetti”. While Dawn loves all things creative, she has a passion for hand-lettered typography and illustration. A Paleo foodie who loves cooking as much as a a good run, she believes in balance and rarely lets a day go by without dark chocolate and over-caffeinating. You can find her shop here.

{Giveaway Prize: 6 pack of custom flat note cards with envelopes, pictured above. }

3. Mo & Pea

MO&PEA is a creative and cozy shop featuring both crochet and knit accessories. Handmade pieces from chunky winter wear to home decor can be found here, with most pieces being one of a kind goods.

{Giveaway Prize: Wool/Acrylic Blend Raspberry Boot Cuffs, Retail Price $16. }

4. Atutudes

About Atutudes: My best friend, Jennifer Lee, and I were planning her daughter's first birthday party. We purchased a tutu at a local shop, but it was not exactly the perfect one. We decided to do a little research and try our hand at making them ourselves. Once I made the first one, I was hooked! I quickly realized that it ignited a passion inside me. It was so much fun and a great outlet for my creativity. In 2013 we were chosen to create a custom mermaid themed tutu for the original Bachelorette, Trista Sutter, for her daughter Blakesley’s birthday celebration.

{Giveaway Prize: $10 Shop Credit}

5. The Caramel Jar

About The Caramel Jar: Since our first day on Etsy, we have launched six flavors of caramel, hired several production assistants and a Brand Specialist, and partnered with a small batch artisan co-packing team to create our signature Fleur de Sel Caramel Sauce. Despite our growth, our goal remains the same :: to create caramels that are slow cooked in small batches to produce a rich creamy color, flavor & texture, without preservatives, ensuring the most natural, made from scratch sweet treat. We use eco friendly, reusable, recyclable and compostable materials in our packaging and produce and ship your treats in 7 business days or less! {except wedding favors}

{Giveaway Prize: Small jar of Fleur de sel caramel sauce}

6. Mila Rose Designs

Melis is the head pretty maker and owner of Mila Rose Designs, a line of fun and whimsical hair accessories. MRD loves embracing all things girly from over the top bloom headbands to leather bow barrettes! You can also see some of your MRD faves on the CWs Hart of Dixie who has featured hair pretties the past 3 seasons!

{Giveaway Prize: $32 Shop Credit...since I'm turning 32!}

7. Suburban Goods

Suburban Goods is the storefront where Erin of Suburban Bitches blog sells handmade clutches, laptop bags, and other fun things. She loves experimenting with leather and fabrics to create clutches that are one of a kind and the perfect compliment to a great outfit. Her clutches have a signature fun fabric lining which adds to the uniqueness of each piece. Currently her favorite piece in the shop is the African mud cloth and leather clutch. She's going to have a hard time letting that piece go :).

{Giveaway Prize: $50 Shop Credit off a purchase of at least $60 }

8. Piccolo Papercrafts

Piccolo Papercrafts is in the business of sending smiles! Deena Hopkins uses stamps, paper, and glue to create fashionable and charming greeting cards for any and all occasions. From elegant and refined to cute and trendy, Piccolo Papercrafts' cards and crafts will bring happiness to every recipient. Let your loved one know they deserve a card as unique as they are!

{Giveaway Prize: $25 Shop Credit}

I just adore each and everyone one of these vendors. I'm so grateful for their kindness in sharing these wonderful gifts with my readers for my birthday celebration giveaway.

Make sure you stop by their shops and social media pages.

Thanks for entering, good luck!

{US only please}

a Rafflecopter giveaway

*This giveaway is not associated with Facebook or Instagram. On Tuesday March 17th I will email the randomly selected winners. Each winner will have 48 hours to respond, if I do not receive an email a new winner will be chosen.

Sneak Peek: Birthday Celebration Giveaway!

Monday, March 9, 2015

Hip, Hip, Hooray, it's My Birthday Week!

This Thursday, March 12th I'm turning 32...I'm officially in my thirties!

To celebrate I have rounded up a few of my favorite shops for an awesome Birthday Celebration Giveaway just for YOU!!

Today I'm sharing a little sneak peek at the shops who are helping me celebrate, and tomorrow the giveaway will begin!

Lucky me, I've already started the birthday celebrations thanks to my mom who took me to The Philadelphia Flower Show and Reading Terminal for lunch on Thursday.

Then on Saturday my husband surprised me with a little date night birthday dinner...

I couldn't leave without dessert! This salted pretzel brownie was the best thing I've ever eaten!!

I can't wait to share all of the amazing prizes with you guys, stop by tomorrow to enter!

Thanks for stopping by, have a great day!

Hello March!

Sunday, March 1, 2015

I'm pretty excited about it being March, shall I name all of the reasons why I love it so much?!

1. It's my birthday month, along with my older sister's.

We were born two years and one day apart! Yep, I was that kid sharing a birthday party with a sibling. Though I'm sure she disliked it more since she was the older one who had two years of celebrating alone! HAHA! I actually love sharing it with her.

{Turning 5 and 3 and celebrating at McDonald's!}

Friday, September 19, 2014

If you follow me on Instagram then you may have seen a little preview of the DIY spray painted mason jars I made for my sisters a few weeks ago. Well, after I made theirs (pictured below) I may have gone a little crazy with the spray paint and painted every jar in our house!

My younger sister was celebrating her 25th birthday and my older sister had been going through a lot of personal stuff, so I wanted to do something special for both of them. But first I needed to make sure I had their favorite colors right. My older sister is a Dallas Cowboys fan (boo!) and loves wearing anything that has their symbol on it, which means wearing a lot of blue. However, she also likes to wear pink on occasion. Since I had planned on spray painting the mason jars one solid color, I decided to send my younger sister a text to see if she knew which color Jenn (older sister) preferred more.

I already had the Krylon® fluorescent pink spray paint in my hand thinking Jenn liked hot pink more than blue...plus I just had this idea in my head that a pink jar would be so much prettier! Christina (younger sister) wrote back and said blue. UGH, but I really wanted the mason jar to be pink...decisions, decisions!

Well, as you can see I couldn't decide! Actually, the white I already had on hand and the metallic gold wasn't purchased until the next shopping trip!

I figured it would be better to test out both colors on Jenn's mason jar and go from there. I set up a few cardboard boxes on my husband's workbench to create a little cubby so I wouldn't get pink and blue spray paint on everything and got to work.

After cleaning the jar I spray painted each side with either the pink or blue (forgot to take a photo of that step) to see which color I liked best. That's when the light bulb went on in my head and I got the idea to paint the jar with both colors in a fading ombre effect. Genius idea, right?! I know it's been done a million times before, but I have yet to see an ombre effect done in the spray paint colors I was using.

I quickly cleaned off the pink and blue paint and started over again, which is what you see in the photo above!

I let the blue dry for an hour or so then sprayed the top with the fluorescent pink. While that dried I started on the red and black mason jar for Christina. There was no need to double check on her favorite colors, red and black are pretty much the only two colors she wears and decorates with!

Wondering about the little mason jar?! Well that was a gift I kept for myself! I experimented on that little jar over and over again until I settled on the pink and black...that was before I grabbed the metallic gold on my next trip to the store! But those DIY spray painted mason jars are for the next post!

I'm just so impressed with how beautiful they turned out, I'm pretty sure this is my favorite DIY project of all time!

Note: Each jar has two coats of both colors of spray paint on them.

I cut zinnias from my garden to fill the mason jars with, but I wasn't happy with how empty they still looked. So, I picked up a supermarket bouquet and divided it up between the jars to fill in the empty spots.

I also made a pillow for Christina using two skull bandanas and pillow stuffing. As you can see she loved her gifts...and really loves the color red!

After the gift giving we headed to Six Flags for a fun sisters' day out and bumped into Marvin the Martin and Daffy Duck while there!

I can't wait to show you the other DIY spray painted mason jars I made, I may have gone a little wild with the gold...oops!

Thanks for stopping by today, have a great day!

Linking Up At:

AKA Designs Weekend Retreat, The Crafted Sparrow Creative Collection, The 36th Avenue Best DIY Projects and Recipes Party, and The SITS Girls Sharefest.

Happies & Crappies: Signs of Spring!

Friday, March 14, 2014

YAY, there are finally signs of Spring popping up and it makes my heart smile! I feel like I need a fresh start and Spring will help with that. The start of 2014 has been a crazy one and I'd like for it to go a little smoother, a little slower, and a little happier.

Thank you to those who stopped by on my last Happies & Crappies post, I promise to check out your blogs; life gets a little busy around here sometimes but I am trying to schedule things better. I am also thinking of revamping my blog and going to WordPress, seems like the thing to do lately in the blog world. If you notice though, I actually just changed it from a three column to a two column, it was getting too busy looking. I really want to start paying attention to my blog more, perhaps make a Facebook page for it and get a few sponsors once I get traffic picked up.

I started this blog right before we got engaged so I mostly blogged about our wedding details with a little real life (holidays, birthdays, fun weekend events) thrown in the mix. But, what kind of blogger am I really? There are fashion bloggers, DIY bloggers, mommy bloggers, wedding bloggers, etc. but I feel like I don't really fit into one of those molds, but I want to have a community like those bloggers do. Is there a community for Real Life Bloggers?!

OK, so I'd love to hear your advice and your Happies & Crappies from this week as I am linking up with Steph and Amber again!

Happies:

Most of my happies in March come from it being my birthday month, the start of Spring, and the Philadelphia Flower Show! I won't go too picture crazy on you, but here are a few of my favorites from this week and last!

We headed to the Reading Terminal for lunch before going to the Flower Show, and wow it was such a great idea! You have to locate Molly Malloy's next time you're there, the butternut squash soup was amazing and so fresh. They first opened up with a produce shop and then a restaurant. The fries were hand cut and the cheesesteak might just have been the best ever!

The theme for this year's Philadelphia Flower Show was Articulture and I heard that next year's theme is Hollywood, which I'm already looking forward to! It's not just about the show, but for the last few years my mom and I have been going together for my birthday and it now has become a tradition of ours. We go down around noon time, get lunch, and then spend the day and into the night at the show and enjoy the free wine sampling that starts at 5:30 pm in the convention center right outside the doors of the Flower Show...what's not to love about that! We take public transportation down, so no worries about driving!

Each year there is a live show of some kind at the main floral exhibit, during the Hawaiian theme they had hula dancers and this year they had trapeze artists, it was pretty exciting to watch (you can see them in the top left photo). In the middle are the most adorable frogs I've ever seen, they were part of my high school's exhibit (graduated in 2001!). The two photos after the frogs are from the main exhibit, also where my mom and I are standing in front of. The last photo, well who doesn't love tulips, right?! I can't wait for ours to bloom in the little "garden" we have in front of our house. YAY Spring!

How blessed am I? My friends and family really helped 31 feel even just as amazing as 30! It all started with a surprise gift card to Barnes & Noble that came in the mail from miss Heather over at High Heels & Flip-Flops, such a sweetheart. I actually got the chance to meet her in person and can't wait to hang out again sometime! Oh, and then my friend Katie created this incredible custom and one of a kind tote bag for me! She also created journal cards for my Project Life album, pretty awesome right?! She is actually in the middle of starting her own blog, which isn't up yet but for now you can check her out on Facebook at Busy Bee Kate (love her blog name).

Saw this little guy hopping around outside today and just had to take his photo. Also loving the fact that we can finally see green grass in our yard instead of blinding white snow that has been piled up for two months now! Signs of Spring indeed!

Crappies

I have been feeling a little uneasy lately, just a lot of bad, emotional days of feeling lost and in the middle of not knowing what's next. Also, I feel like I just don't have the motivation to workout right now...Jillian Michaels I need you to push me again! If only she were my real life physical trainer! I did get on the treadmill today, but not as long as I wanted to, but it's a start... GO ME!!

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OK, it's almost the weekend and we have house guests coming! My best friend from college is coming with her hubby, and two little ones. I can't believe their daughter is now 6 and their baby boy is going to be 1 in June!

Also a Big Happy Birthday to my older sister, she turned 33 the day before my birthday...we're 2 years and 1 day apart!

Can you tell we grew up in the 80's?! My younger sister is the baby in the top right photo, there's three of us...yep my dad had to put up with four women in the house, lucky him!

Here is another photo collage I made for her to post on social media for her birthday!

She's a DALLAS FAN...in Eagles and Steelers Country!

Happy Friday and weekend!

Enjoying a Wonderful Birthday Celebration Week!

Monday, March 12, 2012

I really love my family and friends...I'm such a lucky lady to enjoy more than just one day of celebration for my birthday. Two weeks ago a good friend emailed me and said it was my turn to be treated to lunch this time especially since my birthday was coming up so I should pick a day, time, and place! We went to my new favorite cafe and had a great time chatting and eating; we were there for two hours and it probably only took 30 minutes to eat! After my friend told the waitress it was my birthday they told us we could stay as long as we wanted!

I also went to the Philadelphia Flower Show, a tradition I started with my mom for my birthday! We get lunch in China Town and then head over to the convention center for the show. I was involved with the show in high school and have gone to it every year since. This year the theme was centered around Hawaii and the tropical exhibits and florals just took my breath away, even more so than last year's Paris theme!

Check it out for yourself...