DIY Candy Dish {Made for Just $2}

I love throwing parties and entertaining family and friends, and today I'm sharing with you a great way I came up with to serve candy (or anything else) in a pretty pedestal bowl with a stand that can be customized in any color! 

Want to know the best part?  Each candy bowl on a stand can be made for only $2!  Cool, right?  These little dishes are the perfect holders for serving candy at parties, entertaining, decoration, or just for snacking on at home!  You can fill it with anything, too, it doesn't have to be just candy…. there's endless possibilities!  My friends at Krylon sent me a big box of free paint to play with, so I have been doing lots of painting this week, and can't wait to share more fun crafts with you!

Here are the easy directions!  These dishes do come with a warning- "Highly Addictive," because once you make one, you're going to want to keep going and making more!  You have been warned.

Supplies: 

• Small- medium-glass bowl (Check your local dollar store- my bowl was only $1)
• Candlestick (Also from the dollar store for just $1)
• Spray paint in your preferred color (I used Krylon's Blue Ocean Breeze, one of my favorite Krylon colors!)
• E6000 adhesive, or another strong adhesive or glue

1.  Spray paint the top, bottom, and sides of the candlestick.  Be sure to spray in multiple thin coats, which will allow for better coverage.  

2.  Once the paint is dry, use some E600 to trace a thin ring of adhesive around the top of the candlestick.  Don't use too much glue- you don't want it oozing out from the candlestick.

Let dry according to the directions on the glue that you use, and voila, a beautiful little glass candy dish that matches your home or party decor!  And for only $2?  As Martha would say, "It's a good thing." ;)

Happy crafting!

If you liked this project, please follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin', and Instagram.

xo, Laura

Creative Oscars Party Ideas + Film Reel Cupcakes

I am a member of the World Market Trendsetter Tribe.  This Oscars Party is brought to you by World Market as part of their Movie Lovers Sweepstakes. As always, all opinions are 100% my own.  #MovieLoversSweeps

Don't you just love watching the Academy Awards?  Whether you watch it to critique the fashion and style on the red carpet, to catch a glimpse of your favorite actor or actress, or to see if your favorite movie wins, there is something for everyone!

I've been busy creating some great ways for you to enjoy the Oscars this year with family and/or friends by throwing an Oscars viewing party!  I'll be sharing tons of fun food, drink, invitation, ballot, and decorating ideas for you party to be amazing and worthy of the red carpet!

To get ready for my Oscar party, I went shopping where I always go to prep for a party- World Market!  World Market so many great dishes and party essentials that are perfect for entertaining, as well as lots of gourmet food and drinks from around the world.  

The first thing you need when prepping for an Oscars viewing party are invitations.  I created these free printable Oscar party invitations for you to download, print, and pass out to your party guests!  

I created them to look like tickets, and in this post I show you how to make a glittery gold envelope to put them in.

Once the invitations are passed out, it's time to go shopping for food and some party dishes!  I wanted this party to look great, but be easy to put together. 

One of my favorite finds at World Market was this retro popcorn maker, which looks amazing, and is just perfect for the Academy Awards since the movies and popcorn go hand in hand.  

World Market also sells some cute paper popcorn boxes that perfectly match the popcorn maker…. gotta' love that! 

I wanted to serve cupcakes to match the theme, so I decided to go with some gold film reel cupcakes made from licorice wheels.   

The wheels look like film reels, especially when you unroll the end just a bit.  I originally saw the idea here, but I swithced them up a bit.  Here's how I made them: 

Gold Film Reel Cupcakes:

Supplies:

• EDIBLE gold spray paint (from the craft store)
• Store bought or home-made cupcakes
• Licorice wheels (from World Market) 

To give the edible film reels some sparkle and shine, spray them with edible gold paint.  Spray the wheels and top of the cupcakes with the gold paint just like you would with regular spray paint.  You might need a couple coats of paint on the licorice wheels.

Place one "film reel" on the top of each cupcake.  I just love the way they turned out!!

Another fun treat to serve are these tuxedo chocolate covered almonds.  They are so impressive to serve, but I promise they aren't as hard as they look to make!  

Simply start with some World Market chocolate covered almonds, and follow the directions in my tutorial to make the cutest little almonds, all dressed up in a suit and tie.  You're basically just painting on a white triangle for the shirt, a tiny black bow tie, and a couple little dots for buttons with chocolate bark or melts and a toothpick.

I found these small tuxedo boxes that were perfect for holding treats for guests!

While watching the Oscars you have to have a little bubbly, so I picked up some of my favorite orange mango passion fruit Italian soda and mixed it with ginger ale for a delicious drink that looked amazing in the Madison champagne flutes.  These glasses look amazing, and would you believe that they only cost $1.99 each?  You can bet that I stocked up!

To decorate make my food table, I spray painted some regular tickets from the party store (originally green) a pretty gold color, and attached them to the front of my cake plate and serving platters with tape.  I also used some metallic gold shreds on a platter to hold the drinks.  Both of these decorations added a lot to the table without taking a lot of time and effort or costing a lot of money.

When your guests arrive for your Oscar party, you can have them fill out this free printable 2014 Oscar ballot and make their picks for the top categories of the Oscars.  

They can do it for fun, or you can always have a prize for the winner at the end of the Academy Awards!  A fun prize would be an assortment of some of World Market's delicious and unique chocolate bars.  Their strawberry and champagne and sea salt dark chocolate bars are soooo good!  The blood orange milk chocolate bar is next on my list to try.

Are you a movie lover too?  World Market is giving away FREE movies for a year ($1600 Fandango gift card), plus a $1,000 World Market gift card!  Be sure to enter World Market's Movie Lovers Sweepstakes for a chance to win the grand prize package.  There are also three awesome runner up prizes which include a $500 Fandango gift card and a $500 World Market gift card!  

You can earn bonus entries for liking World Market's Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr brand pages for more chances to win.  Good luck!

If you liked this project, please follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin', and Instagram.

xo, Laura

Sharing here:  Show and Tell

Edible Sea Glass Recipe

Are you planning an under the sea, ocean, or mermaid party?  Then I've got the perfect treat for you to serve!  One of my favorite parts of my daughters under the sea party was the edible sea glass that I made.

It is really easy and inexpensive to make, and makes a huge impression on guests because it looks SO realistic!  If you remember when I posted how to make homemade suckers, it is basically the same process, but without the molds.  If you want to wow your guests at your next party, here's the how to…

Edible Sea Glass Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup corn syrup
• 1 tsp oil flavor (if using LorAnn's oil, it will be the whole small bottle, 1 dram)- I used mint.
• food color (regular food coloring or gel food coloring both work great)
• Powdered sugar 

Directions:

1.  Spray a light coat of Pam or other cooking spray onto a metal cookie sheet. 

2.  Combine sugar, water, and corn syrup over medium heat.  Stir until sugar is dissolved.  Continue stirring, and cook to hard crack (300 degrees F).  When my thermometer is almost to 300 degrees, I go on to the next step, because the mixture will continue heating...

3.  Remove from heat- add flavor and food color.  I used mint flavor and various blues and greens (one color per batch).  When you add the flavor, it's a good idea to turn your head.  These oils are very strong, and when they hit the hot candy mixture there is a little smoke that puffs up that is very strong- best not to sniff it!  Stir approximately 2 minutes, to ensure that the color and the flavor are evenly mixed.

4.  Carefully pour the mixture into the baking sheet, and let cool.  Once it has cooled and hardened, cover the pan with a dish cloth and use a hammer to break up the candy into pieces.  Try to get them the same size as real sea glass so they look realistic.  Don't go too crazy with the hammer, or your candy will get too crushed!

5.  At this point your sea glass candy will look very shiny and sharp.  To make the candy look more realistic, rub some powdered sugar onto each piece to give it that frosted, tumbled look of sea glass that has been battered around for years by the ocean waves and currents.  I also tried to sand down the edges with a dish cloth so that the pieces weren't so sharp.

The kids and parents all LOVED the edible sea glass at the party, and it was so fun to see their reactions when I told them they could eat it!  I told the parents and kids to be careful, because some of the pieces were a little sharp, and as with all hard candy, don't give it to small kids as it can be a choking hazard.  I served mine on a bed of brown sugar and graham crackers mixed together to look like sand, along with some white chocolate sea shells.

You can see more details of the Under the Sea party here and get more inspirations for your next bash!

If you liked this project, please follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin', and Instagram.

xo, Laura

Sharing here:  Show and Tell

Under the Sea Ocean Birthday Party Details

I'm very excited to share this Under the Sea party with you that I put together for my daughter's birthday.  Her party was at the very end of summer, and for the first half of the party we ate and chatted, and the last half we swam.  There are so many fun details that I'd love to share with you!

I chose to use turquoise and white for the colors of the whole party to give it a nice soft natural look.  I wanted the tables to have an ocean feel to them, so I covered them in layers of tulle and net. 

I scattered sea shells, starfish, and those little round glass marbles (they reminded me of bubbles) all over the tables to add to the under the sea theme.  

I also had some tiny little metal crab name card holders that I bought a few years ago from Pottery Barn that I used to hold the names of the food that fit perfectly.  I created the printable signs and all of the food signs with waves on them so they all coordinated and matched.  

There are so many sweet treats that you can serve at an ocean party!  

One of my very favorite things that I made was this edible ocean sea glass.  It is a hard candy that you can suck on (I made them mint flavored), but looks EXACTLY like pieces of sea glass that have been battered around by the ocean waves.  For the directions and recipe, just click here!

I even made them look frosty, like real sea glass!  I'll include a tutorial for those soon, because they're very easy to make, but are very impressive to serve.  Everyone loved them!

They looked great with the chocolate sea shells that I made.  These too were very easy, but looked great on the table.  I also used graham cracker crumbs mixed with brown sugar underneath some of the food to make it look like sand, to add the the ocean feel.

I made these fun oyster cookies with a "pearl" in the middle, and they were a hit!  I'll write a tutorial for these soon.  

I made some homemade salt water suckers in two different shapes (no salt water inside, I just like the name) using this tutorial I shared with you last year.

Seaweed popcorn was such a pretty color, and was easy to make using this recipe.

You'll never guess what the secret ingredient is that gives the popcorn its' color!  

I made this sign, and placed it in front of the candy and treats, along with these cute little cups from Wholeport that matched perfectly.  The kiddos all loved filling up their cups with candy themselves!

 The kids all devoured these gummy sharks!

What under the sea party would be complete without salt water taffy?  I bought the turquoise, blue, and white colored taffy to go with my party colors.

Now for the dinner… yes, I did start with the treats first! ;) I served a build your own taco bar, with tons of different options and toppings for everyone.

The tacos were absolutely delicious, and it was easy to put together since I did all of the prep work ahead of time.  Plus, everyone could make their own the way that they like it!

Then came the cake.  I just love how it turned out!  I made a lovely four layer hombre cake, with each layer a different color of turquoise and blue.  

I added more graham cracker and brown sugar "sand" to the top, along with some chocolate shells.  Please excuse the darkness of this picture.  I had to get all the kids out of the pool to sing happy birthday and cut the cake, and it was dark outside by then.

I also whipped up a handful of these hanging jellyfish that really added to the party theme.  I love the way the long tendrils would slightly flutter in the breeze.  I could watch real jellyfish for hours at the aquarium, and these were the closest I was going to get to having jellyfish at the party! ;)  I'll write up a tutorial for these, too, because I really had a lot of fun making them.

And now for my sweet birthday girl.  I made her a starfish barrette with just a starfish, some tulle, a clip, and some hot glue.  I also made her a freezer paper stenciled shirt with a dolphin and her name on it using the tutorial I shared with you here.  She wore a blue tutu as well that her sister wore for her Minnie Mouse party.  I always try to make some kind of shirt or outfit for the birthday boy or girl to make them feel extra special!  

I didn't plan any games for the party since all the kids swam for hours after we ate.  The party was a huge success, and I honestly had so much time planning it!  Thanks for letting me share with you!  If you have any questions or comments, feel free to ask below!

For more creative party ideas, check out my son's Jungle Safari party!  From free printable safari passes to a homemade base camp where the kids get outfitted, this party is tons of fun!

Throwing a party doesn't have to cost an arm and a let!  See how I decorated inexpensively with Duck tape for my daughter's Minnie Mouse zebra print birthday party.

If you liked this project, please follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin', and Instagram.

xo, Laura

Sharing here:  Show and Tell