Where I've Been, Catching Up, and Birthday Fun

Well, that was a bit of a long break. From everything. For those of you who don't know me, I suffer from depression and anxiety, like many other people. This winter was particularly hard. With stretches of -40*C weather, and many overcast days, it was pretty hard to stay motivated. Include the anniversary of my miscarriage from which I'm still recovering emotionally, and you get conditions that are pretty hard to fight depression and anxiety.
I feel pretty blessed to have such an awesome support team made up of friends and family. My oldest daughters birthday is in January, and it was the perfect opportunity to keep myself busy. She wanted a horse party, so I headed to Pinterest to get some pinspiration. (No apologies for that pun! It was meant to be.)
I wanted very simple party decor, wanting to be able to recycle or reuse everything and stay within my $60 budget. So, here's what I came up with!

Spice canister treat jars! I picked these up at Dollartree, and they were $2 for a pack of three. I added the decorations with hot glue, so they can be peeled off if they want to reuse the glass jar for something else. Kids are always collecting bits and bobs, and these little jars would hold bead or rock collections nicely.

DIY Horse shoe necklaces as the craft. Honey had a large collection of beads already, so I didn't purchase any for the party. I picked up the elastic thread at walmart. Seriously though, aren't these miniature cast iron horseshoes not the cutest?! I bought them off of ebay, and with shipping, they were about half the budget, but so worth it! These also doubled as a party favor. I'm pretty sure these were everyone's favourite part.

I had a bit of trouble coming up with a horse themed game that I felt confident I could do. I can't draw to save a life, so I wasn't going to attempt  a diy pin the tail on the horse, which was all Pinterest was giving me. I"m not sure how I came up with it, but I figured out a horse race game that was easy to make. I made three different grids on Google spread sheets. The first had the start line, then a blank middle piece, and the last with a finish line. I just printed more middle pieces to get the length i wanted and taped the track together. It could have been prettier, but I just didn't have the time to figure out how to add graphics. It's a dice based game where players roll the dice alternately to see who gets to the finish line first. It wasn't much, but the girls all seemed to enjoy it. In fact, they played it three or four times!

The bookmarks are tags I picked up at Dollar tree, with some twine also from there. I used my Cricut to cut out the girls' first initials to personalize them from paper I already had lying around from my scrap booking phase. Honey put them together, and she loved being involved in the process of decor.

The burlap bags are also from Dollar Tree ( I swear this isn't sponsored in any way! We just don't have a lot of selection of stores where I live.) I didn't know what I would use them for, but Honey loved them, so we got them. We ended up putting the bookmarks and necklaces in them for easy carrying. The treat jars didn't fit, but that was okay. I thought it went well with the rest of the decor.

Here's the final set of the table, I didn't add decor to the rest of the room, but she loved how this looked. I used my Cricut to cut out the signs in the front, and the doily under the cupcake plate. The table cloth and burlap ribbon I had lying around. The rope I picked up at, yep, you guessed it. The Dollar Tree.

Cupcakes! We don't do birthday cakes at our house. My hand eye coordination isn't good enough to decorate a cake, and bought cakes are expensive! Not only can I manage cupcakes, but they're also already serving size. Cupcake toppers are free clip art printed, cut out and attached to toothpicks.

I love being able to make my girls' birthday parties unique and special. Crafting and sewing is not something I grew up with, but something I've been able to explore in my adult years. It's odd how being labeled the logical, book girl, kept me from exploring it sooner. I always thought I didn't have a creative bone in my body. It took jumping into the unknown, and facing the possibility of failure to find out that anyone can be creative. You just have to find the angle that suits you. 

With Spring just around the corner (hopefully, in the Canadian Prairies you never can tell), I can feel my spirits lifting, and I've got a lot of ideas on how to amp up this blog! I can't wait!

Remember, you can follow me on Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook using the social media icons in the top and bottom left hand corners of my blog. Also my Pinterest Board with all my creations can be found in the bar along the right hand side. I love to hear from my readers, so please leave your comments and questions down below! Thanks for stopping in!