To see her full recipe, head to Three Little Monkeys Studios. Thanks, Gretchen, for sharing! (Note: Gretchen’s son is allergic to dairy, so she substituted in margarine and rice milk and says they turned out great.)

She’s throwing a Super Bowl party and used our free Super Bowl printables to make these table decorations. How adorable are these!

To learn how Melissa made her crepe paper pom poms, and to see more of her other cute and inexpensive Super Bowl ideas, check out her blog, The Joys of Home Educating.

Thank you, Melissa, for sharing. I love seeing what great ideas you come up with!

To give you some background, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is internationally recognized for its pioneering research and treatment of children with cancer and other deadly diseases.

It costs $1.7 million a day to operate St. Jude, and more than 75 percent of that comes from the public through charity. And, no family ever pays St. Jude for anything – St. Jude covers the cost of treatment, travel, lodging and food for each patient and a family member.

This Feb. 5th, St. Jude is calling on people across the country to party with a purpose on Super Bowl Sunday, by hosting a party for St. Jude Game Day. Give Back. to help kids with cancer and other deadly diseases at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

St. Jude Game Day Give Back encourages football fans to combine their passion for the sport with a good cause.

There are some great fundraising incentive items for hosts as well, like a St. Jude party cooler, a Game Day. Give Back. picture frame, a football chip and dip platter and a corn hole set depending how much money you raise.

What a great cause! To learn more about hosting a party, visit St. Jude Game Day. Give Back.

DOWNLOAD THE HIGH RESOLUTION FILES FOR PRINTING

Go Giants!!

Go Patriots!!

Use these as food labels, place cards, or for anything you can think of…

Hang up this “Touchdown” banner for a little fun…

How great are these cupcake toppers…

Thank you Brady for helping us root for our favorite teams (go Giants!).

To learn more about Brady, and see her great designs, please check out 9 to 5 Mom.

The collection includes: tags, drink labels, straw flags, tented cards, party circles/cupcake toppers, a “Be Mine” banner, mini Valentines, and gift tags.

DOWNLOAD THE HIGH RESOLUTION FILES FOR PRINTING

Thank you Wanessa for designing such love-filled printables. To learn more about Wanessa please visit her Facebook page, Wanessa Carolina Creations, and her Etsy shop.

I saw this original Christmas cookie wreath Marcela M from The Celebration Girl created, and of course I thought it was the coolest thing.

So I asked Marcela if she’s be willing to put together a tutorial for a Valentine’s Day cookie wreath, and she so kindly agreed. So below is Marcela’s tutorial….

Thank you very much, dear Jillian, for inviting me to post this tutorial in your blog.

This cookie wreath takes a little bit of time but is very, very easy to do, and it is an original way of presenting decorated cookies.

In order to make it, I used different cutters.

The light blue cutters, including the circles with which I formed the wreath are part of a set I bought at Ikea.

I also used heart shaped cutters, that I had bought a long time ago and a bow shaped cutter.

In case you want to do this cookie wreath and, since I know how hard it is to find a variety of cookie cutters in some  countries, I have made a template of the different shapes, so that you can print them and cut.

For the wreath itself, you can draw two circles of different sizes, according to your needs, cut them and use them to make the wreath. The biggest circle I used was equal to a 9 inch pan (20 cms).

I made this wreath out of chocolate cookies, because I like how chocolate cookies taste with royal icing, but it can also be made with sugar cookies or gingerbread cookies.

Use your favourite rolled cookie dough. For the royal icing, I used this recipe from Sweetopia.

For the wreath, you will need:

• Cookie dough
• Royal icing
• Templates or cookie cutters (If you are using the templates you need to print them, cut them, place them on top of the rolled cookie dough and cut around them with a sharp knife)
• Piping bags
• Piping tips number 1 and 2.
•  I also use squeeze bottles for flooding the wreath itself, because it takes too long with a piping tip due to the big surface

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F or 150 degrees C.

Roll the cookie dough about ½ cm and cut the cookies. Place them on a baking sheet covered with baking paper and put them in the freezer to chill for about 10 minutes, so that they keep the shape.

Bake the cookies. Once they are ready, remove from the oven and let cool completely.

Transfer the wreath to the serving plate. The reason I recommend doing this is that, once decorated, it will become too heavy to transfer and it may break. It is therefore better to transfer it at this stage to make sure that it will remain intact.

Prepare the royal icing. Color it as desired and thin to the adequate consistency (I use the 20 second rule, which means that, if you draw a line with a knife on the royal icing, it takes 20 seconds for the line to disappear). Once the royal icing is ready, put it in piping bags/squeeze bottles. You are now ready to decorate!

Prepare your “decorating station.” I like to have all material at hand: cookies in cookie sheets,  a variety of sprinkles and sanding sugar, plates covered with parchment paper for applying sanding sugar, as well as the piping bags and an extra plate.

As you can see from the wreath, I decorated the cookies in different ways. I left some cookies really simple, with only one colour and no further details, and for some others I used other techniques.

I will now walk you through each of them:

For the simple cookies, I just outlined the cookie and then flooded immediately. I then shook it a bit, to even out the icing, and let it dry for 12 hours.

For the cookies with hearts, I outlined the cookie in the base colour and flooded it.

I shook the cookie, and once the icing was even, I piped dots in a different color. I then took a toothpick and traced a line going from the dot’s top to bottom…and a heart shaped appeared. I did this with all dots and then let the cookie dry for 12 hours.

For the cookies that have a single heart in the middle, I just added a heart-shaped sprinkle right after flooding.

For the cookies which have a border with sanding sugar, I first iced them as in the case of the simple cookies, and let them dry for 12 hours. After they were fully dry, I outlined them with royal icing, then immediately poured sanding sugar on top. I let the sanding sugar set (for about 30 minutes), then turned the cookie upside down to remove any extras.

You could use nonpareils instead of sprinkles using this same method.

I outlined some cookies with heart shaped sprinkles. In this case I proceeded just as in the case before, outlining the cookies after they were fully dry, and adding the sprinkles to the outlining icing.

For the wreath, I proceeded as with the simple cookies, but I let this one dry for 24 hours to make sure that the icing would not suffer any damage once placing the rest of the cookies on top of it.

After all cookies are decorated, you can start playing with them on top of the wreath, until you find a combination that pleases you. You can combine large and small cookies and stack some on top of the other, or combine a variety of small cookies.

Once you find a combination that you are happy with, glue the cookies to the wreath with royal icing. Let the icing set for 12 hours and your wreath is ready!

If you have extra cookies, you can place them in clear bags, tie them with a pretty ribbon, attach a couple of cute straws and give them as presents!

I hope that you like this tutorial and, please, do not hesitate to contact me by leaving a message in this post or contacting me at The Celebration Girl if you have any questions about the process or if you need any clarifications. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Thank you again, Marcela, for showing us how to make this incredible treat!!

Btw, here’s the template. Click to enlarge.

Each collection contains the same party printables: straw flags, cupcake toppers, napkin rings, “Be My Valentine” banner, water bottle labels, tented cards, invitations, gift tags, labels, favor tags, and mini cake bunting.

DOWNLOAD THE HIGH RESOLUTION FILES FOR PRINTING:

• In English
• In Spanish
• In French

The whole collection in Spanish…

The whole collection in French…

I can’t wait to see all your international Valentine’s Day parties. Please add them to our site so I can show them off…

Thank you, Ana, for making our site even more global. To learn more about our talented friend, Ana, please visit her at Love Party Printables.

Also, for more Valentine’s Day inspiration, check out these great parties from our site and see all of our free party printables.

Then I read that she pulled the whole thing off for $150 and I almost died. How did she do it? I, of course, had to find out Jenifer’s secrets, and she so generously agreed to share them here. We won’t tell, Jenifer, we promise!

My daughter, Ellah, has a love for ballerinas and dancing. When I was shopping at the Round Top/Warrenton Antiques Show in Round Top, Texas, I found a stash of vintage little ballerina prints. I purchased them for her room, and when she saw them, the gasp she took helped me to decide the theme of her 3rd birthday – a vintage ballerina.

Vintage ballerina print in spray-painted frame

When planning my two children’s birthdays, under one month apart, I know we cannot break the bank two months in a row on birthday parties.  Although I’d really love to do it, I guess God really didn’t have birthday parties in mind when He planned our children.  I also work with plenty of moms through my store with similar circumstances or moms who just want to save money.  Perfectly understood.

1st Tip – K.I.S.S

My first money saving tip is always the theory KISS: Keep it Simple Sweetie.  I am with the idea ‘less is more.’  My daughter’s party was very, very simple.  I kept the party small which helped cut the cost.  We invited family plus a few of my daughter’s closest preschool friends, about 25 guests including the children. 

I served less expensive foods by having a simple brunch.  Breakfast foods can be inexpensive to make!  My husband and I cooked french toast, pigs-n-the-blanket, oven baked ham and swiss sliders (via Pinterest – so easy with very few inexpensive ingredients), chicken salad croissant sandwiches, homemade raspberry muffins and we had a simple green salad and fresh fruit in season. My mom brought the chicken salad, so my most expensive menu item was lovingly donated. 

Chicken salad croissant sandwiches

Pigs in the blanket

I kept the ballerinas’ activities so simple.  Since coloring is a 2-5 year old favorite, I printed off a ballerina coloring page free from the internet for the girls to color and decorate.  I also purchased foam princess crowns and foam stickers on clearance for $5.00 total. 

Crowns to decorate

The girls had a blast creating their own princess ballerina crowns to wear during the party.  The last activity was, simply, dancing.  All party guests either wore their own tutu or we let them wear a tutu from our play clothes.  The little ballerinas cut a rug with what you might call very modern, interpretive dance moves – so entertaining and it was free!

2nd Tip – Use & Reuse

This is a fun and important tip: Use and reuse what you have!  I love “shopping” the house (and my mother’s house) to find what will work with my party’s theme.  I think it’s perfectly acceptable to ask family and friends to borrow items that could work for your party.  Get creative with the stuff you already have.  The vintage ballerina prints that I purchased for my daughter’s bedroom were some of the main party decorations I planned to use, but they didn’t have frames.  Lo and behold, in my search, I found three identical, unused frames in my garage that happened to fit the pictures!  That was a score.  The frames were black, so I purchased spray paint to coordinate with the party color scheme and simply spray painted them and hung the art.  Easy and inexpensive. 

Absolutely everything that I used to serve the food and candy I either owned myself or I borrowed from my mom’s vintage dish collection. 

Borrowed vintage dishes

The pops of turquoise you see in the platter and round place mat I already had.  Another party item I reused was the large mirror seen in the outdoor table photos. The mirror was kept from our bathroom remodel and worked as a great ballet mirror.

Ballet mirror from bathroom remodel

3rd Tip – Use your connections

Here I saved most of my money on the most expensive parts of the party – the photography, the cake, the bunting, the invitations and party accessories – all because of people I know.  Do you have a friend or family member you know who takes better photos than you?  I do!  A good friend of mine is the photographer of Jennifer Schattle Photography.  Jennifer and I partner together on projects every year including my children’s birthday parties, so I am blessed to know and work with such a talented friend.  Of course, you don’t have to know a photographer.  Ask people you know who can help! 

I also know someone who bakes – conveniently, my husband.  He is not a professional, but he grew up baking with his grandmother and does a wonderful, tasty job.  We insist on baking our children’s cakes/cupcakes every birthday, so we save money in that department yearly. 

Caked baked by Jenifer's husband -- incredible!

In addition, I have an aunt who owns a custom sewing business, Kustom Kids of Kingwood.  When I had decided on the ballerina theme, I knew I wanted a bunting.  I shopped around and found that they were a little pricey for me.  I contacted my aunt and she quickly put together my requests (and my favorite piece of the party) for a fraction of what I would have paid anywhere else. 

Bunting sewn by Jenifer's aunt

Finally, I own my Etsy store Hello Love Designs where I sell printable party invitations and party accessories.  I also work with one of the top US press printing companies allowing me to have my invitations professionally printed for cost.  I printed out the cupcake toppers, tent labels, and favor tags on my own home printer, cut, and we were ready to party!  I have the Little Vintage Ballerina birthday invitation and full printable party collection for sale in the store.

Custom invitation designed by Jenifer

Cupcake toppers and tent labels designed by Jenifer

4th Tip – Use printables

I LOVE printables!!  Printable party accessories add such detail to a party and save money at the same time.  You can purchase anything from full party packages to just the pieces you need for a low cost.  Then all you have to do is print, cut them out, and you’re ready to add beautiful detail to your party.  If you’re really on a tight budget, there are many blogs, designers, and sites who offer free party printables.  You will spend a little time assembling, but the money you save is so worth it!

5th Tip – Use Etsy

For me, Etsy is an indispensable source.  Great deals are to be found everywhere!  Etsy offers such a variety of products, styles, and prices that everyone is happy.  I found (another favorite piece) a vintage floral sheet that I used as the table cloth outside at a great Etsy store called Eager Hands.  It was so reasonably priced, and the seller was kind enough to throw in sweet little “extras.”  In fact, the eyelet trim I used to trim the party hats came as an “extra” from her shop. 

Eyelet trim on party hats

I also purchased the cupcake liners from The Cupcake Social used to serve candy, Ellah’s tutu from Cheeky Chic Baby, and Ellah’s headband from Prim Couture Shop – all on Etsy.  Note:  Ellah’s birthday outfit was not a part of our party budget.

Ellah's birthday outfit

My one “splurge” item was the floral arrangement and, truthfully, it wasn’t all that expensive.  I took the florist my pitcher, an inspiration photo, and a budget and they worked up something gorgeous that I could afford.  I always plan and shop ahead comparing prices.  I try to avoid last minute purchasing which can end up costing me more money.

Thank you, Jenifer, for sharing all your tips and your beautiful party with us. You did an incredible job!

To see more of Jenifer’s designs, check out her other pretty parties on our site and her Etsy shop, Hello Love Designs .

If you’re looking for party printables, this is the giveaway for you because Deanna creates sophisticated, beautiful designs that will add that extra touch to any party. Take a look at some of her work below, plus she can customize any order.

To enter the giveaway, just “like” Mirabelle Creations on Facebook, then leave a comment at the end of this post saying you did it.  Also, to learn more about Deanna and read up on her party styling tips that come with a hint of southern charm (she’s from Kentucky after all), check out her blog.

We’ll pick a winner at random on Thursday, January 19th at 10:00PM (PST).  Any entries after that won’t be considered, sorry. We will use random.org to generate our winner and will notify you by email.

Thank you to everyone who entered. We’re planning more great giveaways in 2012. Stay tuned…