Take a Positive Moment -4

Thanks to Silver Wren on Etsy  for this beautiful necklace. My sister and I often call each other Ma Soeur so I knew this would be the perfect handmade item to add to my positive moments shrine.

My sister. This evening we will eat Vietnamese spring rolls my dear husband will carefully roll and (really ugly) cherry pie I made for her birthday. We will give her a present and then the kids will toss around tissue and wrapping paper and squeal with delight. I know it. Her husband is another August day of birth so all this is for him too. The tissue paper will be from his present.  He too, is a great dude.

Knowing she's coming over and realizing I did not pick out a nice meaningful-brought-tears-to-my-eyes-at-the -card-store card, I was rolling over in my head how special she is to me. I don't tell her enough, and she puts up with some of the worst of my crap I am sure. I gotta tell you though. Today's moment is dedicated to what I rolled about in my brains about this girl. I am lucky to have a sister that is my closest girlfriend.

Without my little sister I am not quite sure how I'd have turned out. As a kid She was there for me to hang out with, laugh with, pick on, mother. I learned a great deal from her feisty back punching moments, her tears, her laughter. I learned how to compromise (a little...) how to share. I learned that Metallica posters DO mesh just fine with New Kids On The Block Posters on a bedroom wall.

As we grow older I watched my little sister become a wonderful mother, wife, human. She's compassionate, kind, nurturing, hilarious, stubborn, creative. I am proud to have her share some birthday moments with my family tonight. I love her dearly, and will always hold her close to my soul.

*side note her actual birthday is the 24th. You didn't miss it yet!

I wish you many positive moments my friend. take good care.

The Ease of a Cupcake Topper

Here's the thing, people always say I am creative, yadda yadda. Reality is I just rip off my sister, at least in this case. Last year for my niece Charlotte's Birthday (Charlie and Lola Theme) I made the cupcakes. My sister assembled cute cupcake toppers with scrapbooking paper, a gluegun & toothpicks.

This year the Birthday party theme is Monsters. I volunteered to make cupcakes again. At the time I volunteered I had an image of adorable frosting covered monster head cupcakes . Today I reminded myself that I am NO cake decorator. Nor do I wish I was. It stresses me out completely. I still really wanted to make the cupcakes, I love to bake. I love to make them look cute as well. I just know my limits, as any smart Mom should.

I decided a cupcake topper would be best. It would look adorable. The monster would match the party theme because my husband drew it for Charlotte's Birthday invitation.

Perfect.

These 40 little toppers took me less than an hour to construct. Of course the Huz took a few minutes to layout and print the monsters. But listen, basically, parents, (Aunts) this is WAY easier than making a monster head from a cupcake and is equally as cool/cute/neato.

You can use stickers on card stock, print out graphic of your choice on cardstock, have your kids draw stuff on it and cut that out in to the shape you want. The possibilities are endless.

Or if you have an awesome graphic designer as a Husband http://mrblackjaw.blogspot.com/ just have him draw you something up.

Here are the quick and easy instructions:

1.
cut apart your card stock with graphic of choice. We printed it with the image upside down and right side up so it could be folded, creating a two sided topper.



2.
Fold cut image in half.


3. Put a drop of glue at bottom middle of folded card stock.


4. Place a toothpick (I used flat wooden) in the center of glue quickly before it dries.


5. fold card stock over and press in the glue spot so it adheres.



6. They dry super fast using the glue gun. voila! adorable, affordable, stress free cupcake decoration.