{Cupcake Monday} Happy Birthday Maurice Sendak & FREE DOWNLOAD

If you've been reading me little blog for a while you're well aware of my fondness for Maurice Sendak and his book, Where the Wild Things Are  - it's my FAVE story forevs.  That being said, we lost our beloved Mr. Sendak last year; he would have been 85 today.

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To celebrate his life and gift to us, I'm doing a throwback of the Where the Wild Things Are inspired cupcakes that I made for my kids' WTWTA Halloween party a few years ago.  (I swear, there is something deep down inside of me that wants to do this theme over again.....hmmmm????)

(My Original Sketch for the cupcakes - I got mad skills yo!)

I love looking back at some of my old work - it makes me laugh - notice how my cupcakes are sweating...didn't know then that when frozen cupcakes thaw they actually sweat.  Whatevs...they turned out super cute and tasted delish!

Here's a lil' secret.....I've sorta been working on a WTWTA printable set for some time....but still not sure if it's something I really want to go forward with, for various reasons.  Since I can't reach a conclusion, I though the least I could do was share a tiny bit of it.  So, here's a wall sign from my designs for FREE DOWNLOAD.

While you're waiting on that download check out some of my fave Sendak moments, go to's and tales!

Hilarious Sendak interview with Stephen Colbert (adults only)
You have to check out today's cool Google doodle honoring Maurice Sendak!
Another favorite of mine - Really Rosie on You Tube
My Where the Wild Things Are Pinterest Board

Do you love Maurice Sendak as much as I do?  Have a favorite book by the author or have you thrown your own Where the Wild Things Are bash?  Share with us and leave a comment below!

'Where the Wild Things Are' Halloween Party Recap: Part 2

As promised, here are more photos from our 'Where the Wild Things Are' themed Halloween party. 

Let me just say that I had the BEST time planning this party.  Halloween has always been fun for me, but now that I have kids, it's officially my favorite holiday. 

There were so many different ideas I had and because I tend to work alone (because I have trust issues) and have thismuchtimeavailable, a lot of my ideas didn't get to see the light of day.  It's cool though, know why? because I intend to do a remix of this party for one of my son's birthday parties either next year or the following.  I will have my day yet!!!!  LOL!  Let me also say that my camera is on the fritz.  My pictures didn't come out so great, so I apologize for the poor quality.  These things happen.

Aaaanyhoooo, here's what went down:

 I posted this quote from the book on our door.  When the guests showed up, they had an idea of what to expect once they got inside.

I posted our stairway/hallway in my last post, but, just in case you missed it...

It took me forever to make these vines, even my Little Diva pitched in and did a pretty good job.  But she got tired, of course, and went off to play.  I really should have started making them like three weeks ago instead of the day before.  I'd cut out the leaves during the week; now I'll know better for next time.

Enter into the 'man cave' a la the 'wild rumpus' room.  I created a banner and some paper rosettes (inspired by Amy Atlas) and put the Max-o-Lantern that I made earlier in the week on our wood burning stove and spread candy all around.  The little paper boats represent Max's boat that he used to sail away to 'Where the Wild Things Are' in the book.  I gave them to the guests as favors!

On the other side of the room was the food table.  We put out Max & Moishe cupcakes, Monster Finger cookies, Apples & Oranges and lots of candy.  A friend even brought a jack-o-lantern decorated cake.  We served Chicken Fingers and Pizza Rolls for the kids to eat. 

...there were a lot of little things going on with this spread.....

My Max, Moise & Sipi paper toys from Toy-a-Day

There was so much more to share, but alas, my camera failed me and I didn't get to snap all the photos.  The kids got to watch a book adaptation DVD version of Where the Wild Things Are that I borrowed from the libray.  They also created their own paperbag monster puppets!

I did get some cute pictures of my son in his Max costume and my recessionista daughter in her Pumpkin Witch costume (last year's get-up).   I would share those with you but I made myself a promise not to show my kiddie's faces on my blog. But trust me, they were adorable.  So were the other little princesses, bumble bees, pirates, tigers, cowboys and space heroes who were at the party. 

This was a really fun party and I already started to collect items for next year's Halloween bash!

Wild Thing Cupcakes and Weekend Finds

My plan this weekend was to decorate my Max & Moishe cupcakes, do some party designs and then post them yesterday. However, my weekend filled up quickly - well, my daughter's weekend filled up quickly with birthday gift shopping (more on that later), a splash party and picnic - thus, I had to play mommy. So, I took the time last night to design the cupcakes for my Where the Wild Things Are party collection! I'm telling you this party is going to be a production by the time I finish. While, I think my Moishe cupcake needs some refining, I think they came out pretty close to what I'd envisioned (see my post-it notes sketch above). My daughter thought they were so funny and scary! She couldn't wait to eat them! In any case, here they are:

Moishe & Max


Moishe - My favorite Wild Thing creature.


Mischievous Max!

In my last post I told you that I'd share with you how I made the invitation. Here's a little back story. I don't consider myself an artist, I just like to create things. I look at something and think about how I can make it my own. In this case, that's what I did with the invitation. My mother is a graphic designer and has been pushing for me to use Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop to do my graphics for my party creations. Well, I have little patience for all the whoozie-whatzits that both of those programs have - and I mean, I have kids - shortcuts work best for me. I'm sure every real graphic designer's head would spin if they knew that I just used the drawing tools in Microsoft Word to do the invite. I know my mom's almost did - HI MOM!

The idea for the invitation was to do a take on the book cover, play with the 'wild rumpus' parade from the book, and incorporate Max's journey on the land boat to the forest where the creatures lived. I think it looks pretty okay and I was able to achieve the look I wanted.

I'm still adding more to my inspiration board, so I promise I'll share it with you before the end of the week.

So, as I stated earlier, the kiddies and I needed to get a birthday gift on Saturday. We went to Target to quickly go in and get a gift for the birthday boy. As soon as we walked in my plan was foiled; the Mini Diva, ran right to the dollar section - and I could not resist.

I love the dollar section in Target, but it's dangerous! I did pick up a few items to add to my inventory, like glitter pencils and cupcake notebooks for a Princess Party - in, ahem, April. As we 'looked' through the bins at all the new items. I realized that the Target dollar section is the perfect stop for real quality party favors when you are on a tight budget. Look at the fun finds that would be perfect for a Dr. Seuss themed party:

These would make really fun gift bags:

To put inside the gift bags - markers, notebooks....

Mini Diva in the Hat!

In my next post, I'll share with you my favor bags, napkin rings and the fun party hats I'm working on!!!