Saturday, April 23, 2011

The Savvy Moms Guide has launched a new site on Wordpress!The New and Improved The Savvy Moms Guide, is your resource site for the Everyday Mom. We have provided the top sites and blogs for parties, crafts, recipes, education, savings and home. Making this, your one stop shop for your Everyday Savvy needs. We created this site because we were frequently searching for the next party idea for our kids, tonight’s dinner recipe, or always searching for a great coupon, so we thought having all our favorite sites all in one place would save us time and money!Please come and Make EveryDay Savvy with us at www.TheSavvyMomsGuide.com!

Bri and Amy of The Saavy Moms Guide hosted a ridiculously CUTE Easter themed “play party” this year.Modern, creative, budget-friendly, FUN – this party has it all… including bunny tails for everyone!

Even if you don’t have little ones of your own, there’s plenty of fabulous DIY inspiration in this carrot-and-bunny themed celebration to appeal to “kids” of all ages… from the grassy table runner and adorable “picket fence” displays to the “carrot patch” treats made form creme wafer’s, carrot lollipops, and brownie crumbs (leftover from the “brownie bunnies” of course… so resourceful!).

Read on for LOTS more inspiring images + all the creative details & party resources…

“As with all of our play parties we kept this Bunny Hop Play party to a Savvy minimum at around $85. Most of the decor was purchased at our local Dollar Tree and many of the serving pieces we already owned. We are loving the silhouette trend right now, so we went with chocolate bunny silhouettes accented with green and white gingham and orange. We used artificial grass as the runner to give the table a carrot patch feel. We hung a silhouette bunny and orange pennant banner from twine to dress the green and white gingham backdrop. {Click here to download a template for the bunny silhouette.}

What goes better with Easter bunnies than carrots? So we set the table with bunny and carrot desserts in mind…

We bought vanilla cupcakes from the grocery store topped with white frosting. We then created “cotton tail” toppers using lollipop sticks and cotton balls and placed in green and white gingham cupcake liners fromMichaels.The Sugarbelle’s carrot sugar cookies were placed on white square plates from Wal-Mart.

The brownie bunnies were cut using bunny shaped cookie cutters and placed on wooden dowels. We then created a picket fence display made from garden fencing, cut and zip tied to the size we needed. To create anatural earthy feel, we filled the fencing with craft shred purchased from Dollar Tree.

The bunny biscuits were an easy recipe inspired by Woman’s Day. The ingredients were minimal: pre-madebiscuits, honey, coconut, marshmallow and chocolate chips. These were also placed on a white rectangular plate from Wal-mart. The carrot patches were another inspiration from Family Fun. The ingredients were also minimal, using orange creme wafer’s, left over brownie bunny crumbs and carrot lollipops from The Dollar Tree.

The Carrot Kones from Posh Party Pretties were filled with popcorn and set inside a picket fence utensil holder filled with more craft shred. The bunny cake made by Kolby Kakes was dressed with bunny ears and“Hop” banner from The Purple Pug.

We always try to incorporate some sort of healthy snack to our play parties, so we cut up carrot and celery sticksand placed them in plastic footed cups (also from Dollar Tree) filled with Ranch Dip and embellished with twine for a Savvy garnish.

We set a separate table for the props for our “Bunny Hop“. We used a white nightstand as our table. We filled the stand with coordinating orange and green party hats and blowers from Oh Goodie Designs. The “Prop Shop” also included bunny ears and mouths on sticks made by Frog Prince Paperie. (Paula has now offered the Props as a FREE download herehttp://frogprincepaperie.com/images/bunny%20photo%20props.pdf).Each play party friend was also giventheir own bunny tail made from cotton balls glued to twine and tied around their waste.

After the Bunny Hop we read The Tale of Benjamin Bunny by Beatrix Potter to the kids while they enjoyed their treats. Our play party guests left with a cello bag that was filled with goldfish and tied with green & white gingham ribbon and a “Thanks for Hopping By” tag by Love the Day.”

Monday, April 4, 2011

We just love everything about Spring. Easter, flowers, and warm weather. Oh and a great carrot cake goes well with Spring too, at least in our book it does! We have found some Savvy Carrot finds, from recipes to DIY crafts. So whether or not that myth about carrots being good for your eyes is true, we hope you enjoy what you 'see'!!!

One of the best things about families are the traditions that can be made. My(Amy) family started 'Donut Sunday' a year ago due to my daughter's obsession with donuts and sprinkles. So just before bed every Saturday night she reminds my husband and I, "Tomorrow is donut Sunday!" and then goes on to tell us which kind of donut she will be picking. It is the little things in life that mean the most!

So recently while doing our daily Facebook feeds, I saw that Daily Grommet was featuring a new line of bakeware called Babycakes. If you have not heard of Daily Grommet it is an online marketplace where you can discover and buy inventive, new products, watch video reviews, and get to know the people behind these up-and-coming businesses. Babycakescountertop appliances come in a variety of your favorite treats such as, the Mini Cupcake maker, the Cake Pop maker, the Whoopie Pie maker and the one that sold me was the Donut maker!! So, I bought one and could not wait to try it out on our first 'Donut Sunday at home'!

I love the idea behind these machines! For the donut machine in particular, you can make 6 donuts in 4 minutes!! Perfect! So, we invited a few of our friends over to share donut Sunday with us! I thought of making this Sunday more of a decorating donut Sunday. So we set out some plates and bowls with different toppings for the kids to decorate their donuts. I love that you can be creative with everything about this machine, from the type of donut, to the flavors of frosting's, to the kinds of toppings! Of course the topping of choice were sprinkles, and lots of them!! Just a little side note, how great would this idea be for a kids birthday party??? My wheels are spinning on this one!

I used the recipe book that was included and made the maple glazed applesauce donuts. I poured the batter into a plastic bag, cut the tip and filled each tray with the batter. So easy! And in 4 minutes we had these fluffy little guys!!

Once the donuts were done the kids were ready to dip their mini's into the maple glaze!

We let them go crazy with the sprinkles!

Why not?

So pretty right? They almost look professional!

The kids had a great time decorating and spending the morning together. The only bad thing about this machine is that you cannot eat just one!!! My donut Sunday consisted of at least 4! I am loving this new tradition!

Seriously they could not have been cuter, the perfect Stylings for our Spring Day.

The Faithworks Dresses were from the "Jewel" Collection. These Adorable dresses are Back buttoned, A-lined dresses with cut-away armholes. They Have jewel neckline in front and V-shaped in back. Self bow in front. The Yellow and Green were the perfect Pop of Spring Color.

Faithworks for you 1960's style is so simple, yet detailed. You will find so many different styles in her store. Look around, and you will find something you have to have!

The girls wore Fun and Frilly Flowers from Sweetharts Shop in their hair. We adored the layers and button detail of these hair pieces. The girls did too.

Bows, to flowers, Nikki's obsession with hair accessories took off and so Sweetharts Shoppe was born. Inspired by vintage style and Nikki incorporates a vintage look into her hair pieces. Sweetharts is also known for their fabulous Rosettes, which are the ultimate in accessories, not only can you use them in your hair on headbands and clips you can use the to dress up your everyday tank top or simple dress. Even wear them in a bib necklace, they are definitely a show piece to be worn at some point in your life :) They add a little something to your look that makes people look twice and makes you feel great. Nothing is better then walking out into the world looking good and that makes you feel good. Sweetharts is a Shoppe that will allow you to dress up any outfit with the perfect Hair piece, clutch, jewelry or even dress your camera and baby.

Look at those Faces.....

They want to make you smile like that too!

And so do we....

So we are giving away a Faithworks "Jewel" Dress in the color of your choice. And a Fabulous Hair Piece and Clutch of your choice from Sweetharts.

Winner will be chosen on Sunday April 10, 2011 at 8:00pm (PST). Any entries received after this time will not be considered. Open to US only. Winner will be chosen using random.org. This is a sponsored post for The Savvy Moms Guide.