Birthdays From The Past

Okay, so here's my attempt to reestablish certain posts from the past that have current links to Pinterest. I have copied the text that was written, and I hope that I have the same pictures to go with them. Please bear with me!
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From July 16, 2012 - Shark Party for my 3-year-old!

So this past weekend my baby boy turned three! Since when am I a mom of toddlers? Oh boy!

Well, this time Ryan told me he wanted a shark party, so I said "ok." Sure enough, no one really makes "shark" party items (except Oriental Trading, but what fun is that?) so I had to embark into my creative cabinets. Earlier I posted the invites I made, which I am proud of and everyone loved. I am glad, because most of the time my "creative" ideas turn into sloppy messes with good intentions, bad handwriting and misspelled words (see below). So here are a few ideas that are affordable for everyone to do! Use what you have, make what you don't, buy cheap, little items to help you along the way!


 For the chocolate shells I purchased 2 molds and 4 bags of melting chocolates from Hobby Lobby. Since I can use a 40% off coupon for each individual purchase I paid $1.26 for each mold and $1.96 for each bag of chocolate. So, for $11 all 15 RSVP-ed kids got a "chum bucket" full of chocolate.

The utensil jars are old canning jars I had in my cabinets, ribbon from a previous gift and the dividers are cut up cardboard. Total cost $.97 for the blue set of plastic ware from Wal-Mart.

I made "chum buckets" for the kids to fill when the shark piñata broke open. They loved it and the parents are glad the cups weren't too big! Well, I think anyway.

 Ah yes, the shark cake! I had fun with this one, and I honestly didn't know how it would turn out. I did some cake decorating in 4H when I was 13, and that was all. I earned a blue ribbon for everything I made. So did everyone else! For this I baked two 9x13 pans of chocolate cake. I traced a shark onto wax paper from a book Ryan had, then simply cut along the lines. I used the second cake to make the tail and fins. I used 3 store-bought icings (Pillsbury) to cover the whole thing and to make sure the fins would stay put. This was tricky because it was a warm day, so the cake wanted to come off onto the icing knife. Next time I will freeze the cake first to keep it in place and reduce crumbs in the icing. Although, you'd never be able to tell with the frosting spray paint I got! (Wal-Mart wedding cake aisle, $3 each). I added some blue and silver sprinkles (Hobby Lobby or Wal-Mart) and voila! Ryan had his shark cake. A touch of crushed gram crackers and some shells for the final touch.

My husband and I made this sign from a page I saw on Pinterest. Yes, half this party was Pinsperation! And yes, like I said earlier, I can get spelling wrong, even after we thought we had "checked" it. Consession - try concession. Otherwise it was still cute! My hubs is talented when it comes to wood work, so this was all his doing. Cost? $0.














Some of the food we had was a chocolate fountain (a small one we've owned for a few years but never use), cheese, veggies and fruit and pizza. I bought a couple of pizzas a few weeks ago at Costco when they were on sale for $6. If you don't know Costco, then know that each of these pizzas can feed about 8 people each because they're massive!

We also had shark teeth (sliced cheese) and drinks. I made a Lemonade Shark Drink from lemonade and sprite. It was gone before the party was over. Among a few other personal touches, this was a great party and an inexpensive way to do it. We all had fun, the cake was all eaten up and nobody cared if I forgot a detail or misspelled a word. Yay! And on top of it all, Ryan loved every minute because he loves sharks.
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New Website

Okay, so for today I was able to get my new blog for photography up and running. To visit that site for further information, please click here for sweetauguststudios.com

I am still working on this blog and it's current problem. It appears that I may just have to start over with my posts. I apologize for any inconvenience regarding my Pins from Pinterest, or my avid readers!

Technical Difficulties

Sorry if you are having trouble viewing my pages. I recently attempted to switch over my blog to a current email and now I can't see any of the pictures I've uploaded. If this is your same issue, please be patient with me, as I am attempting to correct this ASAP! Thank you! 

Sweet August Studios

So, with many pictures of other people comes the need to protect my work. Can I call it work yet? Well, maybe or maybe not, but either way it is my work. So I knew I needed to create a watermark, which meant that I needed a name. 

Now, I am too stubborn to simply use my name, so after some thought and discussion with my husband I have settled on Sweet August Studios. The meaning of August is as follows: marked by majestic dignity or grandeur (Merriam-Webster). August is also my birth month. It is also summer time. I love summer. I love my birthday. I love the definition. And that is what makes it "sweet."

Thus, Sweet August Studios has been born! The next step is to create another page just for my pictures to keep this blog from getting too cluttered. That is not my plan for today.