{How Savvy Are They} A Holiday Cookie Decorating Party

December 21, 2010

This Adorable and Savvy Holiday Cookie Decorating party comes from Stephanie, a good friend of ours who wanted to get her daughter and her new school friends together for a fun afternoon of Holiday decorating, giggles and many memories to come. Stephanie did a great job at keeping things Savvy and Stylish.

She created a fun Holiday Winter themed table with all the trimmings! We love how she made the centerpiece of the table using a glass cake stand with coordinating colored cookie cutters and Christmas photo props on sticks in a tinsel filled vase.



Each girl had her own place setting which included scrapbook paper place mats and festive snowman plates that were purchased at Michales craft store. There were also wooden ornaments at each setting that Stephanie purchased at Jo-Anns for .39 each and added the initals herself using her Cricut.


Decorating was made easy for the girls with sandwich bags filled with their own icing and tied with a sweet ribbon for detail.

Our favorite part about this day were the super fun and creative photo props she made for the girls to be silly with! Stephanie simply cut out Santa hats, Santa beards, Antlers and Rudolph noses and glued them on sticks and VIOLA! cuteness on a stick!

Stephanie did such an amazing job at creating such great memories for her daughter and her friends. We loved all the Savvy touches and look forward to seeing more!!! Thank You Stephanie!

Smiles~

Amy & Bri

{DIY} Holiday Wreaths

December 13, 2010

A wreath can say so much, especially around the holidays. A wreath on your front door can be the first greeting that welcomes your friends and family into your home and really says so much about you. But why stop there? When it comes to decorating around the holidays in my house (Amy) I like to dress up a chandelier and many of the windows in my home with wreaths.

Martha Stewart

You can find a wreath in just about every style these days. And making them can be just as savvy when it comes to being creative with your materials. Here are a few DIY ideas that we found to help inspire even the least savviest person!!! Many of these ideas are made from materials you may have around your home.

Of course Martha Stewart comes to mind when looking for the craftiest, stylish, and savviest inspirational wreaths. Here, Martha has simply glued plain white boxes on top of each other and added some pretty ribbon. The great thing about this one is you can add the ribbon color of your choice to compliment your own decor.


Martha Stewart
How great is this gingerbread man wreath?? So sweet and so simple! Gingerbread cookies, hot glue and some ribbon and viola a creative twist to the traditional favorite.



www.myhomeideas.com
Love this idea too! A wreath that is multi-functional. One that is stylish and fills your home with the sweet smell of cinnamon.


Since we are always looking for ways to keep the kiddos busy, here are couple of great ideas from Sweet Paul to do with your kiddos this season. Grab a bag of popcorn and a bowl or two of candy and create some fun memories that will hang in your home for years to come.

Here is a wreath I created in 10 minutes......

All you need is a paper plate with the center cut out

Some Peppermint candies hot glued to the plate

And some red ribbon to hang the Savvy Seasonal Creation.

Anchored by $2 Walmart wreaths my Easy and Warm Welcome is complete.


Smiles,
Amy & Bri

{Giveaway} Gingerbread Inspirations and Giveaway!

December 8, 2010

And the Winner is......the sweet paperhouse!

She said, The "tree of thanks" is too cute! Wish i would've known about it for Thanksgiving:)

Please email us with your Contact info at thesavvymomsguide@yahoo.com.

Congrats!!!!

We have Gingerbread on our mind......And do you see why?

If you have followed our Blog for a while, or at ALL, You know that we host a Monthly Play Party. This Month was a Gingerbread Party Savvy Style. If you did not see it we Hope you will take a minute to Run, Run, As Fast as you can over to the Blog Post.

Gingerbread Houses and Men(Women) are such a fun and festive addition to the Holiday Season. So we wanted to share with you some of our favorite Inspirations, Creative finds and Fabulous Foods that will help you create the Perfect Gingerbread Event.

We Love this Children's Gingerbread House Decorating Party from Pizzazzerie. So much inspiration....Such Sweet Details and Fabulous DIY Tutorials. Courtney always creates Magic.

One Charming Party Created a lovely Gingerbread House Decorating Party. They used Graham Crackers to construct their houses. What a Savvy and Sensible idea. So Sweet and Wintry. Such Inspiration and Fantastic Tips and Tutorials.

If Baking and Decorating Gingerbread Houses in not your thing we have the PERFECT Solution. This Adorable Paper Gingerbread House from Paper and Cake. Just Purchase, Print and Put together. Easy Peasy and Super Cute (for years to come).

Once Your Gingerbread House or Village is Created add this Adorable Printable Gingerbread Train from Fabulous Toys.

Every Gingerbread party needs Yummy Treats. Here are some of our Favorite Fabulous Gingerbread Finds.

These Tiny Gingerbread Houses are just Perfection. An Adorable way to dress up your Hot Cocoa. Sweet on the eyes and the tummy. Seriously we are in love with these. Only Not Martha could create such a clever Treat.

These Gingerbread Rice Crispy Treats from Our Best Bites are sure to be a hit with your guests. Anything Sara and Kate create is Delicious!!!!

No Party is complete without a Seasonal Drink. And nothing says the Holidays like the Red cups from Starbucks...Oh those Yummy Seasonal Lattes. Have you tried the Gingerbread Latte?

Should you want to Whip up a Gingerbread Latte at home here is a great recipe from eHow.com

And for that Cocktail Party Starbucks helped Happy Hour Create the Gingerbread Lattetini.

But No party is complete without those Printable Touches. And Frog Prince Paperie created the Perfect Collection for your Gingerbread Gathering.

And Because it is Christmas.

Because We Love Gingerbread Men.

And we know you are going to throw a fabulous Gingerbread Party.

But Mostly Because You Make us Smile.

We are giving away a $30 Store credit to Frog Prince Paperie and the Adorable Gingerbread Cookie Printable Collection. SWEET!!!!

3 ways to Enter to Win.

1) Head over to Frog Prince Paperie and tell us your favorite Design! Here


2) Become fans of The Savvy Moms Guide and Frog Prince Paperie. Leave your Savvy Smiles on their pages!

3) Suggest The Savvy Moms Guide and Frog Prince Paperie to your Friends and Family and share the link that you did here!

Please leave a separate comment for each entry.
Winner will be chosen on Sunday, December 12, 2010 at 10:00pm (PST). Any entries received after this time will not be considered. Winner will be chosen using random.org

Smiles~

Amy & Bri

Gingerbread Playdate

December 1, 2010

Run, Run as fast as you can.....You can't catch me I am the Gingerbread Man. That was the theme of our December Play date. We decided that the perfect play date would be one that incorporated the traditional Gingerbread Man and House. As always we needed and wanted to add our Savvyness. Christine of Racz Photography generously offered her studio and talents to us for the day and let us literally run wild creating our holiday Play Date! Thank you Christine for your patience with us and helping us capture the day perfectly.

With our theme in mind Frog Prince Paperie helped design a Printable collection that was PERFECT! From there we were able to find all we needed, of course, in the Dollar Bins at Michaels, Joanne's and Target and from things we had around the house.

The Jars were a purchase we made at Ikea long before this Blog came to be (you can always use a good jar or two...or 10). Any jar can be dressed up with festive ribbon and a printable or embellishment and voila you have one Savvy addition to your styling and decor. The candy trees were a find at our local Big Lots.

We love to use Chalkboards as an addition to any play date, party or daily decor. In this case we used the one that hangs in Bri's kitchen as our recipe card to the traditional gingerbread man.

To complete our wall collage we had a custom designed Candy Cane canvas from Canvas by Kerry made and found a gingerbread cake pan at Joanne's. This look can be duplicated in your home by covering any framed art with wrapping paper and embellished with vinyl, scrapbook paper, or any other fun finds.

Each kiddo received a Custom Chef hat (found in the target dollar bin) that we added ribbon and a sweet gingerbread boy or girl. Their place setting included a Michaels $1 birdhouse, our Savvy "gingerbread house", an Icing bag with their initial and a place mat created from the Frog Prince Paperie Printable Collection placed on a 12x12 sheet of Wrapping Paper and then laminated. Each had a Frog Prince Paperie box filled with all the trimmings for their Gingerbread house.

We styled the table with Pom Poms strung on fishing line, and fancied the chairs with ribbon, a printable and pom poms.

Instead of creating our own Gingerbread house, cuz lets face it when it comes to Savvy baking we leave that to Kolby Kakes, we found this Adorable countdown one. We thought it would be perfect for our teachable moment of filling the empty gingerbread house with coordinating treats and or lessons of giving and gifts.

As always we like to provide a healthy snack. This month we kept it simple because we knew just how much candy was going to be involved in this Play Date, so peanut butter and jelly sandwiches it was wrapped of course with festive Frog Prince Paperie wrappers.

The kiddos enjoyed trimming their Gingerbread bird house. And looked adorable decked out in their Chef hats and Sweet Things Aprons that Nicole whipped right up for us!

And the finished products were Deliciously Cute!!!

Next we moved onto our recipe....This time we did things a little different. Our recipe was done with the help of Kolby Kakes. She made these adorable ginger boys and girls that the kids then dressed with their favorite candy accessories.

Yummy......is all we have to say!!!!

Every play date needs a Sweets Station....

And Bri's $3 garage sale cart is the perfect accessory to this play date.

Kolby Kakes created scrumptious Gingerbread Pops, cake balls and delicious gingham sugar cookies to add to the day.

We ended the play party with the story that whole day was based off of, The Gingerbread Man by Jim Aylesworth.

And those poor gingerbread boys and girls could not run away from our 5 curious and hungry kiddos! Don't you just want to eat them up in those adorable Sweet Things Aprons, tutu's and Hats. Pure JOY!!!!


We hope you enjoyed our Sweet Day.


Smiles~
Amy & Bri

Savvy Advent Garland

It is so hard to believe that December 1st and Christmas are Upon us.

This year I wanted to create an Advent Piece that would be fun, practical, and appealing. When I saw this Pottery Barn Advent I fell in LOVE. The problem is that it costs $299 and is not practical with 2 3 year olds. So I kept the image tucked away in my ever foggy mind and continued on with my crazy life.

Then Anders Ruff posted their Advent Cones and I knew exactly what I wanted to create.

With the Pottery Barn Advent as my inspiration I headed to our Local Dollar Tree. There I was able to get all of the materials I would need to complete my Savvy Style Advent Garland. I purchased the following items:

25 Pails (in sets of 3 so 9 sets) for $9

Twine $1

Clothes Pins $1

Santa Ornaments $2

Fillers $3

Anders Ruff Printables

Total Cost $21

Here is how I created the Advent Garland

I printed out my Anders Ruff Advent Cones and cut them to fit the Dollar Pails.

Then I hot glued the printable to the pail.

I wanted my advent to be a spiritual one (but you can always just use the idea as a countdown). One that would have teachable activities for my children. It just so happens that My Insanity had just shared her Advent and printable list. So in the spirit of Christmas I accepted her gift and am using her list for our advent. I filled each pail with snacks and treats, which coincided with each number, and the Action that each day inspires. I then hung the 25 pails evenly with the clothespins on my twine line.

And there it is...My Advent Garland.



I hope you find some inspiration and tips from my Savvy Seasonal project.

Smiles~
Bri