A Joyful Riot

A Large Gathering of Happy Things

OUR FIRST VIDEO! DIY Balloon Animal Soft Toys | A Joyful Riot on Youtube, Crafting (or at Least Trying to) with Our Kids

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Our first foray into YouTube is silly, frustrating, and very mommy-relatable! Make DIY Balloon Animal Soft Toys with your kids (tugging at you) and our easy-to-follow Spoonflower designs!

We did it!! After the Party Starters videos we shot last year for food.com we had the desire to get into making our own videos. But, like everything else this last year, it’s been really hard to get done! We’ve had a hard enough time just completing our blog posts, let alone learn a whole new medium and website!

I finally had the idea to try and incorporate my kids into the videos because heaven knows that it would be near impossible not to! I also thought this would just be fun! As moms, our kids are always right around wanting our attention and to “help” with projects.

I think there is a tendency to see things online and wonder if that mom has a lot of help. Maybe the kids go to daycare? Is here a nanny? Could she be so lucky that her kids play by themselves? The truth is, those things are the case for many blogging mommies out there. I’ve heard stories of bloggers who send their kids to daycare all day, and bring them back just to pose for pictures. But that’s certainly not the case for me. While it would be so nice to have even a couple hours a day, it’s not something we’re able to do.

DIY balloon animal soft toys

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Otto’s ONEderful Halloween Carnival Birthday Party

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This ONEderful halloween carnival birthday party was to celebrate my baby boy turning one and is full of colorful, whimsical, and spooky details!

halloween carnival birthday party mixed vintage chairs and pops of color

Now that it’s been almost a whole year, I can share Ottos halloween carnival birthday party! I know I could have shared earlier, but I wanted it to be at a time of year that made sense, so I’ve held onto it for all this time. And, looking at these again after a year was so enjoyable! Planning a halloween carnival birthday party was so much fun and I love how the colorful, and a little bit spooky, decorations turned out.

halloween carnival birthday party custom party poppers

One thing I wish I could remember better is to take photos of my invitations at the party! I love when I do that, because they fit right in amongst the decor that I picked out to match them. But the invite for this halloween carnival birthday party is available right here and I used the same motif through the rest of the party printables. Since it was a carnival theme, I went with the phrase “Otto is ONEderful!” throughout it because it felt like the kind of phrase you’d see on a flyer for a circus or something, and of course I loved the pun!

halloween carnival birthday party carnival ticket centerpieces

My son’s birthday is Oct 17th and honestly, I never thought I’d do the whole Halloween-themed thing for him. But I absolutely LOVE Halloween and my husband and I were planning a Halloween party with our friends for that evening. So, I decided using Halloween decorations for Otto’s beforehand would be fun and versatile to both parties. There was silly puns, potion making, games, a petting zoo, and costumes! Check out all the silly, spooky fun by clicking ‘read more’!

halloween carnival birthday party first birthday halloween party

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DIY Birthday Party Family Halloween Costume

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As we get ready for Halloween this year, here’s a look back at our last year’s DIY birthday party family halloween costume! Complete with cake, party hat, presents, and confetti!

Birthday Party Family Costume ideas

I’ve been brainstorming our family halloween costume for months, and as usual, I am planning a few costumes this year haha. But before I can share those, I had to take a look back at our family costume last year! We went as a birthday party!

DIY party hat halloween costume

Our 3 year old daughter went as a party hat which was a costume she absolutely loved! She still dresses up in it often :)

DIY sheet cake wagon + birthday candle costume

And our 1 year old went as a birthday candle in a sheet cake wagon!

He was a big inspiration for this group costume as a whole because I was planning his one year birthday party at the same time so birthday things were on my mind! Plus, I knew I wanted to incorporate either his stroller or our wagon into his costume. Even if he had been walking great by that time, I would never plan on a baby doing well around the neighborhood for trick or treating! I’ve always loved the baby costumes that use transportation (there are some seriously genius stroller/wagon costumes out there!) so I was excited to try my hand at our own version and a sheet cake seemed to be the perfect fit.

Birthday Party Family Costume ideas

As for me, I went as a bag of confetti and my husband went as a stack of birthday presents. All the costumes were fairly simple but I thought I’d share the DIY for each of them here. Sit tight, there’s a lot of birthday themed costumes to see here :D

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A Floral Pink and Rose Gold Bridal Shower

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Twinkle lights, s’mores & eucalyptus come together in this dreamy & romantic pink and rose gold bridal shower, perfect for warm summer evenings!

pink and rose gold bridal shower, copper and peach, eucalyptus and peaonies

Is it too late in the year to share a summer evening bridal shower?! haha! What is kind of sad about this is that I actually threw it last summer, so yeah like over a year ago… I was waiting for the right time to share it this year but then whoops its already autumn! So I decided to just share it anyway for fear of it being to passe to share next year haha.

Smore Lovin' Smores bar at pink and rose gold bridal shower

What’s good about it though, is like, well, everything. So I’m hoping that the little-too-lateness will be made up for with some dreamy florals, twinkle lights, and food in this pink and rose gold bridal shower!

DIY macaron board (like a donut wall but with fancy macs!) pink and rose gold bridal showerPink and rose gold bridal shower with vintage door tables, peonies, and eucalyptus table runners. Hanging twinkle lights chandelier

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Pierce’s Pastel Gender Neutral Nursery!

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This pastel gender neutral nursery has a ton of fun little elements perfect for a baby boy or girl!

I am so thrilled to be sharing baby Pierce’s nursery! I am less than 2 weeks out from his due date and he really could arrive at any moment so I am beyond happy that his nursery is all ready. By the way, being over 38 weeks I now realize why pregnant women always are saying they’re ready to be done! I have had an easy pregnancy so far and I cannot really complain. I don’t know if my body is lacking hormones or what but I have had no nausea and almost no complications. I still have had migraines and definitely had a lot of days where I was exhausted but compared to the horror stories I’ve heard from a lot of other mommas I feel so blessed. However, now that I am feeling huge, uncomfortable, have daily aches, and have been in my third trimester the entire summer in humid D.C. I am glad I only have a maximum of a few weeks left. Plus I cannot wait to finally meet him! (But don’t worry mom I don’t want him to arrive early).

Now I am not someone who can wait for the entire pregnancy to find out the gender – kudos to those of you who can! I am the person who opts for the blood test at 10 weeks so I can find out as early as possible and start shopping and planning. When I got the results back at 12 weeks I initially thought it was too early to know. But then one minute later I changed my mind. I did wait 2 days for my amazing friend Dorothy to make a gender reveal cake and do a small family reveal over video chat though. That is the extent of my patience.

Since I knew the gender so early I had planned for a nursery that went with a boy. However, now that it is complete I think it really could work for a girl as well and thus would be perfect for those who want a more gender neutral space or who are waiting to find out their baby’s gender. Like I wrote in my inspiration board post I went back and forth on styles for a few weeks before Machelle gave me the idea of using pastels. I focused on blues and yellows and think that the color combination is perfect for a boy and I love how it all turned out. Greg was just so helpful as well – painting the nursery with me, putting up the crib, etc. I initially thought I would have the nursery all done by the end of my second trimester. Looking back on it this was quite an audacious goal and I still had a lot of buying, organizing, and planning to do in my third trimester. At least everything is all set up before he arrives. I know I won’t be using the nursery for months since he’ll be sleeping in a bassinet in our room but it makes be feel better knowing the space is ready.


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