A Joyful Riot

July 31, 2017

Introducing: Party Starters! Videos to Help You Throw the Best Themed Nights Ever!

We are so excited to introduce to you a series of videos we hosted in collaboration with Food.com! A few months ago, we had the opportunity to feature four amazing DIY parties and show how to create tons of party crafts, decorations, favors, and recipes!

Malissa and I spent a couple months putting together these parties and really poured our heart and soul into each! Along with our creative directors at Food.com, we came up with four fun themes and 12 DIY elements for you to follow along with! Each party has its own video, and each DIY element has been broken down into its own short segment for you to watch as well.

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July 11, 2017

The Easiest {And Cheapest!} Little DIY Play Teepee

Kid’s play teepees. They are so cute and somehow so necessary even though they’re not at all necessary, am I right? I’ve seen a ton of cute ones all over; mainly in amazing children’s room photos on Instagram or Pinterest. And you can certainly buy them at Target or Land of Nod (and they’re amazing and adorable for sure!) but they’re like $75-$200. Yikes! I don’t even want to spend that kind of money on a waterproof tent my kid could actually sleep in outside.

So I’ve had it on my mind to DIY one for a while. I’ve been revamping our play room for the last couple of months for a couple of reasons. One is that it’s the large room that connects to our living room via an open double doorway. So its very visible and the walls were brown. I can live with some brown walls being hidden away in my home, but when they’re all in your face like this room was, I just couldn’t handle it anymore. So I busted out the white paint and some aqua blue paint for the bookshelves and now the room is much more cute, welcoming, and playful.

But the main reason I felt the need to liven up the space, and add some new playthings, was because my kids and I were basically home for 6 straight months this last winter. After my newborn got so sick he was hospitalized, we decided we couldn’t be too careful and basically shut him off from the world. There were weeks where I only left my house for 30 minutes, just to drive and pick up some dinner and come right back. I can’t say it was as wonderful as it probably sounds….being stuck inside all the time, getting no sleep, still battling sicknesses, and seeing few people other than your two littles can be hard on an extrovert like me who already gets depressed during winter. But, thats a whole other discussion! What it boils down to, for this DIY post, is that we needed to get some new life into our home for my 3 year old. She was a champ this winter and keeping her cooped up wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. But after 6 months, anyone would be sick of their digs.

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July 1, 2017

A Rainbow Unicorn Birthday Breakfast

Well, my baby is three! It’s true what everyone says–it goes so fast! But you know what else, something I don’t hear everyone say? It just gets better and better. I mean, babies! Babies are just the sweetest. And quite possibly nothing in the world surpasses those first few days at home when you are overwhelmed with a love you’ve never known. But babies are also super hard and especially Stella, as my first baby, was super hard. Becoming a mom was a big change, with lots of adjustments (you can read about the things that most surprised me here)!

I felt like as soon as she was about 1.5 years old, things got so much easier and since then she just gets funner, sillier, and more interactive. Her new phrases everyday absolutely kill us. She knows songs, she will entertain Otto if he is sad and I can’t get to him right away, she can run little errands around the house, she helps clean up, she is always up for fun! Playing, learning, and growing with her is simply the best.

Of course, the toddler years come with their fair share of struggles, and that part has not been over-exaggerated to me :/ haha, just last night we had…some serious frustration (read: she got a whole jar of Aquaphor on literally everything in her room when she was supposed to be in bed). But she makes up for it in cuddles, dances, and more sweetness than not. And one of my very favorite things about this little girl is how much she loves rainbows, unicorns, princesses, dress up, high heels, accessories, parties, balloons, games, and all things girly!

I can definitively say having a little girly girlfriend is everything I thought and hoped it would be and more! She comes out of my room daily with super high heels on (and walks exceptionally well in them haha!) and she get so excited over every new dress we get. She changes 20 times a day, is always up for nail painting, and loves all jewelry. This spring I bought her the cutest little dress from H&M with a unicorn print (you can see it here), and she squeeled so much and then wouldn’t take it off for 5 days (I did get it off and washed twice and she sill had her baths haha).

You know I am always so excited to throw unique and new parties and I had another idea for her third birthday that I was pretty excited about. Plus, I knew this would be the last year that I would really get to choose the theme. Next year, and every one after that, I’m guessing she will be pretty opinionated about it! But when I saw how much she loves unicorns right now, and this balloon, I was like “ok, why not just do something easy that she will love?” Even if it’s been done before, rainbow unicorns simply never gets old, right?

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June 15, 2017

Birthday Party Memory Books with Mixbook | Free Pages!

I’m really excited about this post today! Not only because it’s super fun and comes with a bunch of free printables (!!) but because preparing for it made me get some of my much-needed scrapbooking done! I have the best goals and I even start books from time to time but in general, I get about 1 done a year when I’d like to do 5!

Now, when I say scrapbooking–that doesn’t mean lots of time, or fancy papers, stickers, or even glue! It means, uploading all my favorite pictures to Mixbook, placing them on some cute pages and hitting order. Though I highly value DIYing any and all things, scrapbooking in the traditional sense has simply just never appealed to me. It takes so much time! And money! And organization! And messes! Even if I wanted to, I just know it’s something I would never actually complete. I highly value making and keeping memories, but all the time and money just does not appeal to me. So photo books are basically the best thing to ever happen to me!

I love Mixbook’s photo book interface. It’s so easy to use, change, and edit. They also have thousands of styles, backgrounds, stickers, patterns, etc so you can make the best photo book ever-for any occasion!

One of the yearly scrapbooks I always plan to order is of my children’s birthdays, specifically the party! So much work and effort goes into creating parties for our littles, I think they deserve to be memorialized! I certainly don’t ever want to forget all the little details. So, I decided to team up with Mixbook to bring you a fun idea for using their photo books-party memory books! A whole photo scrapbook dedicated to the fun and themed parties we throw!

What was so fun about this project was that, although I’ve wanted to do it ever since my daughter’s first party (the circus animal cookie theme bash you can see here), I only just now got around to doing it. So there actually were tons of little details I’d already forgotten! So many sweet memories we captured of my daughter that we didn’t document or share here because this isn’t a family journal. And because of that, I’d forgotten some of the cute and sweet quirks my little one year old (who is now three!) did at that time. It was so sweet to go back through every single picture and remember those moments.

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June 2, 2017

Free Printable Mini Donut Boxes

It is finally National Donut Day! All week long we have been participating in the funnest party blog hop that Dawn of Revel and Glitter created with 10 of her favorite and oh-so-talented party and lifestyle bloggers! Today is the last day and the day that we share our contribution – super fun and colorful mini donut boxes! We have 7 fun designs and they each fit each fold to hold 4 of those mini donuts you can buy at any store in the baked goods aisle!

If you are not familiar with these extremely talented women, head on over and check them out, you won’t be disappointed!

We also have an awesomely sweet pin board Always Time For Doughnuts, full of our favorite doughnut inspired ideas! Eventually, all of our projects will be there so be sure to follow it for lots of sweet inspiration.

Alas, all good things must come to an end (check out day 1 with our giveaway, day 2, day 3, and day 4 projects and we are bringing you our free mini donut box printables plus one more recipe and party decoration DIY!

Don’t you just love those mini donuts?! Hostess Donettes or the Little Debbie version. Whatever you like (my fave are the powdered sugar!), these little boxes fit 4 of them perfectly. Best of all, they are super easy to fold up and they print out on one normal sized copy paper!

We created a TON of design options for you all too so you have boxes that will match any type of donut party your heart desires.

Free mini donut box printable (linked below) //
Glue stick //
Card stock paper //
Scissors

Instructions

Download and print out any of the below designs. There are 7 designs for you to choose from!
Cut out around box.
Fold along the lines. Usually it is easiest if you score the lines first but that is not necessary.
Fold the triangle edges in and secure with your glue stick to the other sides.
Fill the boxes with mini doughnuts and give them out as favors or gifts!