Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day, friends! I have a soft spot for this holiday -- My mother always made it a point to send me cards and chocolate, no matter what was going on in our lives, so it reminds me of the many different ways we can celebrate love and friendship. And now that I have a little girl to share it with, it continues to be a fun day for me.

This winter has seemed so long and difficult, that I thought it would be a good idea to have a Valentine's Day party for my daughter so we all had something fun to focus on. I made the invitations using slate gray, blush pink, and white scalloped paper, with silver accents, wrapped in a doily and silver/white baker's twine. I followed the color scheme through in the goody bags, which I filled with stickers, a puzzle, bubbles, and a word-find / tic-tac-toe board that I made, complete with x's and o's, and tic-tacs. My daughter helped me make a garland out of doilies and a 3-D heart for the ceiling.

I came up with a few games that were very simple and inexpensive to make. Here is a list of our activities:

1. Heart Crowns I shaped the front pieces first using pipe cleaners, and then each girl was able to put her crown together with a little help. (If you are looking to make these on your own, they really are very simple. All you need is 7 pipe cleaners for each crown.

2. 'Pin' the Wings on Cupid Amazing what you can do with a little felt! And no, I did not freehand that cupid. I just enlarged and printed a cupid I found online, cut it out, and used it as a template to cut my own out of felt.

3. Fishing I cut the fish out of foam core and covered them with paper, then glued on magnets for eyes. My husband and I made a fishing pole out of an old bamboo stick we had leftover from a fence project, and we tied twine and a washer to the end. Each girl got a minute to see how many fish she could catch.

4. Heart Bean Bag Toss I made the hearts out of felt and filled them with (uncooked) rice. No sewing necessary! I just hot-glued them together. I made a board from foam core and covered it in red poster board, and I cut heart shapes out of it instead of circles.

5. Freeze dance Each time the music stopped, I pointed to a different girl and she got to pick a heart. I had written activities on each one, like 'twirl like a ballerina', 'name the colors in the rainbow', etc.

[I don't have any photos of the last two activities because all the girls decided to start jumping on and tickling the photographer, and he stopped taking pictures. That may have actually been their favorite activity.]

Everyone got prizes for each game, and when we were finished, we had a picnic with heart-shaped sandwiches, heart fruit salad, and cucumbers and carrots cut into, you guessed it, heart shapes. And for dessert, a pink and white ombre Valentine cake and heart rice crispy treats.

Creating happy Valentine memories for 10 sweet little girls made this one of my favorite parties. I hope you are finding a great way to celebrate the love in your life today.

xoxo

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Inspiration

As I may have mentioned before, my 4-year old daughter is very into princesses. Many of them are very strong and teach great lessons, but for a while I have wanted to introduce her to some women and girls who overcame real world obstacles, to give her some positive role models and to help teach problem solving. Many of the books I've seen about these women are a bit dry, and certainly not sparkly (there are notable exceptions, including one of my favorites, Me…Jane, by Patrick McDonnell). So my plan was to print out pictures of women like Amelia Earhart, Rosa Parks, Jane Goodall, etc, and then for us to decorate them together using jewel stickers and glitter. She loves doing crafts, as well as all things glittery, so I figured it would spark her interest and then we could talk about these women and their struggles and triumphs together, while doing an activity she enjoys.

I had been kicking this idea around for a while, when I saw a FB post from my good friend Brianna, who amazingly is homeschooling her kindergartener this year. She created a Wall of Inspirational Girls and Women for her daughters, ages 5 and 3. I was so intrigued by this very-simple-but-oh-so-incredible idea, and it went perfectly with what I was trying to do. About getting started, Brianna said, "I was just trying to think of women who inspired me for some reason. I'm attracted to people who are inspiring for something other than being the 'first woman who did X'. For example: Diana Nyad was the first PERSON to swim from Cuba to the US without a shark cage or fins. And she did it at 64 years old! And it was her 5th try! Good lessons about following your dream regardless of your age, and not giving up."

What an inspiration! Brianna's wall includes Diana Nyad, Rosa Parks, Mother Teresa, Bethany Hamilton, Malala Yousafzai, and Dr. Madeha Alajroush (an organizer of the protests in Saudi Arabia against the ban on women drivers), who wrote a note to Brianna's daughter reminding her that rights are taken not given. Wow!

For our wall, we started with 2 women who share my daughter's name: Tess McGill from the movie Working Girl, and Jane Goodall.

I'm so excited to keep going with our wall. I love learning more about these inspiring women too! I would love to hear what you think, and if you have any suggestions for future women to feature. Maybe in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. day, Rosa Parks should be next...

Paula Winicur Design jewelry, now available online!

So many of you have been asking when my jewelry will be available online, and I am happy to report that time is now! Please click on the JEWELRY link at the top of this page to see my work. Custom sizes and pieces are always available. It's easy to order, just reach out via email to let me know what you are interested in, and we can process your order over the phone. I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Paula Winicur Design at Serendipity's Girls Night Out tonight!

Paula Winicur design will be selling jewelry at Serendipity's Girls Night Out event in Stamford, CT. Come out for great food, fashion, and shopping!

Under the Sea party

My last post was about the invitations for my daughter's Under the Sea princess party, and today I want to share with you more about the party itself. When we found the book Princess Pearl, A Birthday Ball, my daughter loved it and we thought it would be fun to read the story to the kids at the party, and then have them make necklaces like Princess Pearl's. One day when I was planning the party, my husband mentioned to me that on a recent walk with our daughter, she made a wish on a dandelion, and told him that her wish would be to meet the princesses. My husband did some research, and it turns out that right here in our own back yard there is a company called Happily Ever After that sends out singing princesses to parties! Since Tess loves Ariel, and we were doing an Under the Sea party, I thought this would be perfect.

I spoke to Katherine at Happily Ever After, and she was so wonderful and accommodating. Normally they have a set schedule and order for how they do their parties, but she was more than willing to change it in order to fit what I wanted to do, including getting a copy of the book I wanted her to read so she could be prepared. She came to our house a few minutes before the party started so she could meet Tess and they could greet her guests together. She was warm and delightful, and so good with all the girls. They sang and danced together, and then Ariel sang "Part of That World" to all the guests. She then read the Princess Pearl book, and then it was time to coronate Tess. Normally the princess brings a crown and wand for the birthday girl, and wands for the guests, but I wanted to use a wand and crown I had decorated for Tess, as well as pearl/shell headbands I made for each of the girls with shells Tess and I had collected on a recent trip to the beach, so Ariel presented them while Tess used her magic wand to turn them all into princesses.

After princess Ariel left, we made necklaces. I gave each girl a pearl strand necklace that I made using pearl ribbon (I got spools of it at Michaels). I made them each about 22" long, and then bought pull-chain connectors at the hardware store. This makes the necklaces easy to open for little hands, and also adjustable. I then wire wrapped a little pearl, and put it on a jump ring with a sea-themed charm. We had shells, seahorses, and starfish. Each girl got to choose their charm and string it on their necklace. Together with their pearl headbands, they made charming sea-princesses!

Stay tuned for my next post about the food and cake, coming soon!

Happy Birthday, Tessie!

Today is my daughter's 4th birthday. Four years old! How amazing it has been to have a front row seat watching her learn and grow over the past 4 years.

A few months ago I started thinking about what kind of party we should have. Tess and I discussed a few different possible themes (a Candyland party, an Alice in Wonderland tea party, a chocolate party), and then I asked her, "Ok, sweetie, which one would you like?" Without even having to think about it, she said, "A princess party!" But wait, what happened to all the other themes we had talked about (and that I was hoping for because I had started planning in my head)? Nope, she had made up her mind and was set on a princess theme.

So, I have to come clean here and admit that I'm not what you would call a princess person. Honestly, I'm a bit mystified at how I managed to have a little girl who loves princesses so much, but there it is. So I was a bit apprehensive trying to settle on how to approach this party. Of course I wanted to give her what she wanted, I just wasn't sure I could truly embrace the sparkly glitteryness of it all and do it justice, in true Paula-party style. But luckily, on a recent visit, my stepmom bought Tess a book called Princess Pearl, A Birthday Ball, which is all about a little girl who, on her birthday, gets invited to an under-the-sea birthday bash where she is the princess of honor, and she gets a special necklace. I asked Tess if we could do an under-the-sea princess party, and she loved the idea. Perfect!

I wrote a poem, as I've done for her invitations almost every year (1st birthday) (3rd birthday)

It's a magical world under the sea
Full of princesses, sweet as can be.
Please join us as we share the lore
Tessa Jane is turning 4!

I wanted to make the invitations somehow shell-like, and to also incorporate a pearl into them. So I created a shell shape that would be relatively simple to cut out (Sort of -- I made my husband promise next year to remind me how long it took to make these. I'm sure it won't do any good, but it's worth a shot. Thankfully I only had to make like 20 of them. Or perhaps I'll have to just buy a silhouette machine.), glued the pearl on the inside, and cut a hole in the top piece for it to go through when closed. It was a little (ok, a lot) more complicated than that, but I've since blocked most of it out in order to move on -- just like with childbirth, the end result justified the difficulty. :)

Although I ended up hand delivering most of them, there were a few that needed to be mailed, and I wanted them to have a sturdy box to live in, so I used these from Paper Source. I glued sandpaper to the bottom of the box, and found some seaweed-looking plastic greenery vines at Michael's which I cut down to size. I then hot-glued shells on the inside of the box, onto the sandpaper, for the invitation to sit on.

I made a label with each guest's name on it in the same shell shape, and stuck a pearl sticker onto the front, to mimic the invitation, then tied it underneath with a ribbon. I incorporated this shell shape throughout the rest of the party as well, but that's for the next post. Stay tuned!