{Fun Freebies} Eek-O-Ween Halloween Printables!

I love Halloween because it has so many different personalities (just like so many fabulous women I know!) It can be dark and dramatic, a little creepy and scary (btw: not like the woman I know!)  or even bright and fun. This year I was in the mood for something light and "eek-y" (not dark and icky.)

Many of you might be like me, still trying to make my little ones costume dreams come true (even though they seem to change every-single-day!) And so if you are thinking about throwing a fun Halloween Party you don't need any added stress. You just need it to be simple and simply fun. So to help you out here are a few ideas and a few fun printables!

For this little soiree I paired a few standard party goodies (cupcakes, cake, and lollipops)... 

...with a few yummy new treats like Venom Smoothies (recipes coming soon)...

...and Spider Guts Parfaits (tutorial coming soon).

 Now I bet you are wondering... where are those Free Printables you mentioned earlier??

In this little collection you will get FOURTEEN PAGES of Eek-O-Ween fabulousness!

Just click here, download the PDF and party!

From everyone here at Gwynn Wasson Designs we hope you have a super Eek-y (absolutely not icky) Halloween!

{Give Away} FREE St. Patrick's Day Party Printables!!

I love throwing together a last minute holiday celebration for the "little holidays". It makes my heart sing to see my children's eyes light up at the sight of friends, sweet treats and some holiday fun! (Especially since at this age, so many of these holidays are new to them! "What's St. Patrick's Day, Mama?" So sweet and innocent, right? How could you resist?!) My big thing is that I feel that these special moments don't need to be pricey or filled to the brim with specialty treats. (Every St. Patrick's my mom would serve green orange juice and green eggs and that little bit of zaniness made the day sparkle with specialness for me!) 

Since St. Patrick's Day is on a Sunday this year, it's perfect for a family friendly playdate party. So have your little leprechaun grab their green, invite a few friends over and indulge in a little Irish-y fun! 

It doesn't take more than a trip to the grocery store, a few free printables and of course the laugher and warm company of good friends to make a memorable soiree. 

For this party I hit the bakery section of my local grocery to grab a few cupcakes and cookies and then lucked out in the bulk food section and added nice selection of candy. 

A quick trip down the beverage aisle and I was able put a little Jones Green Apple Soda and a few juice boxes in my cart. On my way home I swung by Party City and landed a few adorable mini "cast iron" pots, some tubes of mini gum balls and a couple rolls of green streamers. And just like that I had all my party basics!

For my St. Patrick's Day Lucky Bits of Gold dessert table, I pulled together lots of fun green items and played them against a vibrant golden backdrop, laced with a quatrefoil pattern, and then layered in other golden elements: sunflowers (both as cut flowers and as cookie pops and chocolate covered oreos), gold foil wrapped mini Rolos, and gold chocolate coins. 

Here's a little tip.... you can make any cookie into a cookie pop just by adhering a lollipop stick to the back of the cookie with a bit of royal icing. How fun and easy, right?! 

So if you don't have the time (or in my case... the talent) to make pretty holiday cookies, just take those cute cookies from your grocery store and give them a little pizzazz by putting them on stick.

On the backdrop I created paper fans (tutorial here) using the decorative paper from my printables collection and then dressing them up with a party circle. Quick, easy and a great alternative to a banner.

So if you're thinking about having a party this weekend, let me help you make it easy, breezy with a few FREE printables!! This collection includes the following items:

- 2" party circles (4 designs)
- 5" party circle 
- Juice box wraps (2 designs in 2 sizes for tall and regular boxes)
- Bottle labels (3 designs)
- Table labels (both blank and with text)
- Cupcake wrappers (6 designs)
- Straw flags (4 designs)
- Decorative paper (13x19" so you can make a large paper fan)

Just click here, to download the PDF. When you get to the page with the PDF click FILE in the upper left corner of the page then scroll down and click DOWNLOAD and enjoy!

                                 (This collection will be available for download until March 22, 2013)

May the luck of the Irish help to make your party this weekend sparkle with the laugher of good friends and many, many fabulous "golden" memories!

Credits...

- Printables and Party Styling - Gwynn Wasson Designs

- Shamrock cookies, candy, soda, juice and mini cupcakes - Ralph's

- Vanilla bean cupcakes - Kimberly's Cupcakes

- Sunflower cookie - Oh Sugar! Events

- Sunflower chocolate covered oreo - Bubbas Sweets

- Striped Straws - Sweet Shop Lulu

- Mini gum ball tubes and mini pots - Party City

{Give Away} FREE Oscar Party Printables!!

The Oscar's are this weekend and our Printable Party Collection from last year is back by popular demand! So gather up your girlfriends, chill a bottle of champagne and spend a few hours of quality girly-time dishing about hollywood romances and fabulous dresses!!

Just scroll down to the bottom of the post to find out how you can download lots of FREE Oscar Party Printables to help make your party extra special!

This Oscar Party Accessory Set includes the following items:

- 2" Party Circles (6 designs)

- Cupcake Wrappers

- Bottle Labels

- Table Labels (2 designs)

- Swag Bag Tags

Just click here to download the PDF. When you get to the page with the PDF click FILE in the upper left corner of the page then scroll down and click DOWNLOAD and enjoy!

(This file will be available until February 28, 2013)

{Give Away} $700 Gift Card Give Away!!

Are you ready for one AMAZING Give Away??! How about SEVEN $100 Gift Cards to fabulous shops like Target, Hobby Lobby, Michaels, Pier 1 Imports, JoAnn Fabrics, Party City and HomeGoods just in time for the holidays?!!

I am helping Nancy of A to Zebra Celebrations celebrate a HUGE milestone... she just reached 20,000 Facebook Fans!

So let's get this party started! Entering is EASY. In order to enter, you just have to LIKE each Facebook page.  To unlock additional entries, please follow each vendor on Pinterest.  This will give you more chances to win!!

What are you waiting for? Definitely don't miss out... enter today!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

{GWD Parties} Dashell's Circus Train Party!

My oldest son, Dashell, is a train-lovin' little guy! In fact, I can't remember a time when he didn't just adore trains. He's constantly running around the house shouting, "Clickity CLACK! Clickity CLACK!!" So when it came time to plan his third birthday party, of course the theme had to be trains! But as per his request... "No trains with faces!" So with a little bit of thought and some creativity we arrived at the perfect theme... Vintage Circus Train Party!

The Invitation
For Dashell's special day, I designed an invitation that had a big top flair but absolutely focused on the excitement of the circus train rolling into town! 

Balloons, monkeys, elephants, lions and panda bears (Dashell has a thing for pandas!) all helped announce that there was a fun-filled birthday party on the way.

The Entryway
One of the best things about parties is the magic they bring when they help to ignite the imaginations of your guests. 

As people arrived at Dashell birthday party, I wanted them to feel like they were actually entering the big top. 

I hung yards of red and white striped fabric from the pergola over our driveway and adorned it with a circus inspired printable Welcome Sign. Then I topped the whole thing off with a swath of fabric bunting reminiscent of the design of the invitation.

Just in front of the big top entryway, I layered bunches of huge 36" balloons (which Dashell just couldn't resist grabbing and running around with!) And then to give everyone a hint that a little more circus magic might be found inside the party, I placed a large 6' giraffe popping out of the bushes!

As the guests walked down the driveway and toward the party they were met by a warning sign, "CAUTION The circus train has derailed and the animals have escaped! Proceed at your own risk." 

Just ahead was an oversized elephant balancing on a ball. This was definitely not going to be your average, run of the mill circus train party!

Party Decorations
Our entire yard was draped with over 600 feet of custom fabric bunting to help transport everyone to the circus! 

Large cut out circus animals peeked over walls and out from behind bushes. 

Overhead half a dozen monkeys swung from the tree limbs and helped to hold up our birthday banner (with the aid of a friendly elephant). 

We set up our little train for the children to ride on and added a few white balloons so it would seem as though it was puffing around the track.

The Sweets
Oh, the dessert table! How I love, love, love to watch children's faces light up when they see it!! For this party knew exactly what I wanted to do... a Circus Wagon! How much fun, right?! 

I will be indebted forever to my sweet husband and our amazing friend, Rog, for their help in making my dream a reality! Using a 5 foot folding table that I had purchased a while back from Walmart, as the base structure, we worked hard to build a vintage circus wagon around it to hold all the goodies. And what AMAZING goodies they were! The vendors I worked with on this party truly out did themselves. The craftsmanship on the sweets was breathtaking!

The centerpiece of the dessert table was a delicious cake, made by Fantasy Frostings, which had the most beautiful fondant circus train chugging around it. Brittany, from Edible Details, did the most exquisite job translating the train from the printables into fondant. 

The detail-work on it is stunning!

Just in front of the cake I created a 3 ring circus by wrapping styrofoam disks with a little grosgrain ribbon and then smoothing a layer of brown sugar inside the rings to act as dirt. 

No greatest show on earth would be complete without some fabulous circus acts, so inside my 3 ring circus I stood up some unbelievably gorgeous circus animal cookies, created by Jen from JP Creatibles based on the designs from my printables. 

I simply can't get over how she was able to sculpted the contours of the bodies with royal icing! And the detail on the giraffes is insane!

My son adores cake pops. So no party for him is complete without the addition of some sweet deliciousness on a stick! 

When I reached out Sarah, from Mom's Killer Cakes and Cookies, I wasn't sure if she would be able to translate my printable designs into cake pops, but she worked her magic and they were pure perfection! 

Treats that wonderful need to be displayed in a special way, so I purchased a few circus wagons from Michaels, painted  them to match the party decor and voila! We had our very own circus parade winding through the dessert table!
And honestly, it just wouldn't be a circus party without a little carmel corn and a few cupcakes, right?! So to finish off our sweets buffet, I designed some coordinating popcorn cones as well as some cupcake toppers and wrappers. 

Then I wrapped a few more styrofoam disks with grosgrain ribbon and mounted them on some old candle holders I had lying around and I had the perfect stands to display the final touches to the dessert table.

The kids were mesmerized by the beautiful sweets and definitely enjoyed every single minute that they spent gobbling them up!

The Activities
Have you ever seen children spy a train table? It is like watching a moth being drawn to a flame! 

When we decided to have a train party I knew that the one train table we had would not be enough for all our little guests so I set out to design a second one. 

I have to admit that every since my son became obsessed with wooden trains, I have become a little obsessed myself with trying to build the perfect track. So this party was perfect excuse to carve out a little time to work on my track building skills and I have to say I was pretty pleased with the original train table layout that I came up with! (For anybody else out there that is looking for a fun train table layout I will be posting the plans on my blog soon.)

I placed huge baskets of trains at each table and the kids LOVED winding their trains over bridges, through tunnels and over crossings! Oh, and of course, crashing into each other's trains!

And just so their fun wouldn't have to end with the party, we sent each guest home with their very own wooden circus train set, complete with animals and track.

The best part of all this... Dashell had a blast and loved every moment of his birthday! (And that is really why we all work so hard on parties for our children, right?!)

Vendor and Credits
Party Styling - Gwynn Wasson Designs
Printable Party Invitations, Decor and Graphic Design- Gwynn Wasson Designs

Cake - Fantasy Frostings
Fondant Train and Circus Tent - Edible Details
Circus Animal Cookies - JP Creatibles
Cake Pops - Mom's Killer Cakes and Cookies