New Years Eve party ideas and a free printable

I know it isn't quite Christmas yet, but Zack and I are hosting a New Years Eve party this year and I am sending out the invitations Monday. I started browsing the www for ideas on design and saw some really cute cards out there. Since I designed my own I wanted to share my ideas for the party and the cards with you all. Etsy had some really great cards but I didn't want to spend $15.00 when I knew I could just design something similar. Here is the front of the invitation

Standard yet functional and cute, I am loving that gold is such a trendy color right now. We are going to decorate our apartment gold and silver for the party so incorporating these colors into the design of the invitation created an easy theme to play off of. Here is the back of the invitation

I added our address in the blank line and my phone number underneath the RSVP section. I thought the invitations turned out pretty cute and I am excited to mail them off Monday. So if you are a friend of ours and find one in your mail box make sure and come, it should be lots of fun. 

My favorite New Years Eve appetizer is Jalapeno Poppers, they are so yummy (found in the frozen food isle) and easy to cook. I am sure we will be cooking some for the party. I also created some fun new years resolution cards to use that night as well. Everyone can write down one goal and take it home. They are the same size as business cards and fit 10 to a page. 

Here is a close up of what it looks like. The above picture is a littler blurry:

(Get your free resolution cards here)

This printable is only going to be free until my etsy shop opens sometime before January 2014

These will be great to use as conversation starters and as a fun way to get to know someone. Zack is inviting some of his friends from high school and I am inviting some of my friends so not everyone in the room will know each other. We are excited to be hosting the party this year and I will post more ideas later as it comes closer to the party.

For now I have to focus back on Christmas and finish up our Christmas shopping. We are having a pretty low key Christmas but it should still be a lot of fun, we also have a few Christmas parties this week and next so it will be busy. I will post some of our Christmas traditions in the next few days as well, we have a few that we have started between the two of us and a few that we have carried on from our childhood. 

Well have a great rest of your Tuesday

XO

Caitlin

What I have been working on lately

I have been pretty busy with the end of the semester assignments I have, so blogging hasn't happened a whole lot. I have been working on a few side projects in between my papers and studying for tests. It gives me a good excuse to have a break. I have a paper due Thursday, a 10 page research paper due Friday, a test Monday and another test Tuesday. Also I have a test this Friday as well, I forgot about that. So busy week with lots of studying to do. Its been good to keep me busy but I will be so glad when I have a break, even if it is only two weeks long.
For this project I have been thinking about opening up an etsy shop. Mostly offering some printables and downloadable word art. I have a few of my favorite movie quotes and other quotes typed out already and just want to preview them to you guys for the time being. So here we go, right now they are going to be offered for free until my etsy shop opens. I estimate that the shop will open in January so get your quotes you like while you can and a lot more will be coming. When I do open the shop they will cost only $3.00 and look really great in your home. Enjoy these ones for the holidays.

(click here to get your free copy)

Reads the best thing to hold onto in life is each other -Audrey Hepburn 

(click here to get your free copy)

Reads her price is far beyond rubies- proverbs 31:10

(click here to get your free copy)

Reads: Marriage is a gift from god to us, the quality of our marriage is a gift from us to him -L Whitney Clayton

(click here to get your free copy)

Reads: He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. -Wuthering Heights

(click here to get your free copy)

Reads: Falling for you was like laying taking an afternoon nap, promising myself only a brief slumber, But as soon as I had fallen, I was already dreaming -anonymous

So there you have it, hope you enjoy the first batch. I have a few more coming and will post those next week sometime. I might post them Friday if I get through all my homework between now and then. Hopefully I will come on and post about our Christmas decorations and some fun activities we have been doing for Christmas. It's my favorite holiday and I can't wait for it to come. Have a good Tuesday.

XO 

Caitlin

New Blog, New Post! Disneyland 2013 Part 1 (and a free printable)

Hello friends!
I am loving my new blog design and that I have a fresh clean start for blogging. My old blog was great but after a while the links got messed up and my HTML/CSS was really confusing to navigate. Starting over new was just what I needed.
Today I am going to start off with sharing about our Disneyland trip! It was fabulous, and one of the best times I have had at Disneyland. I am going to do this story in three parts, the last part will be about some fun tips and tricks for you and your family to do the next time you go.
Zack and I packed up and left early Wednesday morning (6:00 am) for Anaheim, California. It's about a 10 hour drive from where we live so we settled in for the long road trip ahead of us. I had a lot of goodies to keep my entertained, my laptop with a car invertor so I could watch movies. My iPad which had my current books, some recent issues of the better homes and gardens special interest publications, my iPhone for pictures/video recording, and of course my CD case. I ended up sleeping a lot of the way and chatting with my husband about some fun old time memories. Those are the best moments about road trips, going down memory lane and laughing at awkward experiences.
We stopped in Las Vegas for some lunch at Smash Burger (so good you should try it) and then headed non-stop into California. We checked into our hotel, which is right across the street from Disneyland on Harbor Blvd. We always stay at Desert Inn Anaheim, its close and convenient and about half the price for staying on location at one of the themed hotels. The pool isn't so hot so if you have kids and you want a good pool I would check out the Sheraton or something along those lines. Once we checked into our hotel, we then went shopping at Downtown Disney. It was so fun this year, I love it when all the Christmas music is playing and the decorations are up. Zack even liked it as he said it wasn't too overdone so bonus for me. They had set up an ice skating rink down by the movie theater which was fun to see when it was so warm outside. The little kids loved it. After that we went up onto the roof and watched the Disneyland fireworks. They are always so magical and fun.

The next day we woke up early again and got in line over at Disneyland at 7:00 am. We had a magic morning entrance which allows you to enter the park an hour before it opens. This is really useful if you use it to your advantage and ride peter pan (because this line is always nuts) and other busy rides. We ended up riding about 20 rides that first day. It was raining and so many people left the park in the middle of the day. We walked onto a bunch of rides with no problem at all. It was so fun. 

I loved being at Disneyland with the love of my life. He is so great and awesome. We had such a blast. 

We met mickey mouse, minnie mouse, tinker bell and Thor! That was the best part of the whole trip for me, Thor is my favorite avenger so it was great meeting him. 

He made a joke right before we took this photo so I was laughing. I don't know how he pulled off such a serious face after being so hilarious. 

One thing that I found difficult about the trip was the budget. Luckily we came home with extra money. I over budgeted on a lot of items but it was nice having some flexibility and being able to purchase what we needed food wise and buy some fun souvenirs. I originally budgeted about $15 per person per meal. Breakfast was free at our hotel every day and we used that to our advantage. We brought a bunch of snacks with us and some days we ate so much snacking that we only needed one meal. Most of the meals I found were about $10.00 per person so I over budgeted in that aspect. I will talk in more detail about food in Part 2! 

Before we left for the trip I made a budget worksheet to help me organize what expenses had to be taken care of. I only had four categories, hotel, fuel, food, and souvenirs. This covered everything that we would buy during our trip. The final product looked like this:

(to get your free Disneyland Budget Worksheet click here)

It worked out great for our trip and was really nice to help me see what things worked and what didn't. At the end of the trip I filled out all the actual prices and discovered we had a few extra dollars in each category. This was great news, especially since Christmas is only a month away. 

Well folks that is it for my first blog post on the new blog. Oh and to kick things off I am going to offer the Disneyland Budget Worksheet as free printable until the new year so grab yours while you can! 

Thanks for reading and I hope you stick around for more. 

XO

Caitlin