Take the Cannoli: Streamers, Banners and Goodies OH MY!

What can I say I'm a sucker for birthdays. Well actually I'm a sucker for anything that involves cake and celebrating! I know it stems from having big birthday blowout parties as a kid. I was one of those who
invited the whole class (only girls) plus the neighborhood. Needless to say, I was super pumped up for Shan's birthday weekend and though all the girls were just meeting at my house for cake, candles and to open gifties before heading out to our dinner destination I couldn't help myself by making it just a teensy bit special. Plus now I can leave it up all month for myself and eat breakfast, lunch and dinner in my festive dining room. I won't lie, I will probably have Elsie sing happy birthday to me every meal as well. HAHA!

A big reason for this post was not only to show a few of the fun moments with the gals but to share with you some super easy decorating tips I found online. Now you realize when I say easy, I mean EASY. This momma has limited time on her hands and between Dr. appointments, babies and almost burning the kitchen down this week I had all of about 30 minutes to spare for gift wrapping and decorating.

My first thing was to jazz up all the left over streamers I had sitting in my party drawer from the past few years. I knew I had recently seen ruffled streamers somewhere online and so I searched for a DIY tutorial and found this amazing blog with great instructions to boot. I did just as the tutorial read and sewed these little pretties in literally 15 minutes.

I was getting jiggy with it after they were done because they were so fun and fabulous and ridiculously simple to make.

RUFFLES!

I used some left over pieces to adorn one of her gifts & made crepe rosettes as well

Next are the Mini Paper Pennants also known as bunting. I have been seeing these all over Bloggerland as well and am kind of obsessed with anything cute right now. And these my friends are super cute. I didn't find a tutorial or anything but just looked around for some inspiration and then created some of my own by using some left over Martha Stewart card-stock I had laying around. The color scheme seemed to work in my favor. I didn't buy anything new except balloons so everything I had on hand just flowed together which I of course was tickled pink, teal, green and yellow about.

See my tutorial here on how to make the mini pennants.

I used the pennants as a mini banner on the cake

and also as toppers on a few of the gifts

After stuffing our faces with homemade Carrot cake with Toasted Coconut Frosting we opened a few gifts and then headed out to the new Trader Sam's lounge at the Disneyland hotel. I swear I laughed so hard the entire evening. It was a much needed girls night and had a blast! Of course before heading home we wandered over to Downtown Disney at like 11:00 pm for some delicious Beignets at the New Orleans Jazz Kitchen. SOOOOO YUMMY! There was definitely a party going on in all of our tummies after that.