hopscotch Studios Designs

Baptism book

2011-10-27T19:42:00.000-07:00

About two months ago, my daughter was baptised. We're LDS and our children get baptised when they turn 8 if they choose to. It's such a great time, and there are so many things that we want our children to be able to remember about this moment, but they're still pretty young. There's alot about my baptism that I don't remember, and I wanted to do whatever I could to help Halli remember hers.

My friend had a great idea to create a baptism book, that friends and family could sign, and where the kids could write down their own memories of the day. Such a wonderful idea, I was totally on board!

So, that's what I did, just made a cute little book for her to keep. I love a great personalized keepsake that is filled with love from everyone who is a part of your life! Hopefully she'll really appreciate it.:)

I've also left some spaces to add pictures from the big day so that everything is in one place for her.

I absolutely love reading what she wrote about how she felt that day! Love how kids think!

Shutterfly House Party

2011-10-12T20:28:00.000-07:00

So, have you ever heard of houseparty.com? It's a pretty cool website where you can apply to host house parties for certain products or companies. It's pretty cool really, and I hear you get some pretty fun party favors from the companies.

I've obviously never been chosen to host a house party before....until now that is!!:)

I love me some shutterfly photobooks, and when I saw that they were going to be doing a house party, I signed up pretty quick, and YAY for me, I was one of a mere 3000 people who were chosen. I think that was the majority, but I don't really know how many applied.

But I'll pretend that I'm one of a special few, cause it's more fun that way!

Anywhoo, I get to plan a little party for some friends, and we all get a free photobook, pretty fancy right?

I'm slightly excited, and I hope it's as fun as I think it's going to be.

If you've ever been lucky enough to host one of these babies, feel free to let me know what to expect, I have no idea how this thing is all supposed to play out! But yay for getting to learn!

Halloween Bash

2011-10-06T20:52:00.000-07:00

I've wanted to do a halloween party for quite awhile. A few years really. Every year I'll buy a few things, thinking that maybe this year, I'll actually get around to it.

But Halloween is at the end of a very long summer, where I have four kids birthday parties I've just done, and I'm usually beat after that.

Well, this year, I pulled out all of my pre-purchased supplies, and there were ALOT of them, and styled this little shindig.

Nothing too fancy, but fun, and festive and perfect for the little munchkins.

for family night one evening, we all sat down and decorated our haunted house...it didn't turn out too well, but the kids had a blast decorating it.

We also had fun coming up with spooky names for the treats, gotta love some creative minds!

Bonus, the kids learned some new vocabulary, like what decomposing means. Always a helpful word, am I right?:)

See these beauties. That's what the party was based around. I REALLY wanted to make these fun drink labels for these gorgeous swing top bottles I found at TJMaxx the other day.

Who doesn't need a halloween banner to bring in the haunting mood?

All-in-all, this was so fun to put together, and it can all be found in my etsy shop. Well, almost all of it. the gem of the party, the bottle labels, can't be bought. Nope, if you want those puppies, there's only one place to get them, and bonus, they're FREE!

Just head on over to Hopscotch Studios facebook page and go to the download link of the side. It can only be found there, so snag it quick before it's gone!

Happy October!

2011-10-04T21:24:00.000-07:00

Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere!

It's that time of year. I bought myself some pumpkin spice hot cocoa at the store the other day. Oh my heavens, amazing!

So in honor of fall, and all things pumpkin, here are a few goodies from Pinterest, the site that has majorly addicted me in every way. What a way to waste some time, looking at pretty things...ahh!:)

pumpkin rolls from the girl who ate everything

This one looks so easy, yet so dang cute!

2x4 wood pumpkins from brown paper packages

Button Pumpkin {with tutorial} from every creative endeavor

Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle recipe from Taste of Home....must try this soon!

Stenciled pumpkin from BHG

An adorable pumpkin topiary from Urban Grace Interiors who also had tons of other pumpkin pictures on her site that were SO fun and cute...must try some of them soon!

Enjoy the season, and I'll be back soon with some super fun updates and the grand opening of my etsy shop in the very near future! YAY!

A "J" themed party

2011-09-30T07:52:00.000-07:00

My little guy just turned one! I've done lots and lots of girl parties, but this was my first boy birthday party and I wanted something fun and cute for him.

Since his nickname is JJ, we decided to go with something easy, and cute for a one year old. A "J" themed party, in my favorite boy colors of course.

Did you know that there aren't alot of treats/snacks out there that start with J? It was a little harder than I thought it'd be, and I took a few liberties with my creative naming of the food.:) Hey, a girls gotta do, what a girls gotta do!

Not only was I trying to find J food, but they needed to be in the right colors. Talk about making me think. But, because of some creative naming and help from some smart friends, it all came together pretty well.

I'm sure JJ totally appreciated all of it!

These lollipops were actually used at my baby shower for the little guy. Such fun colors, told ya I love em.

Who doesn't love a big ol chunk of chocolate?

My cake decorating skills are a little lacking, so don't look too closely, and realize that I'm much better with photoshop than I am with frosting.

Halli just couldn't resist getting in there and helping her baby brother out.

Such a sweet little man, and I can't believe how fast time has gone!

My Fall Mantel and a freebie

2011-09-27T07:36:00.000-07:00

I am so very ready for fall! Granted, I'm in houston and it's still in the upper 90's and feeling very much like summer still.

But we'll pretend for a little bit that summer is actually over, and the fall season has arrived!:)

I've been getting the house ready and putting up all the fall decor.

I love my mantel. It just makes me happy.

I also love subway art, in case you hadn't noticed.

Oh, you want one too? Well here ya go!

Just click on the picture and it'll take you to the download page, where you can choose between an 8x10 or 11x14. Enjoy!

Orange and Teal Party sneak peek

2011-09-27T06:54:00.000-07:00

It might be an understatement to say that I love blue and orange together.

So, I suppose it makes perfect sense that those are the colors I wanted to use for JJ's first birthday party, and I love how it all turned out!

So, enjoy this little sneak peek as I work on getting the party posted.

These were of his cake smash session. If you haven't done one with your kids, I highly recommend it, they're so much fun, and the pictures are so cute, and perfect for party decor!

I absolutely love this idea as well. Write right onto the photo, and it's a great snapshot of who they are at that moment in time.

Much more to come very soon!

Be Grateful kit

2011-09-09T10:48:00.000-07:00

It's September in case you didn't know. I don't think our weather does. It's still hot here in Texas, and dry, super duper dry. So this kit is my attempt at reminding myself to

1. Be grateful for what we do have. We're not flooding, or even close to that. We had an awesome summer, and Fall is almost here. Almost. and

2. It's almost fall!:) Come on weather, cooperate!

So in an effort to coax fall weather to come out and play, here's a new kit for you to enjoy!

Just click on the picture and it will take you to the download page. Enjoy!

My sisters {Born to ride} Baby Shower

2011-09-08T21:28:00.000-07:00

Brittany is my little sister. Two years ago, when she was pregnant with her daughter, my sister-in-law and my mom and I threw her a baby shower. Jill and I flew out to California just for her shower...her water broke the morning we flew out there.

Here it is two years later, and we decided to throw her shower a little earlier this time to avoid the whole water-breaking-having-a-baby-shower-in-the-hospital thing. Unfortunately baby boy didn't get the memo, and her water broke three days before the shower.

Everything worked out fine in the end, her son Mason was a preemie, born at 34 weeks and after two weeks in nicu came home healthy and happy. So before my mom flew back home, we put on the baby shower a little later than intended, and with a special baby guest in attendance.

Brittany's husband rides dirtbikes, so it was only natural that we had a motorcycle themed baby shower.

I had so much fun with this shower, and the fact that it was done right around the fourth of July made the color scheme pretty easy!

We had some super fun and yummy motorcycle chocolate molds. These were a hit and my kids especially loved them. One of the perks/downfalls of being the hostess, you get to keep all the left over sweets at home. My kids love that part, my waistline, not so much.

How perfect was this sign that I found at hobby lobby? We'd actually already decided on the colors when I found it, so it was just meant to be!

The little guys stats from when he was born, he was a pretty big boy for only 34 weeks!

No laughing at this next photo, alright?

These are my very sad attempt at chocolate covered oreos. In case you can't tell, they're supposed to be wheels. The did not in any way turn out like I had pictured them in my head, but they still tasted great!

The dessert table, with some photos of the man of the hour. Such a sweet little guy!

I made some bags to take home sweets in. You have to make them nice and big so people can load them up with lots of goodies.

Mason's banner, made in the shape of the Harley-Davidson sign.

And some more decor for the party.

When you have a motorcycle themed shower, you have to have root beer and pretzels, chocolate covered of course.

This photo actually shows the wrapped nuggets, but the pretzels were on the other side.

My sister-in-law came up with a fun game of guessing the motorcycle throughout the years, it was way harder than I thought it would be. But those are some pretty cool looking bikes!

I took the pictures too early, and thus, none of the new mom. But she was beaming and happy to finally be home and relaxing with her new baby boy. He's a doll, and we love having him here!

Lemonade & Sunshine Party

2011-08-10T21:19:00.000-07:00

So, now that schools ready to start back up in a week or so, I think I'll get around to posting about our super fun schools out for summer party! I am so very in love with pink and yellow, and I love throwing a fun party too. Put them together and all you need is an excuse to do a fun lemonade party.

I made some custom stickers so each child had a label on their drink, no mixing them up here!

These boxes were downloaded from twigs and thistles, I added the party circles on top for a little extra touch.

The party table was full of pink and yellow food, and most of them were lemon. I haden't tried most of the recipes before, but they were all pretty delicious, and have been used since.

A huge ol' jar of lemonade, what could be more perfect to kick off summer in Houston?

All the moms got their own mason jar, tied with fabric

Mini lemon cupcakes, and regular sized pink lemonade cupcakes...so very delicious!

All the kids in attendance had an amazing time, and kicked off summer on the perfect note.

Couldn't ask for more than that!

Camera strap slipcover

2011-03-17T20:24:00.000-07:00

I've been seeing these super cute camera strap slipcovers all over blogland, and have wanted to try it out forever. My sister-in-law happened to have a birthday yesterday and it seemed like the perfect excuse to give it a try....so I did!:)

I'd love to post the tutorial, but I used someones to make this, and frankly, they did a great job! So, check out Angie over at nusery rythmes and sweet times for her camera strap tutorial, it's great!

I'm not the greatest seamstress, even though I pretend to be sometimes. But it's a simple gift, that I think may be going to most of my family and friends this year, gotta make all those girls and their camera straps stylish!

The Relief Society party

2011-03-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

In the LDS church (aka Mormons) We celebrate the founding of our Womens organization, the Relief Society, every March. This is the second year I've got to help put together this little birthday party, and it is SOO much fun! It's alot of work, but totally worth it!

As usual, I made way more work or myself than I needed to, and made two cupcake stands. If you want all the directions on how I did this, go here.

I am loving these super cute and colorful cupcake stands, and they're WAY better covered in these gorgeous cupcakes that some of the other women made. (They tasted just as good as they looked too!)

Another one of the women made this beautiful picture as a centerpiece for our Hor d'oeuvre table. This was the theme for the evening, "Women of Worth". It was a beautiful celebration of the women in our ward.

I also made a fun pennant banner to hang behind the table, I love the extra color it added to the

beautiful (haha!) gym!:) I'm just glad it was way easier to make than I thought it would be!

Okay, lots of pictures of the cupcakes, and stand. What can I say, I love them!

The colors were all so bright and cheerful. It just made the evening more fun and it was so much fun to get to do all this with some truly incredible women!

The new Relief Society logo has "Faith. Family. Relief" printed underneath it, so we used that throughout the room too. This is truly what this organization is all about. What could be better than those three things?

It was a super fun evening, and I got to spend it with some of my favorite people, including my mom who happened to be in town for just a couple days!

Freebie Friday ~ Easter subway art

2011-03-10T19:24:00.000-08:00

So, I'm jumping on the subway art bandwagon. I love some of them, and they make beautiful art for the holidays that easy to do, and oh so cute!!!

I haven't even had a chance to print it out and put it up, but I'm excited to use it with my new cupcake stands, they'll go together perfectly! I think I may see an easter party in the future!

So here's a little freebie for everyone to enjoy! Just click on the picture to take you to the download.

DIY cupcake stands

2011-03-09T19:46:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, I think I may be a little over-the-top. We have an activity coming up at church, a birthday party, and I wanted it to be FUN! So, I decided that I should make some super cute cupcake stands. Like I know how to do that! But I decided to give it a go anyway.

For christmas my awesome parents got me a super cool bladerunner. It's a saw, and I was so excited! I hadn't pulled it out yet, and decided that this was as good a chance as any to figure out how to use it.

Turns out, circles are a little hard to cut out. I am nowhere near perfect, but they're in the general circle shape, so that should be good enough, right? Hey, I'm a novice, ya get what ya pay for!:)

After the circles are cut out, and you've made a trip to Lowes for the other wood pieces, (which were not cheap by the way, and considering I made two cupcake stands, it added up!), get to work spray painting. You'll also need to pick up some wood dollhouse shingles at hobby lobby and divide them up into however many colors you want.

Once everything's dry, get to work with the glue gun. I probably could have used something even more permanant, but I figured this way it would be easy to take apart if I want to change the colors later.

I did use gorilla glue for the middle pieces and the feet though, you want those to be nice and sturdy.

I was a little worried it would be too much color, and a little too festive, but I kinda love how they look!

I can't wait to see them all covered in cupcakes!

Bingory!

2011-03-09T12:19:00.000-08:00

Ever heard of "BINGORY"? It's kind of a mix between bingo, and memory, and it's kinda fun for the kiddos. I had made some valentines bingory boards a few days ago, and thanks to the awesome weather we're having right now, we had lots of time to play.

I was going to print out the cards and the matching game pieces with a cute paper backing, and it would probably be good to laminate it too. But, we didn't have time to do that, the girls were getting fiesty, and mean, and driving me crazy! So, excuse the unfinished games!:)

Even Lexie got the hang of it, and had fun. She even won the first game!

Everything is more fun when there's candy involved too.

Please excuse the fact that we were all in our pajamas. We didn't leave the house today at all...you know, serious weather conditions. There was supposed to be snow, but all we got was ice...super fun for kids expecting to wake up to snow.

It's pretty simple to play. You cut out enough pieces to that you have one match for every piece on very kids game board. Does that make sense? If you have 4 kids playing, you'll need matching pieces for every one of their games. Then when they pick a card, they put a candy on the matching picture on their board.

Simple as that, the first one to get four in a row wins!

I only made 4 different boards, but the great thing about this game is that everyone could have the same board if you wanted them too. Because it all depends on what card they pick, it doesn't matter if their boards all match!

If you want to play bingory, go here for the free download!

Every girls dream ~ a PLAYHOUSE!

2010-06-09T12:16:00.000-07:00

So this past weekend, my mom and dad flew out here for the busiest weekend ever! There was a baby shower, a baby blessing, a swim meet, and a massive construction project that my poor dad didn't get hardly any break from the whole time!
It all started with a wall in the playroom. When the house was being built, my mom saw that the wall in the playroom opened up to the attic area above the garage, so it really was all her idea.:) We opened up the wall, and my dad went to work framing out the attic, laying the plywood floor, rewiring so there would be a light in there, and sheetrocking the room. I was amazed at just how fast he was able to get things done. Kevin and I would still be trying to figure out how to frame the room out if it were up to us!

Once the inside was ready for paint, he got to work on the outside while my mom started priming the inside. It was too confined for me to paint in there, so I was the babysitter while they all worked their tails off.

It's starting to come along, at least now you can see the outline of the house!

Halli was so excited to get to help paint, my mom may not have been so excited for the help/extra work, but Halli sure did love it.

oohhh, I love seeing it all come together!

I know you're all dying to see the final product....

ooh, what color will it be?

How awesome could this possibly look?

I know, I'm way too excited about a playhouse for my kids....

So,

Here it is!!!!

I am so in love with how it all turned out! We painted it after the girls were in bed, and the first thing Halli said to me the next morning when she saw it was that she was "shocked!"

But seriously, who wouldn't be?:)

The inside is alot bigger than I thought it would be too, it's an awfully big playhouse for these little girls!

They've barely come downstairs for the past two days, and they are thoroughly enjoying playing in their new house. Not only that, but Halli is SO excited to have a sleepover soon so they can all sleep in there!

Thanks so much mom and dad for everything! I know it was a ton of work, but there is no way on earth we could have ever done anything even close to this without you. You two are amazing, and I absolutely love my.....I mean my girls...new playhouse!:)

Lil' cupcake

2010-05-05T19:19:00.000-07:00

Last month my sister-in-law had a fourth birthday party for her twin girls, and it was a cupcake theme. She asked me to make some party circle/tags for her, and I did. I ended up loving the colors so much, that I've made a scrapbook kit to go along with it all!

Scatter Sunshine

2010-03-16T17:58:00.000-07:00

It has been a very cold winter this year, and I have NOT loved it. I am excited for the warmer weather, for being outside, and flowers and sunshine! So, to help ring in spring, and the joy the comes with it, here is my newest digital kit, Scatter Sunshine! Enjoy!

Free St Patricks Day party circles

2010-03-08T19:15:00.000-08:00

With St. Patricks day coming up, I've made some printable party circles to download. All you need is heavy white paper to print them onto, and a 2" scallop or 2" circle punch. it's also a PDF file, so you will need adobe acrobat to view the download.

These can be used for many things:

Cupcake toppers
Napkin rings
Placemats
invitations
party hats
favor tags

Or whatever else you can think up.

If you do use them for anything fun or creative, feel free to leave me a link or a photo, I'd love to see what you do with them!

Also, when you print them, DO NOT scale to page, print them as-is or the circles will be too small for the punches.

Enjoy!

Wild About Ashlyn

2010-02-20T12:11:00.000-08:00

Thursday morning my sister-in-law and I headed out to California for my younger sisters baby shower! I was so excited and had been working on quite a few things for quite a while so that we could give her an awesome party.

Unfortunately, I don't think anyone told baby Ashlyn that she technically wasn't invited to her own shower. She thought she had to be here in time. Apparently shortly before we got on the plane my sisters water broke. She was just shy of 35 weeks and headed to the hospital. Luckily no baby yet, they're mostly just worried about infection, so she's in the hospital on bed rest because the doctor would like her to make it to 36 weeks before delivering if possible.

This left us with the fun task of trying to decide just what to do. Do we skyp her in to the shower? Have it at the hospital? We can't have it after the baby's born, (which would have probably been ideal), cause I'm only in town for the weekend.

In the end the staff at the hospital was more than accommodating, and pretty supportive of a bunch of women cramming into the delivery room for a baby shower.

Now we had the fun task of trying to make a hospital room look festive and fun! Talk about a bit of a chore, but actually it worked quite well, and in the end the shower was fun and enjoyable and Britt was able to stay on bed rest throughout the party!

We decided to do a "Wild about baby" theme, mostly cause my sister really wanted a giraffe print diaper bag and I love the style!

There were lots of things made on photoshop, but I love how it all turned out. Cupcake toppers, or brownie bites is what we actually had. Some mini Hershey nugget wrappers with Ashlyns name on it. Some really cute favor bags that the chocolate giraffes went into, and the main piece, a giraffe print picture.

As always ya gotta have some yummy food, and in California the tree's are blossoming with these beautiful pink flowers and they made the flower arrangement look amazing!

The drink labels, cause everything has to match, even the drinks, right?

The giraffe print picture, I may find a way to bring it home and hang it in the playroom, I just love it!

A close up of the favor bags, personalized of course, and the chocolate giraffes that went inside.

And last but not least, the lady of the hour. Sorry about the fun hospital room pic Britt, but ya gotta have a picture of guest of honor. It has been so fun to be out here, visiting with the family, and although I would have LOVED to meet my new niece while I was here, I suppose it really is better for her to stay put! Good luck Britt and Brett (I know, matching names, cute huh?) Can't wait to meet your sweet little girlie!

Lil' pumpkin

2009-10-14T16:39:00.000-07:00

My newest digital kit, to celebrate my newest nephew who will arrive in december. I can't wait to meet him, and find out just what his name is going to be! I used this kit for most of the decoratins for the party as well. I love the colors, and the party was a hit!:)

Click on the picture to take you to the download

Lil' Miss Preppy

2009-09-16T15:29:00.000-07:00

I have been experimenting with digital kits, and this is my first complete kit. I'm pretty excited about it and hope you enjoy it too! With three girls at home, I may just get some use out of this one. Hope you like it!

Click on the picture to take you to the download

McKay Madness ~ Baby Shower

2009-04-15T12:10:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, the Williams sister-in-laws all got together to throw our other sister-in-law, Jamie, a baby shower. Actually, it was a co-ed shower, so it was for her and her hubby. Since their having their first boy, we did a basketball theme, and if I do say so myself, I thought it all went quite well.

There were yummy cupcakes, salads, hoagies, fruit, nuggets, and even wings. We had boys there, so we wanted to be prepared with the food. Everything was blue and orange, the blue was in honor of Greg's favorite college team, Duke. We also played a couple of fun games, a diaper toss, and a free throw contest. Luckily, Kevin's parents have a half court basketball court right in their yard, it was the perfect setting.

I think Jamie enjoyed it, and we tried to throw in some fun girlie stuff for her, but I suppose she had better get used to having some of the boy stuff around, right? It was tons of fun to put together, what can I say, I'm a sucker for parties!

Some of the food, and the picture I made for McKay's room. If you can't tell, that's a picture of Jamie's belly, "painted" to look like a basketball.

Here's a close up of the photo, what do ya think? Does the paint look real? I had to work on photoshop for a bit to make it look alright, kinda fun what you can do with a little editing!

Look at these two! Britt and Brett, so excited for their very own tickets to the shower! :) I made tickets that we handed out to everyone, and then we did a drawing. If we drew your number, you got a chance to make a freethrow, and if you did, you won a prize. Now if I had really been on top of it, I would have sent the tickets to them with the invite.

The fun basketball centerpieces for the tables.

Some of the drinks, we removed all the labels and added a customized "McKay" label. We had water and orange and blue gatorade, yum yum!

A close up of the tickets

And some more food, can't beat a great buffet, right?

The McKay pennant.

We had tons of fun doing this, and now we just can't wait to meet the little guy!

Lil' pumpkin baby shower

2009-03-26T21:13:00.000-07:00

Last week, my sisters-in-law and I got together to throw a fabulous baby shower for Jessica and her baby boy, who will be here in december. They hadn't picked out a name, (and still haven't as far as I know), and they didn't have anything really picked out for the nursery, so we went with an easy lil' pumpkin theme, since it was october, and pumpkins are easily found. Not to mention, Jamie has a plethora of fall decor, so this made decorating for the party a piece of cake!

So there wasn't much to it, no games, just some really great food, some awesome people and lots of baby boy gifts, gotta love it. Sorry, but there are a ton of photos ahead. Enjoy the party, we sure did!

The lil' pumpkin invite

Jenina, my sister-in-law, is a great cook, and she had some seriously fabulous food for this party. There were pumpkin pie tarts, pumpkin cinnamon rolls, and the most delicious fall salad ever!

Some of her yummy cinnamon rolls. The ones I brought home were gone quick, Kevin loves those things, and I NEVER make them!

Jamie has a friend that made this awesome cake! It was delish, and looked absolutley amazing.

Jamie made this cute cheese ball, funny thing is Jamie hates them and wouldn't even try it.:)

My mother-in-law went all out and made this awesome fruit display. Fruit on skewers, stuck in a pumpkin. It looked great, and I'm sure took her awhile to do it too.

This is what I make, chocolate covered pretzels, Kevin was very happy when I brought a bunch of them home.

Some of the cute decor we had for the party. Jamie put bows on everything, so cute!

Every guest of honor needs their very own pumpkin patch, don't they? Alot of my time preparing for the shower, was spent painting pumpkins, glittering pumpkins, and putting ribbon on them.

The party favors were these seed bags filled with seasoned pumpkin seeds. The tag said, "grow your own pumpkin baby", love it!

Some of the fun glitter pumpkins. They were so easy to do, and I love how they turned out!

Even the silverware was festive! Or would that be plasticware?

The fireplace mantel. Jamie hand drew "it's a boy" on the pumpkins, while holding her 4 month old son in the baby carrier. She's talented!

Some more fun displays by the drinks, and a photo of Jess's belly, with her "pumpkin baby!"

The guest of honor opening gifts, sorry for the grainy photo, but she looks beautiful anyway!

Congrats Jess, we can't wait to meet the little guy!