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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party!

6/27/2016

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This year my wonderful mother turned 60 years old! Since 60 is a pretty special milestone, I wanted to do something extra awesome for her, so she would remember it for the rest of her life. We are both obsessed with the t.v show "Reign", which is a show about kings and queens, and castles, and the like, so I decided to make her "Queen for a day!"
Here are pictures from our Medieval themed party, with some D.I.Y that you can steal for your very own medieval themed party!

How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
First things first, you gotta set the scene! I absolutely love themed things, and to pull off a themed thing successfully (whether it be a wedding, room decor, an outfit, or a party), people must know immediately, what the theme is! As soon as people enter the room, they should think that they are in a castle! We took it a step further, and made it so as soon as people pulled into the driveway, they knew they were about to enter a castle! We did that with this incredible drawbridge that my husband made out of some scrap wood from his work! Here's how we did it!
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
My wonderfully crafty husband just got some scrap wood from work, picked up a saw, and cut a person-sized door our of the wood! Keep the door so you can lay it on the ground, and connect some chains to it, to make it look like a draw bridge!
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The drawbridge chains are just black construction paper cut into strips, then linked and taped together. You know how you used to make paper chains in school! For these, just make sure the strips are wide, so it looks like thick chains.
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
Nick picked up cans of black and grey spray paint for just a couple bucks each, and spray painted it to look like blocks.
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
We also added some "torches" to either side of the gate.
​These torches are super simple to make, and look so good! We made a bunch and also used them inside the house.
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
These torches are super simple to make! All you need is; black construction paper, red and yellow tissue paper (we got these at Dollar Tree for only a dollar each), and scotch tape and scissors!
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
What to do; Cut one black piece of construction paper into a square, so you can roll it into an ice cream cone looking tube, then tape. The top should be a large hole, with the bottom coming to a point, just like an ice cream cone! Then take both colors of tissue paper, and shove them into the top hole, fanning them out to look like a flame. You can also place battery operated tea lights on top of the flames, to make it light up!
​Now for the inside of the house!
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
Those walls!
The walls were one of the most important elements of the decoration, because that's what hid our modern day dining room walls, and turned it into an ancient castle! It even helped hide the living room and the kitchen.
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 We bought a roll of grey plastic table cloth from Party City, and me and my sister used permanent markers to draw blocks. We just rolled out the tablecloth and drew yards upon yards of this, so we could make sure every wall was covered. When it came time to decorate, we just measured out the lengths horizontally, cut the rolls, and taped them to the walls with heavy duty tape!
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
We cut a couple pieces of the table cloth and hung it vertically from the ceiling to hide the living room. We also taped purple and gold plastic tablecloths to the ceiling, and tied it with lace to act as "curtains".
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
Here are some more of the torches we made! Taped to the interior of the castle walls.
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
Lots of pearls (from our wedding. You can buy strands of them from Oriental Trade or JoAnn Fabrics), candles, lace (also from our wedding), fake coins and jewels (bought from Dollar Tree for only $1.00 each)! Also, mounds of moss (bought from Dollar Tree!), gold vases (these were from my cousin's wedding. She just spray painted old vases from thrift stores), and golden chalices!  
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
Golden chalices!
These goblets added great medieval flair! Plus, we made enough for everyone at the party, so everyone got to drink in medieval style, and! Had a great party favor to take home with them!

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We went to the Salvation Army and bought glass goblets for $.25 each. They were all matching except for my mom's, which was huge and very Queenly! 
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Nick took the glasses outside and spray painted them to perfection with gold spray paint.
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
After the goblets dried, I got to work with my hot glue gun, gluing "gems" (we got a bag for $1.00 in the craft section of dollar tree!) onto them! 
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
The results of these under $.50 each handmade goblets? Royal, and super fun! Check out how much fun everyone was having with theirs (ok it probably helped that they were filled with booze!)!
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
Well I guess this brings us to the costumes!
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
Since I wanted my Mom to feel like the Queen she is, I rented her this stunning Queen dress, complete with this gorgeous tiara! I rented it from an amazing party store in the Canton/Akron area, Akron Design and Costume. This place is the coolest costume store I have ever seen! And it's open year round!
I also gave her beautiful earrings and a necklace, from Eden.

How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
I also bought this Knight's armor vest from Akron Design and Costume for only seven bucks, and forced my dad to wear it for a little bit! 

How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
Those great vests and jester hats you see being worn by everyone? I made them so everybody could feel involved with the theme! I was so glad I made these, because it was a blast seeing everyone get dressed up, and get involved in the theme! Here's how to make your own jester hats and vests, for less than $5 for everything!
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
Let's start with the vests!
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
At the Salvation Army (love that store!) I purchased a large red tablecloth, and a large piece of yellow fabric, for only two dollars each.
It's important to get two different colors of fabric, so you can make the crosses on the vests. 
All you need to do is; lay the fabrics out on the floor. Cut the fabric into strips. Make the strips wide enough to go from shoulder to shoulder. You can make them as long or short as you wish. The yellow ones are shorter because they were for the girls, and plus the fabric was shorter. Then measure from top to bottom, and side to side, to get to the exact center of the vest. That is where you cut the neck hole! Just fold it in half, and cut a half circle to make it even. After you have done this to all of the available fabric (except for a couple small strips), it's time to make the crosses!
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
Cut out crosses from each color of fabric, and hot glue (it's faster than sewing!) it to the opposite colored vest!
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
The crosses make such a difference, and really make it look like a knights vest!
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
And now for the Jester Hats!
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
All you need is green, yellow, and purple construction paper (we just bought a large multi-colored pack at JoAnn Fabrics and used that for all construction paper needs!), and scissors and scotch tape!
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
Cut the different colors into shapes shown above. The long yellow strips are for the band. You will need two strips per hat. The green and purple triangles are for the hanging pieces. They do not need to be pointy at the top, because the yellow circles will be taped onto the tops of them. You will need two green and two purple for each hat. You will need four yellow circles per hat.
Tape two yellow pieces together for the band. You can measure your head for reference. I made varying sizes of hats. Then alternately tape the purple and green pieces to the inside of the yellow band. Add the yellow circles to the top. Bend the green and purple pieces slightly, to make them bounce around. They look so cute!
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
Now that your home and your guests all look like they belong in Medieval times, what are you going to do to keep everyone occupied?
Since my mom's birthday was in February and it was pretty cold, we didn't want to do a lot of things outside. So here's what we did for entertainment!
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
We took pictures of everyone!
I cut the center out of a large poster board that I got for a dollar at Dollar Tree, decorated it, and wrote the occasion on it (Ellen's 60th!). When people came in, and after they put costumes on, we took a picture of them holding the "frame". It was a fun way to get pictures of everyone that came, and turned out super cute! 
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
The giant mace pinata!
This was also my husband's idea, and he made it perfectly!
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
He first blew up a giant balloon we got at Party City, and then mod podged pieces of scrap paper over it. He did one layer, leaving a small space empty at the bottom of the balloon.
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
While we left the first layer of paper mache to dry, we made these little spikes you see here. We made them by cutting out, rolling, and taping together, cones of black construction paper. Leaving a small flap of paper to tape onto the balloon. Once all spikes were attached, Nick did a second layer of paper mache, going over the flaps. Once that layer of paper mache is dry, it's now time to pop the balloon, from the small empty space you left at the bottom. Then take it outside and spray paint it black.
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
We filled the pinata with cut up pieces of tissue paper (leftover from the torch flames), and plenty of candy and fake gold coins.

How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
We also had jousting tournaments to keep everyone amused!
We got these great little swords at Party City, and everyone had such a blast fighting with them!
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
Other activities included; dancing to medieval music (just look it up on youtube!), and playing Taboo (cuz Taboo is just awesome!).
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
Here are more photos of the party.
"Jewels" for everyone. We got them at Dollar Tree.
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
To make this throne, we just wrapped my silk bed sheet around an armchair.
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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
Hahaha my Dad is the greatest.
How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party
I hope you enjoyed looking at our Medieval Party Pictures! We sure had a blast doing it, and so will you!
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​Peace Love and Medieval Times
Jess <3

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The Dominican Republic; Living in Luxury on our One Year Anniversary

6/13/2016

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Me and my husband just returned from The Dominican Republic on Thursday, we were there for six days, celebrating our one year anniversary!
I have traveled a lot, and when I travel I prefer to steer clear of touristy areas, and experience the food, customs, and lifestyles of the locals.
But not this time! For our one year anniversary I wanted white sandy beaches, clear blue ocean, no stress or planning while we were there, and living in luxury! So for the first time, I stayed at an all-inclusive resort. It was perfect. Exactly what we both needed; to just get away, spend some much needed time together, and to relax! 
So here is some pictures and our experience staying at Iberostar Punta Cana Resort in The Dominican Republic! 


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Let's start with the resort itself. Our room was a garden view room, with a balcony overlooking the garden; absolutely stunning! 
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The hotel itself was open aired, with a pond, and palm trees inside it!

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The resort had several pools, six bars, seven restaurants, and cabanas to sit under, by the pool as well as on the beach! 
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A quick (almost) 360 degree view of the pool area.
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All the food and beverages (yes even alcohol!) were included at the resort, and we definitely took advantage of it! Here is some of our food adventures...
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Bread wall?! Yes please!!!
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An entire seafood wall...there are no words...
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Stuffing my face pool-side.
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Vodka y limonadas all day every day.
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The fancy French restaurant we got to dine at on our one year wedding anniversary.
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And that right there is a ginormous vat of seafood paella! It had whole lobster tails in it for cryin' out loud! :D
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No, this is not a freak snowstorm in the Caribbean!
​While at the resort, we both got to experience for the first time, a Foam Party!
What a complete blast it was, as you can tell by this video we took, and our pictures!


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Pretty cool right?!! Well here's some more pictures of our time in the Dominican...
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We spent a great deal of time in both the ocean, and the pool. I was in heaven!
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We woke up early one morning to watch the sunrise...I know, how incredibly romantic of us!
The photo above was taken by Nick.


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We stood in the ocean and threw bread crumbs to the fishies! 
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Life goals <3
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We got to watch cigars being rolled! How cool!
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Drinkin' mojitos like a lady.
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Sorry for the overload of photos, but we just had the most magnificent time ever, and we had a blast taking pictures documenting it! Thanks for stopping by and reading about our vacation!

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​Peace Love and the Dominican Republic
Jess <3
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Outfit of the Day+Exciting Craft News!

6/2/2016

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China Barbie Outfit of the Day
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Me and the husband are leaving for our vacation in less than a day! We are going to the Dominican Republic, for our one year anniversary celebration. Can you believe it's been a year already?!! I am just so excited! So, I am going to leave you with this Outfit of the Week post, along with some exciting craft news (!) and I will see you guys on the 13th!

China Barbie Outfit of the Day
What I wore;
-An adorable bow dress that I bought in a Chinese market for $2.00
-Blue tights that were also purchased in a Chinese outdoor market
-These adorable shoes that my sister got me for Christmas, from Rue 21. They are perfect wedges, with a strap, and a bow! What else could you want in a pair of shoes?!!
-A light brown thin cardigan
-A thin black belt. I love cinching my waist in with a thin black belt. Especially around a cardigan. It looks so cute!


China Barbie's Outfit of the Week
China Barbie's Outfit of the Day
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I wore this outfit a couple months ago, to a meeting I had at the Massillon Museum. The meeting went really great, and now...
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My record bowls are for sale at the Massillon Museum!

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My record bowls are for sale in the gift shop, they're to go along with the museum's newest exhibit; Echo, the history of sound. You should go check it out!
I am so happy that some of my products are in such a great place, a place of art and beauty, being offered to the public!
​Allright loves, I'm off! Have a great week!
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​Peace Love and Record Bowls
​Jess <3
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