Chevron & Kraft Paper Printables + a Giveaway

Today we are showing you our Chevron and Kraft Printable Party Decorations, which you can DOWNLOAD FREE RIGHT HERE and print at home! The Free version comes with standard text for Thanksgiving. 

If you want your printables to have specific text, you can order the set in our Etsy Shop Right Here. 

The entire set includes:

• 5x7” Signs
• 8x10” Signs
• Straw Flags
• Tent Cards (for food labeling or place settings)
• 2” Party Circles
• Napkin Rings / Bottle Wraps
• Banner

Design Details & Decorations

This set was inspired by our love for all thing Kraft Paper. We use it in so many ways. I think it makes the best gift wrap, a really neat table runner or even a backdrop or cover for an entire table. And super cool bonus, using it to cover your table does provide an extra easy clean-up after the meal + entertainment for the kiddies if you provide crayons! We recently purchased a few rolls we found at the Dollar Tree that have a pre-printed gold star pattern on them, and plan to use it for our Christmas wrap this year! We also incorporated the steadfast popular chevron design that you see everywhere these days. Ours is a bit of a twist however with the addition of a hand painted stroke, instead of complexly uniform lines. It almost lends a more tribal feel to the design, but we’ll let you be the judge!

Elements

We chose a wooden tabletop to provide a dark contrast and warm tone to our very bright and metallic color palate. We enlisted the help of The Flair Exchange who was kind enough to donate a fabulous tissue tassel garland to display with our backdrop. (Enter to win it HERE) We also used a dark plum colored plate set that we found at Big Lots, really inexpensive and the perfect purple, in conjunction with a few paper cutouts in solid coordinating colors. 

Backdrop

For this particular shoot we used it as our backdrop, and hand painted the chevron pattern onto it with some craft paint in the coordinating colors of turquoise, slate, plum and wine.

Leaves

We purchase inexpensive faux leaves from Michaels and did some more hand painting to make them match our theme. Of course you can’t find a turquoise leaf in nature, so we improvised!

Candlesticks

We purchased several wooden candlestick in varying heights to provide dimension and interest in our display. Then we hand painted them with the same 4 colors we used for the backdrop and leaves. The original idea was to have actual candles in them, however we could not find silver candles anywhere! (Keep in mind we do not aim to break the bank on little details, so we limited ourselves to the discount stores) Since that didn’t work out, we instead used them as props for your fall fruit, serving pieces and printables.

Fall Fruit

We purchased very inexpensive Styrofoam fruit from the Dollar Tree and decided that it need to be spray painted in a Gun-metal Metallic. This added a bit of bling and shine while also providing a sizable element to the color palate that was neutral. We really loved how shiny and sophisticated our dollar fruits wee after a coat of primer and paint!

Sweet & Treats

So now that you know how to pull all the design elements together, it’s time to talk turkey. Well not turkey actually, but food yes. You will be dismayed (maybe) or ecstatic (hopefully?) to know that every bit of food was store bought. Our original intention was to make some stellar gourmet chocolates to feature, utilizing the awesome jewel shaped chocolate molds we founds at Sur La Table. Alas, I am not a gifted chocolatier however, not even close. We even tried to gather a few volunteers from the Party Food worls to feature on the table, but with the impending holidays it was just too hectic to ask more of their already crazy schedules. So we improvised. And by improvise I mean, we bought a lots of chocolate and cookies from the store. (Don’t hate us please!) We would have loved to also be able to get some hand made chocolates here in town from a candy shop or similar, but guess what? Our tiny town has no such shop, and we were forced to rely on the likes of mass produced chocolates and tins of cookies. The good new is though, if you are a budget savvy being, the foods were inexpensive.

You could really go in a few directions for your own event, depending on what you plan to serve of course:

1. Buy chocolate and cookies from a online artisan on Etsy.com, our first choice.
2. Find a local retailer who makes them, they will certainly appreciate your business.
3. The all-else fails method: Russel-Stover and Whitmans for everyone.

We are keeping this one short and sweet this go-round because we know you are all busy little bees, planning your Thanksgiving celebrations with family and friends!

We hope your holiday is filled with good food and excellent company, Happy Thanksgiving!

A Spooky Halloween Party & Printable Decor

Sometimes I’m on the ball with the whole planning and implementation of the idea that forms in my brain.  Other times…not so much.  And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  Some people call it lazy. Heather calls it procrastination.  I prefer to use the phrase “seat-of-the-pants.”  According to that bastion of truth, the World Wide Web, “Seat-of-the-pants” is defined as:  Done by feel, guess, or trial and error rather than by careful planning.  Yes! That last part…sooo that last part.  I guess I got caught up in the whole commercialization of the most pagan of holidays.  There is just so much stuff out there for All Hallows’ Evening.  Cutesy, scary, spooky, vintage, glam, and glitzy.  How does one choose?

Well in my case, I didn’t.  I just bought stuff, a lot of stuff.  Totally with the right intentions, mind you.  A purple glitzy candelabra from Michaels, some plastic vermin and snakes from various stores, a black pumpkin from Target, etc.  I appeared to be stuck in accumulate mode.  If partners, in life and in business, are good at tacking on more work, they are equally adept at snapping you out of such modes.  Heather had asked, “So how’s all this going coming together?”  I believe my answer was to change the subject each and every 8 times she asked me that.  So with this blog post, like my table design, I’m just gonna dive right in.

I didn’t know where “exactly” I wanted to go with the design, but I did know that I wanted to use some of those vintage medical illustrations.  Like these:

I always found them to be creepy, and if anything screams Halloween, it’s creep factor. We ultimately went with the skeleton. If only because it’s a skeleton and not a severed head.  Skeleton = creepy = Halloween, while severed head = scare the crap out of the little neighborhood kids.  And seeing as how they were our target audience, yeah you get the picture.  No pun intended.

Speaking of our target audience.  Hello My Sweet was commissioned to do a dessert table by one of our biggest fans, my family.  I feel like I need to give a bit of back story about my mother and step-father. Very kind and warm people, they’ll do anything for you (and at times have), but damn are they competitive when it comes to holidays.  They are a proud pair.  Hopefully proud of their son, proud of their grand-babies, of their lawn and flower beds, but most especially of their displays during the holidays.   It doesn’t get any more competitive when you hand craft out of wood, a historically accurate Viking sword and shield, and fashion real leather leggings to use as accessories for you costume.  So in the game of Halloween one-ups, we proposed doing a dessert table for the neighborhood kids that would come by Trick-or-Treating.  Because everyone can just hand out candy from a bucket, but not these two, and not this year.

Designing the Table

So with our backdrop picked out and spooked, I set out to design a table that was spooky, but not gruesome.  Dark, but not too Gothic and foreboding.  I do believe I had struck the proper combination.  

Skulls: One particular embellishment I was proud of were some fairly plain paper-mache skulls purchased from Michael’s.  After hiding that cardboard color under a layer of Rust-Oleum’s gloss antique white spray paint, I then let the skulls dry for about an hour.  The next thing I did was to take some ground cinnamon; any variety/brand will do, and rub it onto the skull in all the tiny cracks and crevices. Making sure to pay close attention to areas such as the teeth and mouth area, as well as the eye and nose sockets.  Basically the effect you’re going for is to make it look dried out and sun bleached.  

Fake Snake Fail: I attempted to spray paint the rubber snakes I had purchased black, but that did not work out so well. A word to the wise about spray paint and the rubber snakes from dollar bins.  For whatever reason the paint would NOT dry.  Not after one hour, not after one day…heck not even after 3 days. (Maybe a kind reader would let us know in the comment section why that is.)

Floating Eyeballs: I had some sticky eyeballs from Target that I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with.  Those ended up going into some really neat looking green crystal candle holders Heather found at the dollar bins at Michael’s.  Instead of using them as votives, I put three onto a silver platter along with a matching green glass bottle and filled them with a thick red concoction.  I then poured it into the holders and let several eyeballs bob around in them. Definitely a conversation starter!

Heart in a Jar: We purchased a fake heart at the Dollar Tree and floated it in some yellow tinted water inside of an apothecary jar.

Silver Trays: We have inherited some real silver trays over the years and used all of those in this design. If you do not already have something like this, black serving pieces would work well. Or you can purchase fancy metal trays from the Dollar Tree that mimic the look of the silver as well.

Found Items

Other spook-tacular touches included were some real Spanish moss pulled off of tress in Myrtle Beach, SC.  That vacation destination was gold mine for free props! We picked moss and brought it home where we layed it out on our front steps and let it dry in the sun for a few days. (After Halloween we stored it in plastic bags in the attic. BIG MISTAKE. It molded and we had to throw it out.)

HOW TO MAKE THE TREATS

As for our treats, we had several ideas pinned to our Pinterest boards that we wanted to try out. Each of them were easy to execute in mass quantity and in-expensive as well. All of these treats are fairly easy to do and the ingredients can all be found at the Wal-Mart, nothing super special to buy.

1. For our “Rest in Pieces” bone treats, we combined pretzel sticks with miniature marshmallows, one at each end, then dipped them into melted white candy coating and placed them on wax paper to dry.
2. For the “Mummified Pretzels” we took traditional pretzels and drizzled on melted candy coating using a freezer bag, with a small hole cut in one corner. Before the coating hardened we added two red hot candies for the eyes and then added in a black dot of food coloring marker onto eat candy.
3. For the “Peanut Butter Geists” we used Nutter Butter cookies (yum!) and again dipped them into the melted white candy coating, and added mini chocolate chips in as eyes before the candy melt dried.
4. For the “Re-animated Marshmallows” we coated marshmallows in a green candy melt (Wilton), then dipped the tops into a bowl of black sanding sugar to create the hair. These didn’t turn out quite as nicely as we had hoped but they still tasted good. They were supposed to resemble Frankenstein. If you have experience doing pops, you will have much better luck!
5. For the “Gooey Brains” cupcake, we baked chocolate cupcakes and then mixed up a batch of traditional butter-cream with some black food coloring to make it grey. (To make it like “grey matter”) We then piped it on top of the cupcakes using a wide round tip and our pastry decorator. This was no exact science as we were free-handing and looking at a photo for inspiration. Make two lines down the center of the cupcake, then fill in with swirls on either side and top with a little strawberry syrup “blood.”
6. For the “Staked Hearts” candy apples we followed some very easy directions right here. This was our first attempt at candying anything, but we made it through with only one batch of burnt sugar. Just be sure to use a candy thermometer and watch it carefully, and you will be ok. These were a HUGE hit with parents and kids alike, so shiny and sweet and fun! For an added spook effect we used actual tree branches in our apples instead of Popsicle sticks.

Our trick-or-treater’s LOVED everything we made and the table was wiped clean at the end of the night. Most kids had a really hard time deciding what to pick. We also had some “Holy Water” bottled water for the parents and kids which was appreciated.

Printable Decor

As for the printable decorations, we went with something simple, Gothic, and contemporary. Halloween decorations can be so over the top and awesome and we didn’t want our printables to compete with that, but just to add in a little something special. We used some old skeleton keys from a family member (they actually open things at her really old farmhouse) to anchor town our tags in case of wind and to add a little extra touch. A menu provided details for the food for everyone to see, and of course there were labels on the treat bags as well as wraps for the bottles.

This printable Halloween decor set includes all of the following items (and custom text) and is available for purchase  in our Etsy shop here:

• 4” Food Tags (12)
• Treat Bag Labels (fold-over)
• Bottle Wraps
• 11x17” Menu/Sign (1)
• 10” Signs (3)
• 5x7” Invitation (or Thank You note)
• Poison Bottle Labels
• Cupcake Wrappers
• Skeleton Decor

We hope your Halloween bash is fun filled and spook-tacular!

If you decide to use any of these ideas we would love for you to come back and share them with us!

A Mortuary Themed Party & Free Halloween Party Printables

Tonight we are bringing you a special treat, a Mortuary themed Party Guide and FREE PRINTABLES to go along with it.

This is a collaborative effort we participated in with Nicole from Dough-a-Deer, maker of fabulous miniature donuts. Nicole contacted us a few weeks back to see if we might be interested in designing something very specific for her Halloween party, and we of course jumped at the opportunity to do something really unique and cool. Here is the link to the FREE PRINTABLES. Below you will find Nicole’s own guide to throwing a fabulous Mortuary themed Halloween party.

Decorations:

1. Get a black tablecloths from the Dollar Tree…while you’re there pick up the plastic brains (2) and a plastic heart as well as 2 of the biggest bottles of lime green soap or shampoo. Follow these instructions for brains and hearts in a jar: Glue the brains together and let dry. Put the brains in one jar and the heart in another jar. Pour one bottle of green soap or shampoo in each jar then fill the rest with water.

2. Follow these instructions from Marthastewart.com for bloody drip candles

Food:

1. Deviled Eggs
2. Curried Shrimp on Skewers
3. Guacomole with black beans and chilies served with blue tortilla chips
4. Mini cups of tomato soup
5. Mini meatballs in a cup with sauce
6. Salsa and Steak bites in scoops tortilla chips

Dessert:

1. Coroners Cookies- Ask this chicka for edible printed Morgue images.
2. Eyeball Sweet Skewers
3. Mini Red velvet cupcakes in black cupcake liners
4. Red Velvet Brownies
5. Doughnuts of COURSE

Details:

1. Get red and white and gray and white striped straws to serve with punch.
2. Purchase test tubes and put blood orange drink in with these printable labels from Martha Stewart.
3. Cover wine or other bottles with stickers from this seller.
4. Have a costume contest with a prize of a jar filled with body part gummys from the dollar store!

Download the Printables HERE:

• 8x10” Signs
• Cupcake Wraps
• Party Circles
• Tented Food Cards
• Soda Bottle Wraps
• Beer Bottle Wraps
• Straw Flags

We hope this helps you all put on a fabulously creepy Halloween party for your grown-up friends!

Be sure to come back and share some photos with us if you decide to take the party plunge using these ideas!

DIY: Football Party Bleachers Display

 

To go along on top of our super cool DIY football table for our Vintage Football Party,  we needed some equally super cool football-ish decor.  And what do you normally find at just about every football field?  Bleachers of course!  This DIY tutorial will focus on some really easy to assemble bleachers that you could use purely as a decorative touch.  Or as we did, it being an integral part of plating our delicious food-stuffs.

As with our last DIY post, let us assemble our materials.  For the bleachers themselves, we used the ever popular (here at Hello My Sweet) ¼”x2”x4’ poplar wood strips and a small section of a ⅞” wooden dowel. In hindsight, these bleachers would have benefitted from using a wider wood strip than 2” however. Two inches doesn’t leave much room for placing objects on the finished stair, so in the future we would recommend at least 3” wide strips.

You will need:

• Loctite adhesive
• (6) ¼”x3”x4’ Wood Strips (at least 3” wide, 4” might be even better!)
• ⅞” Wood Dowel
• set of clamps
• Krylon Brown Boots spray paint
• wood cutting tool ( jigsaw, handsaw )
• ruler or measuring tape
• pencil

Step One:

Cut the wood strips in half. This will leave you with (12) 2 ft. pieces. If you don’t have access to power tools, you can usually have the home improvement store cut the wood for you.  Keep in mind though, there might be an additional charge for this.  12 pieces will build a total of 2 sets of bleachers.  

Step Two:

Take 2 pieces of wood and arrange them in an “L”, this will give you the basic shape of a step. Working with your Loctite, put some of the adhesive on the leading edge of poplar strip, then just press it against the other strip, making sure to make the “L” shape.  Work on a surface that you don’t mind getting some adhesive on, or laying down something over the surface you’ll be working on.  The nice thing about Loctite is that it can be cleaned up relatively easy with a cloth and some warm water. You are going to repeat this process until you have 6 stairs. I found that I could make 3 “L” shapes, for one set of bleachers, then set them aside and work on the next set of 3.  Once you have let the adhesive dry for several hours, take your 3 “L” shapes and arrange them as pictured.  

Step Three:

Use some more Loctite to adhere the shapes together and then use the clamps to make sure your bleachers stay in that position while they dry.  Let the whole thing dry overnight.

Step Four:

It’s time to add some supports to your bleachers to make sure they stand upright. If you stand your bleachers up with one hand and take a ruler or measuring tape with the other (or have another person help you with this part) then you can measure the distance from the bottom of the topmost woodstrip to the top of whatever surface it’s on.  This will give you the measurement of how high your supports need to be.  In my case, it was approximately 4 inches high.  Your measurements may vary, however.

Step Five:

Once you have your measurement, take the ⅞” wooden dowel and cut 4 pieces to length.  This will yield 2 supports per set of bleachers.  Once you know your bleachers have had ample time to dry, turn them over and glue 1 support at each corner.  Alternatively, you could drill holes and screw the supports in place, but I was attempting to see how difficult/easy it would be to construct these without using a drill and screws.  In hindsight, it might actually be faster to use screws instead of an adhesive, since you have to let adhesive dry, but I know some people don’t have access to power tools or have an aversion to using them. Again, let the adhesive dry for a few hours before turning your bleachers back right side up.  

Step Six:

They are now ready for painting if you so choose.  We decided to go with a color from Krylon call “Brown Boots.”  If you do choose to paint AND you decide to use food on them, make sure that nothing edible comes in direct contact with the spray paint.  If you can’t get around that, and you still need to put something on the wood directly, then you can cut strips of wax or parchment paper and set them down underneath your food items. You could also opt to apply a food safe poly finish as well.

Want to see more of this awesome Vintage Football Tailgate Party? Click here!