Happy Birthday to Me.

My 25th birthday was on Thursday the 6th, but I had been celebrating since last Monday it seemed! Mr. P has a brother whose birthday is 3 days before mine! It was quite a busy week!

I'd like to share some pictures of my Sushi Birthday Night with the girls. We did some easy cupcake decorating and demolished sushi from Sakura.

I thought using the rice crisp cereal over the cupcake made it look like the puffed rice sushi variety. It also tasted awesome and gave the lemon cupcakes some crunch. We used "pull n' peel" twizzlers and gummy worms for the decorations on top.

I also put together a party favor bag. I planned this party at the very last minute and didn't get to diy a lot of the things I would have liked. I did keep up with the "kawaii" kind of theme and had frog shaped plates, a cupcake "cupcake" holder, paint-dipped chopsticks, and a cute notepad that opened into an apple shape. I knew that was all too much to fit into a take-out style box.

 I found out about "Furoshiki" which is a Japanese wrapping cloth. It's super environmentally friendly. I found an easy guide posted on "Keeping the Christmas Spirit Alive,365"  I have extra material lying around and cut some squares out. There are many different styles to try. I went with the one that looked like a shopping bag. I just twisted the "handles" together and secured with the chopsticks!

  

Serving it up DIY style.

I'd like to start straight off and tell everyone that Food and Hearts by J will be featured Sunday night! Tomorrow night is actually J's Birthday celebrations, so we'll be a little busy having fun and all.

Mr. P tempted me away from writing this post last night with homemade burgers and a zombie flick. I just couldn't resist. But without further ado, the revamped serving tray I've talked about for days!

Serving Tray Make-Over

Finished Product!

Supplies:

• Old book/magazines/newspaper
• Variety of paint swatches (free!)  or bits of paper to fill in your cut out.
• Brown paper lunch bag
• Glue stick
• Mod Podge
• Craft spray sealer/acrylic sealant
• Scissors
• Paint (I used acrylic in my color scheme)
• Serving tray (Mine was given to me and had one of those wine bottle paintings that I'm not fond of, on it.)
• A stencil (or I just drew my tree free-handed and cut it out with the exacto knife!)
• x-acto knife
• (Optional) Glass panel/pane to place into tray. I had three 5x7 panels from the picture frames I bought for my canvas quotes. I suppose this would not be good if you have small children, you'd probably want a piece that would fit the exact tray size! Children hands on loose glass sounds like a bad idea to me!

Directions:

     1. Fit book pages and secure to bottom of tray. I used a light coat of mod podge.

I had realized I covered most the tray and didn't take a before picture!

     2. Trace your stencil on a cut at seams paper lunch bag. Cut out shape with x-acto knife to leave a good cut out for background. I then gave the bag a rounded shape and snipped and trimmed it to my size.

     3. Attach paint swatches to use as background of your cut out. Overlap and secure with glue stick.

     4. Place paper bag cut out on top of swatches. The paper bag will pucker very easily, make sure to use a thin layer of mod podge on back of paper to get a good grip to the swatches and book pages.

     5. Using your paints begin to make a coat around bag cut out, on the book pages. I made sure to make thin enough layers for the type to be somewhat seen. I then painted the paper bag in a cafe brown. I probably did that backwards, but paint it however you want!

     6. After seeing above picture, I felt the inside with the black frame was too stark. I decided to only paint the inside of the tray handles/edges the corresponding green to liven it up. I also did rough brush strokes to make it more textured and rough looking. Some of the black can obviously be seen through, giving it a slightly aged effect. Or sandpaper it later if you want it more distressed! After all this, let the paint dry!

     7. Make your first layer of mod podge over entire bottom. I did three coats total, leaving drying time between all!

     8. After last coat of the podge is dried, apply your sealer. And you're pretty much done! I placed my glass panels to cover the center/tree of the tray so things would be a little more protected.

This whole piece was really inspired by the painting I bought by Rafi Perez. I'm actually going to buy another piece by him this weekend to balance out my living room. It's basically the one piece I found that I knew, "Ok, now I know exactly what I want the room to look like!" A muse for my home! Thanks man!

Check out his work on his FB page. Rafi was Here Studio

And his other half, Klee, makes some amazing jewelry, Jewelry by Klee.

You should check them out!

Don't forget Sunday night is the first monthly post of Food&Hearts by J! Blueberry Soda...yum!