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Tuesday 16 February 2016

Hot Cocoa Bar: Preparation


On Saturday I'm having a little 'Hot Cocoa Bar' outside in the snow with My Friends! I've been wanting to do this for a while (We had a Tea Party in the summer and it was wonderful) but we're having the weirdest winter in my part of Canada... There just hasn't been much snow at all. I love making things and decorating so I'm very excited and I thought I'd share all of the things I'm doing to make it weird and wonderful.. ;)


First things first is my food shopping list. It's a hot chocolate bar but c'mon this is Canada so it's natural that we need a little Tim's French Vanilla. I'll be buying the K-cups you use for a Keurig, just open them up and dump all the powder into a container.

Obviously décor is a big part of pretty much everything these days! Michaels and Thrift stores are your best friend when it comes to this.


I wanted to keep it vintage but girly! Containers to hold my straws, marshmallows and cinnamon sticks. Some labels and everyone needs some sort of chalky surface for anything they do because Pinterest says so!

I decided to pick up some mugs from Value Village because 1, they're cheap and 2, I didn't want everything to be 'matchy matchy'..



Throw blankets are a staple when you're having a gathering outdoors. I made this blanket ladder out of some trim and quarter round but I think I'm going to put all my blankets into a basket for the Cocoa Bar.

And lastly; Printables!!! These are really simple to make on Picmonkey or you can buy some from Etsy OR you can search for free ones on Pinterest. Which is what I did. I wanted to pull this whole thing off on a very low budget but still have it look nice. Just send them over to Staples to have them printed on nice glossy card stock.



This is my favourite one I came across (other than a few I seen on Etsy) It's free and you can download an 8x10 or an 11x14 HERE

Now all I have to do is put on my apron and get to baking! Well, that and set up my entire back yard to look like a magical picturesque Hot Cocoa Bar...


Have you ever had a Hot Cocoa Bar or a Tea Party? Send me links, I love looking at photos for inspiration!


Friday 12 February 2016

TUTORIAL: How to get gold lettering on Picmonkey!





First go to Picmonkey.com and hover over design, click which ever size you like. I usually go with 8x10 because it's perfect for making prints.
This only works for white backgrounds so just click apply on Canvas Colour.


Next click on the 'Tt' and choose which font you'd like to use. The chunkier the better the gold will turn out. Click 'Add Text' and write in whatever you like, once you have the text and size you want, click 'Combine Layers' on the top bar.
Now click on the little Butterfly on the side panel and choose 'Your Own' at the top. Upload your gold texture photo (you can find these on google images)
Once you've done that click on 'Blend modes' and choose the 'Add' option. And that's it! just drag it over all of your text and if you want you can alter the colour a little bit by dragging the colour circle along the black under the other colours.
You can combine these layers again if you'd like to add other overlays to decorate your print some more!

I hope this was helpful, this may not be the most practical way of doing this but I find it the easiest/quickest way when you don't have Photoshop!