This really is one of my favorite times of year.  The perfect excuse to have ridiculous amounts of pink hanging up in your house and as much girly stuff as possible.  Thanks to fabulous reader Susan who sent me the sweet paper birds at Christmas time.  We hung them up then AND they fit right in with our Valentine tree.  What’s that?  What’s a Valentine tree?  You know, it’s little Christmas ornaments that were on clearance, some old silver chain and a few paper birds.  If it looks sparse it’s because Creamie lost interest in decorating it after not too long.  I guess she got burned out on decorating trees in December.  But Happy Valentines Day anyway, even if you don’t have a tree.

(I got this little one at Christmas from Hobby Lobby a few years ago.  And one day I’ll be brave enough to buy a full size pink tree for Christmas. You know, like this one.   Actually, yeah.  I could totally see that tree in my living room.  I would probably keep it up from Halloween clear through June.)

Nothing nearly so exciting happened today.  Though I did go to church with my pink hair.  Only one person rolled their eyes at me.  Most people have been very complimentary, or they say nothing at all.  Which is fine, I don’t expect everyone to like it or approve or whatever.  But I was surprised at how much that one eye roll hurt.  I almost started to cry.   So do me a favor and in honor or pink week don’t roll your eyes at anyone for the rest of your life.

I drew a winner this morning for my Pink Week Giveaway and it’s Mrs. Moen!  An email should be waiting for you.  Thank you to everyone who played along and told me all about your favorite pink things.  Reading about your favorites is one of the best parts of Pink Week.

I’m making lists and collecting ideas for next year. I can’t wait to start working on Pink Week again!

I hope you are all having a great weekend.  I am off to bake my favorite pie for dinner and if I can convince Scott to take pictures while I cook I’ll post the recipe tomorrow.  See you soon.

Just a few of the over 200 cupcakes.  After the party was over I carried a tray of cupcakes around the part handing them out to anyone who wanted one.  With my pink hair I looked just like Strawberry Shortcake.  And I was easy to spot for the kids who missed me the first time around.  I can just imagine their friends telling them “yeah, that lady with pink hair is giving away cupcakes.  FOR FREE!” It was probably my favorite part of the whole party actually.

My best friend Linsey and her girls.  She hosted last year’s Pinkalicious Party.  And she loves pink as much as I do.  (With 4 daughters how could she not!)

The genius at the Starburst factory who came up with the idea to sell bags of just pink starbursts is my idol.

His shirt says “tough boys wear pink.”  I LOVE it!

So, my biggest reason to DIY: I had three friends bake a batch of cupcakes for me (Thank you Jessie My Neighbor, Rachel and Kim!) and I made the rest.  And for over 200 cupcakes + frosting it cost less than 10 dollars.  I used 7 boxed strawberry cake mixs, which are 88 cents at Walmart.  If I had to BUY 200 cupcakes?  Well I would have to have sponsors for the party.  It was about $12 for the 400 popsicles, and about $3 for the pink lemonade mix.  I spent another maybe $12 on ice and that was it.  The polka dotted tablecloth is a thrifted sheet, as was the striped backdrop.  So $35 total for my party.  I think we had more than 100 people stop by through the course of the afternoon.  And that is what I call a good party.  It was perfect!

What with the party planning and all, I missed a few posts I had planned for this week… oops.  I’ll save them for next year I guess.  After the pinkalicious party was over I decided I was pretty much done doing anything for a while.  Instead of finishing those last posts I laid on the floor of the living room and colored with Creamie for a few hours.  It was fun.  And more important.  And that’s the great thing about pink week.  I feel zero pressure from anyone to do something/finish that other thing/post something else.  Because the whole thing is on my terms.  And that means that terms can change without notice or explanation.  And you guys are awesome enough that you let me do that.  So thank you.  And thanks for playing along this week.  It has been really fun for me.  I am so grateful for my internet (and real life) friends who indulge my love of pink things, cupcakes and parties.

Today is the last day to enter the Pink Week Giveaway.  I’ll announce a winner tomorrow afternoon.

[ Bursts of Pink by BronxElf on flickr ]

I’ll finish going through all my pictures from this afternoon tomorrow and I’ll post a full party recap in the afternoon.  Once I recover a bit.  And maybe that one almost finished tutorial.  Maybe.   Thanks for playing along with me today.  And thank you for your kind comments and general excitement for this project.  I’ve already got a list of ideas started for next year.  Pink Day 2012 is gonna be awesome.

PS- You still have till Saturday to enter my Pink Week giveaway.  I’ve loved reading about all your favorite pink things!

And I am really going to try and ignore  the two coolers of melty ice and Otterpops, two plastic totes of pink party gear and a mostly empty 5 gallon jug of now kind of watery pink lemonade.  See you tomorrow.  (Also I have one more tutorial to share, only it didn’t get finished for today.  It is so close to done it is ridiculous.  I think it will take four dots of hot glue.  So maybe tomorrow… and you can pretend that I posted that project right now.  Tada!  One more pink project! Ahem.)

More on my pink hair here, and the tutorial to make my pearl and pink necklace here.

[ 1983 ]

[ A very grainy 1988, first day of Kindergarten. Man,I loved that little white and pink skirt!  ]

[ My brothers wedding in 2002 ]

[ 1986 ish]

This last picture is one of my very favorites.  This is me and Heidi and my grandpa when we were two or three years old.  Today is Famp’s birthday, and he is 84. Happy Birthday Fampa, I love you! (And am totally jealous that you get to have a birthday on Pink Day! It’s OK, it’s my unbirthday, and that is almost just as good.)  It’s been so much fun to celebrate pink today.  I am dead tired, and ready to go to bed, but I’ll probably have one more post before I end up going to bed.  You can’t call it a real celebration without fireworks, right? I’m going to go find some fireworks…

A few weeks ago I was out thrifting and I came across a whole pile of necklaces that were fifty cents each.  I think I bought a dozen of them.  At least.  And these two white plastic “pearl” necklaces were too long to just wear, and not long enough to loop twice.  Which I of course didn’t realize until I got them home.  So a little fixing was in order.  My favorite part about it is that if I get sick of it and want to use the parts in other projects it is easy to take apart and I could use the necklaces again.  Here’s what I did:

Gather some supplies.  I pulled out my ribbon scrap box and pulled out a bunch of scraps in all colors of pink, some white, and a little bit of pale pink lace.  I also had a few parts from silk flowers that were in my same color scheme.  (Pulling apart a flower is pretty easy, just pop off the little plastic part that holds the center on at the back, then you can use the individual layers for whatever you’d like.)  I also had a big pink gemstone floating around in my sewing box, and it got added to the pile.  I also needed a little scrap of felt for the flower pin and an alligator clip.

Start by folding your necklaces in half and then tying a piece of ribbon through the loops.  This adds some interest to an otherwise boring string of white palstic beads, and it also gave me the length I needed without having to cut my necklaces apart.  Cut a circle of pink felt, and make two slits in the middle.  Then thread your clip through and use a dab of hot glue to hold the two together.  Next stack up all your flower bits until you like them and hot glue them together as well.

Next lay out your ribbon tails s you can check length and composition.   I ended up using the bright pink ribbon as a backer or the lace so that it shows up better.

Working in layers, glue your ribbons all together.  Then glue your stack to the back of your flower and cover the ends with your felt circle and alligator clip.

Then it’s as easy as clipping the flower over the knot on the side of your necklace and tada!  You are done.  Because I had so many ribbon scraps this necklace cost me exactly $1.  And I can still take it apart to use the pieces again.  And because the flower clip is removeable you can use it  on another necklace or a bag or if you are feeling totally awesome, put it in your hair.

I love how with very little effort I can dress up my standard T-shirt.  We took this picture at our not quite midnight but still really late for a 2 year old summer solstice picnic.  Nothing like eating pizza at the park and watching the sun go down on the longest night of the year.  It was awesome.  But now this outfit looks awesomer because I have pink hair.  Yay!

And that means a lot of frosting.

Lots and lots of frosting.

I’m off to celebrate Pink Day with cupcakes and pink lemonade and popsicles.  But I have a few more posts scheduled this afternoon to keep you company.  Be back soon!

Each recipe only makes 8 cups, and you’ll want to drink at least two yourself.  Yep, that good.  Mix together 6 cups of water and 1cup of sugar until the sugar is dissolved.  Add 1.5 cups of lemon juice and 1/3 cup fresh squeezed lime juice.  This is two or three limes and 6 or 7 good sized lemons.  I got this Breville citrus juicer for Scott a few years ago.  It’s amazing.  And we use it more than our toaster.  It makes quick work of juicing citrus fruit!  Stir the juice into the water and sugar, and then add a cup of washed raspberries.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.

When you first make it, it will be a nice lemonade color.  But those raspberries will work some serious magic overnight.  Serious tasty pink magic.

I added a few more lemon slices before we had it for lunch this week.  And it was heaven.  Far and away the best beverage I’ve ever made.  And easy.  It only took me about 10 minutes to put it together, it just takes a little planning ahead.

I can see myself making this every single week as long as Costco has gigantic beautiful raspberries.  Even thinking about it later makes my mouth water.

You can count on it disappearing quickly.  Next up in my Pink Day Party are some of my favorite pink things, and another tutorial this afternoon.  I love blog parties, they are a lot of work, but so much fun!