Happy Trails Retirement Party

At my office, we like to throw parties, and my department takes a certain pride in going above and beyond. Here are some photos from a recent camping theme retirement party.

Always a hit at a retirement or farewell:
Have the guests write little notes to the honoree.
We used a cleaned out pickle jar for this one.

Our retiree loved to camp so we created a little camp scene for him.

The fire is made of toilet paper rolls and coffee filters.
For the logs, paint toilet paper/paper towel rolls with two shades of brown.
For the flames, wet coffee filters with a small amount of water
and color with orange and yellow highlighter.

A wild take on a money tree, we used a stuffed snake in this one.

S'mores cupcakes:
chocolate cake with marshmallow spread frosting
topped with graham cracker crumble
served in tinfoil cupcake liners

Let the guests self-serve the watermelon with an ice cream scoop.

Multiple colors of carrots made a healthy
but interesting snack for the more health conscious.

We were all sad to see Lee go, but he sure enjoyed his retirement party (and has since gone on to many a wild adventure)!

Easy Fruit Valentines

Alex's class at daycare is having a little party tomorrow and they asked for treats to be bought. Well, I wanted to do something cute and fun but with a newborn, it also needed to be quick and easy. Jeramy and Abbey gave me the idea for the watermelon. Hailie inspired the oranges.

I took some cutie oranges and drew faces on half.
On the other half I wrote little messages like
you would see on conversation hearts.

I cut out little heart-shaped watermelon pieces.
With the metal cookie cutter, it was super easy.
The hardest part was trying to cut the watermelon into even slices!