Cocktails and Confetti

Happy New Year!!  After moving from the beach (and chased away by Sandy) we are all settled into our new place.  We celebrated with our annual Winter Cocktail Party which doubled as a great housewarming!  Last years theme focused more on silvery snowflakes but this year I decided to warm it up a bit.  I am obsessed with the look of gold confetti dots, they just scream glamorous party to me!  Check out my Pinterest board for this party and you'll see the trend.  So from the invites to the buffet table - everything had a healthy dose of confetti!

I'm also getting more into champagne and aside from a signature cocktail, we offered up mini individual sized champagnes for guests to grab up - encouraged by a lipstick message on the mirror.  Liquor bottles were available for mix-your-own and kept neat in a gold tray.  Garnishes were elevated and classy in martini and wine glassware.  They included white rock candy swizzles and gold rimming sugar for guests to sweeten up their cocktails.

This year's all white dessert display featured candies and cookies including candied grapefruit, white chocolate covered gummi bears and champagne bubble gumdrops!!  I upped the glitz by laying a long mirror on the dining table before parading out my display towers, mercury glass ornaments, winter scenes in cloches, traditional poppers, candles, and a sprinkling of 'snow' and hand punched confetti.

Photo Credit: my wonderful friend Joan Tsen of Applesky Photography

Bike Cruise

We live by a string of beach bars and the best way to hit them up is by bicycle.  So one weekend we gathered up some friends and their bicycles for a fun bar hop.  I designed a logo for the event combining an anchor and a bicycle wheel and our Bicycle Bar Cruise was born!

Before setting out I set out a spread to fuel us up for the adventures ahead.  Pasta salad with shrimp using wagon wheel pasta, pulled pork pancake muffins, and mexican corn dip.

I also had plenty of 'flair' for people's bike and themselves... blinking lights and glowsticks (safety first!) plus stickers and streamers.  I designed and ordered the stickers from Sticker Mule and loved them!

Also so everyone in the bar would know who rolled into town (and to commemorate the occasion) I ordered a bunch of beer coozies!  Coozies were from Personalized Drinkware.  We had enough stickers and coozies that we even gave some out to happy patrons at the bars.

We're All Mad Here!

No matter what age you are celebrating, a party can make you feel like a kid again.  For a good friend's 40th birthday we took a trip down the rabbit hole and threw a Wonderland Party!  We took over half the house and the whole backyard to feature different vignettes and activities from the Wonderland story including, the Queen's Rose Garden, the Caterpillar's Den, the Pool of Tears, and the Mad Hatter's Tea Party! Feathers, flowers, and flamingos anything goes in Wonderland!  Each area was over the top as only Wonderland can be but was kept cohesive with distinct colors and motifs from blank and white with cards and hearts for the Queen, green and purple with mushrooms and flowers for the Caterpillar, to pastels and teapots for the Mad Hatter.  And of course the big Cheshire Cat was mounted in a tree to keep watch over it all!

 

As guests arrived they walked passed over-sized cards and their handywork of painting the roses red!  I took white paper flowers, dabbed red paint on them and stuck them in the bushes lining the walkway.

In the 'This Way' 'That Way' world of Wonderland, signage was important.  Festive black and white signs helped guide guests from the entrance and throughout the party.

Guests were encouraged to wear Wonderland inspired costumes and a photobooth was set up to capture everyone in their tea party finest!  Games and tasty treats were everywhere for guests to enjoy and reinforced the playful mood.  Chess and checker boards were spray painted directly onto the lawn and croquet was set up with lawn flamingos looking on.

Cabana Style

Stumbled across this fantastic temporary event space at a midtown NYC hotel!!! All you need is canvas, 4" wide paint roller, bright blue paint, festoon lighting & some bright yellow metal furniture to create a magical cabana escape!!

ICFF

Recently I attended the annual International Contemporary Furniture Fair at the Javits Center.  Its open to "the trade" and I found some great inspiration for not only my day job as an Architect but also for my passion for Event Design and Art Installations.  Some great ideas from all over the world below...

corrugated cardboard lanterns... create a canopy of light and texture!

(greypants, inc.)

corrugated cardboard animal sculptures(!!!)... can define space and style!

(d-torso via mira design corp.)

playing with light and shadows... small concept with big impact, love it!

(jiin kim design / absolut lighting)

balloons and inflatable walls... always festive and attention getting!

(inflate products, ltd)

paper "softwalls"... so fun and modular for infinite possibilities!!

(molo design, ltd.)

Cheers to Another Year!

"Every year on your birthday, you get a chance to start new."  ~  Sammy Hagar

For my birthday celebrations this year, I decided to scale back the fanfare from the last few years and planned an intimate dinner party with a small group of my oldest friends.  I noticed as I've gotten older I truly enjoy small scale gatherings where you can really get into the conversation and soak up the moment!

Locked Up!

Small does not have to mean boring though - so I reserved a cozy and unique private dining room at an excellent seafood restaurant, Fish Urban Dining, in the ever evolving Asbury Park, NJ.  The building is an old Post Office and we had the pleasure of dining in the former Vault!  The space proved the perfect setting for lingering over good food, wine, and friends.

Cheers!

Since I can't resist adding extra festive touches to things, I crafted a "Happy Birthday!" Banner from vintage post card scrapbook paper and vinyl letters.  As a surprise for my guests, there was a party favor at each place setting which doubled as a place card.  For the favor tags, I used the same vintage paper from the banner and tied them to Voluspa candles for the ladies and Oliveros cigars for the gentlemen.

Favor Tags/ Place cards

Tip: Use favor tags as an easy tool for creating a seating chart... prior to tying to the gifts, lay them out on a table so you can arrange and re-arrange until you like the layout, then snap a picture.  Reference the picture when you get to the venue for placing the favors/ place cards at each seat.  For this party I chose a traditional set up by seating couples across from each other and alternating genders next to each other, with the host/ hostess at either end of the table.

Love Is Sweet

"The most dangerous food is wedding cake"~ James Thurber

Dessert Table

One of my best friends is getting married and we've been having lots of fun celebrating!  Fresh off our trip to NOLA for the Bachelorette, we gathered friends and family together for her Bridal Shower this past weekend.  The black and white wedding colors inspired a fun dessert table full of black and white treats!  Each of the bridesmaids contributed confections like:

• Custom Oreo Cake
• Almond Bars
• Brownies
• Portuguese Egg Custards (the Bride's fave!)
• Chocolate Dipped Strawberries
• Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake Bites
• Black and White Cupcakes

In order to display the desserts we used a combination of tiered stands and boxes covered in pretty coordinating wrapping paper. The same wrapping paper was used to make a decorative paper rosette garland strung with tulle ribbon.  See this previous post for how to make the rosettes.  Dessert labels and other signs for the shower were printed and mounted to die cut scalloped shapes from Paper Presentation - a wonderful DIY stationary supply store in NYC with an online shop!

Dessert Table Details

Another sweet way to tie in the black and white theme and provide a fun activity was an M&M guessing game!

Guessing Game

Instead of a guest book or traditional games, we provided the guests with tags on string to fill out wishes and advice for the new married couple.  The tags (also from Paper Presentation) were then hung on a live potted "Wishing Tree" to display at the shower and later taken home by the Bride.

Wishing Tree

The guests loved it and really got creative with their words of wisdom and the Bride was touched by all of the sweet thoughts!

Wish Details

You're Invited...

A small party might not require a formal invite in the mail, but then again a mass email doesn't exactly feel festive either.  An invite can really set the tone for your guests and get them excited for the upcoming event.  There are some fantastic digital invitation sites that have beautiful invites with a stationary feel and replicate that special feeling you get when you open an invitation in the mail!  I have tried and recommend all of the sites below...

Pingg 

For simple invites and easy guest tracking, pingg has a wide variety of images and graphics for any party style. (Example: Invite I received for my friend's Housewarming Party)

Paperless Post

Each guest receives a fancy interactive digital envelope with an invitation that slips out.  Classic layouts and lots of design options mean you can customize the perfect invite.  Great RSVP options plus people can immediately add the event to their Google/ Apple/ Yahoo calendars! (Example: Fun invites created for my Birthday Brunch)

Postmark

Gorgeous new site from the original Evite that I tried in its Beta phase... Launching in April! The graphics are high end and the invitations even look like they have the texture of paper! (Example: The sparkling gold snowflake was perfect for the invites to our Winter Cocktail Party)

Red Stamp

Great iPhone app that lets you create a quick note or invite with pre loaded high quality images and layouts that you can send via text or email.  You can also add your own photos right from your phone.  This is perfect for letting friends know about a last minute get together or just to send a pretty note to say Happy Birthday, etc! (Example: Sweet Valentine I texted to friends featuring my cute kitty cat!)

Winter Cocktail Fete

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake… - Sir Francis Bacon

This winter we gathered some friends and threw a cocktail party at our little apartment.  I love extending the sparkle of the holidays into the New Year to help brighten the darkest days of the year!  We have lots of great things to look forward to this year and this was a fantastic way to kick it off!

For a frosty effect, I pooled together my most sparkly Christmas decorations and my white and metallic everyday items.  This included my ever expanding mercury glass collection comprised of candlesticks, vases, and ornaments.  I used the pieces in little groupings on the food table.  To continue the winter effect into the living room, I created a tall arrangement for the coffee table using found sticks and white carnations.  It was very easy and was inspired by this post from Gibson King!

Outside, we lined the driveway in luminaries to greet guests and lead them to the back entrance.  They were simple to assemble: LED tea lights from the dollar store in white paper favor bags from the party store with some sand from the beach to weight them down.

Our tree features more of my Mercury Glass collection and glittery snowflakes plus some ornaments inspired by our beach side home.  This year I upped the frosty feeling by weaving in white feather boas among the branches - it was a beautiful glowy snowy effect!!

Awhile back I had scooped up some beautiful multi-tiered serving dishes from Home Goods and couldn't wait to use them for a beautiful dessert display.  For this party, I was very excited to use them to create an all winter white Dessert Bar!  I paraded them 3 in a row down the center of a runner so they could double as decoration!

Here are some "Winter White Dessert Bar" Suggestions...

• Sugar Cookies
• Mini Vanilla Cupcakes
• Powdered Donut Holes or Mini Donuts
• Merangues
• White Chocolate Covered Pretzels
• White M&M's
• White Chocolate Truffles
• Kettle Corn

My latest cocktail obsession is St. Germain liquor!  For the feature cocktail of the evening, I poured up glasses of chilled Champagne, topped them off with some St. Germain and dropped in a few raspberries!  The drink was refreshing and a huge hit!  While sipping cocktails, nothing is better in the winter than a cozy fire!  We don't have a fireplace, but my boyfriend was excited to get the bonfire pit going for guests to gather around!

Boogie Man

Put on your boogie shoes...

Milestone birthday's call for milestone parties... so for a family member's 40th birthday we surprised him with a party straight out of the decade he was born in - the 70's! I researched all the fun found in the 70's and came up with some great ways to transform the hostess's house into a groovy love lounge!

Fondue dinner parties were huge in the 70's and the perfect way to get the family together. The hostess went all out with 3 different courses - cheese for appetizers, oil for entree meats, and chocolate for dessert!  Pre-cutting up all the bite size pieces for dipping and borrowing fondue pots from family members made switching up the courses easy.

Framing the entrance to the dining area were funky beaded curtains. Since the tables would be crowded with fondue accoutrements, centerpieces had to go up - as in hanging psychedelic lanterns from the ceiling centered above each table. At each place setting was a toy kaleidoscope to add to the trippy fun! Throughout the house we hung printouts of classic 70's movie and TV show posters like King Kong and Starsky and Hutch.  Playing on the TV throughout the night were 70's episodes of Charlie's Angels and scenes from Saturday Night Fever!

Speaking of Saturday Night Fever, what's dinner without some dancing? So the living room was converted into a disco complete with spinning disco ball and flower power garlands radiating outward from it. To add to the lounge vibe, the couches were dressed up with colorful fuzzy pillows and throws.

Roaring 20's

You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone. - Al Capone

A bunch of us recently threw one of our best friend's a 30th birthday party in homage to her Roaring 20's! We had a great time researching one of the best decades ever and turning one of our houses into a retro Speakeasy! Invites included 20's slang and the Speakeasy password!

The spring off point was a vintage photo of a 1920's party decorated in streamers which we replicated in the dining room! We kept a simple black/ white/ silver theme running throughout all the little touches including feathers, flowers and fringe curtains. Other fun accents included squirt guns lying about and fake bullet holes in the walls... but of course we posted a sign "All Firearms Must Be Checked At The Door"! However, the best decoration of all was everyone's fabulous costumes including flappers, bootleggers and gangsters! And with a bit of photoshop, a friend made an Al Capone style "Wanted" poster featuring the birthday girl as the outlaw of the hour!

Lots of research went into the appetizers for this party. Aside from the requisite "Bathtub Gin", "Hooch", and "Giggle Water"... we served up some treats either invented or made popular in the 1920's including:

• Peanut Butter & Jam Sandwiches
• Pineapple Upside Down Cake
• Jell-o
  
• Ice Cream Sandwiches
• Charleston Chews, Milk Duds, Gummi Bears, Twizzlers, Babe Ruth Bars, Reese's PB Cups

One of the hostess's got crafty and made fun food picks out of vintage head shots of 1920's party goers wishing a Happy Birthday!

Also, a friend whipped up some chocolate covered pretzel rod "cigarettes and cigars" featured on silver trays at 1920's prices.

With everyone dressed up it was a great excuse to set up a photo booth! We hung some fabric and hired a friend to snap goofy photos of the guests using props like an inflatable saxophone, a chalkboard, sparkly glasses, boas, and the most popular: homemade felt mustaches glued on dowel handles. Everyone (including me of course) hammed it up and loved it!