A Good Vintage

Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words. - Plautus

One of my best friends is getting married and this is cause for celebration! Her bridesmaids and I threw her an intimate shower at a rustic vineyard for a wonderful afternoon surrounded by friends and family. The color of the bride's beautiful engagement ring, aquamarine, was inspiration for many of the little handmade touches.  Photo Credit: My good friend Joan of Applesky Photography took all of the beautiful photographs for the day including a mini engagement shoot of the happy couple in the vineyard after the shower!

For contrast and to soften the rustic setting, we created some simple feminine decorations. Swinging from the rafters were tissue paper puffs in multiple shades of aqua. Create a puff by cutting 3 layers of tissue paper in half and stack for a total of 6 layers, then accordion fold the layers - about 1" folds. After folding, tie at the center with wire or ribbon, and cut the ends into a point or half rounds. Pull up each layer one at the time, fluffing into a ball.  Hung on the walls were faux vintage pendant banners, instead of messing with fabrics and sewing, I went to the craft store and selected a few fabric print scrap-booking papers, cutting them into triangles. I attached the paper triangles to an aqua ribbon with some brass fasteners. I used leftover papers for labeling the buffet food (held up by wine corks like in a previous post) and for custom cupcake wrappers to tie it all together.

As guests arrived and mingled, they were treated to a wine tasting. One of the little activities at the shower was a "Guess how many corks in the jar" game with the winner receiving a bottle of wine from the vineyard to take home! Every guest received a keepsake wine glass with the name of the vineyard filled with custom chocolates made by one of the bridesmaids.

On each table was a custom labeled wine bottle accompanied by a silver paint marker that doubled as a guest book. Each label (printed by one of the bridesmaids to match the invites) said "One Month Anniversary", "3 Month Anniversary" etc. for the newlyweds to open throughout their first few years and read the well wishes written on the bottles from their loved ones.


I printed up some custom stickers (as described in a previous post) to match the invites and with the Bride and Groom's initials to make the desserts extra sweet!

A Toast to You!

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad. - Theodore Roosevelt

This month my boyfriend graduated from Architecture School... a truely hard won accomplishment! We are all so proud of him and of course it was an occasion for high celebration! It was decided that we would all gather for a fancy dinner with plenty of food and wine. Although we were going to be dining out, it was still important to personalize it. I collaborated with my boyfriend's mom on the "extra festive touches" and we came up with a great idea... A Toast to the Graduate!

Favors were bottles of wine with custom labels and graduation cap wine stoppers. His mom designed the labels marking the day's special event and had them printed up, or you can use standard Avery shipping labels and print them yourself. Also, placecard holders were real wine corks with a slit for the card. You can attempt to make these yourselves, but cork falls apart easily and I was able to find a great online resource: Corky Creations. We further personalized the placecards by featuring a different image from each of his studio projects - they were a hit as well as a great conversation starter!

Twinkle Twinkle Little Birthday

Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven! - Lord Byron

We celebrated one of my best friend's birthdays this month with a wonderful Spring evening gathering out on the patio, under the stars. My friends and I share a love and facination of stars (3 of us have star tattoos!) so this motif worked its way into the party setting!


I love things that are high on impact, yet low on time, so I decided to focus on one element to make the party feel special. I picked up 5 glass containers from the $-store and got out the craft supplies, including my favorite star punch. I cut bright colored paper into strips the height of the containers and gave them a simple smattering of star cutouts. Then I simply taped the paper around the container and added a few tea lights to each of them.

Since it was a Spring birthday, the signature drink for the evening was a white wine Sangria. I chose cantaloupe and honeydew melon for the fruit and gave them a special upgrade... using a small star-shaped cookie cutter, I cut them into colorful stars to float around! I had also made star shaped ice in a flexible mold to mix into the pitcher. I should name the drink "Shooting Star Sangria", because it went quickly!!