Tea Time

There is something so magical about brunch and girlfriends - two of my favorite things, especially when they are together!  I decided to throw together an impromptu pot luck brunch to break up the winter doldrums.  Even though it was last minute, I still started a Pinterest board to help me visualize the 'feel' I wanted as I pulled out my serving dishes and tea towels while keeping my eye out for a few special touches.  I settled on a Spring palette to inject a little cheer into the cold winter day.

I invited everyone over on a lazy Sunday afternoon and asked them to bring their favorite brunch dish to share and offered a variety of fragrant loose leaf teas.  To keep the potluck organized I pre set my table the night before with designated spots for dishes so that when they arrived there was no question how or where it would fit on the table and it resulted in a beautiful (and delicious!) tablescape.  Since it was close to St. Patrick's Day, I used mini pots of clovers for both decoration and a little parting gift for my ladies.  They make me feel so lucky to have such great friends!

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.

Leave No Milestone Left Unturned

A garden brings life and beauty to the table. - Alice Waters (via Talula's Garden)

This past weekend I had the honor of hosting a milestone birthday celebration for one of my best girlfriends!  The birthday girl chose the venue and then tossed the reins over to myself and another co-conspirator to run with it.  We were immediately inspired by the farm to table menu and cozy atmosphere at Talula's Garden in Philadelphia!

After deciding to incorporate floral elements, we developed a modern palette of lilac, peach, and crimson with golden highlights to pop against the weathered garden setting.  I wanted to create some party elements while keeping it simple since we would be in a restaurant and not have a lot of room on the communal table or a lot of time prior to our seating to set up...

The solution was bright tissue paper flowers wrapped around colorful 'seed bombs' in gold flower pots that performed double duty as table decoration and party favor... and with the swipe of a paint marker could have served as placecards too!  Similar instructions can be found from Martha Stewart.  The whole table was visually tied together with a roll of gold web ribbon and pre-made dimensional flower stickers running down the center.

As pretty as the party table turned out, we still needed to highlight that this was no ordinary birthday - this was the big 3-0!  So, taking more cues from the garden setting, I created a pair of 3-0 topiaries out of styrofoam wreaths (dollar store!!) and adhesive backed sheet moss.  I modified one of the wreaths into a three with some strategic cuts and toothpicks to hold it all back together.  I spray painted some dowels with the same gold paint used on the flower pots and inserted them into the wreaths and a block of styrofoam in a flower pot. (psst! would make great table numbers too!)  Lastly, I added some more moss and fairy critters to the base and some ribbons in the party colors to the topiary stem!

The Birthday Girl has a soft spot for all things magical!

Another way to celebrate my friend's special birthday, we displayed some photos of her as a baby and growing up!  Some were framed in gold frames while others with coordinating lilac and crimson floral scrapbooking papers and they were all tucked in amongst the restaurants existing display of found objects. 

Both the guest of honor and all of the guests got a kick out of seeing the birthday girl on the day she was born, her 1st birthday, her college graduation day, her wedding day, etc. which made a great conversation starter!  We all had a great time and great food - including the birthday girl's favorite: donuts and s'mores!

Animals in the Park

This weekend I enjoyed a sweet day in Central Park, NYC celebrating my girlfriend's new baby!  It was a wonderfully casual gathering of friends for a potluck picnic under the guise of a baby shower!

The mommy-to-be loves animals so we made sure to include little animal details here and there.  I picked up some balloons so fellow guests could easily find our little party under some shade trees and weighed them down with a couple of cute stuffed animals for the baby.

One of my favorite, easiest ways to add a festive pop and tie in a theme is with custom party stickers!!  I have mentioned them in previous posts and made some more for this special occasion with little animal characters plus the occasion and date.  The stickers were used to make custom food picks, straws, and decorate the favor bags!  One of the talented guests baked up some large animal shaped cookies for yummy favors for us to take home, slipping each one inside a clear cello bag sealed with a party sticker.

My contribution to the potluck was an easy riff on a cheese platter: kabob style perfect for picking up and sharing!  I combined green grapes with white cheddar cheese cubes and cherry tomatoes with mini mozzarella balls rolled in herbs on skewers - yum!  Other potluck items were egg salad sandwiches, pulled pork sandwiches, fresh berries, cupcakes, and a homemade apple pie.  Plus there were three different types of pickles, in case someone was having a craving...

The mommy's sister-in-law strung up a clothes line between the trees and handed out colorful baby t-shirts and onesies on clipboards for us to decorate with iron-set crayons.  Everyone had a lot of fun designing the new little baby's wardrobe!!

They all came out adorable and the parents-to-be voted on their favorites for prizes! My penguin design was a special request from the mommy-to-be so I was a shoe in!

A little game we played was guess how many animal crackers in the big baby bottle... would you believe 287 fit in there!?!  And the winner was......... the mommy-to-be!

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.

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!

An Elephant Never Forgets

One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know. - Groucho Marx

Sometimes life sneaks up on you, including parties! A friend of mine was set to hostess a baby shower in her back patio on a sunny weekend in DC but only got as far as picking the theme and menu when the party was suddenly upon her! I was up in NJ so I couldn't run around and do the shopping for her (as much as I would have loved to!) plus there was no time to order or ship anything. So instead, I whipped up some simple printable decorations that I could email and she could print and assemble to create an adorable baby blue elephant baby shower!


Items like these are readily available to purchase on sites like etsy but you can also make your own with programs like Adobe PhotoShop or Illustrator and Microsoft Office Word. The simplest item I made that had the most impact was custom stickers the hostess used for everything from food picks to napkin rings to customizing favors. I downloaded a template from Avery to layout the images and had the hostess purchase the same sticker sheets (Avery Round Labels, 20 per sheet - Product #8293) from an office supply store.

Other items included a coordinating pendant sign - just cut out the triangles and tape to some ribbon and little pop up centerpieces - just cut out, 3 folds and a piece of tape!  These custom touches allowed the hostess to just pick up some simple solid color items found anywhere to tie it all together!

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!