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!