An amazing amount of thought, time and effort went into this event. Birdie lives in the south of France (yes I said France) ans she had  planned to hold outdoors but as Mother Nature has a tendency to do she decided to do her own thing – instead of sunshine she brought a windy and gray day instead,

Birdie was flexible though and set up indoors instead.

The hubs is not big on desserts and with the Indian theme, we didn’t want any cakes. Instead, we filled the table with Indian-style sweets – Fit for a Maharajah!!

Some of the sweets I made myself, like the blue Indian “truffles” (I made them up..) and the gulab jamun, and shall share the recipes with you in due course. Others more elaborate sweets such as the oriental petit fours below, I bought from our local oriental shop.

In addition to the party favor sweets, I also made some Spicy Mango chutney for the adults – We also had some on the day, so I liked the idea of the guest taking some home to enjoy the party a little longer!

Because we were indoors, I had to display the party food and some of the party décor on small tables which I placed all around the room. By the entrance which leads to our courtyard, I placed a well wishes tree – I say tree…It was a couple of branches I sprayed silver. I then decorated the branches with some small paper flower similar to the coloured paper pom-poms above the desserts table.

The “wishes” were small round cards in the same design of the party theme with a picture of myself and the hubs. Our guests were then encouraged to leave well wishes or “word of wisdom” hehe and hang them on the tree. This makes for nice memento of the day for us…

And more party favors (bangles, papier maché elephant and watercolours for the children, Indian tea personalised with the celebration date, scented candles and soap for the adults) were displayed in clear bags and small kitsch boxes I found at the oriental store for just €1 each! The boxes looked as though they were made for this occasion, in the party colours and even had a blue elephant on them!

These party favors were displayed also by the entrance inside a small wheel-barrow decorated in the colours of the party. A small plaque read “Oriental Delights” to which I attached a silk blue ribbon.

By the wishes tree, I place a “wishing well” with floating candles and rose petals – It looked like an offering to the “gods”….Very Indian!

I also used some inexpensive metal photo holders to clip the food plaques. They tied in really well with the “bling” party décor!

Oh, one thing I used that made all the difference, were pieces of mirrors (I had those at home, but you can get them cut to your specifications at a DIY shop) as trays and plates to hold the food on the table. This allowed more light to be reflected and looked really stunning with candles on them too – And off course I had to have birds everywhere!! hehe

More candles completed the scene. In fact there were candles everywhere and they really helped to set the party mood and looked fab in the evening!

For the candles holders I used empty glass yoghurt pots, and glued a strip of coloured ribbon around with a big, fat rhinestone in the middle for extra Indian bling.

The flowers of choice were bright, pink gerberas in glass carafes filled with coloured sweets. But you could also use coloured sand, pebbles…

Oh, and to complete the party scene I also designed a blue elephant cut-out that I displayed around the tables – It looked so cool and was a talking point with children and adults alike!

Just last week we were in Utah to attend our son Clark’s college graduation. We were outside taking some photos when I spotted something.

My kids are now use to me going up to perfect strangers asking to take pictures of their food, their outfit, etc. so it was no surprise when I stopped this new college graduate and asked to take a picture of his lei.

He was actually wearing three leis!  A traditional flower lei but then he also had a candy lei and a money lei.

The candy lei was made out of plastic wrap and candy bars and tied in between each candy bar with ribbon – so cute.

But the lei I liked the most was the money lei – what graduate wouldn’t love a money lei!!

Dollar bills were gathered up and tied in the middle and then attached to a piece of ribbon.

There were also little bags of Hershey Hugs and Kisses tied in between the dollar bills.  So fun!!

Everything was attached to some curling ribbon.  I am going to have to remember this one next year when Tessa graduates from high school!!

The next day, after the cookies had dried over night I was ready to put the bouquet together.

For supplies you will need:

A container. I used a piece of green florist foam inside of a white gift bag that I had added black dots to to resemble dice.  I cut off the handle of the bag and turned the upper edge into the inside of the bag to reinforce the bag a bit.  You could also use a vase, a box or just use your imagination!

Filler: You will need some kind of filler, shredded paper etc. to place in and around the cookies once they are placed.

Cookies: Go here for directions.

Misc. Decor: In addition to the cookies I used other items that related to the show – Guys & Dolls.  All the crapshooters in the show wore red carnations in their labels so that was the perfect flower to use to fill in and around the cookies.

I also found some great chocolate bars wrapped like dollar bills at the dollar store!  I hot glued them to bamboo skewers.

I also bought a deck of cards at the dollar store along with some dice.  I used different card hands “full house” etc. and glued the cards together in a fan shape and attached them to a bamboo skewer too.  I also hot glued on a few dice for a finishing touch!

I didn’t end up using the red and black ribbon but it would look cute tied around some of the sticks.

After putting your foam into the container start inserting sticks into the foam.  Be sure and vary the height of your sticks to give it some variety and interest.  I put the larger items in first (candy bars,etc.) and then filled in with the smaller items such as the cookies.

I made a little printed sign for the front cutting the shapes out on my fun Cricut machine and attaching it to a lollipop stick.

Fill in around everything with your filler and you are finished!

Who wouldn’t love their own personalized cookie bouquet!?

I have put together a lot of flower bouquets during that time.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, flowers can get a little old after a while so it’s fun to come up with something different.

Candy bouquets make a great gift.

And even a Candy Bar Cake is a great idea.

I am always on the lookout for a new, fun idea.

One night, after one of the performances, I spotted this!

How cute is that?  A flower bouquet made out of playing cards, dice and dollar bills.  The perfect flower bouquet for Big Julie (he’s a really big gambler in the show – I mean really big!!!)  I had to stop him and ask if I could take a picture. Found out that my creative friend Laurie made it for him!  Way to go Laurie.

I decided I wanted to do a little something for all the members of the cast.  Forgetting that it was a rather large cast (50 kids) I decided to make dice shaped cookies for everyone.

It turned into a little bigger project than I anticipated but they did turn out so cute!!
My kitchen table looked like this for several days!

I also made cookies shaped like hearts, diamonds, spades, clovers and some lips for the Hot Box Dolls.  I wrapped two cookies in a cellophane bag and then attached a little card.  I used playing cards for the backing.

We had given Tessa flowers the previous weekend after the show so for closing night I wanted to do something a little different.

I decided to try my hand at a cookie bouquet for the first time.  I learned quite a few things through the process and decided I needed to take an icing lesson from my friend Dawn next time she makes her amazing shortbread cookies but I think it turned out pretty good for my first try.  I made one for Tessa and one for the shows director.

I’ll do a separate post to give you a little more detail on how I put it together etc.  Stay tuned!

I helped the kids put gifts together for all the adults involved in the play – music director, choreographer, orchestra conductor, set designer etc. too.  They received their gifts in these cute white gift bags that I turned into dice!

Hope this post got your creative juices flowing!  Stay tuned for more info on the cookie bouquet!!

Katie wanted to do cupcakes and a candy bar.  White cupcakes with all kinds of blue toppings looked very festive and made a great centerpiece for the table!
 

Oreos dipped in white chocolate with blue sprinkles were also very popular!  Katie used the peppermint Joe Joes from Trader Joes – so yummy!
 

The candy bar consisted of lots of fun candy.

Since Katie conveniently lives next door to me so we used my collection of white and clear glass containers to give a cohesive look to the table.  We grouped the candy into color themes – there was the blue and white/silver candy…

the blue and yellow candy….

and then the bright, rainbow colored candy….

We almost forgot the red licorice!
 

There were cute little Chinese take out boxes for the girls to fill with their candy and fun little smiley faces and peace signs to decorate the table.

The table looked darling!
Anchored in the center of the table were some balloons to help carry out the Blue/Peace theme.

What would a party be without balloons!
 

Other fun decor included this clothesline full of photos of Molly through her long 12 years!

When the girls returned to the house after a few games of bowling they munched on pizza and treats from the candy/cupcake bar.

The girls answered some questions to see who knew the birthday girl the best….

and played some other fun “tween” girl games like two truths and a lie!
 

Of course music and a little bit of dancing made for a fun party!

The girls each went home with one of these darling party favors.  I’d been looking for an excuse to use these darling Jones Soda labels I had seen over at Karyn’s shop – Pixel Perfect Boutique.  

Katie emailed Karyn some photos of Molly and some words that decribed her and Karyn personalized the labels.  Aren’t they cute!!!  What a fun party favor!

Thanks to Katie and Molly for letting me help with the party and Peace Out Molly – we love you!!

A special thanks to Karyn of Pixel Perfect Boutique for helping us create the perfect party favor!

One of my favorite things to do for party favors is to allow the party guests to create them for themselves!  This helps to keep the party guests busy!

The Marketing student in charge of the party had purchased some cute foam crowns from Oriental Trading.  They came complete with stickers and  other decorating material and they kept the little guests busy while everyone arrived.

All the little girls and some of the big girls looked darling in their princess crowns.

Since a princess isn’t a princess with out a scepter I created edible scepters for all of the little princesses!

I just placed a large marshmallow on the end of a sucker stick and then dipped half the marshmallow into melted chocolate.  I just added some pink food coloring into white chocolate melts but you can also purchase pink ones.  I added some white sprinkles and a pink M & M on the top (thank goodness for Breast Cancer Awareness M & M’s)

I placed the sceptors into a small plastic bag, tied it with ribbon and added a cute little card.

My favorite line in the show Little Princess is at the end – “Every girl is a princess”.  Using my digital scrapbooking program I made these cute little pink cards.

They made a nice little memento too. 

As a fundraiser they had also created darling little autograph books for each of the party guests.  The books had photos of the characters in the show and they could collect autographs during the Meet & Greet after the performance.

A highlight of the tea party was when some of the performers made a special guest appearance!  The evil Miss Minchin put them through a lesson in posture for all to enjoy!
 

A party fit for a princess!