Party Guest:Garden Baby Shower

by Leigh Anne on June 21, 2010
in Baby Shower, Decorations, Party Food, Table Decor

5 Comments

Today’s party guest is Ashley of Little Miss Momma .

Ashley hosted an amazing  baby shower for a dear friend who was expecting a little boy.  Ashley says that this shower  was an extra fun one to plan for because the guest list was for a dozen lovely ladies {rather than 30}, so she was able to spend some extra time on the details–she even used real plates (a girl after my own heart!)

She chose a “spring time” theme in turquoise, lime green, orange and yellow.

So let me introduce Ashley and have her tell you all about her beautiful baby shower.  Almost makes me want to have another baby (not) but I am stealing some of her ideas for a baby shower I am helping host this summer.

Here’s Ashley:

I chose a “spring time” theme in turquoise, lime green, orange and yellow.

I made these Pom Poms using a tutorial from Leanne at Organize and Decorate Everything. I love them so much–I wish I could leave them up all year round {and maybe I will, lol}.

To stay within the “garden/backyard” theme I bought a 12 pack of mason jars at my local grocery store and used them for cups. I used extra large malt straws purchased from Michael’s.

I made this banner using scrapbook paper and pre-cut letters that come in a pack {also available at Michael’s}. I glue gunned each paper flag down on to a long strand of turquoise ribbon.

Here was my nifty little party favor. I made these earrings using this tutorial.


The theme was “Cute as a Button”.

I glue gunned this trim around vases from the dollar store.

I learned how to make these pinwheels from Gillian at All the Small Things.

I threw some of the pinwheels in with my flower arrangements.

Yummy Spring time cupcakes.

Summer salad with strawberries, mandarin oranges, sliced almonds and a sweet honey vinaigrette dressing.

Homemade chicken salad sandwiches on croissants.

Most of my decorations and favors were used with supplies from the Dollar Tree and the sale section at Michael’s {and I’m not just saying that}. If you want to know where I purchased anything specific leave me a comment over at my blog and I will get back to you.

All in all, one rather awesome baby shower!

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Party Guest: Bollywood Bling Party

by Leigh Anne on June 14, 2010
in Anniversary Party, Decorations, Party Favors, Party Food

1 Comment

I am so excited to share this amazing party with you. One of my blog readers, Birdie of Bird Crafts, created this amazing party. She and her husband were celebrating their 6th wedding anniversary and she went all out!

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.

Here is Birdie. I’ll let her tell you all about the party.
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.

I also made mango Laassi, which is kinda of an Indian take on a milk-shake – I was very refreshing and quite thick, with real chunks of mangoes. I served them in little coloured cups I bought at a French version of the pound or dollar shop.
This orange “alien-looking” thing is called Jalebi and it’s an Indian sweet made by dropping swirls of batter into hot oil. It’s coloured with safforn but waaaay tooo complicated to make, so I bought ready-made. It’s very sugary, but stays crispy on the outside and very traditional in Indian dessert tables.
And because this was a family affair, we had conventional sweets (although the colours were quite Bollywood!) for the children. We also provided scoops so they could take some home in the little party boxes and favor bags I designed for the occasion.

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!

That’s all for today folks, hope you’ve enjoyed the tour hehehe.
The complete Bollywood Bling Party Collection is now available at my Etsy shop!
Wasn’t that amazing!! Be sure and visit Birdie over at her blog for more info and recipes.

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Ice Cream Social Table Decor

by Leigh Anne on June 3, 2010
in Decorations, Table Decor

2 Comments

My friend Dawn is a kindergarten teacher.  She is always doing lots of fun and creative things with her students.

One of their end of the year celebrations is an ice cream social.  Dawn put together these darling table decorations and shared some photos with me.

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Using empty ice cream containers and fresh flowers from her garden she not only carried out the theme but saved a lot of money too.  I love it!

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She just placed jars inside the containers and placed the flowers in the jars.  She also made some mini bouquets with the tiny teeny new single serve
cartons.
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Thanks for sharing your fun table decor idea Dawn!

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The Wedding Planner, Part 4

by Leigh Anne on June 1, 2010
in Party Food, Weddings

2 Comments

Be sure you have read The Wedding Planner, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3!

My favorite part of any wedding is, no surprise, the food!

The parents of the bride, Andrea and Mark, really wanted the wedding to reflect Nathan & Emily’s tastes so they let them totally choose the menu.

From the start they knew they wanted to have Key Lime pie instead of cake.  After searching around for a place to order pies from, they ended up enlisting some friends and baking 200 individual pies.  It took them about 3 1/2 hours to make them all and they had to raid quite a few stores for all the crusts that they needed.  They were delicious and a fun treat.

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For the lunch menu, they wanted Mexican.  They chose a local favorite in the Lansing area called EL AZTECO.  They also decided to let the guest eat upon arrival at the reception rather than have them wait for the wedding party to arrive.  This made for very happy guests with tummies filled with delicious Mexican food when the photos were done.

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The food was served buffet style with clear plastic plates from Sam’s Club and plastic silverware that they rolled up into white napkins and tied with twine.  The wedding invitations that Andrea’s daughter,Lauren designed consisted of 5 3×5 cards that were tied together with twine also.

Andrea affectionately calls their wedding style SHABBY CHIC.

They also had a fun candy bar at the reception.

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They chose candy that they liked!  They made it the favor for everyone to take home.  Andrea learned that the tricky part of doing a candy bar is that you need 2-3 times the amount of candy that will actually be taken home or consumed in order to make it look FULL.  A great tip they had was to put small bowls overturned inside some of the big punch bowls that they used to take up space and make it look fuller.

Again, Andrea enlisted help and gave one of her friends the list of all the candy and she bought it all at Sam’s Club and Gordon Food Service in bulk.  They bought little plastic gusseted bags that had white lace printed on them and came with silver twist ties.  They were a little bigger than they wanted people to have so they trimmed them down.  I was surprised how many people loved it!  Even the older people still loved the candy!

This was definitely a wedding full of love and attention to what really matters!  Andrea was able to put together an amazing, not to be forgotten, wedding of her dreams for her daughter while staying within their families budget and not going totally crazy!

Thanks Andrea for sharing your photos and all the great information!!

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