{Soirees} The Planning Process

Hey everybody!  I hope you all are having a fabulous July so far!  I certainly am.

I don't know about all of you, but when it comes to planning events, I love the planning process.  My husband thinks I'm absolutely crazy because to him all that "busy work" is the worst part.  I'm currently planning my Grandma's 90th Birthday with my Dad, sister, aunts, uncles, and cousins, and having been coined the "Cruise Director" by my Dad a few years ago, I have gladly took over planning most details of the party.  I thought that today I would share a little inside look into my personal planning process since it's something that tends to overwhelm a lot of people.      

The first step for me is to gather inspiration, and my favorite place to do that is, of course, Pinterest.

Once you know what kind of theme you're going for, the first thing you want to do is book your location (if it's not at your home).  This is very important to do right away because locations book up fast, and if you need to use a different venue, your ideas may no longer apply to the new place.  

After that I like string out all my favorite ideas and map out a plan.  This is very beneficial to me because I've found that if I don't have things mapped out, I forget key elements.  It also helps during the planning process if you have other individuals involved, so that they can see what you're thinking.  

I'm very visual, so when mapping out my events, I grab my favorite pen and a stack of paper.  Here is what it looks like (excuse the sloppy handwriting and drawings).  

This will also come in handy the day of for set up because not everyone will know how you visualized it in your head.

After this it's all pretty self explanatory...you execute your ideas.  I personally make a bunch of lists (guests, items I want to bring, items I need to purchase, menus, etc).   I also start to gather everything I want to use and items I've purchased in one area of my house.  That way everything is in one place, and I won't forget anything.

Well I hope that all of this will help you out a little next time you're planning your own event.  I honestly think that a little bit of planning makes events more fun and easier to execute.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

{My Life} Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody!  It's been a while, so I'm just going to dive in and catch you all up.

December started with us having our hands full with our cute little pup, Doggert.  Here is a little back story.  Last year (2010) on the Sunday we were coming home from visiting our families for Thanksgiving and he started to have some back problems.  We took him to our normal vet the next day, and they diagnosed him with Intervertebral Disk Disease.  Basically his discs deteriorate faster than normal causing the fluid inside to leak out and push on the spinal cord.  If not treated properly it can lead to them being paralyzed.  They wanted to schedule him for surgery right away, but after talking to a friend of ours who works at the University of Minnesota Veterinary school, we decided to get a second opinion.  We took him to a neurology specialist, and he recommended we wait to have surgery.  Instead he was put on 3 different medications and was on strict bed rest for 9 more weeks.  He eventually returned to his normal self.  Almost like clock work he had another flair up 4 days after Thanksgiving this year (2011).  It was a little worse this time, and they recommended he get an MRI and possibly have surgery after the holidays were over.  Over Christmas he started to do much better (such a great Christmas present), so now unless he starts to get worse we are hoping we can delay and further action for a little while longer.  We still have another 5-6 weeks left before we can return him to normal activity, but it could be a lot worse.  

A few days (and barely any sleep) later I got together with a few ladies who took also took Blogging Your Way.  It was great to meet with some fellow bloggers, and to hear about their blogging journey.  

The following weekend, we had our annual Holiday Party.  I had so much fun putting the whole thing together.  Particularly making all the decorations.  It was great, as always, to get all of our friends together, and to see all the kiddos.  

Before we knew it, it was time to head home for Christmas.  I forgot my camera, so I don't have a lot of pictures, but I got a few from my little sister.  We had and amazing time and it was hard to say goodbye, but it's always nice to get back home.  It was only a matter of days before the next event on our calendar....New Years Eve.  We went to our friend Chris's house.  It was fabulous as always, and we both had so much fun!  As you can probably see in the bottom two pictures, I decided to spruce up my hair to ring in the new year.  I decided to darken it up a little for winter and to get bangs again.  It's taking me a while to get used to it, but it's pretty fun.

Now that the holidays are over I'm ready to get back to everyday life.  The first step is getting over this cold/flu thing I have.  I have been miserable for the last few days, and today has been the worst one yet.  I have lots of stuff I want to blog about, but I think I'm going to save it all for another day and get some rest.  

I hope you all are having a wonderful start to 2012!  

{Soirees} Holiday Party Inspiration

Happy December everybody!  I thought I would kick off the month by sharing some Holiday Party inspiration with you all.  Our's is in a few weeks, so I've been scouring the internet (mostly Pinterest) for fabulous ideas.  I want to go with really bright and fun colors this year to match the great mantel piece I made this year and all the bright glittery ornaments we are going to put on the tree (tonight!).  Here is some of the inspiration I found.

The top left photo is one I found on Pinterest, but couldn't find the original home.  I love the cake and the use of presents to create height differences.  The tree is of course fabulous too, but it wouldn't work for my purposes.  I already ordered the straws in the top right photo from Shop Sweet Lulu.  I've used these straws for the last few parties I've thrown, and I'm still not sick of them yet.  The bottom left photo is from where else but HWTM.  I just found a pedestal bowl much like this at an antique store, and love how pretty these french macaroons look in it.  The bottom right photo is definitely my favorite and can be found on Such Pretty Things.  I don't know if I'm going to do a cake, but if I do I hope it's half as pretty as this one.

Well that's it for now.  I hope you all have a wonderful first day of December!  

{Soirees} Showers for the Mommy-To-Be...Amber

Remember the invitation how-to I did last month?  Well we had the shower this last weekend, and it turned out great!

We fell in love with a baby shower that was featured on HWTM done by the fabulous Paige from Pages of Style, so that was our starting point. 

I loved the shower curtain she used as a back drop for the dessert table, and since I couldn't find anything I liked nearly as much, I just bought the same one from Target (it looks great in the guest bath too by the way).  I found a cheap child bubble umbrella on Amazon, drilled holes in it, and attached tear drop crystals to look like rain drops.  It's a little hard to see in the picture, but it was so cute.  I made the cake myself (lime and strawberry cake with cream cheese graham cracker frosting), and topped it with some beautiful fondant flowers I found on Etsy.  We put powdered donuts, yogurt pretzels, and jelly beans in some bright berry containers that I purchased from Shop Sweet Lulu.  Also on the dessert buffet were cupcakes, Fat Witch Babies Brownies that I had from a Gilt sale, coconut macaroons, truffles, and rock candy.

The table set up was pretty simple.  I just bought some antiqued roses to pretty it up a bit.  We used square plastic luncheon plates and plastic silverware (easy clean up).  We use my vintage dessert plates for the dessert.  The bubble vase place card holders were from one of the hosts recent wedding.  They were a perfect touch to our "showers" theme.

We set up a little beverage station on my kitchen table featuring sparkling water, pink lemonade, french berry soda, and pomegranate soda.  We used mason jars as glasses, and I ordered paper straws (from Shop Sweet Lulu too).

For lunch, we served Mac and Cheese with a variety of toppings, antipasti skewers, and caprese salad skewers.

For the shower favors, we made our own sugar scrubs using organic sugars, almond oil, and lime essential oils.  We packaged them up, and topped them off with a little tag that said "From our shower to yours."

We also did a photo booth (without the booth) with various props that I downloaded from Oh Happy Day.  We used the Fuji Instax Mini to take all the pictures, and they all looked so cute.

I made a mini album for the mommy-to-be as a keepsake with all the pictures in it.

Well that's the shower.  It turned out so great, and I had the best co-hosts a girl could ask for.  Next up... Jason's 30th Birthday Bash.  I'll be posting the invites sometime next week.  

I hope you all have a fabulous week!  

{Soirees} Party Popper Invitation DYI

Hey everybody!  I've been very excited to show you the invitations we used to for my friend Amber's upcoming baby shower.  Instead of just showing you the finished product, I thought I would show you all how I made them.  

I first stumbled upon the idea from Oh Happy Day, and then I adjusted it a little bit to suit my needs.  I was very happy with the finished results.  If you do make these you may want to put a warning label on them because boy are they loud when they go off.  

Alright, now for my very first blog DYI.  I hope you all enjoy it!

Supplies I used for this project:

- Twistable party poppers (I purchased mine on clearance at a party supply store.)

- Confetti (I made my own using a raindrop punch, and mixed it with a sparkly pre-made confetti.)

- String or thread

- Tape (I used washi tape.)

- Circle cutter

- Scissors

- Hole punches

- Exacto knife

- Scoring Board (I used this to fold the invitation accordion style.)

- Invitation (I made my own.  The dimensions I used were 1"x 4.25".)

- Labels (I used Avery 5168 labels.)

For my invitation, I just used card stock.  I printed a stripe pattern on the back, and then printed the information on the front.  Then, I scored it to make it fold like an accordion.   

You could just pop every popper, but that gets old fast.  Instead I just removed the paper top and label, and then dumped the confetti out.  

To take apart the popper, I put one hand on the twistable base and the other hand on the main stationary part.  Then I just wiggled it until it came apart.  Then to take apart the rest you push down on the top and twist until it comes off.   

I chose to attach the invite with a piece of string.  When testing the poppers, I found that the invitation can really shoot out, and the recipient could completely miss it.  

Make sure you feed the string through the spring and through the hole of the top piece.

Yet another thing I discovered during testing.  If you don't tape off these holes, all your confetti falls through.  I used a washi tape because its thin enough (not too strong) that it'll still allow the string to feed through.

I used a tiny hole punch to create a hole for the string to go through, and then just tied it in a bow.  

For the poppers I bought 1 1/2" was the perfect size circle for the top.

Again, I used washi tape because I knew it would break easy when the popper was twisted.  If you were to use to strong of tape everything might not "pop" the way it's suppose to.  

After stuffing the invite inside, use the circle and tape you cut to seal off the top.   

To make my labels, I found and image on iStock, and then used Photoshop to design the rest.  If you don't have Photoshop, you could probably easily use Microsoft Word or Pages to whip something up too.  

There you have it.  These were pretty easy to make, and have a much bigger "wow" factor than your traditional baby shower invitations.  

I hope you all enjoyed the DYI.  Have a splendid weekend!  

{My Life, Scrumptious, and Soirees} A Little Bit Of Everything

Hey everybody!  I had a great weekend, and I hope you all did too.  Jason has been gone, so it was great to be busy and distracted.  It started with me finishing up this semester in school.  Yay!  Then on Saturday I had a great night with a couple of friends (Amber and Alli) getting ready for our friend Michelle's long awaited baby shower.  We went and got pedicures, grabbed dinner, and then came back to my house to get everything ready for the shower.  

As I had mentioned before, we had been planning on having the shower in April, but postponed it when Michelle had Baby Ethan early.  It turned out to be the perfect day.  Here are some of the details.     

We started the shower by having a sit down lunch.  We kept it very simple and just went with mini sandwiches, salads, and fruit.  We served various kinds of tea, and the teacups were part of the take home favors.  

In the kitchen we had a beverage bar and dessert table set up.  On the beverage bar we had sparkling water, french sparkling lemonade, and a raspberry sorbet punch.  We served the lemonade and punch in mason jars with paper straws.  The dessert buffet had jelly beans, reese cups, suckers, mini cupcakes (more on those to follow), and the adorable diaper cake Amber made.  

Instead of doing a traditional guest book, we opted to get a story book instead, and had everyone sign various pages throughout the book.  

We played several games, where the girls could win fabulous prizes, most of which were Aveda products provided by Alli.  My favorite game was the "Dirty Diaper Game."  One of my co-hosts melted various candy bars into diapers, and everyone had to guess which candy bar they were.  It made for some pretty funny pictures.  

Ethan is such a good baby!  He stayed up for most of the shower, and didn't really cry at all.  He just grunted, made cute noises, and looked around.  Such a cutie!  

After all the games, I snapped some pictures of Michelle with all of the guests, and then one with her and the hosts (us).  By the time the shower was coming to an end, Ethan was pretty tuckered out.  It was such a fun day.  Thank you to everyone who came!  

Okay, now back to the cupcakes.  I made Key Lime Mini Cupcakes, and they were a huge hit.  The best part was the frosting.  I used my usual Cream Cheese Frosting recipe and added graham cracker crumbs to resemble a crust, and it turned out amazing.  I will definitely be using this again and again.  Since everyone liked them so much I'm including the recipe.  I hope you all have a great week, and enjoy the recipe!    

Key Lime Pie Cupcakes with Graham Cracker Cream Cheese Frosting

Cupcake Ingredients:

- 1 box lemon cake mix

- 1 small box lime jello

- 3/4 cup water

- 1/3 cup key lime juice

- 1/3 cup vegetable oil

- 3 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line two cupcake pans with paper liners (24 total).  In a stand mixer on low combine cake mix with jello.  Add all other cupcake ingredients, and mix on medium speed until the batter is smooth.  Divide batter evenly between cupcake liners.  Bake for 16-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  

Glaze Ingredients:

- 1 cup powdered sugar

- 2 1/2 tablespoons key lime juice

While cupcakes are baking whisk together the glaze ingredients until smooth.  When the cupcakes are done, pierce the tops with a fork, and then brush the glaze over the tops.  Let cool completely and frost with Graham Cracker Cream Cheese Frosting.  

Frosting Ingredients:

- 8 oz block of cream cheese, softened

- 2 cups powdered sugar

- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened  

- 1 1/2 cups finely crushed graham crackers 

(I used my food processor to crush)

Mix cream cheese and butter until smooth.  Slowly add the powdered sugar and blend until light and fluffy.  Then add crushed graham crackers, mixing only until combined.    

{Soirees} Graduation Party (Part 1)

Photo Crdits: Weddingbee.com, MarthaStewart.com, Creative Productions, and Amy Atlas Events.

Hey everybody!  The baby shower I was working on has been postponed because the mommy had her little guy early, so you'll all have to wait a little longer to see how it all turns out.  There is another upcoming soiree on my mind though, my wonderful little sister's (of Sapphire Chic) high school graduation in May.  I get to help with the decor, so I've been busy coming up with some possibilities.  The pictures above are my inspiration so far, all of which will be altered to fit her high school colors (red, black, and white).  I'll keep you all posted during the rest of the planning process.  


I hope you all enjoy the rest of the weekend!          

{Soirees} Shabby Chic Tea Party Baby Shower (Part 2)

Photo Credits: Ellen Zilla via HWTM, Maria Hudnall via HWTM, A Very Story Photography via HWTM, and  Kari Herer via HWTM, 

Well our Shabby Chic Tea Party Baby Shower is coming along nicely.  The planning is for the most part done. Now, we just have to implement all the ideas we have found.  Here are a few more images of inspiration that I found.  I can't wait to show you all the pictures of the finished results.

I hope you all are having a fabulous weekend!

{Soirees} Staging Your Edibles

Photo Credits: Modern Moments Design via HostessBlog, A Blissful Nest via HostessBlog, and Sweet Designs.

There are lots of fun things you can do to stage the edibles for your soiree.  It's not only a great conversation piece, but it's a sure fire way to get your guests excited right when they walk in the door.  Plus, if you're like me, you'll have a lot of fun doing it.  Above are a few examples of some truly stunning tables.  Try to think outside the box, and use items you wouldn't normally think of.  For example in the top right picture, Jessica used a mail sorter to house cookies and licorice on the dessert buffet.  Such a cute idea!  

I hope you all are inspired to step up your next soiree, and equally as important, I hope you all are enjoying your weekend!

{Soirees} Shabby Chic Tea Party Baby Shower (Part 1)

Photo Credits: MarthaStewart and PomLove

In order to plan a proper soiree you need to do your research.  It's my favorite part.  I save picture after picture to look back to for inspiration.  The next event that I'm involved in is a baby shower for a good friend that I will be throwing along with two other lovely ladies.  The mother-to-be has opted not to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl, so we are able to run freely with the theme, no all pink or blue for this shower.   Here are a few images, of the many I've saved, that have inspired me so far.

I hope you all are enjoying your weekend so far!