Category Archives: parties

Erin’s Baby Shower

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It’s official. I really like throwing parties. My friend, Erin, has two little boys about the same ages as my first two boys and now she’s pregnant with her first girl …. soooooo of course we had to do something about that :) So my friend, Leslie, and I planned a baby shower for her. I can hardly say we did it alone. There were so many contributors. Erin is very well loved around here and several people wanted to be a part of the baby shower and we took all the help we could get.

Erin said her nursery colors would probably be pink and gray, so I went from there and did pink, white and silver as the baby shower colors. It was a brunch, so we had brunchy-type foods: cherry cider and orange juice to drink, scrambled egg muffins in phyllo dough, creme brulee french toast (my new favorite thing in the world to stuff in my face), apples with honey-almond cream cheese and cracked black pepper and brown sugared bacon. For the one dessert, I did petite fours. Super difficult to pull off and I will probably never do them again. They were lots of work for only minimal pay off. Maybe I’d buy them next time :)

The theme for the shower was “feather their nest”, so there were large silver branches with paper birds on them, pink crepe paper flowers, a large silver tree with a nest inside it …. it was fun. Themes are fun. For the favors we did edible nests. You get chow mein noodles and cover them in chocolate, then put cadbury eggs inside each nest. Anyway. here are about a million pictures of everything and everyone:

When you first walked into Leslie’s house we had these flowers – homemade pink crepe paper flowers with babies breath.

This was the food table and main attraction – I made the ruffled pink table cloth (thank you 40% off coupon to Joanns for 25 yards of fabric) and Les made the silver tree with flowers and birds and nest:

Then there was the other area with the favors, branches and birdcages to leave advice on:

My little sister, Mina, came up with this little poem for the favors. Mina is a lyrical genius. This poem was on the other side of the tags on each favor.

The party scene:

The woman of the hour: 

There are so many more pictures … but I will spare you. That’s the jist of it. Yeah for Erin!!!!

gabriel’s graduation party

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Mr friend, Mimi, asked me a while ago to help her with her son’s graduation party. I kind of love planning parties and readily agreed, even though I would have a newborn while planning and decorating for the party. It was on Saturday and it went very well. I was happy. There are a few things I’d do differently, but overall, it was great. Now here are 20 pictures to detail all of it :)

This was right at the entrance to the backyard. It was for people to leave a message or some advice for Gabe.

This was also right at the entrance (because it was also the exit). It is the favor/candy table. That thing in the middle of the table, holding the sign is a large clothespin. The lollipops are in boxes that say “lollipops” on them (I love signs and labels …. I’m crazy that way).

Sooo, the favor bags that you are supposed to fill with candy are in the glass jar next to the pictures of Gabriel. I made a custom sticker that said “Thanks for coming” on it.

I don’t know if you can really see it, but I made that box for cards and gifts to Gabe and it’s behind the clothespin sign. I love the glittery letters on the top that say “Congrats Grad”. I just love glitter.

The Gabe table. My favorite part? The white frames I picked out to display his senior pictures in.

That’s burlap under the centerpieces. And that picture frame is from IKEA (99 cents) and I hot glue gunned it to a coaster I found at Michaels for 50 cents. The lantern is IKEA also, but I spray painted it red.

OK, here is mistake number 1 and something I would do differently: the balloons. They totally look wimpy. I learned that with balloons, 50 is not a lot. I should’ve done like 200 balloons in the middle of the tent, to make a real statement. Next time, I will change that. Also, I need to remember that balloons pop in severe heat and sunlight. It’s a good thing they were in the shade of the tent, but even still, a balloon would pop every so often because of the heat. Scared the crap out of the people sitting at the tables under the tent. lol.

The drink table – another mistake and something I would do differently – the medal tree. See that thing in the middle of the table? It’s a “medal tree”. It is branches I spray painted red to match the decor with Gabriel’s medals from soccer and track hanging in it. The tree gets a little lost in the bushed behind it and it looks a little scary with the red branches. I think I’d do it bigger and with leaves on the branches next time.

This was on the deck and was the dessert/ice cream table. We hadn’t put the ice cream out yet, just a few toppings when I took the picture. But you can imagine … anyway, the display board behind the table took me forever and was a major undertaking, but I loved it in the end – because it was big. I made it from hardboard and 2×4’s, painted it white and hammered nails in it to hang some of the pictures from it and then I used painters tape to tape the rest of the pictures and certificates. Totally worked. In the center of the table is the cupcake tower. I made it from cardboard boxes, wrapping paper and crepe paper.

This was the hot dog bar and where the main food was. Again, we didn’t have everything out yet, so this is the only picture I got of this table, but it was mostly just food, not a lot of decor anyway.

And this is (thankfully) what Ray did the entire morning while I was setting up the party …

He’s such a good baby Ray :)