Inspiration: Snowflakes & Sparkle New Year's Eve

My next Tiny Prints-inspired New Year Eve inspiration is called Snowflakes & Sparkle. 

(Click here to see the metallic inspiration board, and here to see the clocks inspiration board.) 

Fun, modern snowflake New Year's Eve invite from Tiny Prints. 

Martha's mantle decor features sparkly blue snowflakes, baubles, and some white candies. 

Snowy cupcakes with pretty beaded snowflake toppers, from Country Living.  

Snowflakes, champagne, and noisemakers make for a pretty table. 

The beautiful paper snowflakes, which I originally spotted here, were made by Nicole Wills of Tradewinds Tiaras. Lucky for us, TomKat Studio recently featured a tutorial on how to recreate these.  

Sparkly snowflakes from Target -- can't beat that price!

Cute sign from Etsy -- New Year's Eve kisses!

Inspiration: Clock New Year's Eve

My next Tiny Prints-inspired New Year's Even Party inspiration is clocks!  Perfect for counting down to 2011!

(Click here to see my metallic inspiration board)

Classy clock invite from Tiny Prints.

Martha's festive clock mantle display would work as a centerpiece also.

Cute clocky cupcake toppers from Etsy -- buy them and the wrappers here. 

Blue & silver clock table setting from BHG.

Vintage clock plates from Pottery Barn.

Crafty clock tray from BHG -- get DIY instructions here.

White & silver clock table setting from Taste of Home -- look closely to see the wrist watch napkin rings!

Inspiration: Metallic New Year's Eve

We all love Tiny Prints for invitations. I thought I'd use some of their invites as inspiration for New Year's Eve Parties this week.  

I'm starting with gold & silver...

Love this Dazzling Confetti Invite from Tiny Prints! 

Vintage metallic baubles on a silver tray are a beautiful display for the entire holiday season. 

Martha's streamers are made from re-purposed wrapping paper! 

This festive gold tablescape sets the stage for a classy evening. 

This wrapping paper would make a great background for a candy bar, paper "placemats", or candy wrappers -- the possibilities are endless!

Martha's fun countdown champagne flutes are perfect for a New Year's toast. 

Real Party: Ornament Exchange

My annual ornament exchange with some of my girlfriends was today.  Janelle hosted the ladies, and though I was in another state, I never like to a miss party! :) I attended via Skype - my first time using it.  They sat "me" in the laptop at the table with them, and I didn't have to miss out on anything! Fabulous!

I can't wait to see my cute cupcake ornament in person!

Merry Christmas!

Our 2010 Christmas Card

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend with family & friends! 

My Christmas Table(s)

 For Christmas Eve Dinner we will have a full house. So much so that I will have 2 tables. 

My table settings are nothing fancy, but I am definitely in the spirit now that things are set for dinner! 

I am really in love with the brown glass candle sticks I found at the Good Will when I went to get this frame.  I see other bloggers find great stuff there, and I never seem to. Finally I have some great candle sticks! 

 It was fun to use my place cards from TomKat Studio that I purchased last year. And I love the tablecloth I have from Crate & Barrel. 

It looks amazing with my new copper chargers and some of our china. 

My other table  is a little folding table -- a little squishier, but that's ok.

I took a cue from Jackie Fo and went with cranberries for my centerpieces on this one (which I froze after the pancake breakfast, just as she suggests). 

Wishing you all the happiest of Holidays!

DIY Idea: Homemade Apple Butter Gifts

I like to make something to give as presents every year.  Homemade gifts are very appreciated and (bonus!) it saves a little money during this expensive season.  

I told you how my friend Lindsay recently moved into a new home.  The new house has an awesome apple tree in the backyard, so she and I raided the tree and used some of the apples to make apple butter. 

This turned out to be quite an undertaking.  We used this recipe.  The apple butter turned out to be quite yummy, but what a mess it made! We were literally scrubbing sticky apple butter off the walls! 

I've seen many other recipes out there and would recommend trying one that used a slow cooker instead of the stove top like the recipe we used. 

We did eventually finish and manage to get the kitchen (walls, floor, counters) clean. 

We doubled the recipe, which filled 24 4oz jars with a little left over. 

I made some cute little labels to put on the top of my jars. 

For gifts, I packaged them with two kinds of muffin mix and a cute spreader.  They looked pretty darn cute wrapped with cellophane and tied with a bow! 

Lindsay baked some bread to go with hers and tied them with burlap & twine.  Adorable. 

Click here to see the pesto I made last year. 

Real Party: Pancake Breakfast

My friend Jeani once spent time volunteering at a school in Uganda, through a program called i.HUG. 

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Jeani and one of the school kids from her time in Uganda. 

Click here to see some other pictures of the school. 

i.HUG is an amazing program that works to run a school, train teachers, raise scholarships to send children to the school, increase access to medical care in the areas they serve, and form income-generating projects to sustain the program. 

Every year Jeani does some kind of fundraiser for this program and school that she loves so much.   This year she decided to do a pancake breakfast.  

I was thrilled that she asked my friend Lindsay and I to help with styling the event! 

The first thing I did was call up my friend Will. He was responsible for the gorgeous tablescapes at this wedding.  I asked him to borrow the hurricanes. Remember these? 

Instead of the earthy black rocks from the wedding, I used festive cranberries. 

Cute, right? 

Lindsay made a few burlap squares with red ribbon edging to go under them. 

The next thing I did was make a menu and a little Christmas tree i.HUG graphic for the buffet table.  

Jeani's collage of pictures from her time with i.HUG. (sorry for the blurry pic!)

Silverware and napkins on the beverage station.  

I cannot take any credit for the food, but I can tell you it was delicious! 

Seriously, I am never making pancakes out of a box again after I tasted Jeani's homemade pancakes! 

Here's the pancake crew: Lindsay, me, Jeani, Deb, & Molly 

(I also have to give a shout-out to Tom and Monica who were a master pancake flipper & fruit displayer that morning!)

What a fun way to raise some money for an awesome cause! 

I'll update later with our total raised.  


This is a awesome, trustworthy program where money donated goes a long way to make a difference in the lives of children.  If you are still planning to do some charitable giving this year, please consider i.HUG. 

I am Loving: Non-Traditional Holiday Colors

Lots of my favorite blogs have gotten creative with color when it comes to holiday parties and decorating this year. And I love it! 

Here's a few highlights: 

My bloggy BFF Jackie Fo styled the most adorable pink and green cookie exchange.  Check it out here.  Lots of fun details in one of my favorite color combinations!

TomKat Studio and Save the Date for Cupcakes collaborated on this adorable party inspiration in bright pink and aqua.  Too cute!  (And bonus: the printables are for sale here!)

 

Love red, black, and white for a modern look, like this table by Jesi Haack Weddings, spotted at Hostess with the Mostess.  

Did you see the fun gift wrapping party that Birthday Girl shared? I thought the subtle color scheme of blue, green, rose and silver was lovely and sophisticated. 

If you are new around here, you may have missed my Colors of Christmas series that I did last year featuring some of my favorite alternative color combos for the holidays. 

Click to check out the fun inspirations boards: 

Aqua & Green

Purple & Silver

Gold & Silver

Pink & Gold

DIY Idea: Frame Christmas Card Holder

I have struggled the last few years with how to display my Christmas cards.  I LOVE getting Christmas cards in the mail, and really wanted to love how they were displayed in my home, but I was never happy with the things I tried each year. 

And then, on Wednesday I saw this post over at one of my favorite blogs: Celebrations at Home.  I knew immediately I had my solution. 

I rushed straight to the Goodwill to find a frame. I decided to do a fabric background, and fell in love with this green burlap.  And just like Chris said, it took me 10 minutes to put together! (That is my kind of craft project!) 

Totally in love with the frame I found: antiqued looking gold with red flecks. Perfect for Christmas decor!

Now I need to stop procrastinating and go finish my own Christmas cards!

Book Club Lunch

My friend Katie hosted bookclub this past weekend. 

Our book this month was: 

 

Side note: If anyone is in a bookclub, I would highly recommend this one.  Everyone loved it (even the people who hadn't finished it, which is often a lot of people in our bookclub! haha)

You might recongize the centerpiece from our Christmas Dinner.  With the addition of a little purple ribbon, it was transformed perfectly for book club one week later.  

Anyway, onto Katie's fabulous lunch: 

 Mini pizzas...

..and roasted vegetable salad. 

Katie had grilled lots of different veggies on the barbeque: asparagus, eggplant, bell peppers, onions, brussel sprouts, corn.

We passed the bowls around and topped our greens with whatever we wanted. It was a yummy way to do a winter salad. 

Next month's book: 

Real Party: Cookies & Champagne

Sunday was our annual baking extravaganza, which I  call "Cookies & Champagne".   

We had lots of fun, ate too much sugar, and baked up a storm!

 Molly's homemade almond roca

 My peanut butter blossoms

Drea's monster cookies, Katie's cowgirl cookies, and Deb's chocolate caramel cups. 

That is just a small portion of what we ended up with! 

 I made an easy little lunch for the all the bakers: Martha Stewart's black bean chili (which stayed nice and warm in my Crockpot) and corn bread. 

(You might recognize the pinecone tree from my friend Lindsay's Housewarming party dessert table.)

 And of course, some champagne. 

Party favors: adorable mini colanders (in bright and green) with a cookie cutter, and a mini champagne bottle.  

I found the colanders here.  They were a.dor.able. Even more so in person. 

See my post about last year's party here. 

The biggest improvement that I made over last year was grabbing a bunch of plastic tablecloths at the dollar store.  We used them as tablecloths and on the floor and it made clean up so much easier.  Of course there were a few spills, and I was glad I had them.