Real Party: Blue & Orange Garden Party Sip & See

My friends Leslie & Pavel's son is Dylan. Dylan's Grandparents recently hosted a gathering for friends and family to meet little Dylan.

I was asked to help with decorations and desserts.  Of course my partners-in-crafting Lindsay and Drea helped to execute the plans.

What a beautiful day it turned out to be. Leslie's parents have an incredible yard for entertaining. It served as the perfect setting for the gathering.

Leslie chose this invitation from Minted.com and just reworked the wording so it wasn't for a birthday.  This invite was our inspiration for the color scheme. The invitation was perfect because Leslie had really wanted to incorporate some of the 36 inch balloons we had used at her baby shower.

My husband made this chalkboard for me recently.  It was perfect to point guests to the backyard.  (We literally found the frame on the side of the road and he added the center wood, painted it with chalkboard paint, and then put legs on the back. I have so many uses planned for it already! Yay!)

This beautiful display lined the pathway that guests walked to reach the party area.

Leslie punched hundred and hundreds of circles and attached them to sticks.  Wow, that was a lot of work. But it looked so great!

The party area has lots of trees, so our main decor was hung from them.

We cut hundreds of triangles and sewed dozens of yards of bunting. 

And Leslie ordered a bunch of paper lanterns in different shades of blue. 

I thought it was stunning.

We had some round tables spread across the grass lawn. 

Dylan's Grandma put together some simple white flower centerpieces.  Lindsay and I made some fabric squares for the centers of the tables.

Now the most important part: Food & Drink! 

There was a bar and 2 food stations: one with Mexican food, and one with Chinese food. Yum and Yum. We used more bunting and balloons to decorate the tables.

Lindsay, Drea, and I worked together to make lots of cupcakes.

We topped them with m&m's in greys and blues, and built a simple little display with some fabric covered boxes. We put a few pictures of the guest of honor in Ikea frames.

Dylan and his Mom.

Too cute.

Resources: 
Invitation: Minted
Party Rentals: Danny Thomas Party Rentals
Chinese Food: New Orient
Mexican Food: El Paisa Taco Truck
Paper Lanterns: Jade Time
Balloons: Bargain Balloons

Rustic Wine-Themed Dessert Table

Yesterday I told you about the wedding of my friends Eddie & Andrea. 

I'm was so excited to help with their dessert table.  Especially when Andrea and I discussed our vision for the table. We decided on a rustic wine theme with touches of purple. 

I love the rustic look, so I jumped all over this! 

The venue had several rustic looking wood tables, so we used one of those and decided against any linens.  

I used tall apothecary jars filled with wine corks and a tall flower arrangement (provided by Andrea's florist) as a centerpiece for the table. 

 I also made some cork frames for the table... Love Is Sweet.

A cork frame was placed by the to-go boxes, which were stacked on a wine barrel next to the table. 

I used a variety of glass vessels, tiered stands, and cake stands to hold the desserts.  I also used two vintage wooden milk crates, which held wine bottles.  I had hard plastic cut to place on the top to make it safe to put edibles on.  I think these were fun statement pieces on the table. 

The desserts consisted of: 

Milk chocolate balls, grape gummy bears, and grape lollipops {from Candy Warehouse}

Red velvet cupcakes, chocolate mousse cups, and fruit tarts {provided by the Lodge at Sonoma}

Chocolate chip cookies {from Bi-rite}

And peanut butter cake pops {by me!}

My cake pops were a hit! I've made them several times, and these were definitely my best ones yet. Andrea asked for peanut butter cake pops.  Why didn't I think of this before?! 

I used Christi of P is for Party's recipe (from her other blog -- here), which basically calls for adding peanut butter to boxed cake and store-bought frosting.  I used yellow cake, and vanilla butter cream frosting.  Easy & delicious!  The pops reminded me of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. 

And aren't they cute with their little purple bows? :)

Photos by Lindsay Kanetomi
Thanks for letting me do this Eddie & Drea! I had a great time!

Real Party: 60th Birthday Party

I've been talking about the 60th Birthday Party that my friend Ruby and I helped to style recently.  Our clients were very happy with how everything turned out & I'm so excited to finally share the details! 

The party was thrown by the birthday girl's 2 sons and daughters in law.  Each daughter in law had received tea sets from the birthday girl as wedding gifts, so we knew this had to be incorporated into the decor.  We decided to make the party a tea party, and then settled on the theme of "Six-Tea".  It was so much fun! 

First up: the dessert table!

The centerpiece was a teapot with flowers and a custom sign with a teapot graphic that I made.  

(We had a little mishap with the styling: the hostess in charge of bringing all the flowers was running very late, so we improvised and found some in the backyard.  I think they looked okay.)

Goodies on the dessert table included cake pops, chocolate covered strawberries, yogurt covered pretzels, vanilla cupcakes, sixlet candies, frosted brownie bites, and madeline cookies. 

All the candy was labeled with a custom label with the teapot graphic. 

The teapot graphic was also featured on the to-go boxes. 

Also in the kitchen was the tea station that I showed you recently.  We rented a hot water percolator, and displayed the two hostesses many tea cups and saucers.  Several kinds of tea and the invitation were also displayed.  Ruby made a {TomKat Studio inspired} garland to hang around the table. 

We also rented several cocktail tables and spread them around the level of the house where the party took place.

On each table was a fabric square to match the dessert table background.  We grouped various other teapots, teacups, and creamers on each table.  With the flower debacle, we had to improvise again, and ended up putting candles and chocolate candies in them.  And my little signs stuck in the spouts. 

The hostesses served made little sandwiches and fruit kabobs, which I did not get a picture of. 

What a great day! When I returned to help clean up, every bite of the desserts was gone! People had packed their to-go boxes full! :) Happy Six-Tea Jaye!

Vendors: 

Tables, linens and hot water percolator were rented from Your Party Rental Company

To-go boxes from Paper Mart

Pretzels from Nuts Online

Sixlets from Candy Direct