22 November 2011
I am hosting Thanksgiving dinner again this year. It will be very small by my family’s standards (just five of us). I don’t really have the extra cash on hand to buy new pieces for the table, so I’m trying to brainstorm with what I already have, and come up with something that will coordinate well with my blue willow ware dishes. Here are a few ideas I’ve collected:
acorn candle votives from Pottery Barn
pretty pink and gold table design by Tara Guerard from Southern Living
pinecone door decor via Something Green
napkin menu wrap via Project Wedding
more nut candles from Good Housekeeping
velvet silverware wrap via Style Me Pretty (photo by Brooke Boling)
Are any of y’all hosting Thanksgiving dinner?
P.S. Last year’s Thanksgiving dinner
21 October 2011
As some of you may remember, John and I traveled home for an engagement party back in September. We were lucky enough to have five hostesses for our party — my three best friends from childhood, and two of their three moms. We were so grateful to them for throwing us a wonderful party, and I really wanted to do something for them as a thank you.
However, buying “good” gifts for five hostesses was looking a little challenging to my budget. I also was hoping to get them all something similar, despite the 20+ year difference in age between moms and daughters :) I’m pretty happy with the solution I came up with, and thought some of you might be able to use it for future hostess gifts, too!
Basically, I went wild on Shop Sweet Lulu. SSL is an amazing source for pretty party supplies, and I happily indulged my love for colorful goods by packing an assortment of chevron bags, tiny pastel candles, cupcake wrappers, nut cups, and fringy garlands into my shopping cart. It was so exciting to finally have a legitimate reason to do so! :)
Once my box arrived…
I split everything up evenly between the five hostesses and added in a few goodies I already had in my supplies (including striped paper straws, of course!). I loved that I could include a large sample of pretties for each person, which would have been cost-prohibitive if I had been shopping for just one gift. Being able to mix and match made it possible to design a custom mix for each gal!
I packed each gal’s goods into one of my favorite metallic + kraft bags, and added a matching handmade tag marked “for your next party.” :)
They seemed to be a hit!
12 September 2011
I was in Target the other day for something else when these pretties caught my eye. Aren’t they lovely? I adore the metallic gold accent.
They’d probably be fairly easy to DIY, but at $.79 for two, it’s almost not worth it!
23 August 2011
I finally had a minute to read the May issue of Martha Living, and my favorite story was the pink and gray book-themed baby shower. I love books, I love the color pink, and I love beautifully-styled parties, so this one was pretty much a no-brainer for me.
Gorgeous illustrated invitations by Rifle Paper Co — AND they’re available to download on Martha’s site, too! I love that they included a book plate in the invitation.
A clever menu written on a stack of books.
Fun in food shapes and cute picks make everything tastier, right?
The hostesses suggested guests bring the gift of a favorite book from childhood, which I think is a lovely idea. In fact, I’ve been to a similar shower before (I wrote a little bit about it here), and it turned out wonderfully!
You can see more photos from this story here!