I love everything vintage and have recently developed a fondness for vintage tablecloths so I wanted to incorporate those into the party.

The luncheon was held out on the patio in our garden.  Fortunately we had wonderful weather.  After a very rainy spring and early summer I was a little worried but the weather came through and it was almost too warm and sunny.  We pulled out the sun hats and sunglasses and everyone did fine.

I also have a little collection of vintage aprons.  Since I had to use my ugly folding chairs I decided to dress them up a bit with the vintage aprons.  I used a double sided tape to tape them onto the top of the chairs.  It worked great.

For the table decor I used my blue mason jars I had picked up last year for the backyard wedding reception I helped with.

I filled them with flowers from my garden and placed a jar on each table along with a couple of old, vintage books.

The only flowers I had to buy was one bunch of hydrangea from Costco which I used in the arrangement I put on the serving table.

I also used the blue and clear canning jars to display pictures of my mother through the ages.  People loved looking at the photos!

I also added some vintage inspired pinwheels into some of the jars.

I borrowed an old vintage quilt from a friend to use as a backdrop.  The serving table was right up against our fireplace and there was an ugly black vent I needed to cover up.  I ran a wire line and used clothes pins to hang it behind the table.  It worked perfect.

I basically just found every vintage type thing in my house and used it to decorate with.  An old shelf from my girl’s room that was in the garage, a sign from Tessa’s room, books from the family room.  I just went around the house collecting things.

My Aunt Pam came down from Canada for the party and brought me this beautiful hat she found at a garage sale.  It very quickly became part of the decor.

I like to use signage on my serving table.  I always like to know what I am eating and besides that it looks pretty!

The menu consisted of three types of quiche, four salads, bread, cupcakes and cake.  For more details on the menu check out the recipes I’ll be posting over at Your Homebased Mom.

The desserts were on a separate serving table.  I found an old rusty shelf at a vintage shop that I used to give the table some height.  I added more flowers and books.

I also stacked 3 cake plates on top of each other for the cupcakes.

The finishing touch was a pretty girl in a vintage dress and apron to help serve!

Since the party was back in the garden I wanted people to know which direction to go so I pulled out Daisy and added a sign to her so people knew where the party was!

The best part of the party?  Was just watching my mom enjoy herself with her friends!

Happy Birthday Mom – we love you!

Ashley hosted an amazing  baby shower for a dear friend who was expecting a little boy.  Ashley says that this shower  was an extra fun one to plan for because the guest list was for a dozen lovely ladies {rather than 30}, so she was able to spend some extra time on the details–she even used real plates (a girl after my own heart!)

She chose a “spring time” theme in turquoise, lime green, orange and yellow.

So let me introduce Ashley and have her tell you all about her beautiful baby shower.  Almost makes me want to have another baby (not) but I am stealing some of her ideas for a baby shower I am helping host this summer.

Here’s Ashley:

I chose a “spring time” theme in turquoise, lime green, orange and yellow.

I made these Pom Poms using a tutorial from Leanne at Organize and Decorate Everything. I love them so much–I wish I could leave them up all year round {and maybe I will, lol}.

To stay within the “garden/backyard” theme I bought a 12 pack of mason jars at my local grocery store and used them for cups. I used extra large malt straws purchased from Michael’s.

I made this banner using scrapbook paper and pre-cut letters that come in a pack {also available at Michael’s}. I glue gunned each paper flag down on to a long strand of turquoise ribbon.

Here was my nifty little party favor. I made these earrings using this tutorial.

The theme was “Cute as a Button”.

I glue gunned this trim around vases from the dollar store.

I learned how to make these pinwheels from Gillian at All the Small Things.

I threw some of the pinwheels in with my flower arrangements.

Yummy Spring time cupcakes.

Summer salad with strawberries, mandarin oranges, sliced almonds and a sweet honey vinaigrette dressing.

Homemade chicken salad sandwiches on croissants.

Most of my decorations and favors were used with supplies from the Dollar Tree and the sale section at Michael’s {and I’m not just saying that}. If you want to know where I purchased anything specific leave me a comment over at my blog and I will get back to you.

All in all, one rather awesome baby shower!

An amazing amount of thought, time and effort went into this event. Birdie lives in the south of France (yes I said France) ans she had  planned to hold outdoors but as Mother Nature has a tendency to do she decided to do her own thing – instead of sunshine she brought a windy and gray day instead,

Birdie was flexible though and set up indoors instead.

The hubs is not big on desserts and with the Indian theme, we didn’t want any cakes. Instead, we filled the table with Indian-style sweets – Fit for a Maharajah!!

Some of the sweets I made myself, like the blue Indian “truffles” (I made them up..) and the gulab jamun, and shall share the recipes with you in due course. Others more elaborate sweets such as the oriental petit fours below, I bought from our local oriental shop.

In addition to the party favor sweets, I also made some Spicy Mango chutney for the adults – We also had some on the day, so I liked the idea of the guest taking some home to enjoy the party a little longer!

Because we were indoors, I had to display the party food and some of the party décor on small tables which I placed all around the room. By the entrance which leads to our courtyard, I placed a well wishes tree – I say tree…It was a couple of branches I sprayed silver. I then decorated the branches with some small paper flower similar to the coloured paper pom-poms above the desserts table.

The “wishes” were small round cards in the same design of the party theme with a picture of myself and the hubs. Our guests were then encouraged to leave well wishes or “word of wisdom” hehe and hang them on the tree. This makes for nice memento of the day for us…

And more party favors (bangles, papier maché elephant and watercolours for the children, Indian tea personalised with the celebration date, scented candles and soap for the adults) were displayed in clear bags and small kitsch boxes I found at the oriental store for just €1 each! The boxes looked as though they were made for this occasion, in the party colours and even had a blue elephant on them!

These party favors were displayed also by the entrance inside a small wheel-barrow decorated in the colours of the party. A small plaque read “Oriental Delights” to which I attached a silk blue ribbon.

By the wishes tree, I place a “wishing well” with floating candles and rose petals – It looked like an offering to the “gods”….Very Indian!

I also used some inexpensive metal photo holders to clip the food plaques. They tied in really well with the “bling” party décor!

Oh, one thing I used that made all the difference, were pieces of mirrors (I had those at home, but you can get them cut to your specifications at a DIY shop) as trays and plates to hold the food on the table. This allowed more light to be reflected and looked really stunning with candles on them too – And off course I had to have birds everywhere!! hehe

More candles completed the scene. In fact there were candles everywhere and they really helped to set the party mood and looked fab in the evening!

For the candles holders I used empty glass yoghurt pots, and glued a strip of coloured ribbon around with a big, fat rhinestone in the middle for extra Indian bling.

The flowers of choice were bright, pink gerberas in glass carafes filled with coloured sweets. But you could also use coloured sand, pebbles…

Oh, and to complete the party scene I also designed a blue elephant cut-out that I displayed around the tables – It looked so cool and was a talking point with children and adults alike!

One of their end of the year celebrations is an ice cream social.  Dawn put together these darling table decorations and shared some photos with me.

Using empty ice cream containers and fresh flowers from her garden she not only carried out the theme but saved a lot of money too.  I love it!

She just placed jars inside the containers and placed the flowers in the jars.  She also made some mini bouquets with the tiny teeny new single serve
cartons.

Thanks for sharing your fun table decor idea Dawn!

My favorite part of any wedding is, no surprise, the food!

The parents of the bride, Andrea and Mark, really wanted the wedding to reflect Nathan & Emily’s tastes so they let them totally choose the menu.

From the start they knew they wanted to have Key Lime pie instead of cake.  After searching around for a place to order pies from, they ended up enlisting some friends and baking 200 individual pies.  It took them about 3 1/2 hours to make them all and they had to raid quite a few stores for all the crusts that they needed.  They were delicious and a fun treat.

For the lunch menu, they wanted Mexican.  They chose a local favorite in the Lansing area called EL AZTECO.  They also decided to let the guest eat upon arrival at the reception rather than have them wait for the wedding party to arrive.  This made for very happy guests with tummies filled with delicious Mexican food when the photos were done.

The food was served buffet style with clear plastic plates from Sam’s Club and plastic silverware that they rolled up into white napkins and tied with twine.  The wedding invitations that Andrea’s daughter,Lauren designed consisted of 5 3×5 cards that were tied together with twine also.

Andrea affectionately calls their wedding style SHABBY CHIC.

They also had a fun candy bar at the reception.

They chose candy that they liked!  They made it the favor for everyone to take home.  Andrea learned that the tricky part of doing a candy bar is that you need 2-3 times the amount of candy that will actually be taken home or consumed in order to make it look FULL.  A great tip they had was to put small bowls overturned inside some of the big punch bowls that they used to take up space and make it look fuller.

Again, Andrea enlisted help and gave one of her friends the list of all the candy and she bought it all at Sam’s Club and Gordon Food Service in bulk.  They bought little plastic gusseted bags that had white lace printed on them and came with silver twist ties.  They were a little bigger than they wanted people to have so they trimmed them down.  I was surprised how many people loved it!  Even the older people still loved the candy!

This was definitely a wedding full of love and attention to what really matters!  Andrea was able to put together an amazing, not to be forgotten, wedding of her dreams for her daughter while staying within their families budget and not going totally crazy!

Thanks Andrea for sharing your photos and all the great information!!

The flowers are an important part of a wedding but they can also be an expensive part!  One of the best ways to save money on flowers is to do it yourself.  It’s easier than you think!

Andrea said they had never done flower arranging before except to help with her sister’s wedding last year, but they decided to give it a try.  She searched the Internet for sites to order flowers from and chose fiftyflowers.com because they had wonderful reviews from their customers.  Andrea was a little scared to order because she really wasn’t sure how many to get, but she just ordered what they could afford and figured if they didn’t have enough, they’d buy local at the last minute.

The flowers arrived on Thursday morning via FedEx.  They trimmed them all and placed them into large buckets from home depot for the next 24 hrs.

Some of them were still not opened and fiftyflowers told them to mix a solution of 1 tsp of vinegar, 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp of sugar  with a 1/2 gallon of water and that would force the blooms to open.  Nathan, the groom, is an IT major at Michigan State University, so they decided to break up some computer parts (ram, floppy drive, etc) and mingle it in with the boutonnieres for him and all his groomsmen.  They were cute!

The bouquet for all the women were made next and then the rest of the corsages.

All the flowers that were left were arranged at the reception site on Friday afternoon.

They used White Ranunculus, Color me Purple Garden Centerpiece (which gave them a great variety) and then Purple Lisianthus.  They borrowed clear vases of all different shapes and sizes for the tables.  Some tables had one, some had more if the vases were small.

I loved how they used all different vases and Mason jars!

Jars of flowers were hung from the pews in the church too – lovely!

Next Up:  The Wedding Food!

Emily chose the colors for the wedding after she went dress shopping which I think was a brilliant idea.  Instead of deciding on a color scheme and then trying to find dresses that matched she first found the dresses she loved and the colors they were available in and then used that to establish her color scheme!

She really liked the combination of green & purple (actually LAPIS and CLOVER) that were available in the dresses she chose.  With 7 bridesmaids she thought it would be good to break it up with more than one color.

Even though those were the COLORS for the wedding, they decided not to go too crazy with everything in purple & green all over the place.  This is Andrea and Mark’s second 2nd daughter to get married and they told both of them that the wedding is a special day, but it is just A DAY, not A MARRIAGE.  They wanted it to be pretty, fun, original & special, but they did it on reasonable budget.  So wise!

The main thing they did in the color scheme was the paper lanterns.  They saw some fun ideas for using them at receptions online and  ordered them all, on sale, from asianideas.com. They ordered green too, but in the end, they sent the green back and went for purple, light purple and white.

They even used them at the front of the church to bring the theme of the reception into the beginning of the event.

They hung them all with fishing line.  It took a long time to hang them all and a few got ruined in the TORRENTIAL RAIN they had for 2 days prior to the wedding, but it really made the tents look magical.  They strung inexpensive tulle around the whole tent wrapped with white Christmas lights.  They borrowed the lights from all their friends and just had them tape their names onto each so they could return in the end.

About a week before the wedding they decided they wanted to have assigned seating at the tables and thought of the idea of Names for table titles instead of numbers.  The Names consisted of of things that were important to the couple and told the story about them to the people sitting there.

They picked up sticks in the woods and attached the table signs with twine to them and stuck them into the centerpieces.  We hung the individual names or family cards from twine clothes line that was attached to cedar posts and cemented into buckets.  Her friend Chantelle came up with this idea.  As people walked up to the location, they just removed their name from the clothes pin and searched for their table.

Next Up:  The Wedding Flowers!

Cupcakes are the perfect dessert for a graduation party and here are some darling Graduation Cupcake Toppers.  A free download!

These darling Graduation Flags could be used for all kinds of fun things! Another great free download.

Need a fun and unique graduation gift?  Check out Lisa’s fun post on a Soda Fountain Gift.  What graduate wouldn’t love all the makings for their own soda fountain!

For the younger graduates (preschool, elementary school) check out all of Marie of Make and Takes great ideas for a Kid Graduation Party!

Tip Junkie did a great post on all kinds of graduation party ideas!

And of course don’t forget about the fun graduation lei!

Happy Graduation!

I read a lot of wedding blogs and I am always blown away by the amazingly beautiful things I see.  Most of them are put together by professional wedding planners and designers.  So beautiful but for the majority of us just not in our budget.

When I saw the photos of Andrea’s daughters wedding that she posted on Facebook I was so excited.  You could feel the love that went into putting this wedding together.  It wasn’t a high price, Hollywood style wedding but it was a beautiful wedding that fit into their families budget that was put together by family and friends that loved the bride and groom.  It was a beautiful day that accomplished their primary goals:

#1 that God would be glorified in the event

#2 Nathan & Emily’s love would shine for all the world to see

#3 that not only would Nathan & Emily have FUN, but it would be a joyous occasion for all! Andrea says they met all our goals and then some!

Aren’t Nathan & Emily darling!

The reception was held at their friend’s beautiful farm, Stepping Stones Farm in Michigan. Originally they were going to place the tents on the lawn, but when they considered that Michigan usually gets their April Showers in May, they started worrying about squishy lawns. So, they decided to use the tennis courts.

Two large tents were place on the court after the net was removed. One tent was a 30×40 rectangle and the other was a 30×40 hexagon. They rented the tents, tables, chairs, and dance floor.

At the last minute they borrowed another small square tent with 3 sides from friends.  They butted that right up to the side of the other two for the gift table and the Candy Bar. Their hope was to NOT use the walls for the tents, but they  kept them on until just hours before the reception when the rain stopped and the sun came out!

It’s another great idea for a party favor at your upcoming graduation parties!  Use your school colors for the tassels!  So cute!

For more info and directions head on over here.