Graduation Reception

Last week I did a graduation reception following a high school graduation ceremony. Luckily, we were able to use a room in the school building which was both economical and convenient for all the guests. The school colors were black, red and gold and I used the same colors in the decor.I covered clear vases in gold fabric and used red carnations to top them off. Next to the flower arrangements I framed old photographs of the graduate as a little girl which was fun for the guests to look at as they sat at the tables. The food, provided by Tucker's Catering, included honey pecan chicken, marinara meatballsrolls and pasta salad. It was the perfect comfort food after sitting through the graduation ceremony.The guest book featured more pictures of the graduate through the years with room for guests to leave her a message.And the delicious and beautiful cake provided by Sugarplum Visions, featured an edible image of the graduateSugarplum Visions even included a graduation cap mini cake with a matching gold tassel.

Vegas Birthday Part 3 - Birthday Dinner

The final event of the Vegas weekend was a birthday dinner in a private room at Roy's Restaurant. Pictures are once again from Jackson Photography.The colors of the night were purple and gray. Socially Write designed the place cards and menu cards in coordinating colors.The table had a dramatic centerpiece with rectangle cylinders holding purple flowers and crystal strands hanging from a silver satin ribbon wrapped pole.The birthday cake from Layers Bakery was 3 tiers consisting of cookies and cream, strawberry, and lemon. It tasted even better than it looked! The candlelight made the room sparkle in a magical way. It was a very special evening and turned out even better than I had planned!I want to thank all of my great vendors who helped to make my birthday in Vegas one that I will never forget!

Photography - Jackson Photography
Florist - The Palette
Personal Assistant - An Immaculate Touch

Vegas Birthday Part 2 - Girls Night Out

Jackson Photography did a great job once again capturing the Girls Night Out. The night started with a cocktail party in my hotel suite at the Signature at MGM Grand.Here is a picture I took of my hotel suite before I transformed the room into a modern glam cocktail party. And here is the suite transformed.The colors of the party were black and yellow, with a white and black damask pattern. As the girls entered the hotel suite they saw martini glasses with personalized drink tags and inside the glasses were the party favors - a tin of lemon drop cocktail jelly beans, lemon lip gloss, and a yellow and black bead bracelet. After the girls took their party favors out of the glasses, we served lemon drop martinis in them. As part of the decor I had a damask print board with pictures over the last 30 years. We munched on appetizers And lemon and chocolate cupcakes that I imported from of course my favorite bakery in the whole world Sugarplum Visions
And even the toilet paper matched!!!! How excited was I when I found damask print toilet paper! And here we are in the hotel lobby before we went out and danced the night away.

Vegas Birthday Part 1 - Welcome Brunch

If you guys remember from my previous post, I spent my 30th birthday in Las Vegas with friends for a weekend. I just got my pictures from Jackson Photography and wanted to share with you. I had three events - a welcome brunch, girls night out and birthday dinner. I'm going to split them up into 3 posts. I'll start first with the Welcome Champagne Brunch at Hash House A Go Go.For the decor, I was going for a modern casino feel. The restaurant had long stainless steel tables and I put a black table runner down the center and had cylinder vases with red gerbera daisies swirled on black wire and in between the vases white carnation squares with black carnations mixed in to look almost like flower dice.The menu cards were made by my invitation designer Socially Write. It was a Z fold out card.(Note the next 3 pictures are mine and not the photographer's). So when guests folded out the menu card it looked like this. The top part listed the menu items. And the bottom part was a thank you note from me with the party favor - a $5 casino chip for the MGM Grand where we were staying at. Many of the guests did not know each other before the trip. So to avoid awkward moments of silence, I did an ice breaker game that we played before the food arrived. I had a custom cootie catcher made by Caroline's Fortunehearts. She included my birthday monogram on the outside and on the inside I had fun questions and conversation starters like - when was your first kiss?, what was the worse thing you did as a child?, etc. Everyone had fun playing it and we got to learn fun tidbits about each other.And of course in true Hash House form, the food was gigantic and delicious!

Featured on Crossroads Cottage

Crossroads Cottage the company that made the pinwheels I used in Kamryn's birthday party, was nice enough to feature me on their blog. Take a look - http://crossroadscottage.blogspot.com/2008/05/pinwheels-galore.html

Kamryn's 1st Birthday

A few weeks ago we celebrated my baby Kamryn's 1st Birthday with cupcakes and play time at Collins Hill Park. All pictures are courtesy of Photography by R. Harrington. Here is a board that sums up the day. I picked Collins Hill Park because the pavilion overlooks a beautiful lake. Luckily we had no rain but the wind did unfortunately interfere with some of my decor plans. But the kids had a great time running and playing in the sunshine, and at the end of the day that is what was most important.
The colors of the party were pink and green with polka dots. I have never been a fan of carnations but now I'm really starting to like them. They are extremely cheap and when you put a bunch together they really look nice.

I made a collage of pictures from Kamryn's 1st year to display at the party. It's always amazing to see how much a baby changes over the course of a year.

The kids had fun making birthday cards for Kamryn
while the adults wrote messages of their hopes and wishes for Kamryn to read when she is older There were a wide range of ages of the kids that attended, so I had toys that would be appropriate for everyone. For the youngest ones I put down pink blankets with big green pillows. I ordered play balls from Whimsy Wendy that were made from fabric in the party's coordinating colors.
There was a playground for the older kids and I also had Frisbees and pogo sticks
And popular for kids of all ages - a bubble machine!
I ordered pinwheels in coordinating paper from Crossroads Cottage. The smaller ones were used in the cupcakes.The big pinwheels were used to mark the path along the party area. But the kids loved them so before long they started playing with them.


Party favors were mini chocolate bars with custom labels that I ordered from Wrap It Up. They even did the label in a matching green and pink polka dot. I did a cupcake tower which makes it sooo easy to serve kids without having to worry about cutting cake.
I ordered the "k" cake topper from Shea Chic Designs. She did a custom design for me and even used the same polka dot fabric that I used for the table runner. I love the idea of continuing to use this cake topper for my girls birthday cakes over the years.


My cupcakes were from my favorite bakery Sugar Plum Visions. They even included a free smash cake for Kamryn.
And boy did she enjoy it!