Everyday Celebrating

Stacked pumpkin cookies

photo credit: Cake Central

Adorable pumpkins made with stacked sugar cookies iced with royal icing and fondant stems and vines.

Fall decorating

When I look at this photo (from Better Homes and Gardens)about nature inspired fall decorating, I immediately think of pew markers.  Fabulous fall wedding pew markers!

Decorate your own cupcakes!

photo credit:  Herbert Harper

Along the lines of the candy buffet, comes the decorate your own cupcake display.
This one was featured at a wedding, but the idea crosses all party lines - especially with children.

One thing to think about when planning one is the number of guests who will need to be accommodated at once.  No one wants to stand in line forever just to decorate a cupcake.  Using a round table like this, place a large stand or maybe even two at different heights at the center of the table.  Then totally surround the table with a circle of toppings.   Have two or three sets of the same toppings at the table so many more guests can be served at once.

The mini-barrel

Functional and fabulous!
The new Red Truck Mini Barrel holds 4 bottles of wine or 20 glasses of wine. $30
Debuting at Sam's Clubs in March 2009, these are popular with the wine tasting set.  And, they look good while doing it.   Use these barrels as the centerpiece to your vineyard decor surrounding it with grapes, vines, leaves, etc.

Makes a great looking gift too!  Housewarming, birthday, etc.

Tip:  The round grapevine wreaths you get at any craft store, can be pulled apart.  When unrolled they create a really nice, twisted, single vine that curls beautifully for uses such as over doorways, mantles, lining a table, etc.

Caramel Apple Martinis

Love this photo an apple martini presentation by Country Living magazine.

I love a good apple martini and even better, for fall, is the caramel apple martini.  I'll warn you, it's a bit on the sweet side, but it's unique and tasty and good for those that don't like the taste of alcohol.

First, mix up the martini:

2 parts of butterscotch Schnapps
2 parts sour apple Pucker
1 part Vodka

Shake all 3 together in a cocktail shaker with ice and strain into a martini glass. 

For an extra touch, glaze the glass with caramel.  Either melted caramels or caramel syrup.

Garnish with a slice of apple on the rim or float a cross section of apple in the actual drink.

Thank you notes for floral gifts.

Have you ever sent someone flowers and given the florist specific instructions as to what you wanted sent and then always wondered what exactly WAS sent?  Or maybe you didn't tell them what you wanted, but just wondered what that $50 got you?  LOL  And who wants to ask the recipient, "hey, what DID those flowers look like, anyway?"

I heard this suggestion on the radio and thought it was a great idea and wanted to pass it along.

If you RECEIVE flowers, enclose a photo of the flowers inside the thank you note.  Sounds so common sense, doesn't it? 

If you received flowers for having a new baby, take a picture with your baby beside the flowers.  A) Everyone wants to see the baby and feel like they got a special first look at him/her and B) they get to see the flowers they purchased and C) you're taking care of a thank you note!

So easy and the receiver will love seeing the flowers that were sent in their name.

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Speaking of hearing suggestions on the radio... Celebrations.com (a member of the 1-800-Flowers family of brands) has invited me to be a guest on their radio show tomorrow. This show is hosted by the TV Host Jeanne Benedict of the DIY Network's Weekend Entertaining. I'll be talking about end of summer party centerpieces! It's a 30 minute show airing at 3pm EST on Blog Talk Radio and we'd love for you to join us.  If you're not familiar with Blog Talk Radio, it includes a chat feature where you can ask questions and meet other listeners.  Note:  you do have to log in to use this feature.

Custom maps

As you probably would've guessed, I was one of those brides that made my own wedding invitations. This was back when that wasn't popular and there wasn't a lot of ideas to go by on the internet.  That was back when Crane's still ruled and you went searching over books and books of "eh" invites. 

One of the hardest tasks of my involved invitation was the map.Luckily, I'm pretty good with publishing software, but still, it was a chore.  Just getting it to some kind of scale, etc, was awkward and difficult.

But today, there are plenty of amazingly talented people that you can hire to just design your map!
Like the ones above from Go Against the Grain.

For $35, they'll create a 2 sided design that you can print yourself.  WELL worth the money, let me tell you!

And you can have one designed for any type of occasion.  Not just weddings.  Believe me, your guests will thank you! 

A sucker for fruit with flowers

You may have noticed that things have been slow around here last week.  I was in Chicago at the BlogHer conference and then spent a few days in Ohio visiting relatives.

There were several parties surrounding BlogHer and of course, one hell of an expo hall with vendors.  I took a few pictures while there and I'll post some of the fun event details in coming days.

First, are these floral arrangements from the Suave/Degree booth in the expo hall.  The photos don't do them justice. As my friend Dianne says, "you and your fruit!" Yes, I love a fruit vase filler.  Just can't help it.

While I'm not a huge fan of the color orange in general, I love the contrast of it with this red.

Of course, you've seen me post before about mixing halved fruit in with flowers.  Here's another example:

Bake it Pretty!

 

 

Bake It Pretty makes me happy!
Lots and lots of adorable accessories and confections to add to your baked goods such as these cupcake liners.  And these adorable sugar buttons already made and ready for your desserts.

 

They have edible glitter and super cute straws like these:

 

And one of my favorites, the love toast stamper!

Be still my EATING heart!

May I present to you some of the most beautiful cookies ever???

Monogrammed houndstooth....

Wedgewood inspired!

brush embroidery

cameo!

Can you imagine the tea party you could have with these?
Stunning!  Purchase them from SweetAmbs