‘Tis the season for holiday spirit, and drinking those holiday spirits! One of my favorite parts of getting ready to entertain is setting up my bar cart with festive accents. I pulled together tons of inspiration for bringing pops of metallics and lots of fun details to your own holiday bar cart (all of which are under $75!). Add a classic bar cart — this one is a steal from Target — to get your entertaining game in tip-top-shape before Christmas and New Years.Holiday Gold Bar Cart read more

Just a few days after we had moved into our new house in October I got an email to participate in one of the most fun photo shoots I’ve worked on to date — a holiday entertaining piece in the Improper Bostonian. We had a tiny window to shoot this holiday DIY feature and by some amazing luck, a group of talented, creative ladies got together with me to help pull it off (with stacks of my unpacked belongings in the nearby background). Below are a few pictures from the shoot (and two more behind-the-scenes pictures from that day); you can read the full article here: Improper Bostonian – Home for the Holidays.1125DIY-9 read more

We’ve been in our house for exactly one month now, and are starting to finally feel settled (yay!), but aren’t in a place yet to be hosting a massive Thanksgiving dinner. I dream of this though! Maybe in the next few years we’ll be ready to host on our own, I mean, it’s basically the Super Bowl of entertaining and eating and I think I’d be a pretty strong contender at that game (ladies and gentlemen, the first time a sportsanalogy has ever been used on this site!). Even though I’m not hosting, I still have lots of ideas for a spectacular Thanksgiving tables to share, so I worked with Julie from Posh & Prep Calligraphy to come up with a few special details that are easy to translate to your own turkey day celebrations!
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If you’re waiting in line at the grocery store this week and see the new issue of Family Circle magazine, pick it up and give it a flip through, you just might see a familiar face (me!!). I’m excited that for the second year in a row to be their Happy to Host blogger, sharing hostess ideas for November holidays. In the article you’ll find a bunch of my tips for making holiday hosting a little bit less stressful and a little more fun this year. You’ll also get an exclusive recipe that I created for the holiday season with help of Hidden Valley Ranch: ranch roasted root vegetables, a family-friendly spin on some classic fall flavors that just might be the perfect way to spice up your Thanksgiving table this year. Processed with VSCOcam with f2 preset

I’m long overdue in recapping the baby shower I helped throw for my darling cousin Jana a few weeks ago. She had a dream team of friends and relatives that jumped in to help throw her a shower, so I volunteered to tackle what I do best — decorations. When I was visiting her a few months back she showed me an amazing DIY mobile she was going to hang over the baby’s crib, a festive little thing full of pink and mint tassels and pom-poms — the perfect inspiration piece for the baby shower. Processed with VSCOcam with f2 preset read more

They say a party with out cake is just a meeting. Well, I say a party without appetizers fits the same criteria. Even if I’m just having a few people over for casual drinks, I almost always make two things: a cheese plate and a small crudité platter. I always feel like I’m being super healthy when I make a veggie and dip tray, but let’s be honest — vegetables are only there as vehicles to get the most amount of dip possible in my mouth — real talk people! Alouette Cheese sent me some of their new Le Bon Dips to try and I attempted a little stylists’ trick to make my crudité look extra appealing: I made a dip bowl out of veggies!

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Last summer, my bestie and I had a girls night and picnicked while watching an outdoor movie in the park. We both kicked ourselves for waiting until the end of the summer to finally do it, and I made a promise to myself that this summer I’d do it much more often. We live in a small apartment, so it’s not convenient to store big coolers or picnic baskets — I usually just grab a small tote and fill it up with a few essential picnic ingredients: 1) A cozy blanket — I love the Gunn & Swain Mexican blankets. 2) A few festive drinks — IZZE sparkling juices are tasty, and all you have to do is pop them open, no need to cart around glassware (but striped straws are encouraged!). 3) Snacks! I hate having to bring a knife and cutting board for a cheese plate – the less we have to carry, the better. To solve for this I took a mason jar and layered ingredients to make individual cheese plate ‘kits’ — this one has mixed nuts, dried apricots, sharp cheddar, salami and crackers. 4) Bring some cloth napkins, they’re eco-friendly, and since they’re a bit heavier than a paper napkin they won’t fly away. Throw it all in a fun tote, grab your sunnies and girlfriends, and you’re ready for a day in the park! izze picnic ideas 3izze picnicizze picnic ideas 2
 

Please Note: This post was sponsored by Izze; all images, ideas and content are my own. 

If I was queen of anything, I think I’d probably be the queen of the last-minute DIY. I wish I was one of those bloggers that plans her awesome ideas months in advance so I could just hit publish a week before an event, but my best inspiration always seems to pop up the day before a holiday! Case and point: my derby day DIY epiphany popped into my head earlier this weekend. The good news is that this DIY concept can be used in dozens of different ways for many holidays to come, using gold clay and wooden skewers to make some horseshoe drink stirrers.
The instructions are simple: roll out modeling clay to about 1/4″ thickness and use an exacto-knife to cut out your shape — in this case, a simple horseshoe. Next, use a small wooden toothpick or dowel to add details before popping the pieces in a 275 degree oven for 15 minutes. Once the pieces have cooked, hardened, and cooled, use a tiny drop of hot glue to affix to a wooden skewer. Let the glue set and you’re ready to pop them into a mint julep or cocktail of your choice!

Why is it that of all of the party wares you can buy, that drinkware is always the most plain and boring? I mean, what’s more fun than DRINKS people? I have found it quite tough to find fun, festive options for disposable glasses, so I decided to come up with a way to make them more festive on my own — this is such a simple idea that I’m kind of kicking myself for not coming up with it earlier. I purchased simple clear plastic cups from the party store and then used printable colored labels from Paper Source to write out a fun phrase (since these were for a morning event, I wrote “good mornin’ sunshine” on the stickers). After printing them out at home, I simply adhered the stickers to the cups before serving a tasty rosemary lemonade in them. I’m positive I’ll be replicating this idea for many parties in my future!


 
 
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