Holiday Tablescape Ideas.

December 20, 2016

Please note: This post was created in paid partnership with Time Inc. and Chinet.

I love to entertain year-round, but the holiday season makes it so much more fun! I partnered with Chinet on a fun video that shares a bunch of ideas for how to add some sparkle and detail to your holiday tablescapes, including custom dinner menus, glittery tea light holders, and personalized place settings. With a neutral metallic palette, you can use these ideas from Thanksgiving to Christmas, and right through to New Year’s Eve! Check out the full video below:

Entertaining

A Party Animal Baby Shower.

June 15, 2016

I am long overdue on posting a few highlights from a baby shower I threw last month — so overdue in fact, my guest-of-honor has had her baby girl since the party already! There’s a due-date pun in there somewhere, but let’s get to the decorations and the menu already. It was a brunch, so we set up a champagne bar with several different kinds of homemade simple syrups to mix-up self-serve cocktails. I added a few bottles of sparkling water too so mocktails could be made with the same flavors. There were tons of baked breakfast treats, and one of my favorite parts of the menu was mini yogurt, berry and granola parfaits that I chilled in tiny mason jars — they flew off the table! For decorations I went with a palette of pool blue, mint and peach for paper fans and garlands — all fresh, bright pastels that complimented the Liberty print paper goods I found for the table and pieces from my vintage jadeite collection. I couldn’t host the shower without a few DIY elements, and crafted up some mini “party-animals” out of plastic kids toys, gold spray paint, and party hats made from paper and pom-poms. I used them to decorate cupcakes and nestle in between the food and bar tables — the perfect little details for a festive baby shower!

Entertaining

A Dip Party.

February 25, 2016

This weekend I threw what I hope is my first annual dip party. A dip party you say? What is a dip party? Well, a group of girlfriends got together, everyone bought a different homemade dip and we snacked and snacked and snacked! I had each girl send me their recipe in advance so I could make sure we had no repeat ideas (we had quite the variety, from asian dips to hummus to dessert dips!), and it gave me the opportunity to pick out some delicious all-natural Food Should Taste Good chips to pair with them. I used a big tiered serving stand to display all different flavors (jalapeño, blue corn, and sweet potato were my favorites). I also used the recipes to make little recipe card sets for party favors, each guest brought home a stack of cards with each dip recipe to make again and again. I’ll be sharing some of the recipes here over the next few days! read more

Entertaining

New Year’s Party.

January 5, 2016

How is it already 5 days into the New Year? I feel like I was in a mad sprint at the end of the year with work, holidays, and getting tons of projects done for our annual New Year’s Eve party. This was the first time hosting it out at our house, so we made New Year’s Eve an official housewarming party since many of our friends hadn’t seen our new place yet (and plus, it guilted them to drive out to the ‘burbs for the night, #realtalk). It was a totally different experience throwing this party than our past 5 years of apartment hosting. For starters, it takes a lot more time to clean and prep a whole house than it did an apartment; we also had quite a few guests sleepover so we had lots to do to fix up guest bedrooms and freshen bedding. On top of all of that, I didn’t have my party flow down — you know: the spot you always put the bar, the place you always set out the food — all of that was trial and error this time around. Oh and one more thing: we had construction going on in our kitchen and wet paint in our dining room up until about 20 hours before the party started — can you hear my panicked laugh?!

DIY Entertaining

Christmas DIY Details.

December 15, 2015

After all of the fun we had putting together some DIY details for Thanksgiving, Julie from Posh & Prep and I got crafty and created a few fun handmade elements to add your Christmas parties and celebrations. Julie lent her fabulous hand-lettering to create the easiest place card favor: a classic christmas ornament personalized with gold ink calligraphy in each guests name.
read more

DIY Entertaining

DIY Thanksgiving Table Details.

November 20, 2015

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!

Entertaining

A Pink and Mint Baby Shower.

October 23, 2015

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. read more

DIY Entertaining

Derby Day DIY.

May 3, 2015

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!

DIY Entertaining

DIY Party Drinkware.

April 23, 2015

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!

Recipes

Movie Theater Candy Cookies.

February 22, 2015

I needed a sweet treat to snack on during the Oscars and thought I’d have a little fun updating a classic: the chocolate chip cookie. Martha Stewart’s soft and chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe is just about the most perfect cookie specimen there is, but I couldn’t help but mix it up for the biggest movie night of the year with some movie theater candy. I followed the original recipe, and then swapped out the chocolate chips for a mixture of M&Ms, Reese’s Pieces, and Raisnets. Spoiler alert: they were crazy tasty. I’m thinking these will be an annual Oscars night staple!