Kayla's Shabby Chic Shower

My dear friend Kayla got married last month and I was so very honored to be able to throw her a bridal shower! She and her new husband hope to do lots of traveling and have many adventures, as she calls them...so naturally the theme of the shower was Adventure/Travel/Vintage/Shabby Chic!  I asked for a list of top 5 countries that they hoped to travel to and we built the menu around food from those countries. The games and the thank you favors also originated from the countries they chose.
Huge thank yous to my Husband and my friend Nicole, who hosted the shower with me...they worked really hard to help me set up at the venue...which required a bit of a hike to get there!
I am so excited to share this event with you...it is probably my favorite to date!

Beautiful Invites ordered from "i do" it yourself on Esty: http://www.etsy.com/shop/idoityourself

"Guest Book" Tree...the girls wrote a note to the Bride-to-Be and hung it on the tree!

Beautiful sign ordered on Etsy from the amazing Allie of Visibility: http://www.etsy.com/shop/visibility

Placemats handmade by ENF from burlap and organza trim, glasses from Anthropologie, thank you favors were small bottles of olive oil (the Bride and Groom hope to travel to Italy!) with custom printed labels.

Mason Jar centerpieces

Food Table

Where the Bride sat to open her gifts. Just couldn't resist hanging the Oo La La sign behind her!

Can You Tell Me How to Get, How to Get to Sesame Street?

I canNOT believe my baby boy turned 2 last month...where did the time go?! I had been planning his party for so long it just snuck up on me! Originally I had wanted to do a circus themed party for his 2nd birthday...but when he discovered Elmo a few months before and actually started saying Elmo's name (and people understood him!) I knew we needed to have a Sesame Street birthday party! I think he definitely had more fun at his 2nd birthday party than his 1st...and although my husband still says that all birthday parties before the age of 5 are pointless because he won't remember them, I know I'll have some great memories and photos to pull out one day to remind him!

Invites ordered from The Paper Blossom Shop on Etsy and my sister in law did his photos!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/thepaperblossomshop
https://www.facebook.com/APAdamsPhotography

All of the mini Sesame Street signs are made from dissassambled bird houses!

Guest Book Table...everyone wrote a message to Colt in Elmo's Face!

The happy Birthday Boy in his Elmo shirt!

Photo booth! The guests held the frame any way they wanted: horizontal, vertical, crooked...we got some fun ones!

Sportin' our favorite Sesame Street characters!

Each table was a different Sesame Street character...and I made the pennant banner myself!

These wrapped water bottles might be my favorite party decoration! And they were easy to do!

Cake Table!

Big thanks to my Mom for making 70 of these adorable cake toppers!

Colored layers!

Favor bags for the kids! Thank goodness for the $1 section at Target...they had tons of Sesame Street stuff!

And the favors for the adults...Candy Bar!

Nikki's Shower Flowers

Planning events with friends as a group are always more fun...there's someone to share all of the excitement, projects, DIYs and (let's be honest) the bills with! ; )  The particular event I'm talking about is the baby shower I co-produced for a very good friend: Nikki is one of the sweetest women I know and is well-loved by all of her friends...as proven by the fact that over 10 of us helped throw her this shower!

I was assigned to do the flowers...I went downtown to the flower mart and bought all the purple flowers I could find!  The theme of the baby shower was children's books and the colors were purple, purple and more purple...check out my floral prowess!

These deep purple hydrangeas were my favorite!

Unfortunately, I don't remember what these flowers were called...but aren't they great?!

Submerged orchids.

Pink Lemonade cupcakes (that I made from scratch) with the cute children's book label that was made by one of the other ladies.  All of the different menu items had a corresponding children's book label...super cute!
And of course another one of my purple flower arrangements...

Whoooooo's 1?

I am so excited to share these owl accessories from a first birthday party I helped a good friend put together!  She had all the vision..I just helped with the execution.  Thank you Martha for letting me be a part of sweet Ava's 1st Birthday!!

Masks for the photo booth.

High chair banner!

Tags for the "thanks for coming" favors.

Nutcracker Sweet

As far back as I can remember, I have always loved The Nutcracker Ballet. In junior high and high school I had the opportunity to be a member of a ballet company that put on performances of The Nutcracker every Christmas...got to live my dream! Even though I no longer dance with them, it has become a Christmas tradition for my Mom and me to go see a performance of their Nutcracker every year. A few years ago during intermission we noticed the ornaments that were on the Christmas Tree in the lobby of the theater.  Each ornament had been decorated to look like each of the characters in the ballet. The ornaments were "wearing" tiny little replicas of the costumes the dancers wore on the stage...and some of them were costumes that I had worn when I danced with them! I completely fell in love...and knew I had to make my own! My Mom and I began studying each one in an attempt to figure out how they were made.  We shopped all the after Christmas sales to get the supplies and two years later...we finally finished the set! I am so excited to share a few of these with you...they are so special to me because they bring back memories from Christmases past when I danced in the Nutcracker...enjoy!

Disclaimer: I cannot take credit for creating these ornaments...in this case I'm a total copycat. ; )

Marie, the heroine of the story.

  

The Nutcracker and the Mouse King

The Snow Queen

The Spanish, Arabian and Chinese Variations.

Mirliton Variation

The Flower Queen

The Sugarplum Fairy