Party Planner - Menu Checklist

A big part of any party is the food. Be all prepared with my newest Party Planner Checklist! This menu checklist is perfect to help you keep all your pretty food organized.

The downloadable PDFs in this article (and across my entire site) are free for personal use only. If you would like to blog about this free download, please accompany any images from my site with a credit and link back to this article.

wild flower arrangement

Fresh flowers are great for a spring time party or event. I love all the gorgeous arrangements that I see, but I can't even begin to arrange myself, nor can I afford those pretty flowers for my party.

A great alternative is my wild flower arrangement. It is easy to add height and color to any table without too much time, work or cost.

All you need to do is to save all those glass bottles you've been recycling (aka. salsa jars, peanut butter jars,  milk jars, bbq sauce jars). Clean them out and let them dry. Then head over and pick out some beautiful cut flowers for your arrangement. I grabbed two bouquets at Trader Joes for about $12 total.

I then pulled all of the flowers out and started by placing the largest flowers in the glass jars first - cutting the stems to the appropriate height. I then filled up the arrangements with the little flowers.

You can arrange the jars on the table in a random bunched order (like above) or in a straight line (like below) for two different styles.

Color Inspiration - lime green & navy blue

inspiration photo - paper n stitch

1 - petite lemon

2 - confetti sunshine

3 - friends of socktopus

4 - style me pretty

5 - confetti sunshine

6 - leslie marie designs

St. Patrick's Day inspiration -

Happy weekend! I've got some fun plans going on this weekend - I hope you do too!

I also blog over at One Charming Party. So head over there and see my DIY St. Patrick's Day posts for this week - 

Celtic Clover Banner

Green Ice Cream Cupcakes

St Patrick's Day Subway Art

DIY - Custom Painted Utensils

This is a great project for any party or event. Quickly add color to your wooden utensils to help add color to your party decor. You could even paint each utensil set a different color to help small guests remember which was their fork or spoon at the table.

What you will need:

Wooden Utensils - found at Confetti Sunshine

Sponge brush

Paint - I love the pearl acrylic paint from Martha Stewart

ribbon/twine (optional)

Paint the end of the utensil that your guest will hold. Let them air dry before tying together. This would also be great for a picnic or to pack into a school lunch on a special holiday or birthday for a child.

Coconut and Almond filled Chocolates

Everyone deserves a good chocolate every now and again. Especially ones filled with coconut and almonds. My mother and sisters are master chocolate makers. Every year at Christmas, they spend at least two to three days carefully and lovingly hand dipping all of their chocolate creations.

Their neighbors love it.

My neighbors aren't that lucky.

Fortunately, I have figured out a trick that will help with my candy making skills - how to make your own chocolate covered candies. 

What you will need:

Coconut Filling (recipe at the end of post)

Whole Almonds

Your favorite Chocolate (this is mine)

Mini Cupcake Liners

First, melt your chocolate either very slowly in the microwave, or on a double boiler on your stove. I highly recommend a double boiler, so you don't have to keep on reheating your chocolate as it cools.

Place 1 tsp. of melted chocolate in your cupcake liner. Quickly turn the cupcake liner on it's side and slowly roll it. The chocolate should coat the inside of your cupcake liner. If you have small holes, you can either touch up by adding a little more chocolate, or leave as is - it will still taste good!

Once you have your cupcake liners all covered, allow the chocolate to set back up to a hard consistence. 

When the chocolate is hardened, place 1 tsp of coconut filling and one or two almonds on top. Finish with another 1 tsp of melted chocolate on top! Let the chocolate harden before packaging or eating. 

These little chocolates would be adorable on a dessert table for any party or event.

COCONUT FILLING

1 (14 oz.) package of sweetened coconut

2 lbs. powdered sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

2 sticks melted butter

1 can sweetened condensed milk

Mix all the ingredients together. Chill over night before dipping in chocolate.

Party Trend - cake stands

One of my favorite party trends would be the use of pretty dishes - especially cake stands! They add a great visual effect to a table with their height and pretty details. Every party should at least have one. To help make the search for your perfect cake pedestal easier, I've gathered a list of great sites to go and search from:

1 -  Rosanna

2 - Sweet and Saucy Supply

3 - Whitney Smith Pottery

4 - Jeanette Zeis Ceramics

5 - Macys

6 - Organize

from Simple to Classy - envelope labels

a great way to help dress up your invitation, is to give the envelope a little love. Envelope labels are a simple and cheap way to help spruce up your snail mail. I like to try and use different things for my labels, and will be blogging about those in the future. But the easiest way to make an envelope label is sticker paper.

I've created a little download with this cute envelope liners in three colors - tangerine, blue and pink. Simple cut them out along the grey cut line. I was thinking ahead and made the little circle tab the right size to be easily punched out with a standard hole punch - making the label ten times more adorable, yet extremely easy to cut out. These labels are cute with the address printed, or hand written. I hope you enjoy them!

DIY Party Hat

 I love a cute party hat. When done right, they are so festive and fun! The problem is finding a cute hat. I've put together a little template to help you make your own DIY Party Hat.

You will need:

12"x12" scrapbook paper

Party Hat Template (available at the end of the post)

Party Fringe

First, print out both sheets of the Party Hat Template and cut out. Tape together the ends that both say "attach here". This is your full template. Lay it out on your 12"x12" scrapbook paper and trace around the edges.

It is great to use scrapbook paper because of all the fun coordinating sheets you can buy to match your party colors. (It also is study paper, and usually comes with an adorable printed second side, making your hat adorable on the inside too!)

Next, glue your cut paper into a cone shape with a low heat glue gun. Finally, with the glue gun, glue the party fringe around the bottom of the cone.

The final product is adorable, and can be used as is! It measures approximately 5 1/2" wide and 8 1/2" tall - perfect for little party guests.

Color Inspiration - Pink, Gold & Black

inspiration photo - 100 layer cake

1. In Bloom New York

2. Fishs Eddy

3. Confetti Sunshine

4. Confetti Sunshine

5. Pixelimpress

6. Confetti Sunshine

Dessert Dress Ups - Strawberry Frosting

I love desserts. I honestly love making desserts much more than eating them - that is why parties are so great. But, it is always great to dress up your yummy treat in a little unique way. I've started this "Dessert Dress Up" column to, hopefully, inspire you in the many different ways you can easily dress up a treat.

I made these mini cupcakes for a cute little tea party my daughter was invited to. I used just a basic white cake recipe, but the real treat is the frosting. The frosting was a great and easy way to dress up my cupcakes enough that they were enjoyed by the children and the adults at the party!

I had the idea to make a strawberry frosting, so a little web browsing led me to this recipe - Sprinkles Cupcakes' Strawberry Frosting

It was almost perfect, but I did adapt it slightly...

STRAWBERRY FROSTING
enough frosting for 1 dozen mini cupcakes (double the recipe for regular size cupcakes)

1/4 cup fresh strawberries
1 stick salted butter, soft yet still slightly cold
1 3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 t. vanilla extract

Puree your strawberries in a food processor or a blender. In a separate bowl, hand mix (or an electric mixer with paddle attachment) the butter into a creamy spread. Slowly add the powdered sugar. If it becomes too difficult to mix by hand, use your hand mixer. Do not over mix! After the sugar and butter are mixed well, mix in the vanilla and 1 1/2 T - 3 T strawberry puree (depending upon how you want it to taste). I used close to the 3 T strawberries and it was delicious!


cupcake wrappers can be found here at Confetti Sunshine

It's a Tea Party - free printables and inspiration

I hope you've enjoyed our Tea Party this week! Click on the link above to download the free invitation, favor circle tag, and food label.

For more Tea Party inspiration check out my pinterest board for more party fun!

It's a Tea Party - favor bags

Here is an adorable easy way for a coordinating favor bag for your Tea Party. Use the same 6 inch doilies that you used for the invitation and envelopes, and top your favor bags with them!

I used these cute bags:

Blue Gingham Treat Bag

Printables for the Tea Party will be available on Friday here at the blog. Be sure and check back every day for more Tea Party inspiration!

It's a Tea Party - candy jewelry activity

Candy jewelry is fun at any party! But here is a quick and easy way your Tea Party guests can make their own tasty jewelry. All I used was:

1/4 inch ribbon

gummy life savers

candy necklace

1. Cut your ribbon to a little more than double the length of your necklace or bracelet.

2. Fold the ribbon in half and tie a knot, with a loop, at the folded end.

3. Cut the elastic on the candy necklace and use those candies as your spacers for your lifesavers.

4. To loop on a life saver - Thread the ribbon through opposite sides of the lifesaver's center (please take a look at the picture with the arrows). Continue to thread the lifesaver candies until you've reached the desired length.

Another alternative, which would be great for smaller children - Just have the children string the ribbon through the holes on the candy. This is demonstrated in the last picture above. It is still adorable and fun to make!

Printables for the Tea Party will be available on Friday here at the blog. Be sure and check back every day for more Tea Party inspiration!

It's a Tea Party - DIY cupcake liner flowers

This fun little DIY is a great and inexpensive way to add a punch of color to your Tea Party table.

For my floral bouquet, I ended up using these adorable cupcake liners:

  Pink Zebra Cupcake Liner

Yellow Pin Stripe Cupcake Liner

Red Pin Stripe Cupcake Liner

Blue Pin Stripe Cupcake Liner

Light Blue Dot Cupcake Liner

I also used - 

Floral Wire

Floral Tape

1. Cut your wire to measure approximately 9 inches

2. Take two (or more) cupcake liners, flatten and stack on top of each other

3. Fold the liners in half, right sides together.

4. Fold the liners into a quarter. Poke one end of the wire through the end of the cupcake liners.

Twist the wire together.

5. gently open up the cupcake liners.

6. gently crinkle the innermost cupcake liner.

7. gently crinkle all the cupcake liners and tape around the base of your flower.

8. open up your flower and adjust based on how you want your flower to look.

This is so easy - and great fun! A nice way to bring some beauty to any party!

Printables for the Tea Party will be available on Friday here at the blog. Be sure and check back every day for more Tea Party inspiration!

It's a Tea Party - invitation and cute envelope liner

Having a 3.5 year old little girl is a wonderful thing. She absolutely loves tea parties. We have an entire box, within her reach, full of our tea party supplies. Which means - we party with the tea cups almost weekly.

A Tea Party is a great theme for any little girl's party. And, this week, I thought I would bring in some of my favorite things to help make this party or special event come together cheap and easy.

First would be the invitation (printable found below). An easy way to dress up any invitation would be to add an envelope liner. A perfect compliment to this party is a doily liner! The 6 inch doilies fit beautifully in a standard A-6 size envelope (6.5"x4.75")

Printables for the Tea Party will be available on Friday here at the blog. Be sure and check back every day for more Tea Party inspiration!

Inspiration Board - Strawberry Party

I put together this cute little Strawberry Party Inspiration Board and thought I would share it with you...

1 - Strawberry Party Printable

2 - Berry Basket

3 - Red Dot Cupcake Liner

4 - Strawberry Shortcake Retro Dress

5 - Lime Polka Dot Balloon

6 - Strawberry Lollipop

7 - Red Polka Dot Balloon

8 - Strawberry Pink Split

9 - Red Stripe Paper Straw

Find more Strawberry Party Inspiration on my Pinterest board

If there are any party or event themes you would like to see an inspiration board for, be sure and leave a comment and let me know!

DIY Valentine box of candy

I love it when gifts are personal. So, I try to find a way to turn the traditional into something more original, yet just as good. Here is a cute and fun way to make your own traditional box of chocolate.

What you need:

Red Pin Stripe Mini Cupcake Liners

Pink dot Mini Cupcake Liners

7.5x5.5 Natural Kraft Jewelry box

a dozen your loved one's favorite chocolates and candies

I ended up including little sentiments of love in with the candies in my box. I, also, ended up tying up my box with a simple red and white baker's twine. A cute and simple way to package and give my gift.

Party Recipe - Sugar Cookies

A good sugar cookie recipe is a must for just about any party. Sugar cookies are a great way to add color and shape to match any theme or decoration.

I have never found a sugar cookie recipe that I have liked more than the one I have cooked my whole life. Sugar cookies have always been my favorite. So I thought I would share the recipe with you -


Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sour cream
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
5 cups all purpose flour (approximately)

Cream together butter, vanilla, sour cream, sugar and eggs. Cream in salt, soda, and baking powder. Add the flour. Use more or less depending upon the consistency of the dough. It should be a soft dough. Chill the dough for a few hours in the refrigerator.

Take the dough out and let sit until it is soft enough to roll. Roll out until 1/8 of an inch thick. Cut out cookies with your favorite cookie cutters. Bake at 350 degrees for 6-8 minutes. Do not over bake. Take out as soon as the bottom edges look slightly brown.


 Instructions on how to make the sandwich cookie (pictured above) can be found here