Strawberry Party Centerpieces

Last week I helped my friend with her daughter's Strawberry Shortcake themed birthday party. (Maddy's besties) If you are planning a Strawberry Shortcake party or a strawberry theme party here are some muses~

I never met a centerpiece I didn't like that I can eat! Especially one covered in chocolate!!

I love using fruit in centerpieces. This one is darling in the teacup.

Blumeboxes are so versatile and inexpensive! I love using the strawberry plant.

A more elegant display using strawberries and wheat grass.

I was going to use my cupcake stand and do this display on the dessert table but instead of using chocolate bowls, I was going to use cup size ice cream waffle cups. However, could only find the bowl size ones!! Bummer!

My friend and I made homemade strawberry jam to give to parents as favors....my hubby thought we were crazy....silly man. Just bowls of strawberries....sometimes the most simplistic things are beautiful.

I simply love this tablescape!

Crepe Cakes and Desperately Seeking Horses

I had some delicious crepes for brunch on Easter. I still have them on my brain...crepes always remind me of being on the top of the Eiffel tower where I had the most AMAZING crepes with whipped cream and chocolate....and met a cute French man...I was single then! LOL
I ran across these great crepes cakes via Possible Baker. The beautiful tiered cake is from Charleston Crepe Company. What an unexpected dessert!!

This one is from Martha Stewart....chocolate....yum. Darkest Chocolate Crepe Cake recipe here.

HELP!! I used to see these stick ponies in Dollar Tree all the time....well now that I want them for Madison's Toy Story party...can't find them anywhere!!! I've even scoured the Internet. If any of you have any of these leftover in your Dollar Tree stores....please let me know. Of course I will pay all costs and a little something ~something for your time!!

Picnic in the Park

Here is a picnic in a park party Maddycakes did last week. If you are having a party in a park it is best if you do as much prepackaging as possible. It will make your party run smoother and make it easier for your guests as well. We prepackaged all of the kids meals and labeled the type of sandwich on the outside. The meals consisted of sandwich, chips, bag of carrots, raisins and wet wipe.
When working with a client's budget you can't always do everything you want to do but you still want everything to be cute and functional. Custom labeling was done by Beth from Beth Kruse Custom Creations. Adorable, right????
Can you guess what we used for the red around the box??? It was Duct tape- more economical to use than ribbon plus it is already sticky so no need for the extra step of gluing!
If you look in the background of this photo you can see a blanket, pillow and umbrella we set up for guests with little ones. We put up several blanket areas in the grass along with a bubble, kite flying and bean bag toss station.
The favors were "mini" picnics full of snacks for the kiddos.

The birthday girl wanted pink, purple and rainbows on her cake so to incorporate it with the red and white picnic theme~ I came up with her holding pink and purple balloons with a rainbow above the picnic scene.
We put the salad dressings in containers on ice. I didn't get the photos of the prepackaged salads- sorry my peeps. However, we had 2 types of salads on ice- strawberry spinach salad with glazed pecans and mixed green salad with apples and cranberries. Putting everything is containers makes it easy for guests and convenient for you as well~also keeps food fresh!
Although you know what the item may be, I still like to label things- just for added detail. I got these frames from IKEA for 99 cents-LOVE.
Like the cute ant stickers?
Plastic is the only way to go when you are having a picnic in the park. Many parks won't even allow glass. You can pick up these plastic drink containers from anywhere. They are great especially when you have to have a lot of liquids for thirsty and hot guests.

Tea & Twirlies Garden Party Part 2

The dessert display for Madison's Tea & Twirlies Garden Party.
I went with the garden theme and used an outdoor plant stand and bench as my display tables. This worked out great because they were kid height.
I made the topiary out of stryrofoam balls and silk flowers from Dollar Tree. I used plant pots as display stands.

Found a birdhouse at the Goodwill and spray painted it fuchsia. I love going to thrift stores and garage sales to get decor items for cheap.
Used Madison's rain boots and added some decorative garden tools.

The plant stand was green but nothing a coat of spray paint can't fix!

I LOVE these Chocolate covered Oreo cookies by Sweeties by Kim. I first saw them on the TomKat Studios blog. Kim used them for her daughter's Fairy party and I knew one day I would use them....well the day has come. Aren't they gorgeous?
Of course the talented Kori from Paper & Pigtails did all of the custom labels. She made them fit perfectly in the garden stakes that I found in the Target Dollar bin.

How cute are these flower cakepops my cakepop Diva Jennifer made? She never disappoints!!

ADORE the rose cupcakes!!

I love this little girl more than any words could ever express!

Paint Ceramic Egg Station

Dye Easter Egg Station
Of course an Easter Egg Hunt!

Happy Easter!!

Photography~ Captured! Photography

Chocolate Covered Oreo Lollipops~ Sweeties by Kim

Custom labeling and invitations~ Paper & Pigtails

Flower Cakepops~ Heavenly Cakepops

Flower Cupcakes~ Shelley's Speciality Desserts

Tea & Twirlies Garden Party Part I

As you know Madison's Easter party was on Saturday. The theme was Tea & Twirlies~ although this was an Easter party the theme could be used for any party. She loves pinwheels and tea parties so this was a perfect theme for her. Her favorite colors are green and pink so went with those colors. Since we are having a larger birthday party for her in June we kept her Easter party small and invited her 3 besties! I am breaking this post into two parts due to the amount of photos.
Each girl got an Easter basket that I embellished using scrapbook paper, ribbon on side and their initial. They each got an apron as well to use during their crafts so not to mess up their cute dresses. I hung them on each girl's chair.
Inside their Easter basket was a bunny headband and gloves. Every tea party needs gloves, right? The Easter basket was used for the Easter Egg hunt we had after lunch and dessert.

I just loved the aprons that I found at HomeGoods. I try my best to stay away from HomeGoods because I always find too much stuff that I love and it all wants to go home with me!!
My Maddy modeling her bunny headband. (which lasted all of about a minute- oh well, they were cute)
My assistant and I printed a tutorial off the Internet and made these pinwheels. We were all impressed with ourselves! It was actually really easy and I used the same scrapbook paper that I had made the initials on the Easter baskets.
The menu along with the invitation, food labels and station signs were all created by the ever so talented Kori from Paper and Pigtails! She is amazing and her ETSY shop is full of awesome printables but you can also order custom items as I did for this party!!
I put the fruit in waffle cups and found these gorgeous monogrammed plates at Tuesday Morning.

The menu consisted of turkey and cheese tortilla pinwheels, carrots with hummus, fruit in waffle cups and strawberry milk "tea". I will post part 2 of this party tomorrow of the dessert table and activities.