Last week, I posted over at Project Nursery about some healthier alternatives to the overwhelming number of sweets Valentines Day seems to bring on. And the kids won’t miss the sugar–my two were more excited about hitting this particular dessert table than any I can think of recently. And they see a LOT of dessert tables.

Maybe it was that I told them they could have as much as they want, and that they weren’t limited to one or two things? And their pure amazement at something as simple as a heart in the side of an apple made it really fun for me…and the fact that they were thrilled to bits to be eating apples and watermelon and greek yogurt has made me want to try more of these style tables!

Want to read the hearty-healthy article? Pop over to Project Nursery to check it out!

It has been an amazing, incredible year here at Frog Prince Paperie. The little business I had so I could stay at home didn’t end up so little at the end…and I had a fair share of pinch-me-I-can’t-believe-my-name-is-really-in-there moments with Martha Stewart, Southern Living, Yum Food and Fun for Kids and Project Nursery. There were parties. LOTS of parties–both big and small.

I now have an amazing support staff in Ashley, Renee and Erin, and of course I can’t forget all the support I constantly receive from friends and family. My husband is a saint, trust me. I am grateful for every single press, blog and social media mention, every set of eyeballs that lands on my work, and every single person who reads along with what writing I dole out on occasion. It’s a lucky thing to have such support, and I really know it and am thankful every day I have it!

So here it is, a big giant HUGE THANK YOU to all of you.

And now on to what you really come to my blog to read…a little party inspiration! I put together a quick shoot for a celebration you might do at home with your kids (or just your honey!) to mark the New Years Eve occasion. No printables here this time, just paper, scissors and a little bit of hot glue.

I love glitter–I do not love glittering. It coats every surface of my house for weeks after! If you haven’t seen it yet, they make this really cool paper that comes already glittered–and I was so excited to see that it now also comes in glittery polka dot flavors in addition to solid colors. I cut out cupcake wrappers and the numbers 2012 and made toppers with them. I used a fairly neutral palette that ranged from white to silver to silvery blue to make everything tie together. And that’s my bedside table that I took the pictures on. (Always try to use the things you already have first!)

I made a few party hats by cutting shapes out for the front and adding bands to the back, adjusted to the kids’ heads. Martha Stewart also had a neat article on how to make these party blowers that I gave a try. They worked perfectly with some of the billion striped paper straws I have laying around.

And what party is complete without a little dessert?? I love parfaits because they are easy to make, easy to serve sugar free, and easy to make look really fancy. Presentation is everything here — being able to eat dessert out of a champagne glass is just going to make my kids feel extra extra special this year.

It doesn’t take much to make a memorable time, and even the little ones like to celebrate the passing of another year. Small touches like these are perfect for small celebrations!

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Hope you and yours are having a wonderful holiday season, and that your 2011 was simply spectacular. Thank you again, and I look forward to the year to come with you all!

Having a fall birthday is a perfect reason to celebrate pumpkin style! The fall has it’s own spectrum of wonderful decorations that make a seasonal ‘Little Pumpkin’ party so much more fun. Ellen of Ellen Bessette Events styled this fabulous homage to the pumpkin patch for our little Maddy. There were lots of treats, cider, s’mores, apple bobbing, and of course pumpkins. Thank you to Jill Luecht Photography for photoediting.

I have to say, it’s a hard thing to turn a Florida back yard in August to a beautiful fall scene, but Ellen did it with flair. Straw bales, autumn leaves, mums and scarecrows dotted the yard with a punches of color. I especially love the wreath she hand crafted to hang over the dessert table. The pretty arbor the table was set in was swathed in leaf garlands and the table covered in another handmade creation, a pom-pom trimmed tablecloth.

Sweet treats from Lynlee’s Petite Cakes (fondant toppers) and The Cookie Jar (sugar cookies) starred on the table along with cinnamon flavored popcorn, lollipops and rock candy treats.

The kid-sized table used a pumpkin filled with flowers as the centerpiece. Ellen made the party hats from scrapbook paper, maribou and ribbon for the little ones to wear. To decorate the backs of the chairs, she used oversized felt pumpkins and tulle to create a chair swag that really popped!

A sweet little smash cakes with a pumpkin top from Something Sweet Cake Studio sat on top of the straw bales that lined the party area along with some cinnamon sticks and cider to wash it all down!

Our little Maddy made an appearance to eat some birthday cake in a little pumpkin tutu and matching hairband byTiti’s Tutus .

 
   

 

 

  

 

 

 

And what’s a party without a little bit of fun? We had a face paint artist, Debra Heuskin Face and Body Artist, paint the girls’ faces with flair. There was also a donut eating contest—the contestants couldn’t use their hands and the donuts were strung from the doorway. I admit, this was a bight more fun for the adults to watch than it should have been.

As our guests were leaving they were welcome to pick up a treat bag or two.  A bewitching cake by Contemporary Cakery served as the centerpiece along with take-home bagged and bowed sugar cookies.”

VENDOR CREDITS:

– Paperie and Styling: Frog Prince Paperie 
– Photography: Heather Stine Photography 
– Photo Editing: Jill Luecht Photography
– Baked Goods: Contemporary Cakery
– Sugar Cookies: JP Creatibles 
– Fondant Toppers: Lynlee’s Petite Cakes
– Paper Wreath and Fan Centerpieces: Southern Belle’s Charm 
– Treat  Bags: Laugh Loud Smile Big 
– Facepainting: Debra Heuskin Face and Body Artist
– Costumes: Patti Fabulous
– Floral: Buds, Etc. Floral Studio

The Bewitching Halloween party has finally been released! Catch the first glimpse over at Hostess with the Mostess ~ more tutorials, pictures and freebies to come over the next few weeks here on the blog!

As part of the Birthday Rush party, we made our “pledge” do shots–cupcake shots! My recipes aren’t original, in fact I found them here at Cosmopolitan.com as an excerpt from The Boozy Baker: 75 Recipes for Spirited Sweets (a book I think I might be buying soon!)

I tried four variations: Mint Julep Cupcakes, Lemon Drop Cupcakes, Coffee Chocolate (Kahlua & Cream) Cupcakes and the Berry Boozy Cupcakes. The secret to making these taste like their liquid counterparts is the frosting. The cake recipe wasn’t very moist and the one tablespoon of booze didn’t impart much flavor. Soaking the cupcakes in alcohol (for me) was out of the question, as they had to hold up as cupcakes.

So if I were to do it again, this is how I would go about it…but you’re free to learn from your own experiences and follow the Boozy Baker’s recipes as well!

Baking your cupcakes. I’m all for doctoring cake mixes. I CAN bake from scratch, but these days, I’m usually in a rush, and mixes are so much easier. Substitute part of the water required for booze when you make your white cake mix for the flavoring. And quite frankly, just adding an extra tablespoon of burbon on top of the full amount of water isn’t going to make your cake fall flat.

Frostings. If the flavor isn’t strong enough using 1/4 cup of alcohol, you can increase it in lieu of milk, just be mindful of the thickness of your frosting.

With that in mind–the recipes.

Mint Julep Cupcakes

Cake mix: Add 1 tablespoon burbon to cake mix.

Frosting: 1 3/4 sticks butter, 6-8 cups powdered sugar, 1/4 cup bourbon. Blend together with your mixer on high. If the frosting is still too stiff, add in a little bit of milk at a time, whipping the frosting between beatings.

Garnish with mint leaves.

Lemon Drop Cupcakes

Cake mix: Add 1 teaspoon lemon juice and a heaping tablespoon of lemon zest to cake mix. Or just use a lemon-flavored cake mix.

Frosting: 1 3/4 sticks butter, 6-8 cups powdered sugar, 1/4 cup Absolute Citron (what I used) or limoncello. Blend together with your mixer on high. If the frosting is still too stiff, add in a little bit of milk at a time, whipping the frosting between beatings.

Garnish with yellow sanding sugar and lemon zest.

Kalhua and Cream Cupcakes

Cake mix: Use a chocolate cake mix. Add 1 teaspoon coffee liquor to cake mix.

Frosting: 1 3/4 sticks butter, 6-8 cups powdered sugar, 1/4 cup Kalhua. Blend together with your mixer on high. If the frosting is still too stiff, add in a little bit of milk at a time, whipping the frosting between beatings.

Garnish with cocoa powder and chocolate covered espresso beans or mini chocolate chips.

Berry Boozy Cupcakes

Cake mix: These were my favorite. After putting the cake mix in the liners, spoon a teaspoon or raspberry jam into the center of each cupcake, then bake. Strawberry jam also works if you don’t want to use raspberry (or don’t have it like I did.)

Frosting: 1 3/4 sticks butter, 6-8 cups powdered sugar, 1/4 cup raspberry liqueur. I used Framboise. Blend together with your mixer on high. If the frosting is still too stiff, add in a little bit of milk at a time, whipping the frosting between beatings.

Garnish with a raspberry.

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For more recipes, go to the  Cosmopolitan.com site or buy the The Boozy Baker: 75 Recipes for Spirited Sweets book!

We are in a very small (five families) playgroup for my son, and it was a wild coincidence that three of were all sorority sisters, albeit at different colleges. Much joking has gone on the past year about our little sisterhood.  When Courtney’s birthday came around and she really wanted to celebrate, we decided to make it fun and play on this bond of ours. We made up our own sorority (Mu Theta Mu a.k.a MOM) and made her a pledge for the evening…creating a “Birthday Rush” for her.

Before taking a 4-hour limosine trip through Melbourne, we had a nice dinner with all Courtney’s favorites. There was lots of pink, fancy little appetizers, liquor infused cupcakes and beautiful macaron favors from Sucre Azucar. Beautiful AND tasty. Like melt in your mouth fabulously good.

A refreshing tray of mojitos was served up while we waited for dinner to finish.

The centerpiece for the table was created with a mirrored tray, a dozen tea-light candles and about 25 tiny vases. Each vase held a gerber daisy and the resulting mound of daises was really wonderful. Once the sun went down, we lit the candles (which reflected off the mirrored tray) and the whole arrangement simply glowed! Thanks again to Patti from Buds, Etc. Floral Studio for the herculean effort that went into finding just the right shade and enough of the gerbers for the arrangement.

Activities at an adult birthday party? Of course we did! You can’t have a pledge without asking them to do a few silly things. We draped her in pink boas, pacifiers, glow sticks, and let her refuse to wear an embarrassing t-shirt. Courtney was in love with Maddie’s tiara by Tradewind Tiaras from her birthday party, so we also let her wear that for the evening. We made her eat a goldfish and say the greek alphabet before the match burned out. And while we were out we had a little bag of mingling activities for her to complete. Turns out you CAN use the word “shinizzle” in a 90 second conversation with a stranger at least 7 times.

All in all, it was a memorable evening! The gerber daisy printables (Modern Daisy) at Courtney’s party are now available in the Esty Shop, with or without the “Birthday Rush” theme.

WITH GRATITUDE TO MY VENDORS:

Photography | John McLaughlin

Photo Editing | Jill Luecht Photography 

Macarons | Sucre Azucar 

Flowers | Buds, Etc. Floral Studio

When Coryanne from Housewife Bliss asked me to help out with a “glowing” summer cocktail party for Celebrations.com, I was really excited to see what she came up with! I can just see this setting with the lights dimmed and all the lanterns and candles glowing.  Amazing what a difference just a few touches to the decor make!

You can catch delicious cocktail recipesto light up your party such as the Firefly cocktail, the Glow Stick Martini and the Glow Worm cocktail over on the Celebrations.com site.

And while you’re there, you can pick up some free printables by Frog Prince Paperie to help liven up your cocktail party!

Not every truly memorable celebration has to be over the top with an abundance of details, decorations and food. Those are plenty fun, too, but I wanted to show that small family parties can have a little dazzle without being too much work! I know at my house we have many more of these little celebrations than the big ornate affairs, and it’s fun to make them a bit special.

Our dear friend Caroline had a birthday on Saturday. Early in the week, we made plans for her and her husband to come for dinner. And a few days later she saw my Facebook post about cupcake fondue…and put in a request for her birthday celebration! We made a day of it–cutting out decorations, shopping and baking cupcakes. Yes, we made the birthday girl make her own cupcakes. At least we gave her a super cute apron to do it in!

After making Caroline’s favorite {gluten-free} dinner,we dug into the cupcake fondue. (Dinner was churassco with chimichurrri sauce and black beans with coconut rice (a dish we picked up from our Cuban friends during our residence in Miami.))  While I would LOVE to take credit for this super fun idea, Bake it Pretty came up with it! You can see the post here with the instructions and glaze recipe. The three toppings on the left were the most popular: mini chocolate chips, rainbow sprinkles, and coconut. Lesson learned for the next time!

Our Sweet Caroline is allergic to all things wheat, so our feast was gluten free. I’ll be posting these little signs as free printables later this week! There is a lack of fondue forks at our house, so I borrowed an idea from Pizzazzerie and make cupcake skewers and this pretty little bouquet of cupcakes for us to use for dipping cupcakes.

The kids had a ball with this. But I have to admit, we did abandon the skewers and just used our hands for dipping and rolling by the end! And the concept of sprinkling the toppings over the cupcakes was completely lost on my crew.

Caroline is a former Long Beach aquarium worker and complete beach lover, and her husband, Drew, now designs and builds those neat aquariums you see at museums. So I quickly whipped up some fun sea creature party goods for Caroline – a theme I knew she would love! (I know not everyone can do this, but printables are readily available everywhere in all kinds of themes!!)

The biggest hit was the party hats. Caroline was even nice enough to wear a shirt that matched hers!

It was a simple celebration, but so much fun!

Recently, I was fortunate enough to be able to work on a little Valentines project with the very talented Chris Nease from Celebrations at home. She created this absolutely lovely intimate dinner for two with the new to shop {Queen of Hearts} printable set. It can be used well past Valentines day for occasions like bachelorette parties, bridal showers, or even engagement parties — love rules at all these events! You can see the full set of photos over on Chris’ site.

The creative details Chris came up with for this table were genius! Black lace runners, quilled wine tags, and using the LOVE cards for height on the table to name a few.

The dessert table had tiny little treats that were all just perfect for feeding to your sweetie. The gorgeous cookies were provided by Allyson Jane–love that sparkle!

My favorite part of the collection are the love notes. I pre-printed these for the shoot, but they come with the printable set blank as well.

There is quite a bit included in this printable pack, which gives you lots of opportunity to make neat details at your party!

—”LOVE” banner with two heart panels
—Two (2) designs of wine/champagne labels
—Paper cone
—Straw flags
—Three (3) sheets of 2-inch circles in various designs
—Tented Labels
—Four (4) playing cards that spell out LOVE
—Scrapbook papers in six (6) patterns
—Blank Pochettes in two (2) patterns
—Two (2) pochettes, one of each printed with “to the queen of my heart” and “to my love” on the front
—Blank inner note card
—Two (2) note cards pre printed with love notes

Thank you again to Chris Nease at Celebrations at Home for lending  your talent to this photoshoot, and be sure to visit her inspiring entertainment blog!

Styling and photographs – Chris Nease @ Celebrations At Home

Printables - Frog Prince Paperie

Decorated Cookies - Allyson Jane