In the spirit of all things romantic and lacy for Valentine’s Day, I’ve done a guest post on how to make these pretty doily wreath over at Celebrations at Home. These are super quick and super easy to do–plus they look great when you hang a number of them together! Perfect for stunning backdrops. Click here to blog hop on over.
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!
Quick, easy favors around the holidays that look fabulous and are unique but are inexpensive are sometimes just a Christmas miracle. But if you can take something simple, like homemade hot cocoa, and put it in interesting packaging, like a test tube, it becomes something that might create gift-envy.
Every year I make a giant container of this homemade hot chocolate recipe and we drink it for a good part of the winter. It’s the perfect powdered cocoa, and great for gift giving! Use the cocoa mix as a gift and attach the recipe on a tag for your lucky recipient.
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NORTH POLE COCOA
Mix ingredients thoroughly and store in airtight container. For drinks: Combine 1/3 cup mix with 6-8 oz. hot water or milk.
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If you’d like a “haute” chocolate favor, you can’t go wrong with hot chocolate on a stick. The Giver’s Log gives a great how-to tutorial on their site, OR if you’re like me and the idea of tempering chocolate sends you running, they’ll also make some for you if you visit their shop at The Ticket Kitchen.
I’m thrilled to be able to announce that I’ve joined the Project Nursery team as a Design Expert. This means I will be blogging more–at least every two weeks, that is! It will be fun; they’ve set me up with a professional looking page of my own on their site with a little about me and some of the things I love (Buck is even in there!) I’ll be passing on party tips and anything else that may cross my mind over there.
And I’ve put up my first post at Project Nursery! It’s a little bit about the shortcuts you can take on your dessert table using store-bought sweets. I use these shortcuts when styling all the time–especially when I’m the only one baking! You can click here to see the article.
Nicole from Tradewind Tiaras is the most incredible DIYer I know. Every party she throws has the most amazing handcrafted details that not only shows her talent, but her love for what she does and the people that she celebrates. I was truly honored to be able to help a bit with her daughter’s Bright Butterfly party.
Butterflies was definitely the theme for the party–her daughter’s nickname is Tykki-dyw, “butterfly” in Cornish. For the colors and feel of the party, she found inspiration in a set of fabrics. I used those fabrics to design a party suite for little Niamh’s event.
All these details are handmade–the butterfly streamers, the ruffled pinata, the cake (!). And Nicole is a generous soul in addition to being talented. She provides tutorials for all the things she makes for her parties. You can see how to make this gorgous pinata here.
There are over 200 individually made roses on that beautiful butterfly cake. I think it would pain me to eat it after all that work! I am in love with these little molded sugar flower pots, the tutorial for them can be found here.
Even the favors were handmade; these perfect sheets of old-fashioned candy buttons were given to each little (and big!) guest. Nicole provides a tutorial for these here.
So many wonderful details! The little handsewn bunting was one of my favorites. Nicole has a tutorial on how to make these fabric hats, but also has them ready mad in her Etsy store.
Even the birthday girl’s dress was handmade! See how it was done here. And I was happy to lend a little inspiration to the lace and ribbon badmitton net the little guest played with.
It looks like it was a positively magic, wonderful party, and I was happy to lend a very small hand in it. There are so many more party pictures posted on the Tradewind Tiara blog, make sure to see part I, part II and part III!
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
This spectacular Elmo party for one tiny Elmo love comes from a very fabulous client of mine, Cecelia all the way from down under. She had a vision for her Elmo party, and it was so much fun helping her make it a very unique character party. Cecelia amazingly handcrafted most of what you see here, including the desserts. I understand she might start taking on clients soon for those of you there on the other side of the world! Thanks for sending in your pictures, Cecelia!
Such an incredible amount of detail work went into this dessert table–from oreo truffles shaped like Elmo to the beautifully done candy skewers and macarons in perfect matching shades of red and aqua.
I just love how creative Cecelia was with all the printables –she used scrapbook paper to make pinwheels and the tops of the invitations to make these darling Bloombox centerpieces
Even the beverages got a little party love!
Happy 2nd birthday, Jake, and congrats on a wonderful job, Cecelia!!
I get questions about my backdrops often enough that I’ve finally (finally!) taken a few minutes to spill all my secrets. When you create a dessert table display, choose a background with interesting architecture, natural beauty or create some of your own visual interest. The Midsummer’s Night Dream and Beach Baby parties took advantage of some lovely gardens and the ocean, but most of my photoshoots happen in the front room of my house where I have boring white walls. This forces a little creativity on my party to make my party displays a tad more eye-appealing.
There are three things that I use (and reuse) for my backdrops:
I have foam-core boards (usually 2 taped together) I wrap in fabric (as in the photo from the Birdie shower above) or wrapping paper, depending on what I find to match the rest of what I’m doing. The trick is starch when you iron and pull tight when you use fabric, and just pulling tight when you use wrapping paper! I purchased my set of foam-core boards at Hobby Lobby, and bought the largest size they carry.
In the bear party and the grad party, I painted bead board for the backdrop and tacked it to the wall with 2 finishing nails at the top. One side is smooth, the other has the bead board grooves, so there is more than one option for use once you have it. In the image above, I used the smooth side — fabulous effect without painting the walls!
The yellow in the picture was a really big canvas with paint. It was blue at the bear party, yellow at graduation, and right now it is pink and silver from my daughter’s Make-a-Wish party. Most of these items cost a little at the outset, but I never make investments into pieces like that without knowing they will be repeatedly reused.
On paint–buying a billion of the acrylic tubes at the craft store is costly, and no one really needs a quart or gallon to paint up 32 square feet of board (or canvas). Home Depot has a handy sample size now that you can actually do color matches with. (You should have seen my happy dance when I found THAT out!!)
FREE STANDING BACKDROPS
If your party is outside with no wall to prop a backboard against, and you’ve got something you need to hide or just want to create a little more interest, building something free-standing is a good option. Celebrations at Home (thanks for the picture, Chris!) has a great tutorial on putting together this pipe and drape system.
DESSERT BACKDROP ALTERNATIVES
If the thought of building a big backdrop for your table doesn’t thrill you, there are other options to adding visual interest behind your dessert table.
This table was put together by my friend, Courtney. She used some carefully placed streamers to add a background–simple and inexpensive as that! Poms and rosettes like those at Pom Flair and banners are also great ways to build backdrops without covering a full wall.
Hope these tips help you build the perfect backdrop for the perfect dessert table at your next party!
The dessert table selections at the “Make a Wish” birthday party were nestled in a china cabinet I found at a local thrift store. It wasn’t very pretty when I purchased, it but I saw it’s interesting lines and knew a little paint would work wonders! The same shop happened to have the tea cart (which I painted pink!) The balloons were scattered on the floor to give a dreamy effect; and the kids loved picking them up to play with them. Kid parties need balloons!
Genevive at Superchick Studios aka Posh Party Pretties dreamed up these excellent Kandy Kones for me. She used the scrapbook paper designed for the Wish printable set, and accented the cones with oragami stars and sparkles!
In my search for some party treats, I ran across Dainty Delights, Inc. She has the most wonderfully unique selection of sugar cookies I’ve ever seen! I love how delicate they are and the addition of the little gum paste flowers makes them even more exquisite. You can find her store on Etsy.
The dandelion lollipops were made by Courtney (one of my fantastic helpers!) since I am pretty terrible at dipping things in candy. (Yes, there, I said it.) Instead of going through the mess of making cake balls, I take a little shortcut that tastes great and is a fraction of the mess. I buy the two bite brownies premade at the grocery store, roll them into balls and put a stick in them. The brownies are moist enough they don’t need frosting to make them stick together!
The rest of the china cabinet was filled with different sweet treats for the kids. The push pops we ended up including in the favor bags, as there was so much else to eat!
Another view of our giant “dandelion.”
The cake was made by Something Sweet Cake Studio. It turned out absolutely perfect – simple but charming, with lots of sparkle! The strawberry milkshakes were a special request by the birthday girl; the shot glasses made for just enough for each child they were a HUGE hit.
If you missed part I of the party, see it here.
There’s been quite the call for a tutorial on how to make these little pushpop hats seen in the “ bright future” graduation party! I’m happy to be able to show you how they were made. It wasn’t an extremely scientific process to creating these little hats, so as with all tutorials, I am sure you will find a more precise way to accomplish the look as you go along. If you’re not using pushpops like the ones in these photos that I found at CupKate’s, you could scale them down or up to fit the top of a water bottle, soda bottle or soda can for a fun party accent!
Supplies:
To make the hat:
1. Cut out a square 2 5/8 in x 2 5/8 in for the top of the hat. For the band, you’ll need a strip 7 1/2 inches long by 3/4 inches wide
2. Wrap the long strip around the top of a pushpop to size your band and glue, glue dot or tape down.
3. Attaching the band to the top of the hat. Put a thin bead of glue around the top of the band and place it in the center of the cut square. Alternately, you can tape the band to the top of the hat on the inside of the band; that said, the ones I did with glue had more polish to them when complete. While you’re waiting for the caps to dry, you can prepare the tassles.
To make the tassles:
1. The little strips of paper I used for the tassles are so thin, I’m not going to bother with a measurement other than to tell you they are 3 inches long. Cut 4 very thin and one slightly thicker–just a hair more than 1/16th inch if you need something to go by. This thicker piece will be the part that is glued to the cap.
2. Take three of the the thin strips of paper and line them up and fold them in half. Don’t worry if you’re not exact, they’ll be trimmed later.
3. Using the 4th thin strip, wrap it around the the folded papers tightly a few times to keep them together and glue down. If there is excess paper (and there should be) trim it off.
4. Once the glue is dry, glue the group of bound papers to the slightly thicker strip.
Again, wait for that glue to dry, then trim the ends of the tassle up so they’re all even.
5. Placing the strip to the center of the cap, apply glue to set.
6. Bend the paper over the edge to make it look like it’s hanging and you’re done! Pop them on top of your pushpops for display. I don’t recommend gluing them down to the pushpop, because the cap has to come off to get the lid open.
To decorate the fronts of my pushpops, I used a 2 inch circle customized for graduate Mason (really, my cousin who is graduating this year!) I printed the circles full sheet labels then punched them out. The pushpops themselves are great filled with candy or cupcakes. Enjoy!~
