Happy Friday- Parties In Bloom

This adorable London Inspired Party was sent to us by our Australian friend, Alex Shaw of The Inspired Occasion.  The Inspired Occasion does truly amazing work and I am so happy to share another one of their parties with you.  I love the entire idea of a London themed party from the baby blue and red color scheme to the toy soldiers.  Alex explains:

I styled this party for a client's son's first birthday party. The little boy's dad is English, so they wanted to incorporate elements from England into the party. You will find toy soldiers scattered throughout, delicious mini english trifles, pillar post boxes and even a double decker bus or two!

The colour palate consisted of baby blue, white and touches of bright red. We filled the roof of the venue with large paper lanterns and bouquets of helium balloons were spread over the space - which the kids loved! We also set a kids table, each with a personalized 

All edible items were by The Inspired Occasion, along with the printables. The venue was a Melbourne classic - Babycino's Cafe in South Melbourne. The gift boxes are from Sambellina, which were purchased from Sharnel Dollar Designs and decorated by The Inspired Occasion.

     

     

 

Thank you Alex for sharing this inspirational party with us!  It is so delightful and charming- everything a first birthday should be.  Make sure you check out The Inspired Occasion.  Send me your parties! I'd happy to share them.  

Congratulation to Kristy (comment 16) for winning the Push Up Pops Book by Courtney Dial.  It's being released on March 1st.  Hope the rest of you grab one.  Have a great weekend.

XO

Make It Monday- Party Pedestals

I am in full planning mode for a party I am having next week and I was having a hard time finding food vessels to match my party colors without spending a fortune.  Normally, I use all white plates and cake stands for everything but for this party they simply would not work.  This is probably a familiar project to most of you but it is a party craft everyone should know and with all Valentine crafts going on, I thought it would be a good week to share this easy craft.    It is so simple and takes just minutes best of all they can be resprayed over and over again.

Supplies: wooden candel sticks, wooden plates, glue gun, spray paint- all from Michael's

Glue the plate and candel stick together using a hot glue gun.  Make sure the candel stick is attached to the center of the plate so that the cake stand is balanced.

Let glue dry and then spray paint. Make sure you do both sides.

One tiny tidbit I learned yesterday after doing this project- You can buy a portable spray gun for under $5.00 that turns any paint into a can of spray paint (which saves time and goes on so much better).  Although spray paint now comes in a huge variety of colors, I couldn't find the bright preppy pink I was looking for.  With this tool, I am simply going to use some left over paint from another project to get the exact results I want.
Hope your Valentine's craft are completed.  Back tomorrow.
XO

An Amy Atlas Moment

                                                               

This is such an amazing day for me.  The Thriller party I did is a featured submission on Sweet Designs- Amy Atlas Events.  I literally was jumping up and down when I got the news on Tuesday that I was going to be featured.  Amy Atlas is the most incredible party designer and someone I have admired for a long time.  This really goes beyond my wildest dreams. 

To celebrate our feature, everyone signing up to follow my blog by next Friday will be entered in a random drawing to win a $25 Target Gift Card and will get $25 credit in my store bloomonline.etsy.com .  To enter 1. Sign up to be Bloom follower 2. Visit my etsy store an leave a comment on this page of what you like.  Thanks for visiting Bloom and to read about us on Amy's blog click on the link.

XO

Yellow

As the temperature is finally cooling off in Southern California, I wanted to share one of my favorite parties of the past summer.  I am lucky to be part of a group of eighteen (yes! that's a lot) wonderful families who hold a family BBQ each Friday night.  This summer the theme for the BBQ helded at my house was yellow-  anything but everything yellow- soft butter yellow not school bus.  It was so fun and made even better by everyone coming in color.  For dinner, we had fried chicken, yellow submarine sandwiches, yellow fingerling potato salad, grilled corn salad, caprese salad with yellow tomatoes and deviled eggs.  Dessert included banana creme pie shooter, mini lemon merguine tarts, pound cake with yellow peaches and honey creme fraiche, and lots of yellow candies.  The hit of the dessert table turned out to be the yellow Twinkies and yellow Zingers.  I always like to include something like these treats that people love but wouldn't necessarily buy for themselves as an adult. It adds a bit of whimsy and nostalgia to the party and leaves people with the right amount of comfort.