Photo frame candle centerpiece

One of our good friends just turned 40 and we missed the party planning window to be able to pull together my fabulous idea: an "It's a Wonderful Life" themed dinner party. The basic concept would be to use black, white and red as the colors and do everything in an old-fashioned, vintage feel while showing off as many photos of the birthday boy throughout his life as possible. One way to achieve that goal would have been to create these vellum photo frames to put around votive candles on the table as part of the centerpiece. That Martha Stewart (or her contributing writers and editors) sure does think of the greatest things!!! Get the full step by step instructions here on her site.

If you are interested in hosting a dinner party with that theme, Better Homes & Gardens' website has a full menu to coincide. Find it here.

Christmas Cookie Exchange Party

My fabulous friend Joanna leads up a mom's playgroup and has recently started an annual tradition of doing a mom's night in that involved a cookie swap for the holidays. This year, she wanted to spice it up and take the cuteness up a few notches. Using inspiration found on a few party planning blogs, she gave the presentation a facelift with her crafty labels and jar decor as well as, well, you will see...





It was not only adorable, but delicious as all the cookies were amazing. Joanna even went so far as to provide cute little git boxes with Christmas-themed tissue paper for us to package up our new cookie assortment. It's the small touches that ake parties great. Thanks, Jo for letting me share your success with the cyberworld!