My inspiration: "Petite Boulangerie" Party

Check out this amazing party on pen n' paper flowers blog to see the inspiration for my daughter's first birthday party. I thought a French bakery with mini pastries would be adorable since Claire has a French name and I am a French teacher. I plan on attempting some of the pastries myself.

Christmas Tabletop Decor

I am hosting our family Christmas Eve dinner this year.  The dress is "holiday cute," the food is fancy and French and the decor is simple and modern.  Check out a few pictures of the decorations I am working on!

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!

Simply DIY wall hanging

I can't wait to try to make this for my daughter's nursery which is already decorated with birds and flowers in a modern, whimsical way.  You can get all of the instructions and the template for the bird here. 

Animal themed Nursery

My sister-in-law is pregnant with her second who we've presumed to be a boy. If this is true, she plans on using some safari animal themed baby bedding from her sister-in-law. In order to help make the nursery fun, I am helping her compile creative and cute ideas to build on the theme.



These night light covers are a DIY from Martha Stewart.

Good ole Martha also has a great DIY for making your own animal wall hangings. so cute!

Sesame Street Party

Fun with Elmo and friends!  My friend, Rachel decided to go all out for her daughter Scarlett's 2nd birthday.  She invited EVERYONE she knew and got in major party planning mode.  Since Scarlett is enamored with Elmo, she thought the natural choice would be a Sesame Street theme.  Check out some of these pictures!