Parties and Pretties

Real party: Butterfly Garden Baby Shower

I don't have very many pictures of the dessert table or the food table, but here are some GREAT detail shots of the foods and desserts and such. The party turned out to be such a sweet clebration of thsi precious new life!

Monkey Love...in progress.

I purchased a printable girly monkey party package from Etsy that came with a party hat template. Here is what I have thus far:

I found a tutorial online that had these homemade "lanterns" for decorative use. I am a strong believer in adding a vertical element to your displays, so I took the plunge and got messy (VERY similar to paper maché process) to create these with my girls.

I have a ton more projects to complete: the main one being painting a base layer on the heart photo frames that I bought for the kids to paint/decorate.

Monkey Love: A Party in the Making

My baby is turning two next month which is quite bittersweet as she will no longer be a baby... You may remember the Little French Bakery 1st Birthday Party that I threw for her last year, Well, due to the expense and time involved with throwing a very intricate and detailed themed party, my husband and I have an agreement to only do a "big" party every other year. I guess that means that I should be packing up the girls along with their cousins and heading to Chuck E Cheese's, but I just LOVE parties too much! In efforts to keep this year's shindig to a "small" party, we are trying to just do family and a few friends. We shall see how well I do at that...ahem.

Claire loves monkeys at the moment: from watching Curious George to reading her favorite bedtime story, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. But with Valentine's Day so close to her birthday and my not being able to do her party the weekend of her actual birthday (the hubby and I are headed to Rome for 5 days), I thought it best to combine the two by choosing a pink & brown color scheme and incorporating both hearts and monkeys to give...Sweet Monkey Love!!!

My favorite part of throwing a party with a simple shape is the vast number of possibilities from crafts to food designs. My four year old daughter has already begun assisting me with craft projects...pics to come. I purchased these gorgeous fabrics to use for the dessert display backdrop, the table topper and a "photo booth" backdrop.

I was delighted to find these cute Monkey Love craft kits at Target...10 for $5.

I plan on having a kids craft table decked out with craft supplies in cute heart-shaped containers with a few different crafts to do, ranging from the Monkey Love crafts to decorating little photo frames to cover the photos we take at the photo booth (thanks to digital cameras and modern technology which allows us to plug in the camera and print out copies of the photo booth shots in a matter of moments). These crafts will make for wonderful party favors for the kids to give away to loved ones for Valentine's Day two days later.

I just snagged these on Amazon for the kids! I may paint their names on them too.

Needless to say, I am already getting sucked in to this party. I wish I had a ton more time and money (and guests) allotted to make it truly out of this world, but I will do my best to give my little girl a day of wonder.

The New Website!!!

I officially launched SAVOR Events & Sweets back in July, but I am just now finding the time, money and energy to create a website and do some serious branding!

I hope you get a chance to check out my new site to see my services, pricing, portfolio as well as featured parties. Let me know what you think!

Dark Chocolate Brownie cookies with Mint M&Ms

In case you need a simple, tasty cookie, here it is.

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (I prefer dutch blend)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips (regular or mini’s)

1 cup Mint M&Ms

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium bowl sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In a mixer beat together the butter with the sugars until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating until smooth after each addition and scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add vanilla. On a low speed beat in the flour mixture a little at a time. Gently mix in chocolate chips and the mint M&Ms.

On an ungreased cookie sheet, drop teaspoons of the batter about 2 inches apart. Bake until just cracked on top, about 8 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the cooking time. Flatten the cookies slightly with a spatula after removing from oven. Cool completely.

Great new approach to party invitations-just in time for New Years Eve parties!

With all of the craziness of Christmas and family, I love to just invite good friends over for a classy dinner party and some games for New Year's Eve...we usually just set up pack and plays for babies and have guests bring sleeping bags for their kids then we just hang out until the wee hours when everyone crashes at our house. Whatever style New Year's Eve party you like to throw, you should check out the new invitations that Shutterfly has created!
For the elegant celebration, you could do one of these:

And for your super fun family sleepover party, maybe try one of these:

Christmas is two weeks away, but there is still hope for you to get your family Christmas cards sent out.

I know you like parties, but in keeping with this blog's original intent of celebrating all things cute, I feel it is my duty to tell you about the super cute Christmas card styles being offered on www.shutterfly.com this season. Don't get me wrong: I have been using Shutterfly for my annual family Christmas cards since 2007. They always seem to have the best designs from traditional to simple and modern.

As for my family, we are stepping up our game a little this year by getting folded cards printed on premium cardstock. You can also add small images and personal messages inside. Here's a sample:

If you are more into the typical photo cards, what I like the best about Shutterfly is that they have several designs for multiple photos. SInce I spend good money on adorable family pictures, I can never choose just one! Here's a sample of a cute one I found.

For the first time ever, I think I am gonna do address labels because Shutterfly offers cute modern ones, unlike the cheesy ones I so often see. Here are a few samples, but you can see them all here.

Oh! And if you need some great gift ideas, I am a HUGE fan of photo books. I know there are several sites who make them, but Shutterfly is the best one that I have found to date. They are user friendly, fast and highly customizable. I have made three or four of them and always get rave reviews. Check out this one that I made for my girls: Sisters Photo Book Project

Here's a little secret, for all of you bloggers out there, you can earn 50 FREE photo cards. What's not to love about that!?!