Bridal Shower DIY

This weekend I had the pleasure of helping out with a bridal shower for my boyfriends cousin, Nancy. She is such a nice person so I jumped at the chance to help out with organizing the party decor, invitations, favors, etc. Let's be honest--I always jump at the chance to design for a party because I love it so much! If you've been a blog follower of mine since the very first post you may already know that my entire paper crafting journey started with a party. In case you don't know how I got started in the paper crafting world I'll give you a quick recap.

When I found out my brother was going to be a dad I was so excited because this meant I would be an aunt and it would be our families first grandchild. So, I immediately thought of ideas for the baby shower. Since it was my first baby shower I did lots of online research and I googled party themes and ideas (I don't know if pinterest existed yet). Then I took the next step which was head over to the craft store and start buying things for the party and for the first time I stopped in the rubber stamp section and looked for any stamps that had bumble bees on them because I choose the theme 'Mommy to bee' for the theme. I made tags, for this party, the floral arrangements, the candy table--you name it, I did it. Fast forward to when the party is over, and I found myself sad because I didn't have a reason to use all the paper crafting tools that I'd purchased from the store so I thought to myself, "what if I just make party decor and sell it so that I could craft all the time" because all I wanted to do with my time was make pretty little things and share them with the world. So that's when I started my Etsy shop, and the rest was history from there. One day I wanted to add Hanukkah cards to my shop so I googled Hanukkah stamps and I found Lawn Fawn via google; and, once I found LF I was hooked for life from there, hehe. So, I owe my whole paper craft career to my love for throwing a great party and I don't think I'll ever stop helping out with parties. I also don't charge for parties that I help with. I love them so much that I do them for free--mostly for friends and family. It's usually always only people I know personally.

Now back to, Nancy's, bridal shower. She loves anything shabby chic and vintagey so I wanted to incorporate that into this party. She also loves succulents,  and burlap so I tried to include all of those things into the decor for this party. What I love about planning a small party is that you don't need to spend tons of money at the store to pull off a very elegant and pretty event. I like to put lots of little details on things that can be made at home and then I shop for strong statement pieces much like the vintage candle boxes shown in the images above. Making a tassel garland is pretty tedious but it can add so much to a space and brighten it up so well. The bride to be actually wanted the tissue paper pom-poms I convinced her that tassel garlands are so much pretty and totally on trend right now, hehe. She loved them!

Aside from the light boxes, I also purchased some medium and small size pots for the succulents that would go on the tables. Some of them were painted in mint or peach, and the larger pots already came in this muted green color (which was so pretty). I purchased the Martha Stewart spray system and I have to say I was so disappointed with it. I bought it after watching a DIY tutorial on how to use it but it didn't work as great in person. I ended up just painted the pots by hand.

I hired my little sister, Melanie for the cake pops, min cupcakes, and cheesecake shooters and they not only looked amazing but they tasted great as well! She is so talented at what she does. I made the cake because I really love making cakes, lol. I also used this opportunity to try out one of my new products. The 'Love' cake topper--which will be available in my shop very soon.

This party was so much fun and I can't wait for another chance to help with a party again soon. Thank you so much of stopping by and please let me know if you have any questions about anything in the comments below!

Getting Ready for Thanksgiving

I’m so lucky because on Thanksgiving all I have to worry about is decorating the house. I don’t have to have fuss with the food preparations at all—and that I’m thankful for. This year I didn’t really plan out what theme I wanted for the decor and as per usual I’m doing everything last minute. I started shopping for glass and tissue paper yesterday and I was trying to find things I could buy that would make the set up good amazing—but then I realized that I have everything I need at home. There was no need to go all out and spend tons of money. So while I was realizing this at the store I just picked up a few small things to add to the things I already had at home, and I ended up just buying the tissue paper and 4 glass bottles. I remembered I had 6 mason jars at home—along with copper paint so I thought I’d use those to make the vases aka centerpieces.

For the banner and place cards I used my trusty stash of Lawn dies, and stamps. To create the banner I used the stitched party bannerdies along with louie’s ABCs and stitched leaves. You can’t tell from the image but I’m also using the silver sparkle lawn trimmings—it looks so pretty up close. To create the place cards I used the dies and stamps from the set sweater weather and I love how they came out. I still need to add the names of the guests’ and make a few more, too, but I’m getting there!

As far as the table decor I’m planning on heading to the flower mart at 6 in the morning tomorrow over in Downtown LA. I’m hoping it won’t be packed but it’s a holiday so I’m sure it will be. I wanted to use the color copper for some time now. I’ve had the Martha Stewart paint sitting in my closet for months and I finally get to use it.

Tomorrow I’m going to take pictures of the entire set up and I’ll share them with you on Friday. I hope you enjoyed this little sneak peek into my preparations and I hope you have a great holiday!