Food, Flowers, and Festivities

Choosing flowers to go with a theme

Friday, May 4, 2018

How I choose flowers for a ballet themed shower

I wanted to continue my color scheme with the flowers for this shower. So I went with light pink, dark pink and also threw in some white for contrast. My beautiful flowers for this party were hydrangeas and peonies, sigh. I stripped all the leaves from the stems and cut them 1.5 times the height of the vase. I did end up leaving a couple of the leaves on the hydrangea so there would be a little bit of greenery. Just make sure that none of the leaves are under water or your water will get yucky quickly!

I also did ribbon rose flowers out of fondant for the cake.

I found some neat templates on Etsy so that I could make the paper flowers that I hung up on the window behind the dessert table. If you have a Cricut cutting machine it makes much quicker than having to cut all these petals out by hand.

Sometimes I like to think outside of the box when it comes to choosing vases. I have a large assortment of pink depression ware that is so pretty for a girly shower like this one. I used the plates for serving but I also used the depression glass to put the flowers in as well.

Brie En Croute, Food, party food

Making a Brie En Croute

How to make a Brie En Croute

This is such a fun way to personalize your food for a party. Since I did an UP Party I wanted to make this Brie En Croute with the UP letters but the possibilities for this are endless!! The nice thing about making this is that you can do all messy steps ahead of time and then just pop it in the oven right before the party.

Ingredients

1 sheet of frozen puff pastry

1 (8 oz) wheel of brie

1/4 cup raspberry jam

1 egg, beaten

Crackers for serving

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Defrost the puff pastry according to the package directions. Roll out the puff pastry slightly and trim so that you'll have enough to go around the wheel of brie. Spread the raspberry jam on top of the brie cheese. Then wrap the puff pastry around the wheel of brie putting the edges on the bottom to completely enclose the brie cheese. Use the scraps of dough to cut out letters, shapes or anything else you'd like to use to decorate your Brie En Croute. From this point you can cover your Brie En Croute and put it in the refrigerator if you like. Beat one egg with 1 tablespoon of water and brush it over your Brie En Croute. Then bake until golden brown for about 20 minutes.

Ballet baby show, Featured, Festivities

Ballet Baby Shower

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Ballet Baby Shower

The Color Scheme

We decided to go with gray and lots and lots of various shades of pink!

The Cake

My friend who I did this shower for does not eat gluten so everything had to be gluten free including this cake. I used this recipe: https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/lemon-layer-cake-233013 I tested a lot of gluten free recipes and I have to say that this was the best gluten free recipe I have ever tried!!

This was the dessert table for my special friend. Along with the cake I also made a macaron tower.

Macarons are tricky little cookies to make. The best video tutorial I've ever seen for them can be seen here: https://www.craftsy.com/baking/classes/miniature-french-desserts/35127 I use Collette Christian's basic recipe and then I add my own flavors to the cookie and filling.

The Food

What kind of food do you make for a healthy yoga teacher? I knew it had to be a healthy menu that was also delicous.

Even the brioche buns were gluten free using Thomas Keller's Cup 4 Cup flour.

These glass cups are recycled Starbucks Frappuccino
cups. The look so cute with paper straws!

The Flowers

I have to say that the flower selection for this party was a little bit self indulgent on my part. Peonies and hydrangeas happen to be favorite flowers! I did the flowers in all shades of pink to tie in the theme and then white to break it up a little.

The Decorations

I bought this frame from Ikea. Then I used gray chalk paint to make it a very matte gray. I found a wooden letter P and painted it to match our pink theme. Later I gifted it to my new mom for her nursery.

The Entertainment

We got these amazing wishing lanterns here: Then each guest wrote a wish for the new baby on their lantern. Later in the evening we went outside to release each lantern.

The Favors

We ordered this amazing gourmet cotton candy and called it Fluffy Tuille Candy. I love this gourmet cotton candy from Sky Candy: https://www.skycandyorlando.com/cottoncandy/ I thought it looked so cute in these mason jars with pink lids.

1st birthday party, Festivities

UP Party

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

The Invititation

The Color Scheme

We decided to with teal as our primary color and then rainbow colors as secondary colors.

The Cake

We had so much fun designing this UP cake that had the house from UP and the balloons that made it fly! This cake was memorable because it was so unique.

We also served cupcakes with balloons to go with our theme. That way our guest could choose what flavor of cake they would like.

Often I will do a dessert table that displays the cake and other various goodies that go with my UP theme.

The Food

Our caterer provided these slider buns and then I personalized them with tiny branding irons.

I like to find a local food caterer that we enjoy frequenting on a regular basis. Down here in the South we have a lot of great bbq restaurant options. For this party we got 4Rivers bbq and our guests really enjoyed it!

The Decorations

Of course we had to have lots and lots of balloons at this party! We used printable sticker paper to put some of the images like this one on the balloon.