Amelia's 5th Grade Promotion Party

I think I have mentioned this before, and many of you already know, but for the last 9 or so years I have had the privilege of babysitting a beautiful and bright young girl, Amelia.  I have seen her grow up from a little baby through her first day at Kindergarten and now last June she finished 5th grade and is moving on to Middle School.  It's hard to believe sometimes that she has grown up so fast right before my eyes.  Any ways a few months back I posted about the decorations we set up at her school here  .  Well while all of Amelia's family was watching the Promotion at the school I was busy setting up for the after party at the house.  I was missing my friend Liz, she had to work so I was flying solo on this one. 

The theme was a blue beach theme.  Luckily as our party planning has been developing we have collected many different types of jars and vases that I didn't have to go out and by a ton of things to make the decor for this party happen.

Their was one long table outside.  First I rolled out some burlap across the center of the table to look like sand and add a nice contrast to the white table cloth.  I added 5 centerpiece down the center of the table. (2 different types) one was a silver lantern with some sand at the bottom with some seashells and a starfish inside.  The other was a wooden box turned upside down, wrapped in burlap, with a picture of the guest of honor and two different blue containers.  One had sand and seashells in it the other one was filled with water and had a white rose. 

There was another table outside for the gifts.  On it was a collage picture of different times Amelia has been at the beach.  In the front I added this cute sign that says life is good at the beach. ( I mean because really..Isn't it???) and there are two white roses on either side of the little sign.  On the left there are two small glass containers, one has layered blue and regular colored sand with some seashells mixed with it and next to it is a blue container with a shells at the bottom and a white rose floating on top.  On the right is another small blue container with a white rose floating on top and a family picture at the beach.

On the inside of the house I used some taller clear vases, layered them with rocks, glass pebbles, and shells then filled it with water, the color on the rocks turned the water a really pretty shade of blue.  I also added some shells, sea stars, and other beach items around the vases.  

I put some shells at the bottom of this blue bowl vase to keep the theme cohesive

Notice the vase on the right's water, it's turning blue

Let us know what you think about our party!!

XOXO,

Raina

Purple and Gold party

A friend of mine was throwing a fun adult slumber party for her Grandma's 85th and her Sister's 40th birthdays.  She hosted several women family members at her house for appetizers and before dinner drinks. Then off to a restaurant they went for dinner.  Little did they know she asked two fairy's by the names of Raina and Liz to swooped in and set up desserts and other snacks, lite some candles, and (of course a party would be complete without) some fun decor, banners, pics, and party signs then we snuck out of the house without anyone knowing we were there.

This is the front of the island in the kitchen that had the desserts on the table. We draped some fun purple material over the island and added some vases that we wrapped in ribbon and feathers.

Birthday Signs

We hung some iridescent purple material across the back door slider.  We also hung a duel birthday banner  across it

A close up of the banner.  I love the font on the banner.

Another banner strung across the fireplace.

A close up

 Here are a few pictures of some of the little touches we added around the room

Of course a party can not be complete without food 

Chocolate Fountain Station..can I say Heaven!!!

My semi famous Spinach and Artichoke dip...well Paula Dean made it famous

In the upper left hand corner and on the right are lemon cake balls that I made.  I was so happy how they came out.  I wish I took a picture of what they looked like up close because they were nearly perfectly shaped!!

A close up of our pics

I made these cookies once for this friend and she thought they were amazing!! Ha! I e told her I just followed the recipe on the back of the Nestle Toll House bag. 

And I thought I would end the post with another picture of the chocolate fountain because really nothing is better then Chocolate for this girl.

xoxo,

Raina

Baby Boy Monkey Shower

Back in May, Liz and I were asked to set up a Monkey Boy baby shower.  We were so excited and came up with a lot of fun ideas.  At least we think they are fun... The Colors were blue, green, and brown and of course lots of Monkeys. Setting up for this party was one of my favorites.  We even got to have some fun with the food.

Welcome Lawn Sign...We always have to have one of these.

This door rattle might just have been the bane of our existence.  It did not come out as cute as we thought it would...but oh well

Please pay no attention to the lop-sided tissue pom..But here is our banner. I wish I could have zoomed in closer so you could all see how cute the paper was.

More lop-sided poms..some of them are good other,,eeq..This has nothing to do with the one who made them...(liz) but the one who had to fluff them..that's right that would be me. I'm too much of a perfectionist, I think.

Sorry I know that this picture doesn't really show you too much but we just made some circles with some monkeys on them and strung them across some seating areas..like this one attached to the umbrella.

I should probably save this part for last because it is my favorite part...The host wanted to do a onsie decorating station.  I really just love the way it came out.  We used one of my empty frames and hung it on a tree branch.  We then clipped some onsies on the inside with a few monkey pictures.  Seriously isn't it so cute?!?!

We also added a pennant banner of the babies name to the bottom of the frame.

Where the onesies will be hung when they are dry. We didn't stay for the party, so we do not have any pictures of completed onesies but we heard this station was a hit!

 The Host wanted the food to be apart of the theme.  So Liz and I came up with a few fun food items.

Blue Jello..No alcohol in these puppies

In the center of the tray are some BLUEberries to go with our color scheme and some chocolate covered bananas for the Monkeys.

We added a little bit of blue food coloring to the dip for the veggies. Isn't Liz so creative with the way she put these Veggie cups together??

There is nothing more fun then displaying salads in a cool container.  These Martini glasses gives these salads height which allows for a better flow of the food. (Please pay no attention to the pink cup in the picture..I may or may not have forgotten to move it before taking it...even though Liz told me to)

The Host asked for one alcoholic and one non alcoholic drink..we were so excited with the coloring of the Alcoholic drink, it was lemonade mixed with vodka and some blue curacao.  The color is beautiful. The non-alcoholic one..hmm lets just say when you mix blue kool-aid with a strawberry daiquiri flavored frozen concentrate..you do not get blue...oh well it was still Yummy!!

 The favor was a trail mix bar or Monkey Mix as we like to call it....

Can you see the curtains hung up in the upper left hand corner??? I am so mad that I didn't get a better picture of that because that really came out really cute.

And of course no party would be complete without an appearance from.....................................

That's right...the famous boxes we use for pretty much every party.  They add height to allow more stuff on a table or just to use to add a bit of fun.

That is it for now. I do have two other parties to write about..I just need to find the pictures for them. Ha!! Seriously we need to make it big so that we can hire someone to come and take really pretty pictures of all our deocr.  Most of the time we run out of time or we forget to move pink cups that just do not belong.