A Kiss at Midnight: A New Year Celebration

Spending New Years Eve at home doesn't mean you can't celebrate and bring in the new year with style! 

We dressed the table in a lovely "Kiss at Midnight" theme complete with silver and gold accents, a clock plate at every place setting to count down to midnight, confetti streamers and of course, Hershey Kisses so that everyone gets a kiss at midnight!

Sparkling Cider or Champagne makes a great centerpiece. The non-alcoholic grape juice or apple juice versions mean you can bring this celebration into New Years Day for a lovely New Years Day brunch, or let the kids stay up late on New Years Eve and toast the new year with their own kid-friendly glass of bubbly! 

Pssst...Want to hear a secret? These lovely clock plates were made right here at home, and you can make them too. It's just a clock face printed, cut out and placed under a clear glass plate on top of silver charger plates. If you'd like to make these yourself, you can get the free printable below! Also check out some more great custom table settings you can make with clear plates here! (link coming soon)

Make sure you have some Hershey Kisses saved from the Christmas candy stash for your midnight kiss! I put aside some of the red and green ones as well - to find out why, look here!

..and just a few photos with only the warm glow of the Christmas lights.

Free Printable to use at your own New Year's Eve Party. Happy New Year!

Thanksgiving Table: The Spendor of Autumn

This Thanksgiving I used all my restraint to resist the urge to let our Christmas decor arrive early. So often I cannot resist that urge and we end up with a Thanksgiving/Christmas fusion. 

Everything stayed well within the Autumn color theme this year without even a hint of Christmas!

Burlap has always been an inexpensive fabric mostly used for making things like potato sacks or for wrapping shrubbery for the winter, but somehow it has become very popular in decorating as well.

It does offer a nice warm neutral base and lots of texture so it makes sense that decorators would be bringing this into their designs. 

What does NOT make sense is that this traditionally inexpensive fabric is now carrying a designer fabric price tag! I had to shop around a bit but finally found a nice large bolt of burlap at Walmart for a reasonable price.

So, on with the show... The table and the buffet are both topped with the above mentioned burlap. Burlap is a fairly open weave, so pairing it with a nice pumpkin colored table cloth really worked well together.

Gold beaded charger plates and white china (retired pattern Alsace by Farberware) with the salad plate swapped out for a lovely leafy pattern plate that harmonizes well with the autumn theme.

I know right now that tree slices as chargers is all the rage in decorating, but for me this is a sentimental accent. These tree slices are from the tree in our yard. 

I grew up with this tree and when a hurricane took it down I was heartbroken and I requested some mementos in the form of tree slices. I had no idea what I would do with them, but all these years later and they have finally found a home on our Thanksgiving table.

I fell in love with these white porcelain pumpkins. I'll admit I am a bit pumpkin obsessed, but these just sent me over the moon. I want more! Here they are sitting on some silk autumn leaves and my beloved tree slices.

See that silverware? Yes, I do too. I swapped it out for gold flatware, but not until after discovering the error in this photo shoot. Details, details!

Star Spangled Seashore Celebration

When summertime rolls around, we love to bring the beach and seashore into the decor -- so for our Fourth of July theme, we went with a 'Star Spangled Seashore'!

Sometimes it's hard to part with a particular decor or theme and this year we really did not want to take down our cool summertime Oysters and Pearls: Seashore Celebration. 

We couldn't skip the fireworks and the Red White and Blue though, so we created a sort of patriotic seashore fusion.

Though there are quite a few similarities between this theme and the last, we don't mind because we are using many of our most favorite things.

Making their return are the silver charger plates and matching silver nut dishes in both baroque and seashell shapes. Also the pearls, fishing nets, lantern and seashells are back. 

New to the table is a gorgeous navy blue blanket being used as a tablecloth topper. Also new to the table are some lovely red salad plates and some Navy blue napkins.

We've got our patriotic red white and blue 'fire'Cracker Jacks ready as a nostalgic summertime treat. We added red white and blue striped ribbon just to make them extra special. 

With a name tag or note attached to the ribbon they would make an awesome place card or party favor as well.

We've also got our Pop Rocks, because they are like having a fireworks show in your mouth!

The sideboard is all gussied up with red white and blue bunting and other patriotic  themed items. 

We found these sparkly balloon weights from Dollar Tree. They certainly are not a statement of understated elegance, and they may be a bit gaudy, but they feel like a fireworks launch! 

If you can't add a little over-the-top sparkly glitz and glam for the 4th of July, when can you?



We'll be adding some of our favorite patriotic recipes and entertaining ideas soon -- until then, here are some pictures from last year's 4th of July celebration, and a few more from this year.

Happy "Bird" Day Celebration - Our Evie Bird's Birthday and Mother's Day Celebration.

Happy "Bird" Day Celebration - our Evie Bird's Birthday Celebration.

You may have noticed that we love giving each other nicknames (Evie, Feather, Peggo, etc.).

We also love personalizing every celebration and playing with words. 

When we needed a theme for our little Evie Bird's birthday, it just seemed natural that we would have a bird-day party instead of a birthday party!

As soon as we saw these beautiful plates covered in birds, lace, tea-cups and flowers we knew they would be perfect for her Springtime bird-day party, as well as Mother's Day!

The bird plates and napkins are paper (from Dollar Tree), so we pressed the paper plate between a silver charger plate and a clear glass plate. 

This is our new favorite way to dress up a place setting and create a custom looking party theme. We did this for Feather's birthday party as well. 

We added a grapevine wreath on top to give each place-setting its own little "nest." 

The table was decked out in a pink tablecloth with a white lace overlay and silver candlesticks wrapped in delicate spring blossoms. 

We added a lovely antique bird cage as the centerpiece.

Of course this birthday party would not be complete if we didn't serve all of the birthday girl's favorite treats(no matter how peculiar a collection of food items they may be!). 

We whipped up one of her favorites -- Rice Crispy Treats!

We made a batch of our family recipe for macaroni salad. 

Our family recipe brings me right back to so very many childhood memories. 

We used to have family gatherings so large that we would make the family macaroni salad and potato salad in such large quantities that we made them directly in the crisper drawers of our fridge!

Of course we had a birthday cake for blowing out candles and making birthday wishes. (I didn't get any pictures of the delicious Chocolate Sundae cake before it was cut, because we all gobbled it up before I could snap a single picture! Here is picture of the very last piece)

We also picked up some fresh ripe strawberries, shortcake and whipped cream for making strawberry shortcakes. 

Evie often tells the story of how she would have strawberry shortcake on her birthday when she was a child, and how it was extra special because strawberries were not available year-round like they are now. 

Strawberries were a springtime treat that always made her childhood birthdays extra sweet!















So there you have it --  Evie's 88th Bird-day party full of birds, berries, blossoms and blessings.

Happy Bird-day to you Evie!

HapPi Pi Day!

How do you celebrate Pi Day?  I don't know but we did it with Pie -- pizza pie to be exact.

Happy 3.14 to you!  π

♫Pi Day, Pi Day, Havin' fun on Pi Day.♫

Valentines Day Celebration

Wow, these winter holidays seem to be one after another with very little time between!

We get to enjoy the Valentines decorations until the 14th but then Mardi Gras and Chinese New Year are right after - only days apart on February 17th and 19th!

So little time to plan, prepare and decorate!

Anyway, back to Valentines Day - the decorations are up and the house is looking a bit like a cupid sanctuary.

We went with a white Battenburg lace tablecloth over a red tablecloth, so the red peeks through all the openwork in the lace.

There are red roses and various other sparkling red baubles scattered through the center of the table. 

We chose white China and red cloth napkins with silver charger plates and flatware.

Hearts and roses are all standard Valentine's decor, but in honor of this blustery winter that just won't quit, we've incorporated some frosty accents. It is a February holiday after all. It lands squarely in the middle of winter, despite what any groundhogs say!

My love for snowflakes is no secret, so I am happy to pull them into any design. This one really tickles me pink.



Sure, Valentines decorations can easily go from elegant and romantic, to gaudy and garish, but - it's Valentines Day! 

It is supposed to be over the top and flashy and as far as it can go without crossing the line into hopelessly and irrevocably tacky.

So bring on the fancy froo-froo design and let your Valentine's Day spirit show with sparkly shiny heart, flowers and cupids! 

Especially in a cold and snowy winter, the bright cheery red and sparkle of Valentine decorations really warms the heart.





We haven't figured out what to serve for the perfect Valentines Day dinner yet, so that plan is still being worked out, (will update blog when we figure it out) but we've got breakfast covered with our super-simple heart shaped strawberry's for breakfast.

Check out how to make them HERE.

We've also got some PINK chocolate chip pancakes planned - YUM!





And lets not forget Dessert. Though I certainly wish I had baked these myself, we actually found these delicious cookies at Aldi.  
Shortbread Cookies with Strawberry Fruit Filling and a milk chocolate Base. 

The Strawberry and Cherry versions of this cookie both somehow ended up in our cart and we don't even have a toddler with grabby hands to blame!







In my dreams, I also have one of these gorgeous baroque silver heart candy dishes at each place setting filled with chocolates and those little pastel candy conversation hearts.

For now that fantasy only exists in my mind and my amazon wish list.

Let's not forget the tradition of watching the Charlie Brown Holiday Specials. This year, Valentine's Day Eve, we've got a movie date with Snoopy!

Hot buttered popcorn, hot cocoa with whipped cream on top, Hershey's Kisses in Valentine red foil and the big comfy couch with the fluffy warm blankets! Cuddle party!!

Until next time, Happy Valentines Day! 

May your day be filled with Love and Abundance!