Real Parties – Spring in Paris 1st Birthday

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Posh Little Designs

This past weekend we celebrated my youngest daughter’s 1st birthday. Her actual born day falls on the 11th which is a special day to me not only because of her, but also because it happens to be my late Father’s birthday. I have to say, it was so nice to come together with close friends and family and celebrate. My baby girl had the most amazing day, full of smiles and lots of dairy free cake!!!

The inspiration for her party came from the city of love, and her Spring-time arrival. We paired them together to create a sweet Spring in Paris theme fit for our petit bebe. We actually haven’t had the opportunity to travel to France yet, but have always been mesmerized by Paris, and the french culture. The concepts that I thought up basically came from inspiration I found, but mostly from the advice of one of my closest friends who went to Paris a few years ago. I was fortunate to have her photos for reference! My father was a jazz musician so we had jazz playing in the background in his honor, which seemed quite fitting for the party’s theme anyway.

The birthday party took place at Cafe de Mimi (Mimi is our daughter’s nickname) last Saturday afternoon.

Fresh rose and lilac centerpieces adorned each table. Speaking of the flowers…I got a steal of a deal on them. I picked up two bunches of roses from Costco for $30.00 total and the rest of the lilacs came from my Mother-in-law’s home. We were out at her place just a few days prior and the lilacs hadn’t bloomed yet, so the timing couldn’t have been better! The whole house smelled of Spring and fresh flowers. As usual, I enjoyed creating the centerpieces. To give them a Parisian market feel, I added chalkboard signs to each adding the names of the flowers in french. I used a variety of jars, pots and mugs to display the arrangements.

I also made a homemade lilac floral crown for my sweet baby girl to wear.

To give our home a French cafe vibe, I setup a small table in the center living area to resemble cafe seating. It was quite romantic when our guests would sit and dine here.

Here’s a closer look at some of the decor from the celebration. I made all of the paper banners by using a striped and floral print paper form Michaels. Which we hung on the dessert table, backs of chairs and fireplace. Other decor details included hat boxes that I found at Ikea, wrapped in lace ribbon, and Eiffel tower figurals from Target.

Baby M’s dress came from Baby Gap.

Our guests dined on a delicious hand catered lunch and gourmet treats. My mom and I prepped all of the lunch items ourselves and aside from some of the macarons, I made all of the treats homemade. I even made a batch of dairy free macarons which I was quite pleased with. Everyone seemed to enjoy them despite the dairy free filling I used.

The Menu

I created the menu signs using trays from the dollar store and chalkboard paint. Check out the DIY post for more details.

Beverages

Homemade Lavender Lemonade, Assorted French Sodas (blood orange and lemonade which I found at Cost Plus) French Market Berry Soda from Trader Joes, Perrier and bottled water. Raspberry, lemon lime wedges and rosemary garnishes.

Appetizers

Baguette and Cheese (Gruyère, brie and Roquefort blue,) crudité and dip, pain perdu, fresh grapes and strawberries, nutella and strawberry crepes, artichoke crostini and homemade tapenade, blue cheese and citrus stuffed olives.

Lunch

Nicoise salad, Fresh baguette sandwiches with choice of ham, turkey or chicken. Stone ground mustard & pesto mayo. Fresh mozzarella, havarti, and brie, heirloom tomatoes, arugula (rocket) and assorted veggies. Homemade Pommes Frites which my hubby hand cut and cooked.

Dessert Table

Homemade strawberry cupcakes with a vegan vanilla buttercream icing. Homemade lemon and lavender infused sugar cookies (dairy free) with a vegan lavender frosting. Store bought French Macarons, plus homemade french macarons with a dairy free strawberry swiss meringue buttercream and also a strawberry jam using this recipe. Assorted drageés (pastel jordan almonds and chocolate covered sunflower seeds.) Strawberry Eiffel Bon Bons (found at Cost Plus) and chewy multi-color nougat. Pistachio and pink grapefruit gelato accompanied the cupcakes for dessert.

A closer look at some of the sweets and the cute ice-cream cups I found at Jo-Annes.

Homemade french macarons, ivory paper straws and rose napkins from Ikea. Please note: I’ll have the paper straws available for purchase in my Etsy shop soon.

We made an individual size cake for my daughter and I cannot believe how much she enjoyed it!

I made the cake using a dairy free butter and the icing was a homemade vegan strawberry buttercream. I’m not the best at decorating cakes, but I wanted it to look a little rustic anyways. We were pleased with how out it turned out.

She dove right in and then cried when I took it away. This was after it ended up in her hair and just about every other place imaginable! So cute to see!

One of my favorite moments from baby M’s celebration was the slide show of her 1st year that we shared with all of our guests. This included video snippets of all of her milestones which had me full of tears. I seriously cannot believe my baby girl is already one!!

Thank’s to all of our wonderful guests, baby M got some adorable new things to play and learn with!!

We thanked them all for celebrating with us be offering white chocolate Eiffel Towers that I created with one of my dear friends. We made them using an Eiffel Tower mold that now available in my Etsy shop. We filled the bottom of the favor bags with pastel pink sunflower seeds to resemble flowers at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower.

Each bag was tied with bakers twine and a tag that read, Merci.

All of the details you see here were hand created by yours truly with the wonderful assistance of my lovely mom and sister, plus a few of my girlfriends…thank you lovely ladies!! From the food, to chalkboard trays, and signs, to the invites, flower arrangements, labels, paper prints, to the mustache and lips props, banners and photography. Talk about exhausting! But totally worth it, because this is what I love to do!! I was also able to save quite a bit of money doing it all myself. There’s nothing more personal than hand created details. I just think they make parties more memorable and extra posh!

Kid’s favor bags.

and chalkboard signs & props.

I know I don’t share pictures of myself often, but I vow to do more of that! Not in a vain kind of way or anything, I just think it’s important for my readers to get to know the girl behind Posh Little Designs. I’m still working on my hubby though! He’s usually hiding from the camera, or the one taking the shots the girls and I together. Eventually I’ll bribe him into being in a few!

Mommy and the birthday beauty!

Big sis.

Sweet sisters.

My oldest daughter and I testing out the mustache props.

Thank you so much for reading!! I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing how baby M’s 1st birthday celebration came together.

One of the simple DIY’s (chalkboard clothespins) and the recipe for the Lavender lemonade we served at the party are coming up next on the blog, so be sure to check back in for those details and more!

Have a lovely Saturday!

xoxo

Flowers in Bloom

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Posh Little Designs

This has been quite a busy week for me and with little time to photograph my projects I put Instagram to use to capture a few shots of the gorgeous flowers I’m designing for a wedding this weekend. Here’s a little glimpse.

The brides bouquet will consist of these romantic red roses.

And fragrant stargazer lilies.

With boutonnieres and corsages accented in lisianthus and alstroemeria.

Images of the actual designs to follow soon.

Real Parties: Vintage Glam Baby Shower – Yellow & Gray

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Posh Little Designs

Our newest addition to the family will arrive sometime at the end of this month, or beginning of next. We celebrated the anticipation of her arrival a few weeks back at my vintage-glam themed baby shower brunch, which couldn’t have turned out better! I have my mom, sister and a few good friends to thank for their assistance in pulling together all the little details leading up to the event, the day was simply perfect.

In one of my previous posts Sunshine Yellow and Gray, I mentioned that I would be using that color scheme, along with some vintage and glam details, to pull together my concept for the celebration. Here’s a look back at my special day and all the details that made it so posh.

Brunch has forever been one of my all time favorite meals, so of course I had to incorporate that into the day when planning the menu. I am a big fan of little bites and appetizer portions so that’s how everything was prepared, in mini sizes. The delicious homemade menu consisted of the following; french toast rounds with maple syrup, a yogurt parfait station complete with fresh fruit, golden raisins, coconut, granola, white chocolate chips and pecans. We also served turkey sausage links, turkey bacon skewers, fresh fruit skewers made up of cantoulope, mango and pineapple and accompanied by a heavenly orange dream dip made by my Mother In-law. Lastly we ate mini frittatas, assorted cheese, fresh bagels and light cream cheese, donut holes and roasted potato cups.

To go along with the menu we served virgin mimosas using fresh mango orange juice and san pellegrino. We also prepared homemade virgin caesars, and a homemade cucumber lemonade. So fresh and perfect for a spring time soiree.

The sweet menu consisted of small bites as well, all of which were homemade and tied in perfectly with the color scheme. The dessert table included homemade lemon poppyseed muffin pops, skinny mango cheesecake bites, onesie lemon sugar cookies, mini cinnamon rolls, gray and white M&Ms, mango pineapple and lemon gummy bears, yogurt dipped raisins and almonds, and banana and vanilla saltwater tafffy. Each guest was given a favor bag to fill up with sweets of their choice as a little token of our appreciation.

The onesie sugar cookies were the perfect touch. I incorporated fresh lemon juice into the glaze so you could taste citrus in every bite. They were also hand designed by myself with the assistance of my sister and good friend using sugar pearls in our yellow and gray color scheme.

I found the recipe for the lemon poppyseed muffins in a cookbook and just cooked them in mini muffin pans. I inserted sticks into them the same way you would if making cake pops.

The recipe for the mini cinnamon rolls came from this fabulous blog: Iowa Girl Eats. I chose to use organic crescent dough from Trader Joes, just a personal preference. They were a big hit!

The decor and dishes used in the display tables and throughout the shower were a combination of vintage and modern. I added sparkle by adorning some decorative pieces with crystals, which I found antiquing. I borrowed the rest of the pieces from family and friends. The fabric for the tables was purchased from a local fabric store, and I found the birdcages at Michaels. Printed paper treat bags were purchased online and I found the damask plates and napkins at a local party store.

For the flower arrangements, I used milk glass, vintage decanters, vintage wine glasses, mason jars and teacups. The doily banners was hand designed by simply threading twine through doilies, and the adorable baby clothesline was hand designed by my sister using twine and the same glitter clothespins from my previous post Glamorous Glitter Clothespins.

To create the centerpiece on the left I used inexpensive flowers; carnations snap dragons daisies and spider mums and put them in a vintage decanter and mason jar. I used a vintage gold mirror, twine and a white porcelain bird to finish off the look. I used the same flowers for the centerpiece on the right and placed them in an old china teapot. I hung some crystals from the spout for the touch of glam. These same details were displayed all throughout the shower.

Here’s another look at some of the florals and table decor.

And here are some additional views of the decor from the celebration. The letter ‘M’ is the initial of our baby girl’s first name. My husband distressed it and painted it for me and we hung from the front door for a personal touch. All of the decorative pieces here will be incorporated into the nursery, which I will be revealing over the next few weeks once it’s finally finished!

To tie in our colors I custom designed all prints including invites and labels in a yellow damask with gray accents.

The fun games from the shower consisted of Guess Mommy’s Tummy size, Attributes, Never say baby Clothespins, Guess how many diapers, and Finish the Nursery Rhymes. We used the glitter clothespins I blogged about a few weeks back for “Never say baby.” Prize bags were hand designed. Check back next week for my easy and inexpensive DIY tutorial on these.