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Showing posts with label Parties. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Parties. Show all posts

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Night Circus Themed Book Club Party

While I was at home on maternity leave for my second child, I had a hard time reading a book.  Between watching my toddler run around and get into EVERYTHING and the constant feeding and holding of the newborn, I just had a hard time committing myself to anything for a while.  However... there was one book that I did manage to read and it was Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.  It truly captured my imagination and I found a lot of inspiration from it.  As a result, I started my first ever book club and hosted a dinner at my house.  Below are pictures of some of the things that I did to stick with the theme of a black and white circus (with red splashes for the circus enthusiasts).
Cookies that I made using a cookie cutter from fancyflours.com

Posted from a previous blog post... here is how I make the cookies.  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/sugar-cookies-recipe/index.html  If you follow these directions, the dough is a little dry so I add in one extra tablespoon of milk.  For the icing recipe, I use this website: http://www.christmas-cookies.com/recipes/recipe288.powdered-sugar-icing-i.html    For this recipe, I put just a little more water and a little more vanilla extract (I actually use the french vanilla flavor). I do that just so I can spread it easier.

Candy jars accented with black and white ribbon.

Favor boxes (containing circus cookies and white chocolate covered oreos).  The tags are chalkboard tags with red tulle.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

A Bird Themed Baby Shower

Today my friend Michelle and I threw a shower for our friend Tiffany.  My friend Tiffany is having a baby girl next month and has chosen a bird theme for the nursery.  In keeping with that theme, I made decorations to match.

 Above is a picture of the cakeball tower that I made (thoughts on how I would do things better with that will be at the bottom of this post).  Below, are birds that represent the different members of Tiffany's family.  To make the birds, I used the Winter Wonderland Cricut cartridge.  On that cartridge, the birds actually wear a hat but I cut off that part of the bird because it didn't really match with the theme.  Because it is a baby shower, I put a carriage on top of the tower.  I was able to purchase the carriage at Party City.  It is actually a favor holder but I thought it would make a good topper.

Here is what I would have done to do the cakeball tower better... while at the shower, I was talking to a woman who also makes cakeballs.  She said that what she does is still a toothpick in the cakeball and then stick the toothpick end into a styrofoam tree shape.  This absolutely sounds like a great idea and is something I will look into.  I have been perfecting my cakeball technique of late and really need good ways to show off my advancement.  I recently purchase a Wilton Chocolate Pro and it has saved me so much time!!!  It has made melting chocolate really easy and has kept me from having to use vegetable oil in the chocolate (for smoothness).  I will say however that I do have to use the vegetable oil for the white chocolate (for whatever reason it ended up being really chunky).

On my next post, I will put up a picture of the invites and the party favors that I made.