It all started with a dress...

It always starts with SOMETHING for me in my design process - some sort of inspiration, whether it be a clipping from a magazine, a painting, a blog, a cool graphic I see somewhere, an awesome window display, a beautiful photo I run across...so it starts somewhere, as I'm sure it does for most of you. For the blessing, it was Lovebug's dress that she's wearing in the pic above, which we ran across while second-hand summer clothes shopping. I loved the colors first off, bright and fun, and then the modern design I found to be so beautiful with just very interesting flowers. So off I went, and here's what I came up with...


Decor was kept relatively simple with flowers and circles scattered about. The flowers are all felt (I like felt:) with skewers as their stems, which were lying around waiting to be put to use. They were a bit labor-intensive but they turned out really well so I don't mind :). Clear rock gems from my sis's wedding were used in all the vases to hold the flowers and candles in place. Speaking of which, the soy candles turned out wonderfully and had a nice light lavender scent.



The event fare was all desserts in honor of our little sweetie - all vegan - just cupcakes, truffles, macaroons, mint candies, and cookies. It was fun searching my fave vegan websites for some of the recipes (here is Fran's truffle one) and making the desserts, all of which were really easy. Most of Fran's recipes sound amazing - you should definitely check her out! I used carob in place of the chocolate/cacoa in all the desserts except the cupcakes, which I'm really loving. It tastes a bit more caramely than chocolately, but it's yummy AND it has less fat and calories than chocolate and no caffeine! So give carob a try...it's especially good for kids since it won't have the stimulation effect of caffeine.



Oh and the little favors were magnets of Lovebug's face that I made - also from leftover clear gems from my sis's wedding...I made some similar for a swap awhile back too which inspired the idea.



This is one of my fave ideas - I can't for the life of me remember where I saw something similar that inspired this, but use metal book rings (available at office supply stores) around your glasses as drink tags. The tags can be changed out to fit different themes (and recycled:) but the rings can be used indefinitely! I'm a big fan of drink tags/labels because it really bothers me when people lose track of their glass and have to end up getting another one, so this solves that problem :). I like doing ones like this with hemp or twine from time to time as well dependent upon the overall look I'm going for.


So the blessing went really well - it was alot of work getting ready for it in a short period of time but was so very worth it! We are so blessed to have such great friends and family, and it was a very special time celebrating our sweet baby. OH and Lovebug's little blessing gift from us was this handmade organic Kathy Kruse doll you can kind of see in the below pic...she got a matching dress thanks to unnecessary bloomers and Lovebug's Nonni :) - thanks again Mom!