"Welcome fall" party!

Saturday was the first day of fall...didn't feel like it here in our part of Texas however. There was recently a bit of fall-ish weather and it was perfectly delightful. Loved it. I am a summer girl at heart (love the heat!) but I do so love the changing of the seasons and it was enjoyable for sure. But alas, it's gone! Twas only a tease of what is yet to come...soon hopefully.

Regardless, we decided to "welcome fall" on Friday with our natural parenting playgroup with a little party at the park. Everyone brought their own picnic lunch and we brought the sweets and the decor (of course). I mean, what's a party without those, right? As is usual in the fall around our nest, we recently bought some little pumpkins and gourds so we brought those, along with burlap runners I quickly cut from a roll I have lying around. The leaves, acorns, and pinecones we gathered on a walk the day before. So really incredibly simple, but it added a nice special something to the party.

We made a gallon of apple cider that morning...yes, a gallon. We are still drinking it! Although it was warm out, the warm-ish cider still was nice. The kiddos thought it was funny to be drinking a warm drink on a warm day though. The compostable cups and plates we had lying around from a past outdoor party...both are from here I do believe.

The treats were vegan gluten-free pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and raw apple cinnamon cookies (recipes here and here)...both of which were delicious if I do say so myself. I recommend both of the recipes and the only thing I did differently was add dark chocolate chunks to the pumpkin cookie one.

A friend brought delicious fresh figs to share with everyone - YUM! We all played, chatted, and had a jolly time. Despite the non-fall weather it really was the perfect welcome to fall!

P.S.
Here is my little sweet/silly assistant that helped put it all together!

The rest of our weekend was wonderful too...it included a movie date with my bestie who was in town from Cali, a homecoming football game, gardening, home projects, family leisure time, and soccer, soccer, and more soccer (we all play). It was awesome but I'm ready for the week...bring it on Monday! Have a blessed one.

A weekend of parties

Our weekend was pretty delightful as it was full of birthday parties and wonderful family time. We hosted one of the parties and had some outdoor activities planned. It was rainy though so we stayed inside, but everyone just chatted and played which was still really fun. The birthday and mini pennant banners I made for this party showed up again in a new way.


I love these little colored beeswax candles from here...they're so cute! Of course, a party isn't a party without the tablecloth getting dirtied up a bit with the yummiest chocolate cake ever from here :).


Some of the colorful doilies from this Antique Weekend found their way into the decor too...along with some soy tealights and glass cup vases.


For one of the birthday boys I decided to make another pencil case like this one but I started it the morning of the party, which is not terribly unusual for me unfortunately. :) My sewing machine kept acting up and I was getting really frustrated because we had to leave for the party soon. SO we now have a new rule in our house that presents (since we try to mostly give handmade ones) have to be finished at least two days before they are to be given. Otherwise, the projects are not to even be attempted. It's a good rule, and honestly it's going to be really difficult for me, but I'm going to do my best to follow it. I just get too frazzled under the time constraints when I (or the sewing machine:) mess up and it takes alot of the fun out of the whole process. The pencil case did end up really cute though and the birthday boy liked it alot, which made it all better :). So do any of you have a similar rule you've made for yourselves?


By the way, thank you for all of the sweet comments on Lovebug and her fall! She's doing great and it's healing well. And to the anonymous commenter, YES we are actually filling the darn sunken living room in! It's been on our to do list for quite some time now. That Lovebug incident moved it up to the top for sure and will hopefully be done ASAP! Thank you for offering that idea though.


Well, we need to pack up soon and head out to a friend's to celebrate yet another birthday! :) Have a great day.

Fiesta Party

I wrote this earlier in the week but am just getting around to posting it. Anyway, last weekend was SUCH a blast! My Love's parents threw a big 60/80 fiesta themed party to celebrate his grandparents being alive 80 years with 60 of those together!


Alot of family members flew and drove from different parts of the country to be there to celebrate the two of them. It was so much fun and the special couple thoroughly enjoyed themselves!


My little part of the very detailed and planned party was the decor which was really fun to put together. My in-laws and my Love's aunt did the rest and they did such an incredible job! Fiesta decor is so colorful and vibrant, which made it all the more fun! All of the fiesta supplies and decor I got from the famed San Antonio Amol's and I love it all!


Everything is all handmade, SO colorful, and just beautiful. I had wanted to make the paper picado banners we put everywhere myself, but just ran out of time unfortunately. The ones they sent me are far prettier than I could have ever done though! The handmade paper flowers that I arranged in some of my vases and containers are gorgeous too! So, if you ever need fiesta decor, check out Amol's!


For one of the centerpieces, my mother in-law requested it to be pictures of the couple's kids, grandkids, and great grandkids. We had found a metal tree at Antique Weekend for our advent Christmas tree, but thought it would work for this as well.


I found the little vintage sombrero on Etsy and the handmade paper flowers are again from Amol's, which I just twisted onto the branches and trunk. I carefully chose and cut the photos of everyone, and then put a little bit of temporary tape on the back of them and added a little ribbon loop and voila, a fiesta photo tree! My sweet mother in-law was very pleased and everyone enjoyed looking at all the pictures.


My mother in-law found these really cute maracas that all the kids (and adults:) just loved. They were fun little favors too!


The food was an overwhelming array of delicious Tex-Mex (of course) and once we began eating on the patio, a live mariachi band came playing around the corner. My in-laws are known for their surprises, but this one was especially enjoyable.


They entertained everyone for an hour and the special couple got up and danced a bit, which was so cute! Thank goodness the weather cooperated and it wasn't too hot that day.


We stumbled upon the little fiesta dress that Lovebug wore at Antique Weekend and of course HAD to get it! It was perfect and she kept the little flower hair clip I made her on nearly the entire day.


She had such a ball getting to play with her sweet cousins all day long...Lovebug and this beautiful cousin of hers especially adore each other! :)


My in-laws had pictures of the special couple from throughout their life set out all over their house which was really neat. The dining room was set up as the "wedding room" with alot of their wedding memorabilia as the decor, including her wedding dress, their wedding album, guest book, newspaper announcement, and other special mementos. It was so sweet to look back at their 60 years together!


There was also a replica wedding cake with their original wedding topper (so cute!). They cut their cake and even fed each other, which was just beyond precious!


It really was just the most perfect day and so wonderful to have all of our family there to celebrate the still very happy in-love couple! Well, I wanted to share it with you all. Have a lovely weekend everyone! I'm spending mine with these two lovelies whom I just adore...

Our own little "Australia"

This past weekend was a marathon of cooking, baking, and cleaning, but as usual, we were able to keep it fun despite all the busyness. We had a group of old friends from college over and it was so delightful seeing each and every one of them and catching up on what is going on in their lives. Lovebug absolutely adored meeting and playing with each of them, which was so fun to see. Hooray for lovely spring weather in Texas where you can actually eat outdoors BEFORE it's incredibly too hot and the mean mosquitos take over! Seriously. That cannot be overstated. It was incredibly enjoyable and I look forward to many more meals outside this spring under our trees and lanterns!

While cooking and baking, we were able to watch Australia which we just loved. Have you seen it? We haven't seen a movie at the theater in forever so I'm sure you all have seen it already, but if you haven't, go check it out. It's so epic and beautiful, and man oh man am I such a sensitive gal since becoming a mama. Anything that revolves little kids, I just tear up and that precious Nullah made me tear up quite a bit! Anyway, I highly recommend it even though it is quite long.

I found the dinner party and charity ball scenes in the film very inspiring. Each of them were full of beautifully hanging things - lanterns, light strings, and so forth. I tend to be a big fan of anything hanging really :), but these particular scenes were gorgeous. Last week before seeing the film, I had bought the above lanterns at Crate and Barrel for the party. I originally found them quite awhile ago here but was pleased when I could get the same ones at my local C&B (especially with the gift card I had:). They are solar powered with a white LED light inside and provide just the right amount of glow. We have left them up in the backyard and it's lovely that they just come on once it gets dark after absorbing the sun's rays during the day. Anyway, after seeing Australia I have big plans for a future event involving many more lanterns and other pretty hanging things. :) I can't wait! Of course, now it's raining cats and dogs here so we'll see how the lanterns actually hold up outside, but so far so good.

Well, spring is definitely in the air with leaves blooming and green popping up everywhere you look. Isn't it lovely? I hope wherever you are, you are enjoying all the first signs of spring as well and are soaking it all in outdoors as much as possible!

The 1st Birthday Party

Right off, I'm forewarning you that this post is long, so if you don't want to hear LOTS of food and decor details from Lovebug's birthday party, DON'T read on! You could just scroll down through the pictures...It's ok, I promise I won't be offended :)!

Alright my friends, THIS is the long-awaited (and long) 1st birthday post...yes, it's been 2 months since the event took place but whatever. I have had this thing in my draft folder for forever and darn it, I'm posting it regardless of how long it has been!

The party was so lovely and turned out so well and our little birthday girl enjoyed herself immensely! I certainly feel for those with December birthdays (and their parents) now though as it truly is harder to put something together during the holidays. Sometimes it seems the children get the shorter end of the stick because of it, don't they? I want to ensure that never happens to Lovebug though, so I tried to make it as un-touched from the holidays as possible.


First off, Lovebug LOVES animals and always has. In fact, she has this beloved wooden puzzle that her grandparents gave her of farm animals when she was a tiny baby. SO we decided to go with a farm animal "theme" of sorts. We emailed Pingg invitations with this photo...


The next thing I tend to decide after the invitation is the ensemble to go with the theme/design of course! I searched for quite some time but finally found the right Eliza Gran dress. I loved the vintage-y almost farm-ish look to it, and the colors and adorable ric rac were perfect! I had the hardest time though tracking it down and never could find it in Lovebug's size despite many calls and emails. I ended up scoring it on sale, but the catch was that it was 1 size too big. It all worked out though because it fit her pretty well except in the shoulders, so just a few temporary stitches here and there and VOILA, Lovebug's party dress! It was a little long too but I thought it looked cute that way actually and it didn't seem to bother or hinder her.


I normally make Lovebug's hair clips but I sourced the felt cow out to Two Punky Peas who makes adorable ones. She had a great holiday deal going on and I had never attempted an animal clip before, so I left it to an expert. I made the satin ribbon headband and Gracious May made her cute shoes that we already had. I highly recommend both of those gals and their Etsy shops.


I really like to incorporate presents, if there are any, into the party decor, so one of Lovebug's birthday presents was the vintage Fisher Price farm we got at Antique Weekend this last fall. She won't be playing with it for awhile though since it is plastic, which in general, we don't allow. We will make exceptions however for well-made vintage toys, but only if it's something Lovebug won't be sucking on. Anyway, it became the centerpiece of the table...


The table was accented with some mini hay bales that I bought from this truly lovely Etsy seller. She makes them herself at their farm up in New York and they're very reasonably priced. They will work for future events or seasonal decor too which is great. Isn't Etsy the BEST? Nearly all of the decor came from wonderful Etsy sellers! The vintage white cloth napkins with red, blue, and yellow trim were all bought from different vintage Etsy sellers SO reasonably priced and will get lots of future use. I don't think you can ever have too many cloth napkins! The little vintage metal plates have cute farm animals in the center and were also an inexpensive Etsy find from Happy Day Vintage and Lovebug now loves to play with them :). You truly can find amazing stuff if you do a little searching.


I tried to incorporate mini red ric rac here and there to compliment her dress so I sewed some onto the table linens and made an entry banner outside with some. I made a little garland of it with a "1" in the middle made from cardboard, some Eco Glue, and some leftover raffia I've had lying around forever that I simply cut up to look like hay. Then I accented it with some felt farm animal puppets from Mahar that I know Lovebug will love to play with when she's a tad bit older.


The ric rac accents worked really well because I incorporated it into our Christmas decor too which I ended up loving! For the party though, I made a little "happy birthday" banner with it that hung over the table. I used mini clothespins, leftover red and white cardstock we had lying around, and vintage crossword letter cards from Boston Bag Lady. She went through all of her cards to fish out the exact letters for "Happy Birthday" and "Merry Christmas" because I turned around and switched the cards out for the holidays which worked out perfect! Again, isn't Etsy the best?


The birthday crown was inspired by Ruby Ellen's beautiful ones but we used Amanda's instructions in her book. My Love actually made it all himself which I think is super special. We kept it simple using white 100% wool felt with some red ric rac lightly sewn on in a few places and a mini cow button that we got from yet another Etsy seller (SHOCKER I know). Our plan is to add another little button or adornment that fits with the "theme" of each birthday party every year. You can take the elastic easily out if desired (we tried it) so hopefully she'll enjoy the special crown her Daddy made her for many birthdays to come!


Lovebug's other little present was this beautiful set of wooden farm animals...aren't they adorable? I searched and searched for the right ones and finally decided on these because I love their colors and modern design. In case you're interested, Cheekeyes is the brand and they have some other cool animal lines that I cannot wait to get in the future. Anyway, these went on the coffee table in the family room, so again the present became part of the decor...


Let's talk some food, because a party isn't much without it, is it? We kept it super simple since it was in the middle of the day between lunch and dinner. I made some of my "treehugger bark" and some mint chocolate chip cookies in lieu of cake.


My favorites were the popcorn balls and the below mini apple bites, which were both on a stick. They were super fun and the paper sticks got composted post-party so no worries about the waste. I got the general idea for the apple bites here, but we just did vegan chocolate chips and some chopped up almonds. They are really easy once you get the hang of the melon baller in the apple.


The popcorn ball recipe we got here but used coconut oil in lieu of vegetable and added sunflower seeds and raisins. Personally, I really appreciate when food is labeled so I always try to let people know what they're eating. For this party, we used a mini chalkboard we found at Antique Weekend a few years back and just had it simply sitting on the table with the menu listed on it.


For beverages, it was spiced apple cider, coffee, or water, and the drinks had labels of course which is a must at our nest parties seen here and here :). As also is customary around our nest, it was a waste-free event with cloth napkins, and real plates and glasses. In addition to the obvious green aspect of this, it just takes the party up a notch in my opinion.


I know most everyone goes to a first birthday party waiting to see the little ones either tear into their presents or dive into their cakes. Well, we did neither of these :). I searched forever for a vegan nut and wheat free cupcake or mini cake option that I could bake. We don't want Lovebug to have wheat, nuts, or grains for another year and had a couple failed attempts with coconut flour unfortunately. Thus, we decided to just go with something easy that she loves without the stress or worries - SO chopped up banana it was! It's one of her favorites already so we knew she would love it. We added some strawberries (which she didn't love) and for fun, we added some vegan coconut cream icing. This recipe is yummy and I highly recommend it! A much healthier option to powdered sugar icings and can be used on coffee cakes, bundt cakes, cupcakes, or whatever!


In lieu of any games, we had a little slideshow of Lovebug's 1st year that was constantly playing on our TV as the entertainment. It was nearly 40 minutes long :) so people got bits here and there but it's a great keepsake for her box and I think we'll do one every birthday now to re-cap the year for her in pictures. The children mostly played outside...poor Lovebug wanted to go out there with the older kids so badly.


I love coming up with ideas for party favors as I think it's a fun little tradition to send the guests home with something. However, especially with the holidays, we decided that in lieu of any favors, we would make a donation to Heifer International, which is one of our favorite causes we like to support. Plus, it went with the whole "theme" of farm animals :). Anyway, please check out Heifer's online catalog as they are a wonderful organization with such an incredible mission! We also requested that in lieu of any presents, guests make a donation to them as well because our nest is already super blessed.


Well thank you for reading the birthday post...yes yes yes, lots of details with heavy emphasis on the decor, but you must remember I am an event designer by trade so my little personal parties are my outlet! :) It was definitely a successful party in my eyes as I think the guests enjoyed themselves and, most importantly, Lovebug had tons of fun. Here she is rolling around in the leaves after we finally let her outside...she might have enjoyed this more than anything else from the party!


So THERE, it's DONE...I feel SO much better now that I have posted this and can finally scratch it off my list! :) Thank you to anyone that actually read the whole thing. I highly recommend you check out the above Etsy sellers when you have a chance. Happy Friday!!!

The invitation shot

Well hello everyone. Hope all is well with each of you! Things are busy here, just as everyone else seems to be around this time of year. Can you believe it's November? Gee-whiz! I've got the holidays on my mind, as I am sure each of you do as well. They will be upon us before we know it!


But first comes Lovebug's 1st birthday - YEA! Seriously, I CANNOT believe she is going to be ONE in about a month...super super super crazy. Wow, what a year! SO, this event designer has been working away on the details of this super duper special day (I keep saying "super", don't I? :). Anyway, I'm trying to design and plan a day our little baby will enjoy and seeing as our girl loves animals, it's going to be farm animal-themed. Her grandparents gave her an adorable wooden farm animal puzzle she has loved to play with ever since she was itty bitty, so the other day I took advantage of her playing and snapped away in hopes of getting a shot invitation-worthy.


In lieu of traditional invitations, we typically do email ones to save on paper and money. We used to do Evite, which I like, until I was introduced to Pingg, which I just love, as it's Evite's chic older sister. There aren't as many bells and whistles with Pingg, and it's alot simpler and cleaner looking, but Evite is fun and has cute themes, so they each have their place. With Pingg, you can upload your own photo but they also have a good amount of cool stock photos to choose from as well. Both Evite and Pingg are completely free, but another cool thing about Pingg is that you CAN buy postcards of your invite with the picture on one side and the info on the other for $1.25 each plus postage! Great for scrapbooking or keepsaking in memory of the event AND for the grandparent or family member that doesn't have an email account and needs to get a hard-copy :). I definitely would recommend checking both of them out for your next party or get-together!


Anyway, thought I'd share the shots in the running...


Hope all of your weeks are going well!