Enchanted Forest

This is where I started with my tablescape:   I scavenged my backyard for the right size tree limb and luckily found one with some grapevine wrapped around it.   I started adding in some owls, some small mounted antlers, and a few Tom Clark gnomes my father used to collect.

Basis for Enchanted Forest Tablescape

Actually, the only thing I had to purchase for this tablescape was a bag of moss from Michael’s.  It made a bit of a mess, and I was glad I decided to go without a tablecloth for this one.

Nature is Messy

I pulled several statuaries from my garden, like these concrete toadstools.  A few butterflies, more gnomes and owls, feathers, birdnests, and a bunch of stuff from a bag of pot pourri, and the centerpiece really started taking shape.  I added in a few treasures I imagined gnomes and fairies might collect to decorate their tiny homes:  a few pieces of vintage jewelry, a crystal doorknob, an iron key, a dollhouse rocking chair, a tiny copper kettle.

Centerpiece for an Enchanted Forest Dinner

Mismatched dining chairs are much more fun that the predictable matching set, wouldn’t you agree? 

Mismatched Dining Chairs

The gold chargers were found in the dollar aisle at Target last fall (thanks, Stacy, for finding those last 2 to complete my set!), and I used a mix of vintage china and colored glassware for the tablesettings. 

 Enchanted Tablescape

I also added a few small flower arrangements in Mason jars to brighten up the forest floor – they were made from what was left of a lovely flower arrangement Mr. Man gave me for my birthday week before last.

I *heart* gnomes!

Here is the table in my entry, decked out for the Enchanted Dinner party.   A disconnected tole chandelier, a few flowers, a dove in its nest, and a little vintage fairy were perched on turquoise books in a whitewashed twig tray I recently snagged from HomeGoods.

Twig Tray from HomeGoods

I love incorporating vintage books and beautiful illustrations into my vignettes and party themes.

An Enchanted Menu

Candles were lit as the guests began to arrive.

The menu was fabulous, I must say.  I found most of the recipes from Victoria magazine, and you can see the entire menu and get the recipes here.  We started with appetizers of artisanal cheeses, walnut butter spread, and mushroom tarts.

Cheese is Good

Then came a delicious green forest salad, broiled garlic chicken, and steamed asparagus in a white truffle vinaigrette.  I tricked a few of my friends into thinking I was serving broiled garlic rabbit, but most of them weren’t that easy to fool!

 Broiled Garlic Chicken and Asparagus with White Truffle Vinaigrette

The table and the lovely ladies looked even lovelier by candlelight!

An Enchanted Dinner by Candlelight

Here I am with my dear friend, Diana.  Any excuse to play dress-up – this is not the kind of dress I get to wear every day!

Me and Diana

We all had an enchanted evening and made good memories with friends. 

Are you a member of a Cooking or Supper Club?  Have you come up with inventive menu themes? 

I think children’s birthdays are magical.  A simple theme can be developed into something truly special that you and your child will never forget.  For my daughter’s 4th birthday, we decided to make it all about butterflies.  And what little girl doesn’t love butterflies?

So, let’s start with the decor.  I actually have lots of butterfly ornaments that I use on my Christmas tree, so I pulled those out to start.  The colors were pink, creamy white, light green, and pale blue.  Pink, white, and green balloons and faux flowers made the dining room feminine and airy.  For this party, I shoved my dining room table against the wall to serve as a buffet for the food and to provide more room for guests to mill around.

I used colored chalk on a chalkboard easel that I got for $3 at a yard sale.  Those flower thingees laying on the table are a pair of table runners with applied flowers and fabric petals – they kinda have a lily pad effect, but it works.

I found a picture out of a vintage children’s book and scanned it to create a custom butterfly invitation.   The invite read “Flutter On By to the Barnett Butterfly Garden for Kelta’s Birthday Party” with details and rsvp information.  Feel free to download the one I created which can be customized for your own butterfly birthday party.

We served “Butterfly Nectar” to the guests.  In other words, Juicy-Juice.  It’s all in the presentation – I found these foam craft flowers in bulk at Michaels, punched a hole in the middle of them, and stuck a short straw through.

This cake was soooo easy.  Really!  I made a large round cake, cut it in half, flipped the halves over, and carved out the “wings” on the outsides of the two halves.  A twinkie and colored Twizzlers created the body and antennae.  The details on the wings included some flat candy sprinkles and clear sugar sprinkles.  JoAnn’s has lots of colored candies that you don’t find most places that really simplify my cake decorating.

Other food included these frozen strawberry salad cups (recipe at end of post), sausage pinwheels, and butterfly-shaped cookies.

For my delicious shortbread recipe that I used for the butterfly cookies, look here.

In another room, I set up a table for crafting.  I borrowed and bought enough butterfly wings for all the girls to have their own pair and scattered them around the table.

Now, older girls might be able to do these themselves – but I premade little tissue paper flowers for them to glue to headbands to create their butterfly “hats.”  I simply cut out uniform squares of tissue paper, stacked 5 pieces, and accordion-folded the paper.   I secured the middle of the folder papers with a twist tie, then began separating the tissues to form the petals of the flowers.

I helped the girls twist pipe cleaners around pencils to make antennae while they cut out pre-printed butterflies and glued them to ends of the pipe cleaners.

With butterfly wings and floral crowns, the girls look all aflutter!

Everyone colored beautiful butterflies that I downloaded from here.

The girls also made a lovely stained glass butterfly with wax paper and crushed crayons.  The instructions from Enchanted Learning are here.   Afterwards, the girls went outside to take a swing at the candy-filled butterfly pinata.

Goody baskets were filled with a butterfly puppet, butterfly tic-tac-toe games, a mini windchime, butterfly bookmarks, and a butterfly sucker.  The baskets and contents were mostly from Dollar Tree, except for the tic-tac-toe games from the Target dollar aisle and suckers from Oriental Trader.

Hope you liked this party proposal!  Click on the pics below for more details from the butterfly party.

Recipe for Frozen Strawberry Salad Cups:

diced pint of strawberries

1/2 small can of condensed milk

pineapple tidbits

2 cups cool whip

2 chopped bananas

Mix berries and milk.  Fold in pineapple, bananas, and cool whip.  Freeze in aluminum baking cups on a tray at least overnight.  You can make these weeks in advance if you like.

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My oldest daughter has been a huge fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Little House on the Prairie book series since kindergarten.   When she turned 7,  it was only fitting to have a pioneer party for my little Half-Pint.

Let’s start with her outfit.  My sweet mother-in-law helped me make Audrey’s prairie bonnet from a pattern I found at the fabric store.  She actually helped me make 9 bonnets so that all the guests at the party would have a bonnet to take home with them!  I’m no seamstress, so this is NOT something I could have done on my own.  The shirt and skirt were found at Gymboree and totally had a prairie look.  And don’t forget the 2 braids or “plaits.”

For invitations,  I scanned a small illustration by Garth Williams in one of Audrey’s Little House books.  I added a sweet border and printed them on cream card stock from Michaels.  Click the invitation to download the editable file for your own party.

Yellows, blues, and greens were the main colors in the scheme.  I had a great quilt that was worked perfectly as a tablecloth.

My dear friend, Cathy, loaned me the prairie girl ceramic figurine and the fiddle.   The Little House books were on display, of course.

What do prairie girls eat?  Popcorn balls,  little apple pies,  pumpkin pies, and corn bread.

And, of course, cake!  I needed to make an appropriate cake for the occasion.  I found this precious Holly Hobbie cake pan on Ebay, and it just couldn’t have been cuter if I do say so myself!

Don’t these little Holly Hobbie dolls from the 1970′s look like Ma, Mary, and Laura?

For background music, I ordered ”The Arkansas Traveler”  from Amazon.  It’s great fiddle music, just like Pa used to play.

Check out all these sweet prairie girls!

I spread several patchwork quilts on the tables in my home.  We cut out triangles of calico scrapbook paper that the girls used to create their own paper patchwork quilts.

I taught the girls a simple back stitch so that they could sew some small bean bags like many little girls made in the “olden” days to play with.  Then they took turns having their silhouettes drawn (I hung craft paper on the wall of a darkened hallway and shined a strong flashlight to create a shadow to trace).  They cut out their own silhouettes on black construction paper and framed them with bargain bin frames.

Each girl got to take home her prairie bonnet and a “lunch pail” filled with prairie paper dolls,  old-fashioned chalkboard slates with chalk tied with twine, and a book slipcover.

I found a girl on ebay who makes all kinds of personalized stationery, so I ordered some with Holly Hobbie (yes, her again!) on them.  I thought this was an extra special touch.

Such lovely memories from this party.  Definitely one of my favorites.

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Baby showers are joyous occasions and don’t have to be generic or boring.   I always like to think about the honoree’s taste and style, as well as the baby’s room decor.    The honoree of this shower had an older son who was just moving out of the vintage western-themed nursery to make way for baby sister.  So I went with a vintage shower theme that heaped on some old-fashioned girliness.

Of course, I love all things vintage.  So hosting a vintage baby shower is the most natural thing in the world for me to do.  I already have so many of the props, it’s simply about styling it imaginatively and adding some flowers and food.

Who says you need a tablecloth?  I started with a white chenille bedspread as a tablecloth.  I used my white hobnail dinner plates (I have about 50 of them) and stacked them at the end of the table.  I have lots of pretty ceramic serving platters that I keep on display in my kitchen on a plate rail above my cabinets, so I pulled out the pastel ones (pinks, greens, yellows) to display the food.

I also used my collection of vintage baby planters out of the nursery to set the vintage theme.  These can be found at yard sales in older neighborhoods, estate sales, and antique malls.  They can range in cost from $1 to $15, depending on the age and character of the pieces.

They can hold small floral arrangements (that was their original use, afterall!), or they can hold utensils or napkins for the party.   I always like to elevate a few items in a tablescape – in this case, I placed a vintage planter and a vintage baby card on top of a crystal cakestand.  You could also use a small stack of vintage children’s books in the appropriate colors.

A few other vintage baby cards and some pink fabric flower petals sprinkled the tabletop.  Again, I used a glass cakestand to elevate a ceramic plate of baby animal cookies (ducks, bunnies, horsies) and another vintage card.  See how I used little wooden plate stands to support the cards?

Since this was a 10:00 a.m. party, the food was brunch-themed.  The mom-to-be was diabetic, so we skipped the typical cake or petit fours.  I’ve never like petit fours, anyway.  So the only sweet was the shortbread cookies.   A dear friend shared this cookie recipe with me.  It is one of my absolute favorites (and everyone else’s, too!).

Jane’s Shortbread Cookies

1 cup softened butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 egg yolks

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

Beat butter and sugar for 5 minutes.  Add egg yolks/vanilla.  Combine flour and salt, gradually adding to the mixture.  If you want color, add food coloring to the dough – no icing is needed.   Cover and freeze for 30+ minutes.  Roll out dough on parchment paper, flouring your rolling pin and cookie cutters well.  Bake the cut-out cookies at 350 degrees on parchment for 10 1/2 minutes.

The other foods were sausage balls, hashbrown casserole, fruit salad served in a glass footed trifle bowl from Southern Living at Home, and a spinach egg casserole.

This is the drink table, where we served strawberry lemonade.  I used a pink and white striped laminated tablecloth to avoid staining a white tablecloth.  I had a vintage Mother’s Day framed card that I propped in another wooden plate stand.

Happy Mom-to-Be of sweet Josie!

Using what you love, or what someone else loves,  is the best way to style a party.  The preparation is as fun as the actual party.  And if you’re going to host a party, you might as well have fun doing it!

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I found these never-opened paper plates and napkins in an attic of a friend of my mother’s.  I kept them for 8 years until I was inspired to use them for my younger daughter’s third birthday.  I also had a few small books of JWA art and poetry that I had picked up over the years.  Her illustrations of little children have always touched me and aroused that nostalgia within me for anything from my own childhood.  

So, what was I going to call this party?  A Joan Walsh Anglund party?  My daughter would never understand.  So I looked for a common theme in JWA artwork and decided upon Rainbows.  That way I could use primary colors that would work with the plates and napkins.  I decided to hop on ebay and see what I could find of Joan Walsch Anglund’s.  I found 2 unopened Hallmark cardstock centerpieces put out in the late 70′s that featured little children sliding on rainbows.   It came with little cardstock clouds and stars that I could scatter all over the table. 

I found a beautiful unused JWA coloring book that I snatched up for a few dollars.  Oh, and a DARLING  cookie cutter of one of her classic little girls!  Amazon has many of her books, new and used.  And finally, I found a JWA decorative birthday plate and coffee mug .  All my JWA “props” cost a total of $40.  The other props I used were just things that color-coordinated (yellow, orange, red, green, blue, purple) or looked rainbow-ish.  I color-copied artwork onto label paper and made stickers that I adhered to multi-colored party hats from Dollar Tree.

These are the only invitations I’ve ever had for my childrens’ parties that I did not make myself.  But I found these Joan Walsh Anglund invitations on her website and felt like I owed it to her to order them from her! 

The food for this party was fun!  The rainbow cake was easy – just a round cake, skittles to create the rainbow, and mini-marshmellows for the clouds. 

Here are the sweet cookies I made from the JWA cookie cutter I found on ebay!

My Fabulous Butter Cookie Recipe 

1 cup melted/softenedbutter, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup brown sugar, 4 eggs, 3 tbsp vanilla +1 tsp water (or food coloring), 6 cups self-rising flour

Cream together butter and sugar.  Add eggs one at a time.  Alternately add 2 cups flour, 1 tbsp vanilla, mix, repeat.  Add 1 tsp water.  Chill in refrigerator 3+ hours.  Rollout 1/4 inch.  Cut and bake 335 degrees for 10 minutes on parchment paper.  Use royal icing mix – add more water for glaze.

I used red plastic forks from Dollar Tree, and found colored plastic mugs with built-in straws on clearance at Kroger’s for $1 each.   I made a jello rainbow in a glass trifle bowl – that took awhile to let each color gel before adding the next.  Cubed cheddar cheese looked special on a raised cake plate and rainbow-colored toothpicks.

I made a fruit tray using a rainbow of fruits set in a cream cheese, sour cream, sugar mixture - blueberries, peaches, oranges, green grapes, and strawberries.  I layed the cream and fruit in a rectangular tray with a lip so that it wouldn’t ooze out.

I ordered huge multi-colored swirly suckers from Oriental Trading and grouped them for a colorful centerpiece on the table.  Multi-colored balloons completed the rainbow tablescape. 

As the party was for a 3-year-old, the activities were kept simple.  I made lots of copies of coloring pages from the JWA coloring book for the children to color.  We did a simple rainbow craft that you may download.  Print a page for each child and have them attach colored pompoms with glue. 

Below is thumbnail of the rainbow craft.  Rainbow Download

We also made froot loop necklaces – what could be simpler?  Notice how Kelta wore a Gymboree shirt with embroidery in rainbow colors.

All our guests took home a goody basket.  I found these plastic multi-colored baskets at Dollar Tree and filled them with shredded colored paper from Michaels, striped hot air balloon bookmarks,  beaded jewelry kits, and colorful sticker letters (the last two were from Dollar Tree).  I attached cardstock gift tags of JWA artwork with red ribbon.  

The children also got to take home a large swirly sucker (from Oriental Trading Company) and one of the plastic mugs they drank from earlier.

Now, this is absolutely the coolest thing about this party – when I ordered the party invitations off the JWA website, I left a message about the party I was planning for the site manager.  Soon after, we received a special package in the mail.  Mrs. Anglund sent us a precious pencil drawing personalized for Kelta’s birthday with a sweet note wishing her well.  We framed the artwork and treasure it!!!

Below are the gift tags, 2 sticker sheet images, and several coloring pages that you are welcome to download!  Click on the link below for all.  Enjoy!

Joan Walsh Anglund – Download