A Lovely Design: 2016

How To Host a Gingerbread Decorating Party!

Kids Gingerbread House Decorating Party!

The Holiday season is in full swing and so aren't all the festive parties that go along with it!
I for one can not go through a Christmas season without hosting a Gingerbread House Decorating Party for the kiddos. Just watching them and their creative little minds at work as they place each piece of candy just right to create their ultimate masterpiece is the best part for me!
Setting up a Gingerbread House Decorating Party doesn't have to be overwhelming. It can be relatively easy by following some of these fun and easy tips.
-Wrapping Paper for 1 can be your best friend when hosting a party for children. I love using it for table runners and even place mats. It comes in endless patterns and designs and the best part is the cleanup is a snap!
-Secondly, this year I decided to use Graham Crackers to build my gingerbread houses. The size was perfect and it took no time at all to create. A nice touch was adding sugar cones as trees for an added element for the kids to decorate. They loved it!
-And lastly, I used little white ramekins placed by each child sorted and filled with all the different kinds of candies. I also made sure to twist and secure the pastry bags that were filled with icing with elastics and bakers twine as to prevent it from seeping out of the top.

The icing I used was definitely a key ingredient to the houses staying together as well as they did. It worked like cement! Super easy recipe:

Gingerbread House Icing

4 Egg Whites

1 tsp. Cream of Tartar

4 Cups Powdered Sugar

Beat egg whites and Cream of Tartar

till stiff, then slowly add in powdered sugar and beat for 5 minutes.

Keep covered till ready to use.

Pipes out like frosting and dries like cement!

Though not necessary, I LOVE having a favor for everyone to take home at all my parties. These darling "gingerbread" bags were so easy to make. I simply took a brown paper lunch bag and drew a gingerbread house scene on them using a white chalkboard marker. I then folded down the top to look like a roof, punched a couple holes, added some bakers twine and with a mini clothespin, clipped on a cute little "thank you" tag! You can certainly fill them with whatever you'd like but I chose a cute little hot cocoa kit. Cause who doesn't love hot cocoa on a cold winters day!

In my opinion, every party needs a dessert table of some degree! I kept this one rather simple with only a couple yummy treats. I figured all the kids would already have their fix of sweets from the sampling of all the candies from their houses! For the backdrop, I used a simple painting of wintry birch trees and strung the most adorable Christmas tree tassel garland from it. This is probably one of my favorite elements from the party. It was also so easy to create. I simply hot glued some mini pom poms and glitter stars to the green tassels and whah lah..... the cutest Christmas tree garland you ever did see!

For desserts, I kept it quite simple with some traditional vanilla cupcakes frosted with vanilla buttercream, gingerbread men cookies and some super yummy chocolate cake pops from my friend Jenny Cookie's Bakeshop.

A couple more darling design elements that are easy to create and add a lovely pop of fun to any holiday party are the coffee filter trees and the pop pom decor on the back of the chairs.

Tutorial on the trees coming soon!

All the kids really enjoyed decorating their houses and trees and were exited for me to snap a picture of their fabulous finished creations!

Gingerbread House Decorating Parties are always a hit for all kids big and small.

I hope you found a little inspiration to use for your next one!

Our Christmas Card 2016

That time of year is upon us again.....the task we all want to keep putting off.....designing a holiday card to mail out to all our family and friends.
     But this year can be different if you use Tiny Prints!
They make it effortless to create the perfect card for your family!   They have so many wonderfully stylish designs to choose from, great prices and they are super fast! You can be sure the card you choose will be as unique as your family is!
     The customization is endless...from the envelopes to the envelope liners to custom postage stamps. I personally love to include as many pictures as I can on my cards so the design I chose was their {Ornamental Metal} trifold design. I thought this design nicely complemented the photos I had from a impromptu photo shoot I had done at the beach at the end of the summer. I love the simplicity of the gold accents and the lovely greenery!
     I personally like to hand address the envelopes myself. For me it gives me a chance to brush up on my calligraphy and penmanship skills.

But for those of you that do not have the time for that, Tiny Prints has an option where they can address all of your envelopes for you! How fabulous would that be? And right now they are offering some amazing discounts on all their Holiday products.
As for me, I can't wait to mail out my beautifully designed cards to all my family and friends!

Happy Holidays!

This review is based strictly on my opinion. I was provided product free of charge by Tiny Prints to provide my honest review. No other type of compensation was received. All ideas and opinions are my own.

Holiday Dessert Bar

     The hustle and bustle of the holiday season has officially begun! And sometimes it's hard to find time to get together with everyone we want to. So why not host a lovely afternoon Holiday Dessert Bar!
     To get started, I like to come up with an overall theme and color scheme. The theme I chose was Rustic Elegance with a palette of whites, creams, pale peach, lots of greenery and beautiful copper accents throughout. I'm totally crushing on copper this season!
     Your set up doesn't have to be elaborate to make an impressive impact. I kept mine fairly simple with only three desserts and a yummy mocktail.
     For the backdrop, I used a white ruffled fabric and hung three varying sizes of simple wreaths and adorned one of them with some extra flowers and greenery. These were super easy to create and made such a lovely statement. I simply used wood embroidery hoops and covered them with green floral tape. I then attached greenery all the way around with the floral tape. Beautiful!

I definitely like to think outside the box a little and I love being able to use things I already have around the house when styling a party. So Instead of the traditional tablecloth, I used a knitted cream throw with fun tassels set at an angle to adorn the table.

Another fun DIY were these sparkly copper accented forks. I love collecting old (real silver) flatware and using mismatched pieces when entertaining. For these, I simply painted the tips with copper paint and added a touch of fine copper glitter for some extra bling. Then sealed them with a coat of clear lacquer. I loved how they turned out! I'm definitely going to make a whole set!

Naked cakes are all the rage and I definitely find myself gravitating towards them whenever I style a dessert table. For one they have less frosting for those who aren't huge frosting fans and for two they just look stunning! Since it's the holiday season, I decided to do a spiced carrot cake with a lemon buttercream frosting and drizzles some delicious caramel sauce over the top. Paired with this lovely naked cake were some traditional vanilla "mini" cupcakes and some scrumptious macarons.

I love adding in a little activity for everyone to participate in at my gatherings. It gets conversation rolling and it's always tons of fun! I thought a great choice would be for everyone to write down on prepunched scalloped circles what they are "thankful" for. Using mini glittered clothespins, I then attached them to the largest wreath above the dessert table. It's always fun to see what everyone wrote, especially the kiddos!

I always like to give a favor bag to all my guests to take home as well. It's my way of saying "Thank you for coming". I filled these sweet burlap and copper polka dot bag with some delectable little chocolates and added a lovely favor tag that simply said " Thankful."