Easter In Photos

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend!

We had my brother and sister in law over on Saturday to celebrate. I made a honey baked ham, rosemary parmesan potatoes and whiskey-glazed carrots, and after dinner we had a fire down at our fire pit, complete with Peeps s'mores.

And since I shared my Easter party inspiration board last week, I thought I'd share a couple of photos I was able to snap before our guests arrived, of the appetizer and dessert table. I think I need a bigger table next time, since we had extra flowers, drinks, strawberries and a few other snacks spilling over onto the kitchen peninsula.

Easter Inspiration 2013 and Silhouette Peeps Design

This year I am again embracing Easter crafting and fun desserts. Last year I went a little overboard, but I couldn't help it. I just love pastel colors, and anything that involves making food items resemble baby animals. Plus, Easter is pretty close to my birthday, so while I'm too old to throw myself a party with streamers and a dessert table, instead I'll just do it for Easter!

Here is this year's Easter inspiration board. Last year I did a BBQ inspiration board, but since it's not going to be super warm out, I'm doing a more traditional ham this year instead.

From left to right:

Honey Baked Spiral Ham

Sweet and Salty Spring Mix Popcorn

Skinny Rosemary Parmesan Oven Potatoes

Whiskey-Glazed Carrots

Bunny Pretzels

Daffodil Candy Cups

Carrots in Hummus

Chick Cupcakes

Pretty Easter Table

Easter Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Peeps Garland

Peeps S'mores

I've been crafting away this week to bring my inspiration board to life, which has been a nice excuse to avoid some painting I've been putting off, and thinking about patio furniture and front yard landscaping, which have been consuming me lately. Little crafts just have such a quicker payoff, so it's a nice change of pace!

And I've been trying to put my Silhouette machine to work too. But I was surprised to find that there wasn't already a Peeps style bunny outline available in the Silhouette store. So I made one myself.

Charity Event Decor Success

The charity event that I posted about last week was a big success! There were record breaking bids for the dessert auction portion, and I've gotten so many compliments on the decor.

Even with my husband's help, the set up took about two hours longer than I was hoping, but we still got everything done an hour and a half before the event started. And since I already shared the details of all that I'd been working on, I wanted to do a follow up to show the decor in action.

Unfortunately we were a bit rushed at the end of set up (and eager to get home, shower and change, and get back for the silent auction) that I didn't take photos until we arrived back at the venue, and didn't get to capture everything. But here is a peek at all of my hard work for the past few months.

First, this is what the ballroom looks like, taken from the venue's website. It is one big beige room, and you aren't allowed to hang anything from the walls or ceiling, making it a bit of a challenge to decorate on a tight budget that doesn't allow for uplighting or expensive pipe and drape.

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And this is how it turned out, with our tulle and twinkle light stage backdrop, to focus everyone's attention away from the boring beige walls.

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Feels Like I've Been Planning Another Wedding

No, I'm not dead. I just haven't had any time for posting lately because I've been so busy! Combining planning and creating all of the decor for a huge charity event with the busiest time of the year at my job means I haven't had time for much else the past few weeks.

But things are finally all coming together with the charity auction decor I've been working on, and I am mostly done now. Which is good, since it's this Sunday! And now that I have a moment, I wanted to take a minute to share what I've been working on.

First, some background. It is for an annual holiday auction for the OCRCC, which is their biggest fundraiser of the year. And this year it is the 25th anniversary of the auction, so the theme is silver and sparkles, since the 25th anniversary gift is silver. We also have to work around some of the holiday decor the venue already has up, mostly some Christmas trees, but that is alright, since we want to encourage people to buy gifts at the auction. We just didn't want to go all out with the holiday theme for decor. And one issue with the venue is that we aren't allowed to attach anything to the walls or ceilings. Another factor is cost. Everything has to be done as inexpensively as possible, since it is a charity, and anything not spent on decor goes right back into the organization.

Budget and venue constraints? Basically feels like I've been planning another wedding!

In past years they haven't done much for the event, mostly just some simple table arrangements or a pointsettia for centerpieces and additional arrangements on a few of the tables in the lobby. But since it's such a special year, being the 25th anniversary, I was tasked to come up with something a little more special, while still keeping the budget to a minimum.

Which means non-floral centerpieces, when we are talking about 35 dinner tables that need to be decorated. So instead, we are going to have two types of centerpieces. Since we can't have anything on the walls in the ballroom, I'm going to bring in taller topiary arrangements for the tables to the sides and back of the room, to add interest and height. For the center and front of the room tables, we will have simple but elegant shorter centerpieces, so the view to the stage won't be blocked.

Here is a mock up of the tall rose snowball pomander topiary centerpieces, however the actual vases will be 16" x 4" and in my mock up I only had a 14" x 6" vase to use, so the final look will have the pomander ball and vase much more in proportion to each other and more topiary-ish with a taller and thinner vase.

The centerpieces will all be on 10 inch mirrors that the venue provides, and surrounded by 3 or 4 votive candles, also provided by the venue. We are doing all black linens, as a nice backdrop for the sparkly elements.

Easter Inspiration Comes To Life

Since last week I posted my Easter BBQ inspiration board, I thought I'd do a follow up with some photos of the decor and yummy food.

Here's my inspiration board again:

And here's how things turned out, with an indoor table set up with appetizers, and our outdoor dining table where we ate dinner on the deck.

Easter BBQ Inspiration Board

As I'd mentioned on Wednesday, we're having family over on Sunday for Easter. Not that we actually celebrate the holiday as it's traditionally meant to be celebrated...but I can't resist the pastel colors, and bunnies and chicks!

I've been gathering recipes and easy decor inspiration on Pinterest, and here's a quick inspiration board I put together in Picasa, to round up the party's look:

From right to left: Easter Rice Crispy Cupcakes, Easter Nests, Hot Cheesy Crab, Spinach and Artichoke Dip, BBQ Burgers, Cheesecake-Filled Chocolate Easter Eggs, Pasta Salad, Peeps, Corn on the Cobb, Blue and Green Dinnerware, Yellow Lattice Napkins, Easter Egg Garland, Flowers and Peeps Centerpiece, Using Grass Wraps for Decor, Napkin Decor (except I'll be using a carrot), Hanging Eggs, Yellow Lattice Tablecloth, and Broccoli Salad (but my mom's recipe, not this one)

Yes, this might be a little overkill for an Easter BBQ with only 4 people attending. But whatever. I'm pretending that this is also in part for my birthday, since I haven't gotten a proper birthday celebration in....so long I can't even remember. This year my husband is going to be out of town on my actual birthday day, and last year all we did was watch our movers unload our furniture and go to Target for cleaning supplies, since we'd just arrived in Raleigh the night before. So this year I'm just going to make myself happy with cute Easter decorations and yummy food, instead of being bummed that my big 3-0 isn't really being celebrated.

Saturday night I'll be knocking out the garland and hanging eggs decorations, and most all of the food items can easily be prepared ahead of time on Sunday morning before our guests arrive, leaving me time to straighten the house and get ready.

I've been hanging onto a sundress from H&M that I haven't had a chance to wear yet, and I think it will be perfect for Easter. It's similar to this material, but mine is in a different cut.

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I'm excited to have a brief break from house projects. It will be our last time having people over at our rental house, and I've been itching to work on something other than just painting, so I can't wait until Sunday!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and a happy Easter!

 

The Beach In October: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Since the cabin we stayed at this past weekend was only about a 10 minute drive to the beach, and the weather was gorgeous, we decided to spend Saturday afternoon there instead of going on a hike.

Lets start with the good, shall we?

The weather was amazing. I'm talking about barely a breeze, and the perfect temperature so you don't get too hot and your sunscreen melts off.
And the beach wasn't crowded at all, so we got a good spot near the cool pier and half sunk boat, for lots of good pelican and sea bird watching.

Plus, there were hardly any clouds, which can be hard to come by near Santa Cruz (we were Seacliff State Beach, hence the cliffs behind the beach)

We played catch for a while, chilled on our beach towels, ate some snacks, and had a great few hours.

I also spied on some people having parties at the picnic areas, and totally judged them for their lack of creative party decor. Yes, the wedding blog world has made me a decor snob, and now I fear I've been ruined--I'll never be able to throw a party again without the whole 9 yards of lanterns, coordinating centerpieces and a million details.

(I picked the bunting flag party as the winners, over the boring and predictable balloons party)

Alright, so now the bad. Rude people who decided they were going to post up RIGHT in front of us. Seriously, this is their board they put in the sand to block our view, and the photo below that has my foot in it, as a reference to how close they were.

Um, WTH? I'm all for sharing the beach, but come on, there was a ton of room for them to sit down anywhere but right in front of us. A-holes.

And now for the ugly. Or weird. Or huh?

Shortly after the incredibly rude people sat down right in front of us, a group of people came over to the beach near us and set up to play a game of giant soccer.
Fine, whatever. The part that made me cock my head to the side like a confused puppy was their outfits. Not your typical beach-going attire!

The guy in the grass skirt with bike shorts under it had not one, but two crazy hats!

Yeah, not sure what they were up to, but wow, they've definitely win the prize for biggest weirdos I saw this weekend!

This post was a whole lot of randomness, but the thing I'm really wondering is, since most of you will soon be, or have recently been brides, do you judge all parties like weddings now? Will you ever be able to throw a party without the same attention to detail as you had/will have for your wedding?