We're all mad here

I had the opportunity to throw baby showers for two of my cousins this summer. They were both expecting their new additions to the family in July, one in the beginning of the month... and one at the end. Each of the baby showers were VERY different. 

The first shower was an Alice in Wonderland mad tea party shower! Here we go~

 The table centerpieces were hand made from large soup cups and artificial roses. Paired with my grandmother's teapot collection, each table had a similar theme but different look.

 Everyone at the party received a little bottle with a tag that said Take Me on it. I found these hand blown Egyptian glass perfume bottles on Amazon.com

Every place setting had a paper doily, some silverware and a tea cup... again from my grandmother's collection.

 These drink me Mason Jar mugs were available for anyone who didn't want tea. We set up Iced Tea and Lemonade as well as a Keurig Coffee Maker for Tea and Coffee.

 Each mug was wrapped with Lace Washi Tape and some twine to hold the tag on.



 

 Our snack and food table was a major hit. In my family we don't mince words when it comes to party snackage, I found a lot of cute fancy ideas on Pinterest for the snack table, but nothing beats Cheese and Crackers, Chips and Dip, and a nice spread of veggies. For this shower the Mommy to Be was really craving Chicken a la King, which my grandma whipped up for her to put over biscuits. The Chicken a la King was a bit hit at the party, as far as I could tell!

 

 
 The cake was a joint effort between me and my Mom. I've never been much of a baker, but decorating cakes is super fun! We made a three layer cake, my mom really liked the idea of dying the cake layers to match the roses we planned to put on it. The cake also had a raspberry filling.. This was our first time filling a cake with something other than frosting, so that was an exciting adventure.

We also made little cakes that said "Eat Me" on them. I don't have a good shot of all of them, but the first picture above has one of them in it.

Congratulations to the new parents! They were very excited about this party~ I'm happy to have been able to throw this party for them.

Induction to the world of blogging

This marks the first of many posts on this blog. I'm new to this world, and I hope to deliver a fun place to share ideas about party planning. But first a bit about myself! My name is Marie Jackson, I am 26 years old and I have a wonderful husband and 2 year old son. To kick things off I will share photos of the decor from my wedding! The first party I had the joy of planning.

 The theme for the wedding was fairytale steampunk. we love the look of Edwardian fashion and steampunk clockworks but didn't want to have all the reds and browns often associated with the style. Plus nothing was going to stop me from getting my Princess dress!!! with green and purple to focus the colors, we were able to have a beautiful fun amazing wedding that my family is STILL talking about.

we found my necklace on etsy.com it managed to drive many of the choices we made for our flowers.

our florist worked locally and took the pre-existing design elements into the flowers she produced! it was amazing.



the ladies wore Mini top hats custom  made by:  Little Lady Accessory
When they arrived I was so happy! they were exactly what I'd wanted. Once we showed the hats to our florist she incorporated the feathers and gears into the boutonnieres and bouquets

 







the centerpieces were tricky. Choosing to do them myself I centered the design on little dead bonsai trees. I wrapped the bonsai trees with battery powered fairy lights, with the battery pack buried under the gravel in the vase. I found most of these items here. Each corner of the vase sported small lanterns on shepherds hooks. The total effect really set the mood in the reception hall.

I didn't want to number the tables because we had so many people coming to the wedding and almost all of them were family. I didn't want people to think they were less important because they had the 16th table on their place card.

I came up with the idea to name the tables after our favorite places from the various Sci-fi and fantasy Stories!
Once we had our list of favorite places we started arranging the names based on the people sitting at the table. For instance we had all of our Gamer-y friends sitting at the Hyrule table while my grandparents were sitting at the Emerald City Table.

Awesome Tip: We had so many kids coming to the wedding, and a large portion of them were children of the wedding party. We hired a baby sitter to sit with them at a designated table which we called Neverland! I also made little packages with coloring books and crayons to keep them busy.



My card box was made from a hatbox purchased from Michael's Craft Store. I  simply cut a slit into the top and used washi tape to finish the edges. what worked out Perfectly were the old Kodak cameras my grandma had in her attic! they looked amazing on the place card table.

I got all of my bridesmaids together to stamp the place cards with Steampunk designs. It was so much fun showing them how easy it was to be crafty!

To fit the theme we ordered a cake that looked like a top hat. Our local cake baker was up to the challenge! We are planning to eat this cake on our first anniversary. I can't wait!

for the reception itself we ordered Cupcakes. One of the best parts of planning this wedding was taste testing cupcakes!

I hope this sparked your interest. Until next time.