Pineapple in Paradise

I’m so excited to post this styled shoot I did for Oriental Trading. I love Oriental Trading and have been using their products for years now. Their prices and selection honestly can’t be beat. So I wanted to put together a post to show how I used only $75 worth of party supplies to put together this fun party!

These paper fans come in a lot of different colors and each pack comes with more than enough fans in various sizes. All I did was tape them with packing tape to a large foam board. This would make a great backdrop for any tropical party and would be fun to take photos on. The pineapple is a real pineapple that I spray painted gold.

THE BEST Pina Colada Recipe (no, seriously though!)
2 oz. Coconut Cream

2 oz. Pineapple Squash or Concentrate

1 oz Milk

2 oz. dark Rum

1 cup Ice

Blend until smooth

Makes 1 serving

Here’s the story behind my Pina Colada recipe. A few years ago, my hubby and I were lucky enough to stay on a private island in Belize. It was stunning to say the least. When you arrived on the boat, you were greeted by staff members with Pina Coladas. They were amazing and we had more of them on that trip than I should admit. They were so good that after we left, I emailed the staff for their recipe because they were THAT good and much to my surprise, they actually sent it to me!

Shop the look here

“This review is based strictly on my opinion. I was provided the sample free of charge by the company to provide my honest review. No other type of compensation was received. All ideas and opinions are my own.”

 

Boho Baby Shower

   
    
    
    
    
 

Ticky Tacky

What would the holidays be without a Tacky Holiday Sweater Party? It’s a must do! This year I decided to mix it up a little and add one of my other favorite Christmas traditions, cookies!! And I do love a good party activity.

So I had everyone come over in holiday sweaters (in 80 degree FL weather…oops) and we all baked cookies together using a tacky sweater cookie cutter and stamper from Sweet Creations.                 

Learn from my mistake and make your own cookie dough. I tried to take a shortcut and use store bought, and while they tasted good, the dough spread too much and got mushy very quickly which made it hard to work with. But for all you fellow shortcut takers out there, the store bought icing on the other hand works just fine.

For those interested, here’s the recipe I should have used (#regrets)

 3 cups of all purpose flour

 1 cup of granulated sugar

1 1⁄4 teaspoon baking powder

 1⁄4 teaspoon salt

 2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temp

 1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla extract

 1⁄2 teaspoon lemon extract

 1 large egg

 2 ounces cream cheese
1. Place flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl and whisk to combine. Set aside.
2. Place sugar and butter in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until creamy and smooth. Add extracts, egg and cream cheese, beating to incorporate.
3. Gradually add flour mixture and stir to combine. Divide dough in half and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 1 hr.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
5. Roll dough out to 1⁄4 inch thick on a powdered sugar-dusted work surface. Cut cookies into shapes. Place an inch apart on prepared baking sheets. Bake until edges are golden- about 12 minutes.
6. Remove from heat and let cool on baking sheet for 1-2 minutes before transferring to wire rack. After cooling, cookies can be decorated with icing.

Thank you to Tryazon and Sweet Creations for sending me these products for review. These opinions are my own. Buy these adorable cookie cutters and stampers here.

Have you ever been to a tacky sweater party?

Butterfly Baby Shower

This was a baby shower for a friend of mine. She wanted a lavender butterfly theme. It was small and there wasn’t a ton of room so I didn’t want to bring the whole backdrop set up like I often do. I set it up in front of the pretty window and used 3 balloons for the backdrop instead. Keeping with the theme, balloons fly just like butterflies do. It was very pretty in person but not so great for pictures. I bought fresh flowers too because butterflies love flowers. The printout in the frame matched the invitations and had the new baby’s name on it. And I cut out little purple butterflies that I stuck randomly to things on the table to tie together the theme. I wanted a really clean look so I did a runner instead of a banner. 

  
    
 
Thanks for reading! Have a great weekend!!

Party in a Box

 

This is just a fun little project I did recently for a friend of mine. It’s literally a party in a box! I thought it would be a fun way to send her a gift card for her birthday. I just used a gift card box from Target and filled it with candles (Dollar Tree), birthday cake gum (Target), pink confetti (Hobby Lobby), and a balloon (Dollar Tree)  attached with washi tape (Target). Then just add the gift card and mail! She loved it!! I actually made a mini birthday banner to add to it before I sent it but I forgot to take a picture. 

If you use a bigger box you could put little gifts in it too! Like nail polish and lipgloss would be cute. Even a birthday hat and blower would be fun. 

I’ve had to plan 4 parties this month so I’ve been using every spare second to do that but I’m almost caught up! I’ll post those pics and some new posts soon. We’ve also been house hunting a little which has been so exciting! 

Thanks for stopping by!

Cotton Candy Party

I planned this party a few weeks back. It was a Glam 16 Cotton Candy themed party. It was such a cute theme but I was very worried about it looking too gender reveal or baby shower-like with all that pink and blue. I tried to make sure the colors were not too pastel and I added gold to make it more mature. I made faux cotton candy out of spray painted cotton batting. I had less than 2 weeks to put this party together and she really didn’t want to spend a lot.  She had 30 guests. I never got a final pic with the cake but that’s what the giant gap on the table is for.   

    
    
 

Andre worked all weekend so we didn’t really get to do anything fun and I have no cute looks to share! But next weekend we will have more time. I hope everyone has a great week!!

Frozen Frenzy!

Frozen Birthday Party Inspiration! These are some of the many Frozen parties we’ve done over the last year or so. Most of these photos are from my Party Boutique but we’ve also done them at houses too!  This has been one of my favorite themes to design. We try to do it a little different every time. I’m going to let the photos speak for themselves but if you have any questions please let me know in the comments below!  
    
    
    
    
   

I’ve been a little all over the place lately so later today I’m going to put a blog schedule in the sidebar so you know what topics to expect on each day from me every week. 

Thanks for reading!!

Guns or Glitter?

This was a very simple party we were planning for a friend for her gender reveal. The whole thing was less than $50! They’re a southern couple and the theme was too perfect.

  
    
Chalkboard: Homegoods / Toy Guns: Dollar Tree spray painted blue /  Glitter Stones: Party City / Paperware: Dollar Tree /  Wooden Utensils and Paper Straws: justartifacts.net / Twine and Mason Jars: Michaels. Banner and Box Graphics cut on my Cricut Explore

Thanks for reading!