Maren's baptism lunch: the food

Figuring out what kind of food to have for our Baptism lunch was a little tricky. Everything I served had to be prepared in advance, because we left the house at 9:30 a.m. and wouldn't return until after the Baptism service. We knew our guests would be right on our heels, so everything had to be just about ready to go before we left for the church that morning.

I knew right away that I wanted to serve funeral sandwiches again. I made these for my Duck Dynasty party back in February and they were a huge hit, so I wanted to try them again. This time, I used Honey Wheat King's Hawaiian Rolls and did a batch of ham/Swiss and also turkey/provolone. I made them the day before and let them marinate. We set the oven timer to turn on so that the oven would be preheated when we walked in the door, then we just removed the foil and popped them in the oven so that they could be cooking while the guests arrived.

For punch, I used a recipe similar to this one that I found on Pinterest, though the amount of water & Sprite in mine was a little different. I chose this recipe because I had a can of pineapple juice in my pantry that I wanted to use up. I made up the base of the punch before we left the house, and while the sandwiches were cooking, I just added it to my drink dispenser along with the cans of soda, lemon slices and ice cubes. I forgot to get a photo, but I will say that I probably won't make that particular recipe again. It was okay, but not great.

Another thing in my pantry that I wanted to use up were a pair of cake pop kits that make pops that look like chocolate-dipped strawberries. My sweet mom worked on them forever--so many different steps! They looked really cute, though, and they were delicious so I'm so glad she was willing to go to the trouble to make them! I also had a large cake plate full of beautiful real strawberries in the center of the table. I'm afraid I didn't get a photo of those either. The only photos I got were taken before we left for the church in the morning. When we came home, I was much too busy trying to get sandwiches cooked, punch made, and the plastic wrap off of everything to take any beauty shots of the rest of the food.

This is really one of my all-time favorite Pinterest ideas: individual veggie cups with the dip already inside. You can double-dip to your heart's content! LOL To make these a little more fancy, we skewered the tomatoes and cauliflower with some really pretty beaded toothpicks that I found at T.J. Maxx years ago and had been hanging onto for a really special occasion. They added a bit of sparkle to the table and had the bonus of making it so you didn't have to dig your fingers down into the ranch dressing to find the tomato!

One of my favorite things on the table was this jar of pretzels. They're yogurt-dipped pretzels in the prettiest soft shades of blue (blueberry) and pale purple (raspberry_--perfect for my party color scheme! Who knew they'd actually turn out to be delicious? I found these at my local Sprouts. I served them in my all-time favorite antique coffee jar with some pretty vintage seam binding tied around the top.

I have enough thrift store silver forks that I don't even need to buy plastic utensils anymore, and I don't even mind sending it through the dishwasher! I displayed the forks in an antique green depression glass measuring cup. The gray straws were decorated with pretty washi tape flags and displayed in an antique canning jar that has been turned a lovely shade of purple by the sun.

I love to have fresh flowers for a party! I bought the gorgeous iris and white ranunculus at Costco the day before. The iris were all closed tightly, but I forced them to open by putting the vase in the very warm sunshine for a while on Friday afternoon and by Saturday morning they were all opened up and looking beautiful! I also bought a bunch of blue hydrangea that I put in a vase with the rest of the white ranunculus--but for some reason, they all wilted and looked completely horrible by the next day. :( I'm not sure what I did wrong but that was disappointing because they were the perfect shade of blue. Oh well.

For the lunch, we also served crackers (from my pantry) and homemade hummus, tortilla chips and Costco's Artichoke & Jalapeno dip (my favorite!), peanut butter blossom cookies (I had bags of Hershey's Kisses in my pantry so that was an easy decision) and at Maren's request, mini powdered sugar donuts. I think she must have eaten two dozen of those by herself--she had a permanent ring of white dust around her mouth for the whole weekend! I was pleased with myself for being able to use so many things that I already had in my food storage to keep the costs down a bit so I could splurge on the pretty fresh flowers that we're still enjoying days later!

The whole event was just lovely! I was pleased with how everything looked and tasted--pleasing to the eye as well as to the palate! Celebrating my beautiful daughter's baptism with loved friends and family only made everything sweeter!

Maren's Baptism Lunch: handmade decorations

 Maren's baptism was held at 10:00 a.m. so we planned to hold a lunch at our home afterwards for our friends and family to help us celebrate. When I started thinking about what colors and theme I wanted for the party, I immediately decided on a butterfly motif. Butterflies are a symbol of change and rebirth--perfect for a baptism, where there is a very physical representation of rebirth, with the person coming up out of the water cleansed from their old life. Plus they're pretty and feminine and perfect for the Spring--and I just so happened to have a butterfly die for my Big Shot machine that I'd been itching to use.

For the color scheme I knew that I wanted to use periwinkle blue, shades of purple, and a bright green to set it all off with touches of kraft as the neutral. I found the perfect patterned paper at Michael's that incorporated all of those colors, and supplemented with various other patterned papers from my stash. I started out by cutting about 100 butterflies in various sizes with my Big Shot and then waited for inspiration to strike!

Pack-rattery pays off, yet again! I made this brown paper sack ruffle wreath WAY back in August 2010, but it has sat in my closet, naked, for lo these many years. I saw it in the basement recently and remembered that the original that I copied actually had butterflies going up the side, so I grabbed it and adorned it with a few of my butterflies, with tiny lines of pearls adorning the bodies.

Next, I knew that I wanted to hang a banner in the doorway between the front room and kitchen. I used kraft cardstock for the base, embossed with my cool new hexagon embossing folder from Stampin' Up.

To add some movement, I layered the butterflies in different colors and patterns.

I crumpled and then smoothed some of the butterflies to add dimension. On others, I used my fingers to
bend and shape the wings so they curved in and out. I used hot glue to attach everything.

Then I punched holes in the tops of the banner pieces and strung them all on some beautiful periwinkle vintage seam binding. It was tricky to see the dimension and the embossing in the photos, but in real life it looks really pretty!

At Target I found a set of three small tissue fans in my color scheme, so I couldn't resist! I added more layered butterflies to the centers of each side of the medallions (since they would be seen from front and back) and hung them from my light fixture using vintage seam binding. These hung right over the food table. Target also had a cool garland made of strips of paper in purple, blue and green sewn together. I don't have a photo of this one but it hung over a different door.

After all of this, I still had some butterflies leftover, and I was determined to use them all! I bought some cool twine at Paper Source a while back--it is natural twine color, twisted with metallic thread. I used the natural/silver twine and sandwiched it between pairs of butterflies to make a garland.

This photo is sideways, but darn Blogger won't load it the right direction! I used this garland to decorate a little table display I put together of photos of Maren. I just used washi tape to attach it to the wall and the picture frame above the table.

I love how it all turned out and the butterflies were just the way I had pictured them in my head. It's so gratifying when a craft turns out just like you hoped it would!

Duck Dynasty Party

Do you watch "Duck Dynasty"? We're big fans around here, and when the third season premiere rolled around back in February, I knew I couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a party complete with appropriately-themed food! If you've watched the show the food should give you a laugh, but if you don't watch you will probably be awfully confused. :)

Uncle Si's glazed donuts with hand-stamped "Happy Happy Happy" picks. I loved that I already had that stamp in my stash, long before Phil Robertson made the phrase famous.

My tablecloth was one of The Mister's camouflage Army-issue poncho liners and I pulled out all of my green and brown dishes. We scattered shotgun shells as 'confetti'!

Miss Kay's Banana Pudding. I made little signs for all of the food using kraft cardstock and camouflage scrapbook paper.

Homemade biscuits and honey and jam

 

And my favorite, Godwin's Protest Ham Sammiches complete with cardboard box protest sign. I made the funeral ham sandwich recipe from The Sunday Baker and they were SO yummy! We're having a big party at the end of April and I think I'm going to make them again. They're great party food because you make them ahead and then just pop into the oven for 20 minutes before serving.

 

I used my vintage McCoy log planter to hold green napkins

 

And found this vintage duck planter to hold a few more shells. I forgot to get a picture of our "Muscadine Berries" which were chocolate-covered cranberries.

 

And of course, we had to dress up! I never pass up an opportunity for a costume, you know. I dressed up my outfit with a vintage pearl necklace and a vintage rhinestone brooch in the shape of a pheasant.

Even Bronco got into character, wearing Willie's flag bandanna around his neck.

The Mister was excited because he has an old green Army cold weather cap, just like the one Jase wears when he goes hunting.

The Littlest Beard

My funny neighbor thrifted camo pants for Maren and a camo shirt for Porter so they could be dressed up too.

My awesome neighbors! Alice (wearing her best Miss Kay apron over on the right) ordered beards for her family, unbeknownst to us. When we opened the front door to let them in and saw them all dressed up, we about died laughing! What funny, funny friends we have and what a fun little party this was!

Pinned it and Made it: The Pinterest Party

Back in August we spent a few days visiting my parents in their beautiful new home and my mother told me to block off one particular night so we could celebrate my birthday (which had been about two weeks previous). I figured we'd have a family barbecue with my brothers but when we did that the night before the party, I was a bit confused, because what did that leave?

I should have known my mom would have something up her sleeve--she threw me a Pinterest Party

complete with a giant vinyl Pinterest logo

and a darling red-and-white polka-dotted pennant banner with matching red-and-white polka-dotted balloons! Oh my goodness, I laughed when she told me the theme! Everything at the party was something you'd see on Pinterest.

There were darling little embellished milk glass jars with stripey straws. These were both our drinks and our party favors.

A friend brought this incredible veggie relish tray that looked like flowers and even gave me the book so I can make my own. Not technically from Pinterest, but it will be just as soon as I pin my own photo!

We had a delicious and girly dinner of salad and pasta and homemade rolls and raspberry lemonade. The menfolk took the kids and decamped to a local arcade for the evening. For activities, we crafted and visited--two of my very most favorite ways to spend time!

We made these cute and simple washer necklaces and also darling embellished composition notebooks.

Dessert was a decadent ice cream sandwich cake. Yum!

And my aunt, a champion Pinner, brought me a straight-from-Pinterest gift of Cowboy Cookies in a Jar.

The party guests were a surprise too--in addition to other dear ladies that I love, my mom got all sneaky on Facebook and invited some of my dearest girlfriends--my very best friends from middle and high school. Girls that I've known since I was 11 years old! They all still live fairly close to where we grew up so they get to see each other but I moved 600 miles away, and our trips to Utah are always so rushed with trying to see family that I don't usually get to fit in seeing my friends too. It was such a delight to open the door and see them standing there!

My mom knows how much I love to throw parties and make sure that every detail is perfect, so to have somebody throw such a party for ME truly made me feel so special and loved! My only regret is that I forgot to take a photo of my dear friends and myself all together. :(

I absolutely adore this idea for a party and I think I may just have to throw one for my local friends later this autumn when things calm down. I brought home the pennant banner and the giant logo so I'm already on my way!

A red and blue farewell party

A very dear friend of mine is moving next week. I think the general consensus among our friends is that we are heartbroken that she is leaving, but we wanted to give her family a good-bye party to let them know how much we love and will miss them. We decided to have the party on Memorial Day in the evening at our neighborhood park. We chose a nautical "Bon Voyage" theme which ended up being more just red and blue, which was perfect for the holiday! And because we just weren't up to feeding 100 people ourselves, we decided on a dessert potluck. My contribution was a platter of summery Strawberry Rhubarb Bars.

I hauled two 6-ft. tables and a stack of vintage tablecloths, vintage blue glass canning jars, and a bundle of handmade pinwheels all to the park with the help of my kids' wagon!

 This adorable banner, a gift from my mom, was the perfect addition to the tables.

And of course there had to be stripey straws! The blue straws were from Amazon, and I was a bit disappointed when the arrived because the blue is really more turquoise than the royal blue I'd been hoping for. They still looked cute in my vintage Hull pottery and I'm sure nobody but me noticed the color mismatch.

The cute checkered tin is a recent purchase from Cost Plus World Market. I can't find it listed on their website anymore, but they are made to look like a vintage-style printed metal picnic tin with a lid. Since I've had zero luck finding any real specimens out in the wild, I was happy to plunk down $15 for this one.

I think I might put some Styrofoam down in the bottom and poke those pinwheels into the foam for a cute patriotic decoration that will work all summer long!

It was fun to create a pretty, vintage-style party setting even in the middle of a park, even if it meant half a dozen trips with a wagon back to my car to haul everything!