Patriotic Fruit Skewers

For our Memorial Day dessert table, I used a good amount of fruit since it makes it so easy to keep with the red, white & blue theme.  I got on Pinterest & saw this cute idea for patriotic fruit skewers from Family Circle.  They were really easy to make.  They are just blueberries, raspberries & mini marshmallows.  Little tip I learned...wet the skewers just a little bit so that the marshmallows don't get the skewers too sticky, which makes everything much harder to move along the skewer.  Anyway, this was a healthy, easy & pretty cute dessert that is perfect for any patriotic party.  

Patriotic Red Velvet Cupcakes

For the Memorial Day dessert table, one of the things I made were Patriotic Red Velvet Cupcakes.  Now y'all know me well enough to know that 1) I went to Pinterest for ideas & 2) I totally used boxed cake mix.  : )  My inspiration was these cupcakes from Good Housekeeping & these fruit tarts from the Food Network. 

So here are my red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing (of course).  : )  And here are the cupcakes all dressed up like the American flag.  

I only made 24 cupcakes & I think the flag would have looked more legit had I made more, but I didn't have enough cake mix & my crate was actually the perfect size for only 24 cupcakes...so we made do.  I switched around where the strawberry cupcakes were vs. the plain iced ones a couple of times & finally decided on this look.  For the blueberry cupcakes, I just stuck a bunch of them on top of the iced cupcakes.  For the strawberry cupcakes, I sliced them almost all the way through but left them completely attached at the top of the strawberry, so I could fan them out & cover the entire cupcake.  I am not the biggest fan of blueberries, but I did try the strawberry topped cupcakes & they were delicious.  Strawberries & blueberries are so easy to decorate with for patriotic holidays & you can then count your dessert as a fruit in the food group discussion, right? : )  

Patriotic Brownie Bites

For our Memorial Day dessert table, I wanted to keep things patriotic.  So that meant a lot of red, white & blue.  I was already making Patriotic Red Velvet Cupcakes & wasn't sure what else to do.  I thought about these cute little Santa hats that I make from brownie bites at Christmas time & thought i could do a spin on them.  So I took some little brownie bites (I bought mine from Sam's Club since I was running low on time, but if you are feeling super motivated, you can make some in a mini muffin tin) & I put cream cheese icing on top of them.  I then rolled just the sides of the brownie (and the edges of the icing) & stuck a strawberry on top.  They were DELICIOUS.  I mean, can you really go wrong with brownies & cream cheese icing desserts?  Definitely not. :  )

Memorial Day Dessert Table

I hope everyone had a fantastic Memorial Day & weekend.  We went to the drive-in for the first time ever, spent a little time at the beach, a little time painting baby girl's nursery & a little time grilling & entertaining with friends yesterday.  Busy, but a really nice weekend. The hubby caught lots of fish when he went on his "work" fishing trip the other week so we decided to grill that when we had everyone over yesterday.  Our friends that came over all brought sides or apps & I, of course, had to make some desserts.  My sweet tooth is out of control these days.  : )  

On to the Memorial Day dessert table.  

 When I started thinking about doing a Memorial Day dessert table, I thought that the perfect place to set it up would be on a small wall in my den.  The wooden map of the US is always hanging on that wall & the table is usually decorated with a humidor, picture frames, candles, etc.  I just moved all that stuff & decorated around the map of the US.  I had the tablecloth & the paper fan decorations leftover from the "Ahoy! It's a Boy!" nautical shower.  I used the white crate at that party on the guestbook table & on the Easter dessert table too.  Crates are just one of those things that are super easy to decorate with.  I have another natural colored one that you would have seen in the Vintage Beer Themed 90th birthday party post, if only the pictures wouldn't have turned out awful.  It's there though, I promise. ; )

The only things besides food that I purchased for this party were the two wooden signs that said "USA" & "America" & the cupcake liners.  Best thing...I got all of them at the Dollar Tree.  Yep, each sign was $1.  And the cupcake liners were 24 for $1.  Strange thing was...when you counted the cupcake liners, there was definitely 35, but I am not mad about receiving extra. : )  And they came with those cute little flags that are on top of the strawberries.  What a deal.  

 For desserts, I made Patriotic Strawberry Brownie Bites...

 

 Patriotic Red Velvet Cupcakes...

Patriotic Fruit Skewers

Some random twizzlers, marshmallows & blueberries to keep with the red, white & blue theme. ; ) 

And some more strawberries, marshmallows & blueberries on the other side too.  

If I throw a lot of fruit on the table with the desserts, that makes the whole thing healthy right? : )  So that was our Memorial Day Weekend.  It was a lot of fun to grill out & spend some time with our friends...and to have a day off work.  Always a good time.  A huge thank you to all of our veterans & active servicemen/women who protect us & all that we love. We are grateful for you not just on the holidays, but every day.

Vintage Beer-Themed 90th Birthday Party

So last Sunday was my grandfather's 90th birthday.  Even at the ripe old age of 90, the man loves beer.  So when my mom called 3 days before his birthday & said they were having a birthday lunch for him & would I do a dessert table, I had to throw things together pretty quickly & naturally went with a vintage/beer theme. The Husband had been out of town the whole week, so it was me at 8 mths pregnant trying to get this dessert table together while watching toddler Addy & her toddler friend who came to visit for the day on Saturday.  It got done however, although all of my pictures are absolutely horrendous.  They had the birthday lunch at my uncle's house.  My uncle lives on the lake, so we love to go out there.  However, his house may be the most absolute worst place to have a party where you want to take a picture of anything.  He is 100% bachelor.  His walls are dark wood, the floors are dark wood, the furniture is dark & there is very little lighting except for from his big-ass TV.  Even worse, the only place I could set the table up was in front of the only light source available...the floor to ceiling windows on this one wall.  What a nightmare.  So there are going to be very few visuals as far as what this party looked like.  Besides the fact you could barely see the table (even in person), it looked pretty cute.  

I know, I know.  Not that you can tell from any of these pictures, but I wanted a vintage look, but with a beer theme.  So I had a crate in the middle (thank goodness the hubby sells wine & I somehow can always find a crate)...a really old book with an antique car sitting on it on the lefthand side & the old wooden suitcase that I have used on the table in the "Ahoy! It's a Boy!" nautical shower & the "Boy Meets World" sip & see party.  Because these were decorations that I was taking over to someone else's house, I kept it very minimal. 

 I did make a little banner that read "Vintage 1924" to honor the year my granddaddy was born.  I just used the same leftover travel scrapbook in light blues & tans from the "Boy Meets World" party.  And yes, I took this picture at my house after the party was over since I got 0 decent pictures at the party. : )

  For the desserts, I wanted to keep them all beer themed.

 So I made Angel Food Cake with Beer Macerated Strawberries

 Salted Beer Caramel Corn

And Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes.  

So besides the fact that the lighting was terrible, it was really a fun afternoon.  The weather didn't cooperate, so we couldn't go out on the boat or anything, but it was very nice for our extended family to spend some time together, especially celebrating my granddaddy making it all the way to 90...drinking beer & all. : )

New Year's Eve 2012

For Throwback Thursday, we are throwing back to New Year's Eve 2012.  I always have to work on New Year's Eve (unless it's on a weekend), so I never have a lot of time to get stuff together.  That being said, I love having our friends over to ring in the New Year & I wanted 2013 to start no other way.  I love black & gold together for parties & something about it just seems very NYE appropriate.  I also love wine & wine corks & you can find wine corks throughout my house in different vases, jars, etc.  So that was the basis of my decorations.

 I have a gold tablecloth from a Christmas many moons ago.  I threw it on a table, took some of the jewel tone candles/candleholders from my guest room & put them on the table.  I put some glittered black, gold & silver Christmas ball ornaments & wine corks in some glass containers & some gold tinsel garland that I am not sure why I even have & put those on the tables too.

 The only thing I purchased for this party were the hanging decorations & the party horns from Party City (oh, and party hats of course, you have to have party hats on NYE).  I went with the hanging decorations because some of them have these cute little clocks in the middle of the paper fans.  Of course they didn't show up in the pictures very well. 

 Because we start celebrating NYE so early in the evening & end so late (I swear it's like the only night we can even make it up past midnight these days), I focus more on good food & hanging out than on the decorations.  And this particular year, our rival football team had a NYE bowl game & we had to be ready to vehemently pull against them. : )  

So we made a ton of BBQ (it is the South after all) & lots of apps & desserts & we watched some football, had some cocktails & rang in 2013 the way I hope everyone did...with those that we love.  Happy Throwback Thursday!

Frame of Memories...

In the last post about updating the guest room, I mentioned that it was really important to me to keep Oma's things from Germany in our guest room.  I had some empty frames that my mother was getting rid of when she finally decided that her entire house didn't have to be gold & hunter green & I decided to make a picture collage using the biggest frame that I had.   Now these frames wouldn't ordinarily go with the themes in my house, but in the updated guest room, the gold frames look good with the French Provincial furniture & the jewel tones.  

My grandmother was a war bride & met my grandfather when he was serving in the US army in Germany.  They met & fell in love & she moved back to America with him.  Although she lived in America probably another 60 years, she never lost her accent, her connections with her family there, or her love of Germany.  She went back a few times & I always wished I was able to go back with her one day, but unfortunately she got too sick too fast.  She kept lots of things from Germany...old photos, postcards, maps, etc.  I decided to use these things in my collage.  

So first, I took the big gold frame.  I had some bendable wire that I strung across the frame three times, using my upholstery stapler to staple it down to the sides of the frame.  

I then took one of my Oma's old maps...

And stapled it to the back of the frame, leaving the wires in front of the map.

I then took regular clothespins & pinned on the letters, postcards & photos that were my Oma's from Germany.

I also pinned on a few other things of my grandparents like my grandfather's monogrammed belt buckle, his whistle from the war & a big pearl pendant from one of my Oma's necklaces. 

I really love how this turned out & I like being able to look at the things that remind of my grandparents on the wall rather than having them stuck away in a shoe box somewhere or something.  And it always sparks lots of convos with our guests since this is our guest room after all. : )