Spring Bell Jar Display

I love this display jar because I can change it for every season and more often if I get tired of it.    

  Everything in this display I had around my house.  I had seen sheet music as a background so I ripped a sheet out of an old piano music book.  I love old post cards and have quite a large stack of them.  I added one and may add a few more.  The bird and nest I had on a bookshelf.  I found the branches while cleaning a closet and added them.  

I have had this as a center piece on my dining room table and now it's on a side table in my sitting room.  

Easter Party

I enjoy hosting Easter Brunch for my family because our tradition is to have an Easter Egg Hunt. Over the years I have improved my system to make it both entertaining and fair for all the kids. I have grandchildren ranging in age from 9 to 28, many of whom still like to participate in the hunt. Apparently, the cash and useful gadgets found in the eggs make the hunt worthwhile.
I have color coded the eggs to match their bags and each paticipant has 10 eggs to find. Grandpa is sure to hide the eggs well, making it a challenge for each grandchild...often taking an hour to discover all the eggs. All participants end up with the same cache in their 10 eggs. After all the eggs are opened, I retrieve the eggs and bags and save them for next year. The favorite is the Golden Egg, often filled with cherished family treasures (and a cash bonus!) Sometimes the egg is hidden, and sometimes we play a game of chance for it. Great memories are created each year.

Triple Layer Strawberry Cake

Here's an easy but impressive cake that tastes good, too!

Triple Decker Strawberry Cake
From Southern Living 2004 Annual Recipes

1 package white cake mix (18.25 oz)
1 package strawberry jello (3 oz)
4 large eggs
½ cup sugar
¼ cup flour
½ cup finely chopped fresh strawberries
1 cup vegetable oil
½ cup milk
Whole strawberries for garnish

Beat first 8 ingredients at low speed with electric mixer for 1 minute. Scrape down sides of bowl and beat 2 minutes at medium speed. Scrape as needed. Chopped strawberries should be well blended into batter. Pour batter into 3 greased/floured 9 inch round cake pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 23 minutes or until cake springs back. Cool in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pans and cool completely on wire rack. Spread strawberry buttercream frosting between layers, on sides and on top. Store refrigerated.

Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

1 cup butter, softened
32 oz powdered sugar
1 cup finely chopped fresh strawberries

Beat butter at medium speed until fluffy. Add sugar and strawberries and beat on low until creamy. Add more sugar if too thin, more strawberries if too thick.

Graduation Dinner

This vase was used as a place card holder for a family dinner we hosted to celebrate our son's college graduation.  I bought the vases in bulk for $1.00 each.  I personalized them by finding a photo of each guest with our son.  This took a little time, but once I had all the photos together on my computer, I printed a contact sheet of the photos.  One sheet of photo paper will print 12 -  1 1/2 inches by 1 inch photos.  Each photo was cut out and backed in black paper and attached to a purple ribbon (school color).  Simply slide the ribbon over the neck of the vase.  A wide variety of flowers were used to fill each vase so they were all unique.  The best part was searching for your photo with the graduate to determine where to sit.  At the end of the evening each guest took their vase home.  I put together a total of 30 vases.  

Box Lunch Garden Party

My Red Hat group met at the Nurenberg Gardens during the Art Fair last June. I offered to provide a picnic lunch for the event. I have enjoyed making box lunches for other events, and this seemed like a perfect opportunity to use my boxes and add my personal touch. I used boxes that coordinated with the bright colored linens and tied the boxes shut with colorful ribbon and a packet of wild flower seeds that had an inspirational message. I bought the boxes at William Sonoma and the containers for the fruit and pasta salads at the Lund's deli counter. I used a mini clay pot for mints and covered it with cellophane and tied it with a bright colored ribbon.

Graduation Open House

As graduation open house season rapidly approaches, I’m reminded of the fun we had planning and pulling together two such parties for my two favorite high school grads! Of course, I had tons of help from my favorite party planners, my sisters and mother – my blog mates. For both parties, we had a 20 x 20 tent set up in the turn-around in the driveway. We created a “Wall of Fame” in the tent by hanging pictures that were strung together with, in the case pictured, hockey skate laces, and anchored with hockey pucks at the bottom (hole drilled through the puck). The pictures were created by blowing up photos to 8 x 10 or larger at Archivers or Kinkos, then mounted on black foam board. For table centerpieces, we used magnet frames (BorealStone.com) with skates as magnets and a hockey puck base. We also sprinkled the center with personalized golf tees. For my daughter’s party, there was no specific sport or hobby theme, but we used bright colored plaid tablecloths, and the pictures were strung together with a variety of bright colored ribbons. We also matted the photos in bright colored paper between the photo and the black foam board. We used Gerbera daisy plants in terra cotta pots as centerpieces. The “parting gift” was a key chain with a small silver frame that contained a picture of the graduate.

Maple Syrup

Getting ready for a grand way to end Spring Break. We had a "staycation" this year which was perfect for tapping the trees and boiling sap. A super fun family event...all was well until the snow fell and put a damper on our spring affair...life in Minnesota.
We have bottled and are ready to share with friends. The bottles can be found at any brew your own beer store and the labels were created by cutting letters out of magazines, scanning and printing on label sheets...an easy all age project.
Remember...you can use these bottles for many party favors.
More to follow.

The Beginning

After many years of talking about writing a book on parties we have thrown in our family, we decide in a five minute phone conversation that we would start a blog.  

Well, here goes.  Now what do we do?  Stay tuned for tomorrow.

The Girls