anniversary gift basket

For this past weekends wedding I was also asked by the bride to make an Out of Town gift basket for her parents. I thought it would be fun to do a theme based on their own wedding, which was 34 years ago this August. I put in some daisy cookies (she carried a daisy bouquet) and a favorite bottle of wine called "Barefoot" with a post card of Bermuda - their honeymoon destination- on which I wrote... "for memories of walking barefoot in the sand in Bermuda." I included a sangria mix- which they served at their wedding reception and a Cat Stevens CD with "their song" on it. I wrapped the box in cellophane and attached some chocolate numbers to represent the number of years of marriage they will be celebrating on their anniversary in August. This was a very fun basket to put together and an idea that I hope to replicate again in the future.

Out of Town burlap bags

These are the Out of Town bags I made for my good friend, Elisabeth, from BLUSH. She had the most beautiful wedding at the Jonathan Edwards Winery in No. Stonighton CT this weekend. To welcome her guests to this fabulous event I used burlap bags to include home made cookies (made by the grooms mother) and personalized m&m's, among other things. I used craft paper and the couples custom wedding stamp to personalize the water bottles. Attached to the bags was an invitation to lunch the next day. I used a mason jar stamp for the invitation, hand wrote the party details and then had it color copied. The mason jar tied into the wedding details. Not only were flowers arranged in mason jars but, the bride & groom served the most delicious white sangria after the ceremony in them too! Look for more details from this spectacular event on Elisabeth's blog later this summer.

party favors

After many discussions with my husband about how he wanted to celebrate his big day - it was decided that we go to an upscale pizza place and enjoy dinner and drinks with good friends.
Easy enough.....Trying to think of favors to go with the party, not so easy. I kept getting stuck on the "pizza" thing and couldn't think of anything to go with it. One night while I was at dinner with a good friend we started brainstorming ideas and she said "what about beer.?" Beer and pizza go together and my husband loves Guinness- so I went with it. I ordered customized pint glasses and was very happy with how they turned out. I bought plain white cocktail napkins and stamped them with my husbands initials. I also found green and white striped straws that I thought were festive and would work well with the glasses. At the last minute I also decided to make little tins of green m&m's that I decorated with a shamrock. My husband loved all of the little Irish touches and his friends loved having a new pint glass to take home with them.

cupcakes

Since my husband had to work on his birthday the kids and I thought it would be fun to make 40 coconut cupcakes and deliver them to my husband's office. It was fun to surprise him at work since a lot of people didn't even know it was his birthday- and, the kids loved seeing their dad during the day. I found this large bakery box with window at Joann Fabrics. It was the perfect way to transport such a large number of cupcakes.

turning the big 4-O

My husbands birthday was on Friday. Since he was away from his homeland of Ireland and all of his family there I made every effort to make his day extra special. When trying to figure out what to get him for a gift, I finally decided that it would be fun to give him 4 gifts that started with the letter "O" to coordinate with his turning the big 4-O! The first gift was from our kids- some professional pictures of them that I had framed. We served him coffee cake with a candle in it and the card read for our "daddy-o." The second gift was an Orange box- filled with some running sneakers that we delivered to him at work (which is where he usually runs). The third gift was some Oakley sunglasses that I gave to him for the car ride to his party and the fourth gift was a bottle of Whisky called OBAN that I gave to him at the party and had all of our guests sign. My husband was so touched by all of the effort I put into making his day special that he actually came home with a dozen roses and the sweetest card for me- on HIS birthday! I am truly a lucky girl. I will post some of the details from the party later this week.

farm birthday party

I have been so busy with planning my husbands 40th birthday (which is this Friday) and making the out of town bags for a wedding that is next year that I have not had a chance to add anything new to my blog. I decided that I would share some pictures from my son's first birthday last year that was a farm theme. For young children I like to have activities out and let them explore at their own pace rather than having more formal and directed activities. Some of the things I put out were a farm stand and a duck pond (just some rubber duckies floating in a water table.) As I have mentioned before I am much better at adding things to cupcakes to "decorate" them. In this case I found a small picket fence at the craft store and perched some small plastic farm animals on top. I think they came out very cute! For the cow cookies I made sugar cookie dough and put small balls of chocolate cookie dough on top. When I rolled the dough together the vanilla and chocolate combined to make a marble effect. We served lemonade in mason jars and used bales of hay to decorate. For the favors I put petite white piggy banks into red and white gingham take out containers and also included some chocolate pennies. I tied some raffia and a wooden pig to the handle.

After Friday I will start sharing some of the details from my husbands birthday.....

how sweet it is to be loved by you...

As I mentioned in my previous post the traditional 6th anniversary gift is candy. I decided to give my husband 6 different types of candy that would tell him some of the many reasons why I love him. I packaged them in clear pillow boxes with red and white gingham ribbon and sticker letters. I even found a card that read "I love you more than chocolate." I originally found this idea in a Valentine's Day article and decided it would work perfectly for this occasion too. Some of the candy I used were:

Hershey kisses: for kisses

smarties: for being so smart

almond joy: for bringing such joy to all of our lives

snickers: for always making me laugh

We also took the kids to a penny candy store on the Cape so that they could join in on the fun too. My movie pick this year was Chocolat. We all enjoyed a wonderful day/night of celebrating and I look forward to many more years of celebrating with my husband.