I have been so busy the last few weeks painting and getting the house put together for this party. The previous owners of our home left a lot of things behind and the house itself needed a bit of TLC before I could feel comfortable having people over. I know I keep promising before and after pictures, but I want to do a tiny bit of tweaking first.
Anyway, we decided to go ahead and have the party once the majority of the work was done. After all, we will more than likely never be completely done decorating. :)
We kept things really simple and light with both the decorations and the food. I used some of my Great Grandmother's mason jars in various sizes as vases and bought some simple flowers from the grocery store Friday afternoon.
I'm really pleased with the way they turned out! I put them in various places around the house such as the bathrooms, the end tables, and on the food table.
Using some large sunflowers helped fill out the arrangements without costing a lot of money.
That's pretty much it for the party decorations! I chose instead to focus on making some really good food.
Of course I had to have some sort of cake. Parties without cake are just glorified meetings. I found two great cupcake recipes on Pinterest: Pineapple Cream cupcakes and Blackberry Chocolate cupcakes that were a huge hit!
To the right of the cupcakes are tortellini skewers with some pesto dipping sauce, cheddar and pepperjack cheese cubes, and mini caprese salads. (Please excuse the plate and cup. I forgot to take pictures before people dug into the food!)
To the right of the cheese we had a creole dip for pretzels and the vegetable tray, and a cinnamon cheesecake dip to go with some graham cracker sticks and the fruit tray/tower. Later in the day we also had a tray of grilled chicken tenders that had been marinated in our favorite barbecue sauce. Steve grilled them over hardwood charcoal on his new grill. So tasty!
For drinks we had ice water and sweet tea in these cute 1 gallon dispensers from Bed, Bath and Beyond.
We also had fresh squeezed lemonade in our convertible punch bowl/ cake stand. It turned out so well! I had to juice about 36 lemons to make two batches, but I received a lot of compliments on it, so it was worth the fuss.
One thing that really helped a lot was purchasing two plastic drink dispensers from Walmart. They each hold about 3 gallons and have a spigot for easy dispensing. We were able to make the drinks the night before and chill them overnight which ended up being incredibly convenient. I would absolutely recommend it if you are hosting a party. That way, if you run low on drinks, you just grab the next gallon out of the refrigerator rather than having to make a new batch during your party. Ours were less than ten dollars each.
We received so many compliments on the house and had so much fun with our friends and family! I can't wait to host another party... which will most likely be a Pinterest party for my cohort at the end of July. :)
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