Showering a Mother-to-be!

This has hands down been one of the very BEST weekend ever! It has been packed full of SO much fun and even some once in a lifetime experiences. I feel so very blessed! I will update on all my fun throughout the week, but wanted to share one of the big perks of the weekend with you all tonight.

Today, four friends and I hosted a shower at Andrea's for our good friend Jessica. We, as well as all the guests, all met one another another through Junior League two years ago and have become great friends. Jessica is having a baby girl in a month so we decided to pull out all the pink and make things extra girly!

I was in charge of flowers, favors, games and decor. Andrea's home is beautiful so little was needed so I just made a few small printables and then floral arrangements. I found some wonderful printables at Lay Baby Lay (they have some darling, framable printables for all you mommies) and made the rest myself. I had originally planned to make an "It's a Girl" sign, however, that just seems too long so I went with "BABY" instead. I was a bit worried this might look dumb, but I think it turned out very cute! We made Jessica take this home as we all thought it would be fun to put on their hospital door next month. Here is our buffet all set up and ready for the guests. Since the shower was from 2pm to 4pm we did not do heavy, heavy food as many people likely would eat before. Cassie made mini fruit kabobs and brought cheese, chicken salad and croissants. Andrea had mini quiches, candied nuts and a vegetable platter with the BEST dip from Central Market (if you are familiar with their dips it was the Love dip which is a favorite of mine). For dessert, another hostess brought petit fours from Tart (they are the BEST in Dallas in my opinion). It was the perfect amount of food for our size crowd and we all enjoyed everything! I made Oreo balls for the favors and then created my own tags which said "Sugar and spice, baby girls are so nice!" I hope they were good as I never tasted one :)

All in all we had a WONDERFUL afternoon celebrating Jessica and Baby C! We cannot wait to meet her in just a few more weeks!

A ROARING Good Time!

Last night I hosted book club at my new condo. Each month we rotate to a different member's home and September was my turn to invite everyone in. Our book for the month was The Great Gatsby.

My dress is Elizabeth McKay and the belt is Lilly.

I love when a good theme is carried out so I decided to play up on parts of the Roaring 20's...

When friends arrived they were told to "put on their pearls!" I stocked up on pearl, mardi gras beads (sadly the parentals are no longer in India so real pearls could not be found at a decent price) and made the following sign which I cut down and put out:

I also made various quote cards that I placed around for people to read and, you know, ponder. :)

I decided on a black and gold/yellow theme for the evening. Black is always a safe choice and paired with the gold it seemed perfect like an appropriate combination that Gatsby and Daisy would have approved of. Since I have no china and linens in these colors I opted to use all paper and plastic goods. It worked out perfectly and was less mess in the end which was an added benefit. I used a greek key and polka dot fabric on the table (which were not pinned up as I ran out of time, oops, good thing it was only good friends coming over) and used sunflowers in my centerpiece.

Originally, I had wanted to serve taco-in-a-bag since I do not have the space to seat ten at a table (my table seats eight max with two leaves and that is even a bit tight). However, when giving it a bit more thought I decided I should live it up in the style of Jay Gatsby and put a bit more effort into the meal.

I finally decided on chicken picatta, rosemary potatoes and asparagus and then added biscuits at the last minute:

I was a bit worried about the chicken picatta cooking all the way through (I always worry about chicken cooking through) so I babied it in the kitchen as all my friends arrived. Thankfully, no one ended up with a pink breast of "Prohibition Chicken" so the time spent by the stove was well worth it!

For dessert we enjoyed a DIVINE cake for Aston's Bakery and champagne as it was Cassie's birthday. The cake was massive (see here for photos!), but so tasty and delicious!

Each guest left with a pack of candy cigarettes as their favor of which I neglected to take a photo as I was busy running around. Thankfully, Melissa has photos of those too!

All in all it was a WONDERFUL evening and so much fun to put together! I am already looking forward to hosting my next event in 2012!!