Archive

September 2011

Browsing
Here at A Well Crafted Party we get really excited about the start of September…
because, it means that we can start working on HALLOWEEN!
Halloween is my holiday. I love the extravagance and playfulness of this holiday.
I love the fact that it can lend itself to so many different themes!
And, I love posting about Halloween.
So, I thought for today’s {Friday Finds}
I’d feature some of the Halloween posts that I featured last year.
Real Parties
For some fun REAL HALLOWEEN PARTIES check out:
Mad Tea Party: An Alice in Wonderland inspired dinner party
Bewitching Ball: A Masquerade Cocktail Party
Costumes
Recipes
Activities/Crafts
I’d LOVE for you to share some of your favorite Halloween posts
from around the blogosphere in the comments!
Also, are there any types of Halloween posts you are looking for this year? (i.e. certain crafts, themes or projects?)
Well, I wanted to give you a recap on the Beer Before Baby Party that I threw for my husband a while back. You might remember me posting a few items about it in my
I was a horrible blogger and didn’t get hardly ANY photos. I was enjoying my own baby shower at a different location for the beginning of the party. Note: enlist a friend to snap pics at next party!
But, the party was successful and everyone had a really great time.
I’ll share what photos and details I did manage to get!
{Invitations & Favors}
The invitation stated that the party was an Advice Shower for my husband as well as an opening celebration of the beer my husband brewed in honor of our son.
The favors had labels designed by me with the title “Amber to Xander.”{Food Table}

We served small portions of “bar” food for the party. The menu included: Mac & Cheese, Rubens, Beer Sausages, Sweet Potato Fries, French Fries, Crudites and Guinness Cupcakes

{Activity}

For a simple activity we had guests write out their advice for my husband, a new father, on coasters. We now enjoy the coasters, and their advice, daily!

 We also asked guests to bet on the vital birth information. We still have this poster up in our apartment because we enjoyed it so much.



{Attire}

 

I thought it would be fun to make special attire for this party and I was right! These shirts were easy to make with transfer paper and my printer.




“When in Doubt, Go to the Library”
from Harry Potter book 2
The quote above was one that helped to inspire the Library themed birthday party I recently threw for a friend who is studying to be a librarian. I posted inspiration for the party on a couple of different {Working on it Wednesday} posts. As I was pretty far in my pregnancy I did not create tutorials for many of the DIY projects in this party…. but, I will link to similar tutorials when possible and if there is something you see that I didn’t explain and you want to know more about it just leave me a comment!
The Invitation
The Dessert Table
The Sweets
The Cake

Centerpiece and Gift

Decor— We wanted to keep things fairly simple, yet still bring the library theme throughout the party so we used book pages and printables to decorate. I was given a few books that had water damage to deconstruct for the party. It was difficult to take them apart, but it helped that I knew the books were destined for the recycle bin otherwise. I used the pages for the table runner, paper fans, several strings of bunting and for the above mobile. I created the mobile without a tutorial, but with inspiration from an Etsy store.

Food— I decided to have desserts be the main attraction for the party. I served the desserts with wine, coffee and water. Desserts included: a layered birthday cake; chocolate mousse filled chocolate cups topped with a raspberry; “Shh-Kabobs” of angel food cake and strawberries with a dark chocolate drizzle; berry macaroons; marshmallow pops; cheesecake filled strawberries (not pictured); and lemon cake pops. I gave the desserts “literary” names and printed them with the same image from the invitation. 

The birthday cake was my first try at making a multi-colored layered cake. The colored layers came out beautifully and was quite nice to cut into…. I wanted to frost the cake using the ruffle technique, but at the last minute realized I lacked the proper frosting tip. I ended up using a round tip and feel like the tip, along with the frosting color, made the cake look like a brain rather than a pretty ruffled treat.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures from the party!