Natural Elements Brunch Baby Shower

July 24, 2017 3 Comments A Well Crafted Party

Whether baby number one, three, or five…. I whole heartedly believe in celebrating each addition to a family. When I found out my friend Lindsay, of Running with Tongs, was expecting her third child I had to make sure that she got a moment of celebration before her family of four became a family of five. We decided to celebrate with a brunch baby shower. Lindsay is vegan and this is the first vegan baby shower I’ve ever attempted. I was thrilled and a bit relieved when mutual friend (and awesomesauce blogger) Lisa from This Beautiful Day Blog offered to take over the food portion of the shower.

Read on to see all of our ideas for this vegan-friendly, gender-neutral baby shower with natural elements.

Gender Neutral Baby Shower Idea

Lindsay and her husband chose to not find out the gender of her baby beforehand. I sort of love gender neutral baby showers in general as I try not to associate specific colors with genders. (Though, lordy knows I probably would have done a very pink party had I ever had a baby girl!) We chose the color green more as a default from the beautiful natural elements that we wanted to incorporate into this party.

Choosing to do greenery and succulents as the “theme” of the shower made for a really beautiful set up without a lot of work beyond sourcing the plants and greenery.

Invitation

I created the invitations using a watercolor greenery elements and black text on white background. I liked that they looked graphic and modern with the black and white and slightly softened (perfect for a baby shower) with the water color. I also decided to line the envelopes wth the same motif that surrounded the invitation. We let the beautiful food platters and DIY Terrarium activity really take care of the rest of the decor.

Beverages for a Brunch Baby Shower

We chose an array of classic brunch beverages for this brunch-time baby shower including coffee, tea, pressed juices, orange juice, and mimosas. We also served a few cold beers and flavored soda waters for a bit of variety. Juices from Salad Power and Genesis Organic Juice made this fresh alcohol-free option more fun for those who did not partake in mimosas. The individual containers also made for easier pouring of orange juice when guests made their own mimosas.

Should I serve alcohol at a baby shower?

Whether or not you serve alcohol at a baby shower really depends on how your guest of honor feels about it. If the guest of honor was not someone who enjoyed an occasional alcoholic beverage before pregnancy then do not serve alcohol at the event unless she specifically requests it for her guests. If the guest of honor has been super sad about not getting to have the occasional night cap then it may not be the best idea to serve drinks that she can’t partake in. No matter whether you decide to serve alcohol or not DO have a fabulous not alcoholic beverage option for her and guests to enjoy beyond water or tea.

Vegan Brunch Party Menu:

When I think of brunch the word BACON comes to mind pretty quickly, so coming up with a vegan menu for a brunch time baby shower seemed on the edge of impossible to me. However, the brilliant Lisa Ng put together a delicious vegan brunch menu with ease. She created a perfect menu with both sweet and savory brunch items that left the group satisfied and raving about the foods. I didn’t miss bacon at all!

The menu included a DIY Avocado Toast Bar, Chick’n + Vegan Waffles, and Vegan Cheese Platters with crackers, fruit, crudites and dip. A vegan dessert topped off a wonderful brunch!

Check out tips on how to put together a DIY avocado toast bar and a vegan cheese platter over on This Beautiful Day Blog.

Baby Shower Activity That Doubles as a Party Favor

I’m pretty much obsessed with the idea of doing a party activity that doubles as another part of the party. The DIY Avocado Toast bar is a perfect example of that because it is an activity that guests will enjoy spending time doing AND it is a food item that they will eventually eat ( you know, after all the Instagramming). The party activity for this shower not only doubled as a favor but made for a beautiful decor element as well!

DIY Succulent Terrariums

We chose to create DIY succulent terrariums. These were a nice reminder of the time and energy it takes to “plant” something and watch it thrive and grow… sort of like pregnancy and motherhood in a way. It was really fun seeing how different each of the terrariums came out even though everyone was utilizing the same ingredients.

I simply bought the ingredients for the terrariums and placed them all out on a table. You could spend an arm and leg on terrariums, but I wanted an affordable option that didn’t take up a lot of space so I found beautiful round glass containers from my local Dollar Tree and placed printable instructions into each bowl. They were so beautiful all lined up on the table together!

You can absolutely create a terrarium bar by purchasing the ingredients seperately. However, I felt it was so much easier to just pick up two kits at my local nursery. While I was there I went ahead an picked up several small succulents.

We ended up having a lovely time eating, drinking, talking and making our DIY terrariums. We of course had some time for opening up presents as well! It was so much fun showering our friend Lindsay with some extra love right before she added her third baby to the family.

Big congrats to Lindsey who welcomed her baby girl to the world in late June 2017.

Saturday Spirits: Whiskey Tasting Party

October 15, 2016 4 Comments A Well Crafted Pantry

Birthdays are celebrated in my group of friends. We love a good excuse to get together to enjoy each others’ company, good food, and great drinks. My friend’s Brandon’s birthday was no exception to this very fine rule we all live by. His wife had the idea to throw together a whiskey tasting party and build our own steak salad bar. The food was epic… as always. The drinks… well, lets just say, we enjoyed some mighty fine whiskeys!

Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored. As with all my posts the opinions are my own. This post is intended for readers of legal drinking age.

How to Throw a Whiskey Tasting Party

There are a couple of different routes you could go to throw a whiskey tasting party:

Purchase all the whiskeys yourself and get a good variety of styles and brands. PRO: This way you know you will get to taste different things and you can even try different styles. CON: It can get expensive FAST.
Give each guest a style of whiskey and let them bring a bottle. PRO: You will get to taste different styles of whiskey. CON: Guests may worry about costs of the certain style of whiskey given or may not know a good brand to bring.
Ask guests to bring their favorite whiskey. PRO: You know you will get whiskeys your guests enjoy. CON: You may not get a good selection of styles of whiskey.

Our lovely host asked us each to bring our favorite kind of whiskey. (Note: She offered for us to just show up and enjoy the evening if whiskey wasn’t in the budget. She is cool like that.) Those who knew what they were going to bring shared the name of the whiskey in a Facebook Event so that we wouldn’t double up bottles. We ended up having all bourbon styles of whiskey except for one Irish Whiskey… but, all of them were tasty and everyone found at least one whiskey that they loved.

Anniversary

Party Food: 10th Anniversary Menu

October 12, 2016 8 Comments Anniversary

I seriously cannot stop sharing images from this amazing night. Our tenth anniversary party was absolutely an excuse for us to celebrate our marriage with the people that we’d gained over the last ten years—the people who are our support group now (and always). It was also an excuse to eat ridiculously good food and drink some delicious beverages. Andina Restaurant in Portland, Oregon provided the perfect venue and menu for our little shindig.

(Please note that this post is not sponsored in any way.)

We chose Andina restaurant in Portland, Oregon as our venue for four very good reasons:

We loved the food there and had one of our most memorable post-marriage date nights eating a delicious meal there.
They had a GORGEOUS space that fit our party’s numbers.
Andina’s team of people that helped me secure the space, view it, try foods, and plan my party were so very helpful. I am a tad anal with events (spreadsheets are your friend!) and they were nothing but gracious hosts.
It was affordable. I mean, it wasn’t inexpensive… but, I wanted a GREAT meal. A great meal was certainly had. Don’t believe me… let me show you:

(Amazing photos by Mary Boyden of Mary Boyden Photography)

Party Menu at Andina Restaurant in Portland, Oregon

There were several different choices and price points to create the party menu that we wanted. We chose to do a four course meal along with Tres Salsas Con Pan (breads with salsas/dipping sauces). My favorite part was being able to let my guests actually peruse the menu and select items that they wanted. I have done every style of dinner party there is from family style to buffet to plated… but, getting to have choices really made me feel like I was able to treat my guests. For our menu guests were able to choose from three selections of each of the courses. We chose those three selections prior to the day, but the guests got to choose their own items in the moment. I created the pictured menus because I wanted the menus to match the rest of the paper goods. The restaurant will make menus for you based on your selections if you aren’t as particular as I am. ::wink::

Occassions

Gender Neutral Baby Shower Idea

Invitation

Beverages for a Brunch Baby Shower

Should I serve alcohol at a baby shower?

Vegan Brunch Party Menu:

Baby Shower Activity That Doubles as a Party Favor

DIY Succulent Terrariums

How to Throw a Whiskey Tasting Party

We chose Andina restaurant in Portland, Oregon as our venue for four very good reasons:

Party Menu at Andina Restaurant in Portland, Oregon