Tablescapes

2016 Year In Review – Holiday Parties

To help create special moments for my family, I enjoy celebrating each holiday and marking the passage of time with mini celebrations.  I host themed play dates for Juliet, play dress up, produce photo shoots in holiday colors, bake themed desserts with my little one and have fun re-decorating the dining area with her.  Here’s my 2016 year in review showing how just one small area of a NYC apartment came to life each season.

For all the details from this adorable, “Wild For You” themed Valentine’s PJs and Pancakes play date, click here!

The girls played with their furry stuffed animals, sprinkled toppings on heart-shaped pancakes and brunched like little ladies while wearing their matching animal PJs.  It was so much fun that I hosted another Wild For You play date during Valentine’s with a slightly different setup.   For this posh play date we decorated heart-shaped Valentine cookies and wore heart printed sweatsuits. Click through for all the details and tips on how to create your own!

For her birthday at the end of February, I turned our dining area into a Mickey Minnie black and white themed space since our Disney kid was clubhouse crazy!

Click here for all the budget-friendly details!  The next month, I hosted a princess themed play date featuring a Beauty and the Beast screening, ballroom dancing, and mommy and me manicures.  With free printables, I transformed the buffet area to a blue and pink sparkle and sweet station.  Click here for more!

I’ve never been one to celebrate the fourth of July with such enthusiasm until recently.  Decorating my home in red white and blue has become a tradition ever since having a little one.  I want to celebrate every holiday with her in a fun, stylish and meaningful way.  Besides being festive, holiday decor is a talking point from which teachable moments can spring forth.  My little one learned about the American flag, identified stars and stripes, and practiced color memory with these visual aids as a baby.  Nowadays she likes and insists on getting involved with the decorating!

During my birthday month (Sept.) I used some remaining party decor to make the place feel festive.  Hubby agreed to cook me his first dinner ever as part of my present.  What better entertainment on my birthday than to watch him try and figure his way around the kitchen I thought?  Juliet and I set the table with all our Oh Joy for Target items leftover from last year while daddy fumbled through the Hello Fresh kit with all the dinner ingredients.  Below was the end result!

I opted out of hosting a Halloween bash this year and instead hosted some close friends over for a crafty trick or treat pre-party.  Here’s our dining area transformed once again with a damask shower curtain and homemade banners on the wall.

And for a simple and comparatively minimalistic Thanksgiving scene, I cleared out the dramatic Halloween decor and re-purposed items around the house for a totally different look.  Using fall favorites such as white pumpkins and apples, I created an elegant scene with pure white with silver accents.

Then I held a posh play date sponsored by 7 or 8 brands under the theme, “sprinkle some fun” which you can see here and got to re-use the backdrop from Juliet’s bunny birthday party as well as the princess party.

 

These are some of my favorite looks using whatever I had around the house, gift wrap, shower curatains, re-purposed party decor.  I hope this inspires you to change it up every once in a while and give your home a fun festive look for your favorite holidays in 2017!

Happy new year!

 

 

 

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Secrets To Stylishly Designing a Kids’ Table

If you saw my last post recapping Dining By Design, otherwise known as DIFFA, the leading trade show for table decor and party design, you know I love a fabulous tablescape! Here, I’m going to share with you some of my top tips for designing a stylish kids’ tablescape using pictures from my daughter’s bunny birthday party that I just produced!

As a party planner, I’m a little jaded when it comes to party decor.  I’ve pretty much seen it all.  So when I plan my own, I like to stray from the ordinary and try to feature some unique items to wow and surprise.  For instance, for the bunny birthday that I threw for my daughter’s 3rd birthday, I added a whimsical wow factor with a tall, supersized sunflower centerpiece.

I bought the tall silk flowers during a sale at Michael’s.  Don’t you love that place??  And I purchased the picket white fences from a Chinese wholesaler.  The secret to keeping everything in place??  Flower foam, hot glue, yellow grass and juice boxes to weigh everything down!  It created an immediate fun factor to the table and was a conversation piece as you walked into the room!

You’ll see that the party space (within our building) fortunately had free kids tables and chairs for us to use but the chairs were a mish mash of different colors so I made them uniform with some spandex yellow seat covers (adult sized) and fitted them with a chair sash turned into a bow.  I bought both materials wholesale which made them cheaper than renting and now I can use them for future events or sell/rent them out to others!  Finally, I covered additional side tables (used for the pet adoption) in coordinating gift papers and covers.

The trick to creating a couture feel without the couture prices at this kiddie table, was in color coordinating EVERYTHING.   Be super strict about matching exact shades when it comes to purchasing napkins, straws, forks, cupcake toppers… Everything will look much more custom and professional if you do!   It bothers me to no end to see something a shade or two off when I have already sent snippets of the exact fabric for the cake maker to match.  i.e. Juliet’s 1s birthday party.

That’s why I often customize my table decor down to the very last detail.  Notice the paper runner, the frame turned into a tray, the milk bottles covered in coordinated papers and ribbons, and the covered styrofoam to stick the lollipops and chocolate bunnies in.

And to go along with the Easter timing, I presented each child with their own berry basket in lieu of a dinner plate.  Inside you’d find, a pink napkin, bunny-shaped sandwich, bunny trail mix (popcorn and cheerios), pretzel sticks wrapped in a yellow and white polka dot mini-bag, & a cupcake holder filled with fruit.  The milk jars featured the child’s beverage of choice. 

Knowing that the pool table would be in the background, I also crafted the yellow and white backdrop that you see above.  With help from Mialandyn Events who helped build the actual structure out of foam core, tape and wood, I covered it in coordinating fabrics, floral garlands and gift wrap on the other side.

When designing your tablescape, always consider what you’ll see in the background of your photos.  In this instance, I didn’t want a pool table to be in all my pictures so I dressed it up, used it as the food and dessert station, and created a photo opp area on the other side of it making double use out of the one backdrop piece! (That coordinating box that you see above by the way is simply a diaper box covered in fabric and it was great for kids to stand or sit on).  I’m a huge fan of creatively using what you have to save money.

Here’s what it looked like on the other side during setup (The dinner menu of baked salmon, pulled pork, sweet plantains, beans and rice had not arrived yet).  Those Easter hats that you see hanging from the ceiling there by the way were given to each child in lieu of a party hat.  They were SO cute ON (one of my amazing finds in the Target $1 bin!)

To summarize, here are some useful secrets from a professional party planner turned mommy planner that you can use when designing a kids’ tablescape:

1. Color – Coordinate EVERYTHING.  Be Hitler when sticking to this rule and your table will thank you for it!
2. Consider the background for your most important shots.  What’s behind the cake? What’s behind the kids’ table? Remove or disguise eyesores.
3. Add a themed centerpiece.  Not only is it a conversation starter but it can really stand out and turn your average kids’ table into a standout stunner!
4. Think out of the box.  How about an enlarged candle in a cake, for a one year old’s birthday (the kind you’d stick in a candlestick?), how about a coordinated paper place mat that they can draw on, safari hats instead of birthday party hats for a safari themed event?
5. Decorate your chairs.  Hang birthday hats from them, use them as place cards by assigning a child’s name to each one, hang a giftable cape on each one for a superhero themed party, slide tutus on them for a girly get together.

For more kids’ party inspiration, check out some of my other Fab Kids party posts and please leave a comment with your thoughts on these tips or let me know what you’re currently brainstorming and I’d be happy to help you!

my Disney sponsored princess in training party

my gingerbread man cookie decorating play date sponsored by Bright starts

my Hello Kitty play date sponsored by HP

my pancakes and pajamas play date

My Toddler tea party

Thanks for reading!

Special thanks goes out to Image Ready for the pictures used in this post!