Fab Fete : Haute Halloween Decor and F&B

Designing and creating food stations, beverage bars, and dessert bars has always been a fun, creative outlet for me.  Professionally, I planned and executed them for various luxury brands at Saks as well as for Moroccanoil at NY Fashion Week as part of a larger event marketing effort.  Personally, I’ve planned them for friend’s baby showers and my daughter’s birthday.  Staking out a location is always step #1.  When I saw this bright orange wall at Gymboree, I knew it would be the perfect Haute Halloween backdrop.  food station

I opted for the wall along the hallway without the hooks so that I could have a blank slate from which to work upon.  And I pressed 2 smaller, 4’x5′ tables together to provide ample room for pizza, beverages, snacks and dessert.  I was working off a tight budget so nothing here was custom made like I’d usually do for other parties.  All the paper products were surprisingly found at the local Party City.  Pretty impressive for Party City, huh?  IMG_3646

I just had to create the banner, tape it up, rest my black velvet fabric and tape up the edges with black electrical tape and throw a striped fabric down the middle making sure everything touched the floor.  You never want to see the legs on a table unless they are very decorative and match your design theme.  A benefit for having your linens touch the floor is creating needed storage space.  Tuck all your replenishable foods /snacks and take-home boxes underneath for easy access.   I loved the banner because you could still give it a customized look with the stickered letters that came along with it.  I wrote Haute Halloween for this food staion, and used another one saying @fab_kids in the photo room.  IMG_3654The white pillared cake stands were topped with orange paper to add some additional contrast to the table and make the mini cupcakes pop.  All the mini cupcakes were sponsored by Baked by Melissa and were soooo scrumptious!  And I had already bought the cake stands for another event.  These can be found at Bed Bath and Beyond.

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It’s nice to be able to have some detail both behind the food station wall as well as in front of it.  So I brought the black/white/orange decor theme in with the handmade chain banner below which helped to tie the whole look in.  The sodas were canistered in these simple containers, also purchased at Party City and were labeled “venom” and “poison” to go with the Halloween theme.IMG_3650

The napkins and leftover goody bag spiders continued the black / white / orange theme down to the very last detail.IMG_3651 IMG_3652 GoGo SqeeZ sponsored our applesauce snacks and were a popular hit amongst our costumed crowd.

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We also had pumpkin – shaped pretzels, cookies and fruity chews.  Guests dined in a separate room, formerly the art room.

kids snacks GoGo3 SAMSUNG CSC  SAMSUNG CSC

Goody bags and sponsored beverages, Trimino and Green Mustache were also stationed here.

SAMSUNG CSC

kids beverages SAMSUNG CSC SAMSUNG CSC SAMSUNG CSC

The photo area had a simple backdrop using the same banner found at the food station.  It read @fab_kids so that the brand would show up in everyone’s photos.

The chalk hashtag unfortunately did not stay on long but guests were asked to hashtag #fabkidsandtheirstylishmoms (our FB page name) on any of their Instagram uploads.

Once they tagged that and the venue @gymboreenewyork, they’d immediately be entered to win VIP tickets to Gymboree’s upcoming Thanksgrooving disco party.  Congrats to Kye who dressed up as Robin Thicke and won these tickets!!

anna wintour costume To see all the photos from the event see the FB album.  Or to read more about the party click here.  And to find out how to replicate our Anna Wintour, Andre Leon and Karl Lagerfeld Vogue trio, click here!

 

Thanks to my 7 sponsors for helping make this Haute Halloween party a huge success!

 

 

 

Fab Fete: Orange and Fushia Chevron Baby Shower

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I have known my dear friend, Janell for about 6.5 years and she is one of those people that just brings a smile to your face.  I’ve celebrated meeting her ever since I met her while traveling in Dubai.  She is a bright ray of sunshine.  You know, one of those people that is always so positive with an amazing, contagious energy.  I loved her the minute I met her!

So when she expressed possibly needing a venue for her baby shower, I volunteered our apartment and my event planning services.  And though I didn’t know exactly how I’d convert my post-renovation apartment with construction materials still there into a party space I thought it would be good to have a deadline in mind for us to work towards cleaning it all out.

Turns out orange and fuschia were the colors Janell was imagining for her nursery so we agreed on making that the color theme of her baby shower.  The colors are so fitting given her personality is just as vivacious and fun.  Next, we threw in her favorite pattern, chevron, (also likely to be used in the new nursery) and boom, that kick started all my brainstorming which you can see on my pinterest board here.

With the budget in mind, I found these great FREE, downloadable party printables with the orange-fuschia-chevron theme.

chevron partyAnd I continued the theme at the all-important food station (which typically becomes the center of any party) by purchasing a similar orange and white chevron blanket at Century 21 for less than $15.  Thumbtacking it to our wall, created an eye-catching backdrop.

orange chevron party

The banner was created by printing large blank papers from that downloadable link, cutting flags out freehand and handwriting the message with a sharpie in as consistent of a font as possible.  (I’d advise printing out onto card stock to prevent wrinkles).  Lastly, I covered my kitchen cabinet pull handles with some fuschia fabric I bought on sale a while ago for another purpose.

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I created the diaper cake centerpiece out of newborn and sz 1 diapers, some ribbon, fuschia napkins, some florals and a baby headband.   I’m always looking for an excuse to use my glue gun so I was happy to have an excuse to pull it out again!

diaper cake

The orange tray that you see here was found at a dollar-type store for just over $3 and the orange runner on my countertop was made with paper bought on clearance at Michaels.orange chevron cupcake

 

The cupcakes were homemade by the other 2 co-hosts, sprinkled with fuschia sprinkles and finally topped with a chevron onesie that I bought from Etsy designer, Scrapbits

cupcake topper

In addition to these cute cupcake desserts, the brunch menu consisted of:

  • mini quiches (3 varieties)
  • Croissants (3 varieties)
  • Yogurt parfaits
  • cranberry brie bites
  • fruit skewers
  • trail mix
  • mimosas, OJ and coffee
  • sparkling water  (orange or rasberry flavored to match the color theme)

quiche  IMG_8309 fruit kabob orange party

trail mix

Cupcake liners in your party’s theme colors are a great way to present and distribute items that require a handful. And baby items in coordinating colors sat next to some of the food displays for an additional dose of cuteness.

Every baby shower needs some sort of an activity for the guests.  But since the mom-to-be in this case didn’t want traditional shower games, I offered to create a fun photo booth setup instead.  The guests at her wedding all seemed to be into the photo booth in the past so I knew it would be a hit plus what better way to commemorate the event than with pictures?  It didn’t hurt that her guests were so photogenic…

new york fashionista PicMonkey Collageeorange baby shower

diy photo booth

photo booth

To make this DIY photo booth, all I did was set up a remote control SLR to a tripod and hung orange curtains with some leftover crystal beads from an old curtain I once had.

diy photo boothphoto booth propsProps included:

  • bibs
  • rattles
  • bottles
  • paper pacifiers from Etsy designer ScrapStarz
  • felt bowties, mustaches, lips and hats

Presents were opened and stories were shared underneath a banner that read, We (heart) Vienna – the baby’s name.

baby showerAnd simple white onesies hung in the living room windows.

baby shower

Guests left with orange M&M favors in these cute bottles from Etsy seller Lovingly Mine, 

We added the signs with the free, downloadable prints that I found.  They just required some printing, cutting and ribboning.

baby shower favor My thank you goes out to Janell for letting me co-host her very special baby shower.  I hope that it was memorable and everything you dreamed it to be.  You are going to make a wonderful mom and I’m so excited to be able to share in this new chapter of your life!

  • See my Instagram account @fabgabblog for the party video highlights!
  • Click here for other fab fetes that I’ve organized.

 

 

 

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