Ladies Luncheon

Today was a very fun day with (most of) the ladies from Mom's side of the family. I decided to host a "Ladies Luncheon" so we could all get together and hang out without the guys, and so everyone could see our new place. A couple people had prior engagements and weren't able to make it, and it ended up being the seven of us that took a trip in October 2006 to Amish Country in Pennsylvania for a long weekend. It was a wonderful trip. And we haven't done anything with just the women since! Here's our favorite group photo from the last trip (yes we're wearing matching shirts...) : 

And here's one from today: 

So much fun! We laughed, we cried, we planned our secret family winter project, and started talks for our next "Mothers and Daughters Gone Wild" trip. I made custom invitations for the lunch. The fronts were all different and the back had all the details for the day. Here's one: 

And then continuing the pink and black theme, I made food tags for everything! I love making these little tags. And the more I make the faster/easier it gets. 

Pink Champagne Cupcakes with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

I also made chicken salad, and decided to actually cook two whole chickens instead of buying prepared chicken breasts. I just don't think anything beats chicken that's cooked on the carcass in a big pot of water. I somehow had the foresight to make chicken stock as well. So now I have approximately 20+ cups of chicken stock that is cooling in the fridge so I can skim off some fat in preparation for freezing it. Killed two birds with one stone on this one (haha get it? Chickens are birds...) and now I'll have great organic chicken broth (that isn't $3+ a can) for chicken noodle soup, chicken and dumplings, etc. Not going to lie though-I cannot wait for the house to stop smelling like chicken. Here's my epic tower of chicken stock: 

I know this made me nervous, too. But don't worry, Brian was standing at the ready just to the left in case something went horribly awry. 

And finally, here's a photo of me and my mom from today. Without whom, it should be noted, this day would not have happened! My brain would have probably exploded trying to tie everything together in the last two hours before everyone arrived. Thanks Mom!! Best mom ever!!!

My First Commission

So yesterday my lovely friend Mary stopped by to see the new apartment, and asked if I would make her food place cards for her housewarming party this weekend. How exciting is that?! We had paper picked out within approximately 3 minutes, and I finished them up about an hour ago. Here's some photos for your enjoyment: 

HOW-TO: These are really very simple to make, and are such a nice touch if you're having a mix of appetizers out for a party. I printed the titles off on colored scrapbooking paper from my computer. The adorable font is called "jellyka estrya's handwriting" and you can download it for free from dafont.com (Warning: if you like browsing fonts, and downloading new ones, this site is super addicting!). The little swirlys above the titles were just a random wingdings-type font I downloaded awhile ago. Cut out the words, cut strips of patterned paper and you're almost there. I made the strips twice as long as I would need to nicely center the text. Fold in half and then fold up each end about a 1/2 inch so that it creates little "legs" for the card to stand on (see the middle picture above). For finishing touches I added little foam pads to the back of the text pieces so they stand out from the patterned paper (also see photo 2 above). And then there are color-coordinating sparkly gems that I used to dot i's and accent different letters.

Interested in something like this for your next party? Leave a comment, send an email, or convo me on Etsy and we'll get it all coordinated for you. As you can imagine, the possibilities are endless when designing these!

There's a lot happening so I'm sure I'll have more updates tomorrow. Have a lovely night!

Meg