Mashed Potato Bar

An easy and budget-friendly buffet that I do a lot is a mashed potato bar. I set it up more like a -- a salad-bar-style collection of toppings spooned into martini glasses. It is always such a big hit!!
It is very inexpensive but you can make it look elegant. Plus who doesn't love mashed potatoes?
I use various cheeses, such as Cheddar, Parmesan and Jack; cooked and crumbled bacon, prosciutto, steamed broccoli, basil pesto, sun-dried tomato dressing, demi glace, roasted garlic, roasted red pepper strips, chives and sour cream.
I am knee deep in looking at all of the wonderful Easter/Spring tablescapes and parties that has been submitted! Thank you so much for all of your submissions! Gosh, this is so hard to just pick three!!!!!

Boring Banquet Hall into Beautiful

If you don't know by looking at my logo, website and blog~ my FAVORITE flower is the Gerber Daisy. I love their simplistic beauty and the gorgeous colors. They are also very budget friendly~ go figure!! If you need many centerpieces and want to use real flowers; I love either using Gerber daisies or carnations. They are very easy to work with, are not expensive and no need to be a floral designer. These arrangements are simply clusters of daisies in three tiers - sort of like a 3 tier topiary.

The client chose a pink and green color combo. Place cards for guests..continued with the Gerber daisies.

Close up of the flowers on the place card table. You will be surprised at the gorgeous flowers you can get from your local warehouse stores such as Costco and Sam's. Also, become friends with your local farmers market vendors. They are such an awesome resource!!

You don't have a large budget so you're using a banquet hall. Why are they all beige? Never fear...

You know I LOVE lanterns...I always say they fill a space and add instant color!!

Gerber topiaries for the buffet adds the much needed height to the banquet halls buffet table of silver chaffing dishes.

Easter Egg Nests

The Easter/Spring Tablescape and Parties contest is ending tomorrow (Sunday) at midnight so if you haven't entered you don't have much time left. Wanted to share a quick and easy treat for the kiddos for your Easter parties. Plus the kids can help with this one~for these Easter egg nests you just need three ingredients: Chocolate chips, crunchy chow mein noodles and some sort of candy that looks like little eggs. These are speckled Easter M&Ms, but jellybeans or even peanuts could work. Use about a little more than one bag of milk chocolate chips for each 12 ounce bag of chow mein.
Line a couple of cookie sheets with parchment or wax paper. This will keep the nests from sticking.
In a medium sized pan, melt the chocolate chips on the stove (medium heat), stirring so the chocolate doesn’t burn. This will only take a couple minutes. Remove from heat and add the noodles, stirring until they’re well coated. Then use a large spoon to drop a good-sized dollop of the chocolate chow mein mixture on your lined cookie sheets.
Carefully check to make sure the mixture’s not too hot to touch, then use fingers to shape each drop into the shape of a nest: circular with a little indent in the center. Move on to the next nest.
After you’re through forming the nests, the chocolate should still be sticky but not real warm (don’t want to melt your eggs!). Add a couple egg candies to the center of each nest. The chocolate will work like glue to hold them in. Chill them in the fridge for at least 20 minutes. For gifts just wrap in cellophane bag with ribbon and add a cute tag.

Marie and the Aristocrats Theme Birthday

I am very excited to share this Marie and the Aristocrats theme party for such a sweet little girl. Angie is one talented mommy who made everything for this custom beautiful party! Look at these precious invitations! I love this banner so much!!! Not only is the banner adorable with such fun colors but with mommy Angie adding black and white pictures of Carissa's year makes it just so special and personal!! Look here for other photo banners that MM has featured in the past.

I have never seen Marie from the Aristocrats movie....but now I will be renting it this weekend!!!

Angie is so talented she made all of the decor and favors for this party!!

Look at this awesome cupcake tower which she personalized with photos of birthday girl and the #2! A closer look you can see even the cupcake toppers are pictures of Marie Cat and pictures of Carissa!! Such cute wrappers for favors and lollipops!!

I am so upset that I didn't notice that the coloring pages are pictures of the birthday girl until tonight when I was putting together my post!! So it's 12:22 am in Phoenix....I don't think Angie is up right now especially living on the East Coast!! So please Angie when you read this tell us all in the comments how you did these!!??? (So I can copy for Maddy's birthday) LOL I'm serious though!

Too cute....sleeves for the cutlery and matching mini water bottles!

Kitty paw lollipops!! EEEEKKKK!! I can't take it anymore...all of the details are amazing!!

How precious the birthday girl is completely matching her theme party from head to toe! And I thought I was really doing something having a personalized T-shirt done Maddy's 2nd birthday! I'm going to have to step up my game!!

Angie thanks so much for sharing this special birthday with us! Your family is beautiful ... many blessings.

Dollar Day Creation~ Clipboard Mania!

Found these at my store! Yep, $ Tree...they had the regular size and mini. (this is the mini) SO how can you use these babies besides putting a notepad under clip...you say???How about putting a picture of your guests with their names and use as a place card as well as a favor! No pic...just their name would be cool too!
I have a baby shower coming up. I'm going to make one for each girl with coordinating papers to match theme and attach the games and pen. This will make it much easier for the girls to play the games while sitting in a chair (with no table).

How do you do it~ you ask?? First cut decorative paper to fit the clipboard. For the mini clipboards 6" X 9" paper works perfectly.

Paint the back of the paper with Mod Podge Paper (Matte) or spray with the Elmer's Spray Adhesive. If you are using spray adhesive also spray the clipboard. Cover the the clip with masking tape to keep it clean. Pay special attention to make sure which ever method used that the edges of the paper are completely covered.

Place the paper onto the clipboard. It is okay to lift up and reposition until it matches all of the edges properly~ just move quickly or glue will dry. Smooth paper and make sure the entire piece of paper is secured. If edge isn't all the way down lift and add more glue. Allow to dry at least 15 minutes before putting on top coat. Round off corners with scissors.

Give the top of the paper a light coat of Mod Podge Paper in matte or two coats of spray matte finish. Add embellishments...buttons, ribbon, pictures....whatever makes you happy!!

Here is a picture from Martha Stewart...decorative way to be organized and great way for a putting up what is currently your "muse".

Another use for that chalkboard paint!!!

Great as gifts.

Used as calendars. Put pictures of family in squares.

I love this one... you could have one for each of your children and display their most current art masterpiece or most current photo.

Have you been checking out the awesome tablescapes and parties from the Easter/Spring contest?? There are plenty of "MUSES" to be seen!!!! Check it out now here.

Hole in ONE birthday party

This Hole in One birthday party was sent in by the so talented Eleanor from Pink Peppermint Paper. Eleanor did the invitations, thank you notes, favor tags and stickers, and Amaris (birthday boy's mom) planned and executed the rest. All I can say is A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E!!
I always love a party that has such a unique theme and play on words!!Amaris calls the centerpieces "the rough"...too cute! Here is what Amaris says how she did them~I grew wheat grass as the centerpieces for each table and as an accent for the cake. I purchased the seeds at the local organic grocery store. I started about seven days before the party–soaking the seeds overnight and then placing them in wet paper towels overnight before planting. I had several round glass bowl vases, which I filled with sand and topped off with about an inch of potting soil. The wheat grass seeds can actually go directly on top of the soil. The seeds germinate quickly, and it is amazing how fast the grass grows!

AMAZING...I got to find a reason to do this....hmmm I'm thinking for Maddy's Easter party!

This talented mom made so many details of this party!! I'm loving this cake base!!

Cute tags that went on favors.

Guests were greeted with their party favor, a set of toy golf clubs and golf balls to use during the party and to take home.

I love details!!!!

Awesome party Eleanor and Amaris!! To see more check it out here.

Delectable, Decadent Dessert Buffet

I am in love with this chic grey and purple dessert table from the delicious blog Sweet Tooth. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!!

What a beautiful color palette!

Macaroons are all the rage and I love how Shauna incorporated them into a tree!

Simply Divine!

One week left to submit your Easter and Spring Tablescapes and Parties to the contest!!! Prizes totaling $300!!! There are some awesome parties/tablescapes submitted. Check them out here!!

Race Car Party Part II

Here is the Race Car birthday party for my neighbor's son. I think it turned out really great especially since all of the decor was done in 2 days. Here is the snack table. Yes, I used real tires under Plexiglas! I raided my neighbor's garage. Her husband's hobby is restoring cars so he has a treasure chest for decor for a race car theme!! Can you say free decorations!!!

I love using clusters of lanterns it just helps fill a space. I guess I use them like some use balloons!I used thick poster board for the sign. I made the Happy Birthday using my Circut. The Nascar car came from a 4 sheet sticker package I got for a buck from the 99 cents store. The rest are vinyls that I got from JoAnn's at 70% off! When I saw them I immediately sent a tweet out!! Make sure you sign up for my tweets....trust me I will send you all shout outs when I see a bargain or just great stuff we NEED to know! (My Twitter button's on the right of blog....shameless plug)

Here are the marshmallow pops but in a much better light! I really wanted to make wheels out of the brownies but it just didn't work out!

Used checkered scrapbook paper inside glass cylinder then filled with popcorn. Tied matching ribbon on scoop. I got all of my scoops online from Oriental Trading at a serious bargain. I have used them for everything!!

I found the car pretzel mold at JoAnn's for $2.99. Used the same candy melts from the marshmallow pops and pretzel rods.

It really was easy to do.

I love the real carburetor centerpiece. It even has matching red and blue parts!

I used the same black tablecloth roll that I used to make the "racetrack" and stuck race car lingo sayings on. These sayings were part of the 4 sheet package from the 99 cents store. I'm a lucky girl!

Here is the pit stop table hence the food station. Picture taken before we moved the chairs.

I found these race car books in the $ bin at Target! I thought they made a great favor! I wasn't in there shopping for this party but I always check the $ bins when I walk in the door! I literally didn't go shopping for items for this party until Friday and found everything the same day. I have no idea what I propped up behind the books just found in my neighbor's garage ~ it was car stuff and it gave height so I used it!

Simply typed Pit Stop on card stock and added the $ store stickers!

Put the drinks in the fuel can. I thought I was pretty clever for this one! :) Used the Paper & Cake cupcake rounds for the cups. I just put them on sticker paper.

I know I have said this so many times on my blog but I really love printables. They are such an inexpensive way to make your party look coordinated and custom. I am not a fan of going to the party store and getting every item you see that is Hot Wheels. You really end up spending a ton more money.

The tire I found in the birthday boy's playroom and I put more of the $ store stickers on the orange baskets.

I love to coordinate the napkins by wrapping the same scrapbook paper used in the snack buffet display.

I love, love, love the race car tray and snack holders from Paper and Cake!!! This whole printable cost me $8! I got 26 sheets of so much stuff! I wish that I had more time to make and use more of the items from this printable package! Unique, right???

I hope you enjoyed this party and got some "muses" from it!!