The most jumbled post ever: and if you didn't read my previous post - remember I lost all my good shots of this party so you'll have to imagine it with me.
I did have these first two photos uploaded. Here are the invitations. Our little photoshoot turned into these invites, which I think are pretty adorable. The text and info is all in French, so on the back we taped a translation. And the (badly) photoshopped Eiffel Tower in the background fooled many! Hee. Click to see it bigger.
Crafting fail: my tiered treat plate. Bought cheap melamine dishes and dollar store glass bowls and candlesticks. Put them together with the E-6000 glue which everyone says to use.
Adorable? Yes, but Guys? Don't do this. That glue is crazy fumey. And on the directions it says not to be used on anything near food! I made these about a month or so ago and left them in the garage to air. I could still smell it a tiny bit, but no one else could (I'm a super smeller or something). I pinned some fabric scraps around the bottom of the candlestick so no food would touch anywhere near the glue. But I tossed them in the trash after the party. Darn it, these were cute!
They were on our school cubbies, under the paper flowers (pretend the blue one didn't fall), with cookies and candies. I had wanted to take down the beach photos, but Aaron disagreed so the flowers just went on top - worked okay. We brought the girl's bike basket inside, with a baguette, flowers, and her Parisian doll (that she made from a mikodesign kit last year). The vases of flowers were lined up on the table, one jar of flowers was left on the cubbies. *sigh* Trust me, it was cute.
(the rest of the photos from the iPad, mostly post-party)
I didn't want to do the traditional black + pink + poodle scheme, so I just went for lots of colors + some black.
These (big) chocolate pops I made (except there were LOTS!) were standing in floral foam blocks covered with scrapbook paper among the other treats. They were a hit. I'm so pleased they turned out - they made me happy!
The cake plate had the Eiffel Tower cookies (except some in purple as well). At the beginning of the party we told the girls that everyone had to try escargot, and they FREAKED. Until I brought out a dish of snail cookies. Whew! That was pretty funny (and the girl's idea). Except imagine the snail cookies with the shell filled with yellow, too, most of them were.
My mom and I spent Friday morning putting glaze on these cookies. The favors were a set of a Merci cookie, a tower cookie and a snail cookie packaged in cello bags with cute cardstock + washi tape toppers. Oh, and the cookies above are on part of the table runner that ran along the whole table made from extra blocks from the quilt my MIL made for her birthday. I just sewed those extra blocks together in a long row. She's cool to send me the scraps!
Here's the real deal - she is in love with her new quilt, thanks, Nana! And perfect colors for our party.
Another photo from her shoot was framed on the mantel, along with paper Paris cutouts from here. Both buntings were up as well, of course. And little paper mustaches on the boys big photos - they thought that was hilarious!
Our party soundtrack was courtesy of Pandora - the Ye-Ye Radio station was the perfect 60's French girl singer mix. At one point we heard a groovy French hokey-pokey... Weird.
We started with Apples to Apples as guests arrived, then they designed their own party 'hats' (idea from OhHappyDay) with those flowers I made. Pretend I have an awesome photo of them NOT squished and leftover on the floor...
Lunch was then served: croissants, strawberries and grapes, cheeses, chips and nutella. Pink lemonade and cookies of course, too.
Then the girls went nuts with the 'photo booth'. They used the remote for my camera (set on the ottoman) and took turns being photographer. I had made some props (many inspired by OhHappyDay as well) with a marker and posterboard + skewers.
The backdrop: Red, White and Blue.
While my mom and I decorated cookies the day before, my little sister made a ton of crepes for me (anything to get out of cookie decorating, she said*, she still hasn't forgiven me for the 80's ribbon barrette favors). So for 'cake' we had crepes filled with a yummy (made up the recipe as we went) cream cheese/pudding/cool whip mixture and topped with a little melted nutella and whipped cream.
YUM. And PRETTY! On pink square paper plates. Really pretty, actually.
Pretend the basket below is full of the cute cookie bag favors and the 'Bonjour' sign is taped to our door and there are lots of little Paris bodywashes/lotions there...
The nametags were a hit - I found them at Darlybird last year (also where I got the paper flower decorations). My girl was disappointed that the grammar is wrong (?) but they're cute.
So, yeah, I have SOME record of some of the stuff, but not of how it was actually set up, and none of my girl and her friends! boo!
*For the record, we used Ann's suggestion of glaze on the cookies rather than royal icing. Amen to that. The glaze is YUMMY, royal icing usually isn't so much. Very doable, we will definitely be doing this again. At the end we decided that our glaze was a little too thick, and so the wet-on-wet dots and stripes I'd wanted to do really didn't work. But for a first attempt I'm pleased.
Also, Ann pointed me to Cookiecrazie, which is a cool glaze + cookie blog.
Also THIS method of filling decorating bags is the only way to go - it worked so well!
