{Real Parties} New York, New York!

One of my all time favorite cities is New York. I love it anytime of year. I've been in the beautiful spring and fall weather, I've been in a heat wave and my most memorable, yet I still loved it, was while I was 7 months pregnant during a blizzard.

While a client and I were brainstorming themes for her mother's 75th birthday, we came up with this New York themed birthday party:

Guests were greeted with fresh apple cider

 

 

the birthday girl, Cecelia loves the musical Hello Dolly,
so I personalized her "Broadway" a little bit by making a Hello Cecelia Poster

 

I 'heart' NY sign in board

Cecelia grew up going to Brooklyn Dodgers games, so I
added a make your own sundae bar complete with the baseball
helmets to eat out of

 

 

Everyone loves a photo op, so rather than doing a traditional photo booth,

I decided I wanted it to look like guests were actually in NYC so I made a

'NYC taxi' photo frame. It turned out to be a big hit

 

If you've ever been to NYC you know that at the entrance of Central Park are local

artist set up, ready to draw a personal portrait. So naturally, I needed to make this happen.

Part activity, part favor, each guest sat in "Central Park" where they had a caricature done.

Mikey J, our local artist did a phenomenal job.

 

I wish I had taken a better picture of the huge Central Park gate that you

can kind of see in the background...

Lastly, I had an idea of making the Brooklyn Bridge to hold the cupcakes. Thankfully,

my dad came to my rescue and made this incredible bridge for me!!  Thank you so much to my mom, dad,

aunts and cousin for helping me with this party...who knew it would turn into a family affair

 

Happy 75th Birthday Cecelia!! Wishing you many more to come!

{Real Parties} Happy Fall Y'all Recipe Swap

I can't believe the last time I posted was way back in March...

It's now October, my favorite season!

As I've mentioned before, in my neighborhood, we try to get together once a month at a designated house. I offered to host October. I've done a chocolate party, and a cupcakes and cocktails night, but I thought I would try something different so I hosted a recipe swap. I hope I'm not alone in saying this but, I feel like I tend to make the same things for dinner night after night...anyone? anyone?

Anyway, I asked people to make their favorite go-to recipe and bring it along with copies of the recipe for each neighbor. It turned out to be really fun trying out all the food and now I am armed with a bunch of new recipes to try out!

Here are some pictures from that night...thanks to my neighbor Kareena for always being the designated photographer!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Fall Y'all!