Tag Archives: bridal shower

Peacock Bridal Shower

Finally, a follow up to the Bridal Shower Invite I posted at the end of March.  The peacock themed lingerie bridal shower went off without a hitch, and was a great celebration of one of my best friends who will be getting married this summer.  I co-hosted with the Mom of the bride and the shower was held at her house, so I took full advantage of the time I didn’t have to spend cleaning my own house and got extra creative with crafty decor.

Peacock Feathers & Cupcakes

Shower Invite

Once we decided on a color scheme and looked around for party supplies and paper to make the invites, it was clear that we had to go all-out with a peacock them.

Bridal Shower Invite

I found this great geometric paper, which is remenicent of the jewel toned pattern in a peacock feather.  No need to buy pricy invitations when you can easily print them on card-stock at home and add specialty paper and ribbon to tie them into the color scheme.  For these, I used a strip of colorful paper to the left and wrapped one simple ribbon around the seam for some interest.

I also made a recipe card to go in each invitation envelope.  Guests were instructed to fill out a great newlywed recipe for the bride-to-be and bring to the party.

Recipe Keepsake Book

When guests arrived, I gathered all of the recipe cards and compiled them into a special recipe keepsake book that I made ahead of time.

Recipe Keepsake Book

To make the book, I used chip board (which is basically a scrap-bookers term for cardboard), and wrapped each page in coordinating paper.  I punched holes to the left, with my

Inside Cover

industrial strength hole punch, and used 3 ring bindings to hold it together.  To keep the hinge of the rings from shifting, and for extra flare, I added coordinating ribbon tied to each ring.  In the front cover I put the Bride & Grooms initials, and the back had the Bridal Shower Invite pasted in so she will forever have it.

Newlywed Recipe Book

Everyone brought a recipe card, and even some guests that couldn’t make it were nice enough to mail one in ahead of time with a nice message.

The bride-to-be loves to cook, so this was a great activity that made sense for her shower and didn’t require wrapping ourselves in toilet paper wedding dresses and strutting our stuff down the living room runway (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Magnet Favors

The Mom of the bride came across a great idea to create square glass magnets with coordinating patterned paper and give them away as shower favors.  Her inspiration came from Sabby in Suburbia and Simply Modern Mom.

Magnet Favors

She purchased square glass tiles from the craft store and we used colored pattern tiles she found from The Hourglass Studio on Etsy.  She printed them on photo paper and we cut out the ones that were relevant to our color scheme.  We used E6000 glue to attach the paper tiles to the glass and glued the magnets to the back.  To package them, she attached washers to cardstock and each magnet stayed in place on a washer.  Cello bags with coordinating paper and ribbon finished them off.

Fabric Backdrop

In order to make a statement with our color scheme and have the food and decor ‘pop’, I decided to construct a large fabric backdrop to hang on the wall, complete with the bride and grooms initials.

Fabric Backdrop

I’m so glad that I made this, as I’m sure I’ll be wrapping a different fabric around it and using it at my house for other parties down the road.

Wooden Frame

First, I measured the space above the table that I planned to hang the backdrop above.  Then, I measured my car, to make sure I could actually transport it.

With the help of my hubby, we constructed a simple frame from inexpensive trim (even less expensive because my dad just happen to have this on-hand).  We nailed in extra support at each corner, and that was it!.

Staple Fabric to the Frame

Next, I laid my fabric, face down, on the floor and centered the frame on top of it.  I used a staple gun and stapled the fabric on the back side of the frame.  I did one side, and then pulled the fabric tight and stapled the other side.  Repeating the same for the top and bottom sides.  One suggestion is to double check that your pattern looks straight.  I measured the distance of where the design elements hit on each side and tried to even it out as much as possible before stapling.

I picked up the jumbo letters at my local craft store along with some acrylic paint.  Unfortunately, they don’t make an ampersand symbol, so I had to get creative and make my own ‘and’ symbol out of a ‘B’ and another strip of wood.  I tied a coordinating ribbon around each letter and stapled the ribbon to the top of the frame.  We were able to hang the frame on three nails, without adding any fancy hanging wires.  The frame set directly onto the nails.

Mediterranean Spread

This was an afternoon shower, so for lunch we chose to do a mediterranean themed menu.  It was probably one of the easiest shower menu’s I’ve had the pleasure to contribute to in a while (maybe because I only had to make a few things).

Mediterranean Spread

We divided up menu items, which made it easy to pull it together the morning of the shower.

Antipasto Platter

The Mom of the bride made Marinated Shrimp, Roasted Red Pepper Crostini’s, Chicken Souvlaki Skewers, Greek Salad, and Pita & Hummus.  I made a Feta & Tomato Orzo (a Rachel Ray recipe), and a large Antipasto Spread including a variety of olives, greek cheeses, salami, prosciutto, roasted garlic, peppers, two tapenades, and roasted vegetables (I outsourced the roasted veggies to my Mom who is an amazing cook and of course they were a hit!).

Dessert!

Mom of the bride found these amazing corset shaped cookies, which were done with peacock details to go along with the shower theme.  These were a great dessert and also doubled as a second party favor since they were packaged in a cello bag to take.  We spent hours ‘ooh-ing and ah-ing’ at the amazing frosting detail.

Corset Cookies

I made mini chocolate cupcakes to round out the dessert choices.

Chocolate Cupcakes

To save time, I used a box mix for the cake, but I added mini chocolate chips along with my Mom’s secret box-mix trick.  She told me to substitute 2/3 of the recommended water with cranberry jelly.  The cranberry flavor made the chocolate taste even richer and they were super moist.  I may never make chocolate cupcakes from scratch again.  Of course, I had to make buttercream frosting from scratch; there are some things you should never take a shortcut on, and that is one of them.

To top off the 3 tiers of cupcakes I made round tags on appetizer skewers (which are slightly longer than a standard toothpick) with the bride and grooms initials.  I printed the initials from my computer and used two sizes of circle punches to get the uniformed shapes.  I’ve tried cutting circles the old fashioned way and it never works out.

Other Party Details

We had extra peacock ‘flare’ all around the party, like feather arrangements, and pretty peacock napkins, as well as peacock colors of deep teal & purple throughout.

Instead of the typical bridal shower activities, which were not fitting for this bride, the Mom of the bride hired a Mehndi Henna Tatto artist.

Mehndi Art

Mehndi Art

‘

We weren’t sure how many people at the shower would want to get a henna tattoo, but we were pleasantly surprised that almost everyone participated.  The artist even did a peacock tattoo for one of the guests!

This was such a fun theme, and all for a beautiful Bride-to-be!

G & B = LOVE

Bridal Shower Invite [Sneak Peek]

It’s been too long since my last post, so I thought I would share a tid bit from one of my current projects.  There’s been no time for fancy meals at our house this month, as we are ‘knee-deep’ in a guest-room redo, a backyard face-lift (involving lots of concrete and heavy stone), crazy work schedules, and to top it off I am co-hosting a bridal shower for one of my best friends.

The bridal shower and the guest room makeover are, by far, my favorites on the to-do list!  I’ll be posting about both in full-detail when the time comes.  But, until then, all I have for you is a sneak peek at the Bridal Shower Invite I created for my wonderful friend (slightly ‘fake’ info on the pictured invite… I’m sure all my readers are extremely trustworthy, but you can’t go posting personal info online these days!).

Bridal Shower Invite & Coordinating Recipe Card

The colors of the shower are chartreuse green, purple, and blue.  If you read the invite, you’ll notice we have asked the guests to bring a recipe on the enclosed card.  These will go into a little recipe book at the shower made from coordinating paper for her to have as a keepsake.  I am co-hosting with my friends mom, and we are well on our way to planning a fabulous party!  You’ll have to wait till the end of May to see the results though…

:)

Citrus Twist Bridal Shower

I hosted this citrus themed Bridal Shower for my cousin. It was a small group, but I wanted to make it special and tie into her wedding colors without being too similar to her wedding theme.

Citrus Twist

The ribbon-bracelets and safety pins were used for the classic ‘don’t say the grooms name’ activity. Everytime someone said his name, they had to give a safety pin to the person who caught them in the act. You could play this game with various items. The close freind that hosted my own bridal shower played this game with inexpensive garter belts from the craft store. It was hiliarious to see the girls in the lead wearing them over their pants or stacked up their arms. Another activity we played is a spin-off of the newlywed game. At this shower, I was able to ask the groom-to-be a list of questions about himself and his future bride ahead of time and record his answers. During the shower, I had the bride answer the same questions in her own words and then we compared the two. This is a common shower game, but it’s fun for the guests to get to know the groom through his responses, and also fun to expose some of the more embarassing aspects of their relationship.

Favors & Prizes

Of course, the favors and prizes are the easiest way to tie in a color theme. Inside the favor bags, were orange jellybeans tied in cute little bags with orange ribbon, a small orange soap from a local boutique, and a coral lipgloss to top it off.
To drink, I served ‘fizzy blood orange flips’ in sugar rimmed glasses and garnished with an orange slice. I bought blood orange italian soda from Whole Foods, which come in nice glass bottles, and

Fizzy Blood Orange Flips

chilled champagne in an ice bucket so guests could poor their own drinks, with or without alcohol. For an afternoon shower, this was the perfect fizzy beverage.  I also served coffee and tea, which was perfect with dessert.  Having a specific color theme made the drink selection much easier to narrow down.  Choosing one theme appropriate beverage makes sense and is way easier to manage than offering guest multiple options.  It was clear what the drink offerings were, which made guests comfortable to help themselves if needed.

To eat, I prepared a simple spread including a farfalle carbonara pasta dish with peas and pancetta, toasted and sliced baguette for sopping up extra sauce, cranberry gorgonzola green salad, fresh fruit, and sweet vanilla cupcakes dressed in orange polka dot wrappers.

Simple Spread

I’ve also included a picture of a citrus floral arrangement that I made for another party.  This arrangement would tie in perfectly to this party theme, and I wish I had thought about it at the time.  The cylinder vase was actually purchased at my local dollar store (I stocked up when I found it, just in case).  I placed

Citrus Arrangement

another smaller cylinder shaped vessel inside of it, which is what was filled with water and the stems of the flower.  Between the inner vessel and the outer vase was the perfect space for sliding the lemon slices in.  They stayed perfectly in place, and the arrangement lasted about a week before the lemon slices really started to shrivel.  If you do these ahead of time for a party, I would suggest putting the vase in the refrigerator covered with plastic wrap to keep them extra fresh.