The Best Kept Plating Secret: Scrapbook Paper
I'll never be the kind of bride to register for wedding china. It's just not my thing. All of the plates and servers in my cupboard are white ceramic. Boring? Sure, if you leave it alone. But white serving ware
Create a Kid-Height Snack Bar
Everyone knows that the nosh table is the hottest spot at any party. Nosh n. A snack or light meal. intr.v. (noshed, nosh·ing, nosh·es) To eat a snack or light meal. Well, OK. Maybe it's the bar. But if your party attendees aren't the drinking
Cadbury Cream Eggs, Homemade!
Cadbury Cream Eggs were always the highlight of my Easter basket growing up. They still are, really. Even now that I'm grown up and don't need an Easter basket, I still make an excuse to pick a few Cadbury eggs
Paint Chip Easter Egg Garland
Don't you love it when projects are so simple?
Stop fumbling with plastic spoons trying to triple-dip stripes onto your Easter egg. You can get the same colorful pattern, in a convenient 2-dimensional form, without any dye stains thanks to this paint chip Easter egg garland.
The idea came from Modern Parents Messy Kids.
All you really need to do is buddy up to the paint guy at your local home store and grab a punch of paint chips. Go rainbow, go monochrome. Whatever! You could even extend this to a birthday party or any other occasion by cutting out different shapes from your paint swatches.
Color-coordinating party decorations has never been easier.
Ready to get started? Grab your chips and some craft supplies and let's get going.
(Oh, you'll also want to print out our free Egg Garland Template, below)
Creating the Perfect Cheese Plate From Grocery Store Stock
Anybody else have hostess "go-to"s?
Like, if I had come to your house for your last three get-togethers you hosted, I would have eaten the exact same something more than once?
At my house, the party staples are a veggie tray (with a bevy of dipping sauces) and a fully-stocked cheese board.
I usually find that if people stuff their faces with cheesey & bready carbs as soon as they walk in the door, they're less likely to hound me about why dinner is taking so long ("I'm uh... preparing a reduction sauce. Yeah. Totally not trying to scratch the little burnt bits from your toast, if that's what you're asking.")
So yeah. Back to cheese plates.
The Really Good Stuff
Joanna Goddard from A Cup of Jo recently got in cohoots with the cheesemonger (the cheese expert, for those not in the cheesey know) from her local shop. That local shop just happens to be Murray's Cheese Shop, the oldest cheese shop in New York City.
So here's what's on Joanna's expertly curated plate:
Picture, Palette & Panel: Bright Mint, Honeysuckle & Sky
Each Picture, Palette & Panel feature takes an inspiration photo from around the web and extracts a creative and unexpected wedding color palette. That palette then inspires a bash board (the "panel") of ripe, muse-worthy wedding or party details.
The Picture:
Hotel California, from Kevin Dooley (Creative Commons)
The Palette:
Bright Mint, Honeysuckle, Stone, Noir, Sky
The Panel:
Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes
These didn't start out as St. Patrick's Day cupcakes. They started out as "make these for a friend who is freakishly obsessed with car bombs"-cupcakes. But since her visit in town coincided with the week before St. Patrick's Day, I