80th Birthday Party ~ welcome

Last week we celebrated our mother's 80th birthday! My sisters and I surprised her with a red and white Swedish themed party. 

My chalkboard made a perfect welcome sign.

I had a desk that was given to us by our great friend PB and now that the kids are grown I decided to repurpose it. I eventually plan on painting it but for the party I asked the hubs if he could just sand it a bit to take off some of the finish. I thought it turned out great and it was perfect for decorating the porch. I draped an old handed down tablecloth over the top, added a cute sign of Miss E's and made more DIY tissue paper pom poms to coordinate with the decorations inside the house. 

I also had help hanging the rod above the desk. I had planned to hang it over the table inside however  decided it might be too heavy so this was a perfect alternative. 

We had a fun Polaroid Guestbook table in the entry. I gathered red and white paper from my stash and trimmed it to different sizes to use for photo mounting and embellishments in the scrapbook. A ramekin full of red, white and gold washi tape was used to attach the photos and decorating the pages in the book. We continued the photo theme on the wall behind the table by using my nieces cute burlap covered bulletin boards to make a picture collage of old photos we collected of our Mother.

Snowy trees were a major theme of the party. There were framed trees, yarn trees, trees made of string and even 3 edible trees which included a strawberry tree, gingerbread tree and donut hole tree. 

I made a practice gingerbread tree several weeks before the party which my family enjoyed. It was really cute however I decided it needed to be taller so I doubled the cookies for the party tree. The taller tree was perfect however I noticed it was leaning a bit so was able to fix that as you can see in previous posts. 

Our Mother, the guest of honor, sat with Dad at the head of the table. I draped a quilt she made over the back of her chair. 

The Red Plate is a favorite tradition at our house for special occasions such as birthdays. 

We surprised our mother by setting the table with her mothers china and crystal. We didn't have enough china pieces for all 26 guests however I was able to rent china that was very similar to complete the table. It all looked great and we enjoyed the fact that we all were able to sit together at one big table. It was perfect!

For more 80th Birthday Party details go 

here: crafts, games, crown

here: menu

here: dessert table

Have a wonderful day!

80th Birthday Party ~ crafts, games, crown

Every party needs a few DIY crafts and mother's 80th Birthday Party was no exception. 

I like to make crowns for the guest of honor and they are usually made to coordinate with the theme of the party. Since this party had a wintery theme white seemed appropriate.

I thought a corsage would also be fun so I used a red and white tape measure to make a bow/flower and attached a pin to the back.

We played two games at the party. The first game was How Well Do You Know the Birthday Girl".  I wrote a question for each guest with corresponding number and wrapped it up in a party popper with a numbered piece of paper, a pencil and a few matching candies. The Birthday Girl received a special popper that included the list of all the questions, a pencil and candy. All the party poppers were handed out randomly except for the marked popper for the Birthday Girl. Each guest read their question out loud and they all recorded the best guest on the number paper. The Birthday Girl gave the answers to all the questions and the guest with the most correct answers won a prize. 

We also played a second game between the Main Course and Dessert called Left and Right. I handed out 3 wrapped gifts around the table and then read a story I wrote about "Mother Right". The gifts were passed right and left around the table according to the story. At the end, whoever was holding a package got to keep it. Both games were lots of fun.         

I wanted clay ornament place markers for our table so I experimented with two types of dough. I decided I liked the look of the salt dough the best so made one for each guest. I used assorted lace to emboss each ornament and individual letter stamps to make words.  Each ornament was unique. Miss E made all the embossed name cards and we tied them to the ornament. 

I found this great mug that I used as a planter for a Paper White to give to the Birthday Girl. 

These DIY String Trees were easy to make.

I used poster board to make cones and covered them in plastic wrap. Next I made a solution of cornstarch and water, dipped the string and wrapped it around the cones. Once they were dry I just slipped them off. It was super simple and I really liked how they looked on the table. 

Here's a sneak peak of our party table.

I will be back with one more post to wrap up the 80th birthday. 

Happy Saturday!

80th Birthday Party ~ menu

December 23rd we celebrated our mother's 80th birthday with a family sit down brunch. We chose a Swedish party theme and of course the menu followed suit. The only item we decided not to serve was Lutefisk, even though our mother happens to be fond of it, but other than that we tried to use all authentic recipes or ones that were somewhat similar.  Here is what we came up with:

Our meal began with soup served in assorted tea cups. We offered two choices, tomato roasted red pepper and a creamy wild rice and mushroom. Traditional Swedish appetizers were also served along side the soup.

For the main course we decided to have a baked ham along with a variety of side dishes. 

This Smorgastarta was fun to make and looks very festive. I made one several years ago for one of our Mother~Daughter Tea Parties which you can find here.

We had a Cucumber Salad, a Fresh Fruit Salad and a Red Cabbage & Apple Salad. 

This was our asparagus and smoked salmon tart however I realized after the party that I forgot to add the smoked salmon...oops! I made it the morning of the party to be sure it was fresh and in my hurry I accidentally skipped the salmon. One too many distractions I guess. It still tasted great so I don't think it was missed. 

We also served Swedish Pancakes, an Egg Cake and a Potato Casserole. Unfortunately I was side tracked once the festivities got under way and did not get pictures of all the food we made. It all turned out just the way we planned it and it all tasted great.

I will be back soon with 80th Birthday Party Decorations and Party Favors and you can find the 80th Birthday Party Dessert Table post here.

Have a great day!

80th Birthday Party ~ dessert table

December 2017 has been an extra busy month which is why I have not had time to post for the past several weeks. I am happy to finally be back and have a lot of fun things to share. 

The past several months I have been planning a party with my two sisters for our Mother's 80th Birthday which was December 23rd. We decided to have a family brunch celebration and chose a Scandinavian theme in honor of her Swedish heritage. 

I decided to share the dessert table first since it was so much fun to prepare. For the backdrop I used a rod and curtains that previously hung in Miss E's bedroom. She helped me by hanging string lights on the wall behind the curtains and I strung red wooden beads along the top. The top seemed a bit blah so I made tissue paper pom poms to hang above the beads which made it look much more finished. 

Our mother requested a chocolate birthday cake with chocolate frosting so Miss E made her famous Chocolate Espresso Cake with mascarpone frosting. We dirty frosted the cake and added a chocolate ganache drip glaze to the top. 

I made edible almond pinecones which we added to the top of the cake along with fresh roses, sugar coated cranberries and number sparklers.

For the final touch I made a mini gold lace crown to set on top.

Since the cake was not very big I made a batch of chocolate cupcakes as well. 

I made several edible "snow" covered trees. A gingerbread tree, strawberry tree and a donut tree which was part of the centerpiece on the main table. 

We also had a variety of Swedish cookies.

My youngest sister made the Chokladbollar cookies.

I made the Rosenmunnar cookies,  Swedish Almond cookies and snowball cookies.

Of course we could not have a Swedish themed birthday party without a Swedish Princess Cake. I was very excited about making this cake and was really pleased with how it turned out. I started out by using a  new recipe for the cake however it did not turn out how I thought it should so made a new one using one of my own recipes. From there the cake went together perfectly and I would definitely make it again. 

The layers consisted of cake, pastry cream, raspberry jam, whipped cream and marzipan. Mr. Wonderful had trouble cutting the cake due to a ribbon he didn't realize I had tied at the bottom for decoration so the pieces did not cut clean.  However, they tasted amazing!

Last but not least, the Swedish Cream Parfaits.

These fancy little parfaits are topped with a mixed berry compote. I used plastic champagne flutes for the individual servings. 

There you have it, the complete dessert table at Mom's 80th Birthday Party. 

I will be posting more birthday party details this week so be sure and check back. 

Have a wonderful day!

Santa Bread

Papa Bear took Miss E and me out for lunch at La Provence in LO after Christmas shopping last weekend. As usual there was a long wait and since it was cold outside it was shoulder to shoulder along the french pastry counter inside the restaurant/bakery. While Miss E and I were looking at all the beautiful treats in the glass case Papa Bear noticed a festive Santa Bread on a shelf on the back wall. He asked about it up at the counter and found out that the Santa's are a brioche bread and that they take orders through Christmas Eve morning. He really wanted to order one and thought it would be a fun gift to give our friends on Christmas Eve. We agreed so he went back up and placed his order for the small Santa Bread, which we thought was pretty big.  

We picked it up early on Christmas Eve and delivered it that evening. Everyone loved it. They asked if we had made it and we said no but it made me start to wonder if I actually could make one. It was on my mind the rest of the evening.

On Christmas morning I woke up early and was still thinking about the Santa Bread and decided I had to try making one. My sister was hosting Christmas dinner and I thought if it turned out it would be fun to take it along to share. Since I was already making my traditional Cardamom bread to take I thought instead of making 3 braids I would make one and use the rest of the dough for the Santa. 

When my family woke up and came downstairs they were very surprised to see my version of the Santa Bread. They loved it and so did everyone at my sisters house. They had not seen the one we bought but we explained how the Santa Bread all came about. We even used the same box to carry it in which was convenient.  My Santa might need some little tweaks next time but overall I loved how he turned out and I would definitely make another one. 

Have a wonderful day!

PTI {pardon the interruption}

I am interrupting my regularly scheduled post to share

the Grand Surprise

that was waiting for me when I arrived home.

Apparently the hubs decided our 80's wallpaper was coming down THIS week!

Yes, that's right, the last of the dusty blue and mauve, that was so popular back in the day, is finally off the walls in the master bedroom.

I am so happy about having it removed as it was long overdue. I was gone during most of the mess however from what I could tell it didn't take long to strip the walls, then clean up and put everything somewhat back in place.  Now the walls are bright and ready for some paint but that will have to wait until at least January.

So stay tuned for more Master Bedroom Makeover progress.

Until then I have one more Thanksgiving recap post and then onto holiday crafts and baking.

Happy Wednesday!