The Party Dress » green

TPD Magazine: Mod Hanukkah

Kelly — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 10:00:07 +0000

Hanukkah is known in the Jewish religion as the Festival of Lights, Feast of Dedication, and Feast of the Maccabees. It is a festive holiday of revived hope, faith and spiritual light. A special time of year for the Jewish community, Hanukkah it lasts for eight nights and is the perfect time to celebrate with family and friends. I created a festive holiday party full of ideas for the latest issue of The Party Dress Magazine.

Updating the traditional blue and white color palette with a bold blue, green and brown, I created a collection of paper goods that mixes a colorful chevron pattern with a mod clover pattern in blue and white. The patterns are playful and festive and really pop against a crisp white backdrop. Our ideas for a tablesetting include a textured white tablecloth, a navy blue charger plate, and a paper dreidel placecard. (make sure to download our free printable template!)

After lighting the Hanukkah Menorah, you might want to serve a variety of latkes (potato pancakes) and sufganiyot (jelly-filled donuts). Cheesecake and blintzes are served as traditional desserts, but we always love a good dessert table! Keeping with the crisp blue color palette, we created a monochromatic display of blue candy. We carried our chevron pattern into the display with both candy jar tags and labels on old-fashioned salt water taffy sticks, and add a touch of the clover pattern in as tray liners on the plates that held cupcakes decked out with fondant Jewish stars from Two Sugar Babies. With eight nights to celebrate, Jewish families can plan a variety of celebrations to entertain family and friends. We hope you enjoy our modern spin on the holiday!

TPD Magazine: Mix and Mingle

Kelly — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 10:00:57 +0000

I’m a sucker for a crisp black and white color palette, especially when accessorized with a pop of green and a touch of sparkle. When it came time to develop a new holiday party theme, I immediately drew inspiration from my Kate Spade china and her crisp, and preppy design aesthetic. An untraditional pairing for the holidays, our bold stripes and festive berry pattern make a stunning combination and are perfect for a cocktail or dinner party.

Designed around a party collection from WH Hostess, we set our table using a bold, green tablecloth. Black charger plates, our striped Kate Spade china, napkins made from our custom berry patterned fabric, and black-stemmed wine goblets are accessorized with striped paper goods – placecards and menu cards. Black urns ran down the center of the table holding floral pomander balls made of white carnations, very much resembling snowballs! Glass cloches held silver ornaments, and crystal compotes held glittering black beads and pearls.

When serving a fashionable crowd dessert, it is an absolute must to present it in a stunning manner. A dessert table that is crisp and festive is just the ticket! Carry over the color palette and patterns from your table- setting and paper goods, and have desserts made to coordinate. We suggest working closely with your sweets vendors to create designs that will compliment one another. Our table was set in a green tablecloth, and featured a tonal white patterned fabric backdrop. Silver, fluted-edge cake stands and a three-tier stand looked stunning paired with glass apothecary jars.

One of our FAVORITE desserts, were the striped mini cakes made out of fondant by Two Sugar Babies!

Desserts included a variety of bite size sweets so guests could try a few, and could also mix and mingle while enjoying them. Cupcakes were accessorized with coordinating cupcake toppers, Allyson Jane made bold-patterned cookies that matched our paper goods perfectly. Cake pops by Flour & Iced featured our black and white berry pattern with just a touch of green, and mini meringues melted in your mouth. Color-coordinated candy was placed in the apothecary jars, and each was embellished with a sweet candy jar tag. (our favorite were the “pearls”) The candy jar tags and food tent cards helped tie together the theme and made the table look very stylish!

A green cone-shaped tree sat atop a black urn (also seen on the dinner tablesetting). We added pearls into the center of each rosette on the tree for a touch of preppy elegance, and desserts were served on our black and white polka dot, Kate Spade tibit plates.

Guests were sent home with a small black box filled with cookies and sealed with a striped sticker.

Parties by WH Hostess: Mod Spider

Kelly — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:20:55 +0000

Spice things up this Halloween season by introducing a new, festive color palette to your celebration: black, lime green and magenta! We paired these three colors together, along with some tonal polka dots and one cute little spider to create a darling collection of party goods and ideas for hosting your next event.

Glittering black chandeliers were a fabulous addition to this creepy, crawly candy bash. Hung above the sweets table, they helped to define the vertical space in the room, but also give a touch of glamour to the party. We show you three different ways to serve everyone’s favorite dessert: the cupcake! Fondant toppers by Two Sugar Babies, cupcake toppers from WH Hostess, and chocolate spider webs to top chocolate cakes.

Spider cookies with sparkling disco dust from Allyson Jane make quite a festive statement. Purple, silver and lime green candy from Candy Warehouse looks darling and accessible in jars dressed up with candy jar tags. One of our favorite additions to this table are the mini chocolate bars wrapped in labels, and the cute little spider stickers on the bottoms of the chocolate kisses!

Bubbling, foggy, green punch was created by adding dry ice into the bowl, and helped to create quite a spooky party!

Parties by WH Hostess: Mod Fish Baby Shower

Kelly — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 09:00:40 +0000

When it comes to baby showers, I prefer to cater to the Mom-to-be’s design aesthetic….not the babies! After all, the party is for her! It’s a great opportunity to pull in unique baby-friendly concepts, but perhaps modernize them to appeal to the adults in attendance. We get so many requests for fish/under the sea parties, that I decided that it was time to move that theme up to the top of my “to do list” and I partnered up with Charynn of Two Sugar Babies to create this modern, gender-neutral baby shower inspiration for the fall issue of The Party Dress Magazine.

We set the table with a crisp white tablecloth and topped it with paper placemats featuring our mod fish pattern, a green napkin and a coordinating blue striped placecard. The centerpiece was probably my FAVORITE part of this party….it literally cost me next to nothing to create, and I think mad a huge impact. I took basic glass cylinders that I had sitting around the house, and created white fish vinyl decals using my Silhouette machine. I filled them with water, and used gel food coloring to add the bold color. So simple, right?

We set up a “bubbles bar” with both punch and bottles of key lime Italian soda wrapped with fish labels. Blue balloons were attached to the wall behind the bar to create the look of bubbles floating away.

A bold polka dot grid patterned backdrop anchored our dessert table, and there were so many darling sweets. First off an AMAZING cake covered in cake balls by Velvet Cream Bakery (DIY tutorial coming later today!). I love the ombre effect of the shades of blue, as well as how it resembles little bubbles! The cake topper of fondant fish and bubbles was created by Two Sugar Babies, as were the darling cupcake toppers.

Color-coordinated candy and jumbo marshmallows were placed in candy jars with coordinating tags, and we used these fabulous new tilt bowls from Crate & Barrel for pearlized gumballs in blue and green. I made blue jello “shots” using my votive candle holders (also dressed them up with a fish vinyl decal), and stuck a cupcake topper in them for some visual interest.

Darling fish cookies by Allyson Jane were lined up to look like a little “school of fish” and cake pops by Velvet Cream Bakery stood up in a white pot full of gumballs and looked like they were floating!

We thought we needed a creative party favor….you know, besides the candy! So we filled up small bottles full of bubble bath, wrapped them with a custom label, and tied on a coordinating gift tag. Darling….and useful! The mod fish collection by WH Hostess is one of my favorites, and (although just added to the shop recently) is quickly becoming one of our most popular. It’s perfect for a baby shower or kids birthday party! You can see the complete collection in our shop.

Make sure to head back later today to view the DIY cake pop cake tutorial by Charynn of Two Sugar Babies.

TPD Magazine: Flower Arranging with Friends

Kelly — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:00:05 +0000

It’s always a pleasure when I get to work with Christi from P is for Party on a party….especially when it’s one of her parties! When she approached me about helping her design party goods for her very own birthday party….a flower arranging birthday party….I knew we were going to have some fun! The end result is nothing short of spectacular, and I am so pleased we were able to feature it in the latest issue of The Party Dress Magazine.

Read on for some serious eye candy, and all of the details as told by Christi, herself…..

For my birthday this year, I decided to celebrate with a close group of girlfriends. I wanted the theme to be unique and one that people looked forward to. I decided on a flower arranging party! Many times, my husband will bring home flowers for me from the store and I haven’t the slightest idea how to arrange them. I know other ladies feel the same way! I asked my good friend, Elizabeth Munger, who happens to be an amazing interior designer who often arranges stunning flowers for her clients, to come teach us simple steps and tricks.

Gray is such a popular color right now, looks fabulous with just about every other color out there. I went with the color scheme of emerald green and gray and loved how everything turned out. Kelly Lyden of The PartyDress and WH Hostess always does a phenomenal job with her designs. I told her my color scheme and that I wanted to incorporate a chevron pattern and she ran with it. Kelly designed all of the paper goods for the party, from the invitation to the food tent cards, to the favor tags and all of the signage.

After the flower arranging fun, we moved to my dining room where each girl was served champagne and had a small cake all to herself! My favorite local bakery made individual two tiered cakes for my friends and I could not have been more pleased with how they turned out. Kelly now offers a service where you can order fabric to match any of her designs! I ordered fabric in the gray and emerald green chevron print and had a friend turn them into napkins for the table. The napkins really made the table pop!

I created a macaroni and cheese station with lots of toppings options. Who doesn’t love comfort food with a creative flair?! The toppings included favorites such as sun dried tomatoes, chives, bacon, sautéed mushrooms, truffle oil, and many more! A Skinnygirl Margarita is my drink of choice, so naturally, this was the signature drink I served. Kelly created the cutest sign for the beverage area along with white straws with flags in all of the patterns we used throughout the party.

Desserts were served on my coffee table which was near the flower arranging area. Serving the sweets there brought people out of the kitchen and into the living room so we could begin. On the dessert menu was cookies, meringue, small donuts and rice crispy treats.

Elizabeth did such a great job teaching us how to take store bought flowers and turn them into a beautiful arrangement that could last for days! On the way out the door, the girls took home the arrangements they made along with one more sweet. They had the choice to take home cake pops in strawberry or s’mores flavors. We had such fun with this unique theme and I am so happy I branched out and invited friends over for a fun night in!

Photography by Ellenzilla

Parties by WH Hostess: Baking Party {Part II}

Kelly — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:00:27 +0000

Our baking party feature from the latest issue of The Party Dress Magazine continues with all of the sweet details of our cheerful dessert table. Charynn and I crafted colorful cake stands to complete the look of this table (be on the lookout for the DIY tutorial later this afternoon), which highlighted a variety of custom desserts. A coordinating pennant banner crisscrossed across the wall as a backdrop, and we spray-painted a vintage chalkboard turquoise to list off the specials of the day.

We dressed up a store-bought cake with a few charming decorations by Two Sugar Babies: a fondant number 5 and cherries were placed on top of the cake, and Charynn placed two rows of red hot candies around the side of the cake to add a touch of color.

A colorful “malt ball shoppe” was placed center stage, with clear canisters full of candy. Each embellished with ribbon and a circle tag featuring the coordinating images from our baking party collection, and signage was placed in a lucite box frame.

It wouldn’t be a party (especially a baking party!) without cupcakes! Grouped together on one large cake stand, or placed on the individual ones, these cupcakes looked extra special with darling, coordinating toppers by Two Sugar Babies.

Darling cookies from Sugarbelle’s, glass jars full of colorful ribbon candy were adorned with candy jar tags, and jumbo marshmallows {dipped in chocolate and sprinkles} wore coordinating cupcake toppers.

In addition to their malt balls, guests each took home a “cupcake in a jar”. So simple to make, simply layer cake and frosting in a mason jar, top with some ribbon, a gift tag and voila! The perfect end to a darling party.

Parties by WH Hostess: Preppy Dino

Kelly — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 09:00:17 +0000

One of the best parts of my job is receiving e-mails from happy clients. I love hearing that their party went well and that we were able to help make it a little extra special! I was thrilled to receive photos from our client, Joanna, this week showing images from her son’s recent birthday party. And even more thrilled to see the party featured on Amy Atlas yesterday!

The party was for Wyatt’s 4th birthday incorporating his most recent obsession… DINOSAURS! The party was held in their backyard in Laguna Hills, CA. Joanna came to us to create a custom suite of party goods with a blue, green and orange color palette. Throw in a few mod patterns (including a colorful chevron that I am just smitten with) and some creative wording, and our preppy dino collection was born!

The colorful chevron and blue tile pattern were carried throughout the party into signage, banners, water bottle labels and accessories. I love how creative Joanna got with the wording of her signs – everything was based around dinosaur names.

The dessert table was cute and colorful. The vertical space above the table was defined with a coordinating pennant banner and colorful paper lanterns. The bright linens really made the food pop, and the themed sweets were just darling!

Cupcake toppers from our preppy dino collection stood atop cupcakes in orange wrappers, striped candy in blue, orange and green were placed in candy jars with personalized tags, and then there was the cake. The cake held center stage on the table and was made by Blackmarket Bakery. Two Sugar Babies created the fondant dinosaurs and chevron letters that spelled out “Wyatt” to dress up the cake….isn’t it darling!?

Images by Lollipops & Slingshots Photography

Parties by WH Hostess: Carnival 1st Birthday

Kelly — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 09:00:56 +0000

I had the pleasure of working with a client this summer to plan a custom first birthday party for a little girl named Estella. A carnival theme was chosen early on and my client asked me to come up some festive designs that were colorful and playful. We designed a collection of paper goods that includes polka dots, a diamond pattern, colorful stripes and THE cutest circus carnival tent you can imagine (if we do say so ourselves!). We now have a the full collection of items up in the shop, including invitations, decorations, dessert table accessories, melamine plates and fabric by the yard.

As you can see, Estella’s mom pulled together a darling dessert table featuring themed sweets. We created a tile backdrop featuring all of the coordinating patterns, and a striped birthday cake featuring a fondant banner held center stage. Coordinating cupcake toppers, candy jar tags, food tent cards and signage helped to brand the table. The birthday girl had her own special cake served on our melamine plate.

Typical carnival food was served: burgers, french fries served in individual cups with stickers on them, and summer beverages (lemonade and iced tea) were placed in glass bottles with custom labels. It was a hot summer day, so water bottles with our labels were a hot ticket item!

The yard was decorated with colorful balloons, banners, and centerpieces made of candy and dressed up with our centerpiece sticks. The kids were all given party hats to wear at the party, and there were bubble tins and cotton candy bags readily available for the taking.

Kids had a blast getting their face painted and with the balloon artist. One of my favorite details was the “photo booth” – we created a large, colorful polka dot backdrop that hung for guests to be photographed with.

This was such a festive and fun party to plan and I just love how it turned out. I hope you enjoyed a peek into Estella’s first birthday! To view all of the items in this collection, please click here. For more information about our custom party planning options, please click here.

Project Nursery: Sweet Shoppe

Kelly — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 14:37:24 +0000

Sweet Shoppe birthday parties are all the rage right now….they fit in perfectly with the dessert table trend. I am sharing ideas and inspiration for a candy-themed birthday party over at Project Nursery this week. Check it out!

Images: sweet shoppe party invitation (tinyprints.com), paisley curtain panel (laylagrayce.com), lollipop decorations (hwtm.com), daisy pomander ball centerpiece (countryliving.com), gumball party favors (Little Beans Boutique)

TPD Magazine: Lilly Flower Birthday

Kelly — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 22:49:18 +0000

Since it IS birthday week here on The Party Dress, I thought we would share the details of some of the birthday parties featured in the latest issue of The Party Dress Magazine. This pink and green, Lilly Pulitzer-inspired is one of my favorite parties that I have worked on recently. It is the quintessential preppy, summer party….perfect for the little girl in your life! I also think this theme would make a darling bridal shower! A sweet poppy flower pattern, mixed with green seersucker stripes make this collection one of my all time favorites!

Guests were welcomed by a festive wreath made by different patterned ribbon loops (a fun, DIY project thatcan be re-purposed as a room decoration after herparty!) and brought into a sunny room where the party would be held. The focal point of the room was the very sweet dessert table. The space was defined by a unique tablesetting. A pink swiss dot fabric was laid atop a crisp white table-cloth, and pulled up at each end of the table with green polka dot ribbon. A pennant banner featuring all of our coordinating patterns hung between the two pull-back bows. The vertical space above the table was defined by a ribbon and polka dot chandelier.

Sweets included a raspberry birthday cake topped with a fondant poppy made by Two Sugar Babies, cupcakes with our custom toppers were served on minicake stands embellished with pink, pom pom trim, flower hand-iced cookies by Allyson Jane, perfectly preppy cake pops by Flour and Iced, and color-coordinated candy (including my personal fav – ribbon candy!). A lollipop tree held pink and white swirl lollipops (a simple DIY project – simply wrap a styrofoamcone with ribbon!), and we used small glass cylinders full of candy to house our darling centerpiece sticks featuring the birthday girl’s name. We branded the table with coordinating candy jar tags, food tent cards, and tray liners. The overall look was delightful and made for some very happy little girls!

The birthday girl ate her cake off her personalized melamine plate, and we dressed up simple items like paper cups and straws with coordinating stickers. The color palette was carried throughout the party, and included low tables set with the pink swiss dot tablecloths, and floor pillows made from our custom lilly flower fabric for the girls to sit on.

Activities are key when entertaining children during a party. Caroline LOVES to color, so we created a custom coloring page for the kids to color during the party. Wrapped up and tied with a bow, they looked extra special served up in a bow-embellished tray alongside crayon kits.

We wanted to come up with a unique and special party favor. Along with a box of candy from the dessert table, each young lady chose a hairbow to bring home. Made by Mel-Belles to coordinate with our party, the bows were displayed on custom tags and hung on a board.