Dinner Party Basics September 29, 2010

Dinner Party Basics.

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends September 26, 2010

I think that when I imagined hosting my party, I pictured myself as well, the Hostess with the Mostest.  Wearing my apron and my pearls, my hair would be curled and it wouldn’t frizz out from the heat of the kitchen.  I would clean my kitchen to sparkling both before and after cooking.  I would have perfectly planned assembly lines and enough pans and the timing of all of the cooking would fit together nicely.  And through all of the hours of cooking and the party itself I would remain calm, with a welcoming smile on face.

However, my day looked much more like the hardly perfect part of this blog than the perfect hostess part.  My kitchen was a disaster.  I started to make the recipe without changing the proportions to the needed amount.  I didn’t have time to curl my hair.  I dropped a measuring cup full of cheese into my sink  (I put a lot of effort into that cheese.  Grating is much more difficult than one would think).  The timing of moving sandwiches in and out of the oven was off.  One of the hostesses (who shall remain nameless)  caught a baking sheet on the counter and sent bread, ham, and the precious grated cheese all over our living room carpet.  I was twenty minutes late to my own party.

(me in my kitchen frantically cooking.  even the picture is blurry! )

But it came together, and it came together beautifully.  The reason it came together?  My friends.  My wonderful friends.  The number one lesson I learned about hostessing today was to know your friends’ strengths, and to be willing to ask for help.  Anna came over and buttered bread slice after bread slice.  Amy took the opportunity to learn to flip a crepe and whipped some up for my dessert, after helping me plan and grocery shop.  Sarah not only made my invitations, she helped fill the crepes in Amy’s apartment, and then came to mine to help build sandwiches.  Jessica both transported food and threw together a fantastic salad.  Even people who were not hostesses helped – Amy’s roommate Amy helped fill crepes,  Aubreigh helped Alex shoot fantastic photos and Coley contributed one of my very favorite pieces of the party.  She took black Sharpie to my white paper cups and created art, personalizing each one with both the guest’s name and a lovely french inspired drawing.

The preparation hardly went as planned, but the party came together perfectly like I imagined, thanks to the incredible hostesses.

(more posts to come this week, including photos, recipes, and more!)

You’re invited! September 25, 2010

When LisieMarie asked me to create invitations for her Parisian Picnic I was elated! Finally, I can use my skills learned in school to help my friends (I’m an industrial design major and use Adobe Photoshop and  Illustrator pretty often).  LisieMarie and AmyLucita gave me thier input and we chose the first of three invitations I made, as it encompassed the enchantment, beauty and femininity of our”Parisian Picnic” the best. I can’t wait to see it all come together tomorrow!

Planning For Paris September 24, 2010

The anticipation of this blog has been so sweet for me, yet so drawn out.  It’s taken 6 months for things to finally begin rolling, and I’m so excited that the time for my party is here at last.  I remember sitting with SarahFairah in my car last spring, discussing possible party themes.  We talked about Western parties, tea parties, autumn parties (which may yet come to pass) and were so anxious to start.  This fall, we sat in her room and flipped through the pages of her Fashion book, planning for her theme (a secret I won’t spoil) and trying to come up with mine.  After much thought, my party will be a Parisian Picnic!  On Sunday at 2 P.M., the wait is officially over.  I will keep you posted. 🙂

My Anthro Apron September 23, 2010

I love the polka-dots and adorable bow on the pocket!

Around a year ago, before this lovely blogs conception, I was spending some time taking a study break by browsing through the beautiful things for sale at Anthropologie.com.  It was then that I happened upon a section in home goods (it was quite a long break, I only enter that half of the website after looking through all the clothes and shoes) with the loveliest aprons I had ever seen. At the time, my favorite was The Lady’s Apron, by Jesse Steele.

While I loved the apron, I did not purchase it as at the time because I lacked opportunities to be wearing it, and because while I love Anthropologie, they are a bit pricey for my college student budget (the aprons range from $28 to $38).

But somewhere in developing the concept for this blog, LisieMarie and I included the thought that each hostess should have a beautiful apron to wear when they hostess, you know, to set them apart from everyone else. What a perfect excuse for spending money on an apron from Anthropologie!

And so about a month ago LisieMarie and I went on an excursion to Anthropologie, where we purchased for ourselves lovely aprons.  While I still love The Lady’s Apron, I couldn’t bring myself to buy it.  I guess somewhere between last year and the present, my understanding of myself and my style changed a little… so instead I purchased the Bountiful Bubbles apron. And its beautiful. And I love it.

My hostessing event isn’t for a while still, so I have yet to capture a picture of myself wearing my beloved apron, but will get one soon and will add it to this post 🙂

Hope your Thursday is lovely!

Makin’ My Dreams Come True September 12, 2010

she used to tie her hair up in ribbons & bows

sign her letters with x’s and o’s

got a picture of her momma in heels & pearls

she’s gonna make it in her daddy’s world

she’s an american girl

I found so much joy this morning as I dressed for Sarah’s party.  We all have those childhood dreams that never quite became reality, the fairy tales we longed to be a part of but that were always a few steps out of reach.  The sad thing is that often, as we become old enough to find and buy that perfect dress, to go on the adventure we’d always imagined, we’ve forgotten our fairy tales and picked up and moved on with our lives.

For me, a few silly childhood hopes came true this morning.  Silly, but beautiful just the same.  One example is the “Heidi Braid”  that I always loved dearly, the hairstyle from my first day of kindergarten.  AnnaBananaBread brought this to life with her gifted hands:

AmicitaLuisa called me “Lisie” all day long, the nickname I attempted to give myself in the third grade that no one else caught onto. And thirdly, the dress.  Oh, the dress.

A few weeks ago, in light of attempting to “update” my wardrobe, I drug a pile of sundresses to sort through into AmicitaLuisa’s kitchen to ask her advice on which ones to send off to Goodwill.  (*tip: Goodwill drop-off boxes are no longer licensed by Goodwill, but rather scams for the clothing to be sold at a much higher price.  Drive to the store itself or a staffed drop-off station.*). My mom and I picked this dress a few years ago for me to wear to a wedding.  It’s white with darling pink flowers scattered across and a pink ribbon tying it together.  As my good friend and I discussed, however, there’s a point where the dress makes me a happy little girl and there’s a point where I look like a little girl. After deciding to get rid of it, along came the invitation to this party!  Perfect for the dress’s last hurrah, one that made me feel like the flower child I always longed to be.

So, to our beautiful hostess of this morning:

You made childhood dreams come true.

This will be us tomorrow!!! September 10, 2010

Gettin Ready

So I am an elementary education major and even if I never teach or never have a child of my own, children will always hold a very high place in my part. For this reason I picked “back to childhood” as my theme. Idealistically, childhood is a time of laughter, play and freedom. I think as adults we need a little more of all of those things in our lives. I hope tomorrow will be a day to bring us back to a simpler lighter time.

As a food item that personifies childhood for me is macaroni and cheese. As a kid, of course, I loved the kraft stuff. Whenever my mom and dad would leave me in charge I would always make it for my brothers and sister (it was all I knew). So since, as adults, we have to redefine ourselves I decided that it was time to redefine my taste in mac and cheese. So I typed macaroni and cheese recipe into Google and was greeted by about 10 million options.  There was seriously a whole blog devoted to different types of mac and cheese.  There was one that looked super yummy and called for half and half and bacon, but I decided to skip the calories. I finally settled on Martha Stewart’s Perfect Macaroni and Cheese. As much as I don’t like Martha you can’t really beat “Perfect Macaroni and Cheese”. Plus there was a write up about it in the New York times. We will see how it tastes. I am also super excited for the desert but I will keep that a surprise.

I asked all of my guests to wear something that either they actually wore as a child, they wish they wore as a child, or looks like something they would have worn. I have picked out one of my favorite school because it has tulle underneath and poofs out and reminds me of a party dress I wish I would have had. I can’t wait to see what the other girls will wear.

I am so excited and super nervous to see how the day goes.