To celebrate our one and only special little guy, we had a fun, relaxed backyard party with a new twist on an old theme.

This is an example of how to have a themed party without being so literal. I wanted to style a party that was in line with current trends but with a kid twist, so I chose a boy fairytale mashup, including Peter Pan, Robin Hood and The Big Bad Wolf  (represented both by Little Red Riding Hood and The ‘3’ Little Pigs.) It definitely has kid elements, but with a sophisticated style to please all ages. Since my son LOVES movies so much, I decided to add a backyard movie element to the mix. We showed Peter Pan. Since blankets were part of that spin, a picnic was the perfect way to go for the meal.

Some favorite details include:

• Nail/string art letter ‘B’
• 4 signs along walkway saying ‘second star’, ‘to the right’, ‘to grandmother’s house’ and ‘to Sherwood forest’
• custom picnic baskets for each family
• 3 Little Pigs in a Blanket mini bar
• buffet cards and fun signage
• beautiful custom desserts
• leather tied drink bottles with birch straws
• cheese box ‘drums’
• robin hood hats
• peter pan skirt bunting
• tents with blankets and crates for picnic-ing
• market lights
• ‘popcorn on the plank’
• painted wood target for guests to sign
• message in a bottle invites (not shown)

The experience began for guests when they received a message in a bottle invite.  All the printed materials, by Paula at Frog Prince Paperie, had a cool modern vibe. The design was the perfect inspiration for many of the party details. It was exactly the style I was going for and Paula nailed it! My guests said it was the best invite they’d ever received. The color palette was black, white, gray, emerald green and gold with design elements focusing on feathers, arrows and targets.

ENTRANCE: Guests were greeted by a giant green balloon and rickety signs up the walkway, made by LGTPS (Let’s Get This Party Started). There were 4 signs, reading ‘second star’, ‘to the right’, ‘to grandmother’s house’, and ‘to Sherwood forest’, representing all 3 of the characters in the mashup. The wreath had a fun sign saying ‘once upon a time’ to lend to the fairytale feel.

DESSERT TABLE: While I had the vision for this party and executed and styled it, it was the team of vendors who made all the items I dreamed of come to life. The backdrop for the dessert table was a gold fringe arrow by The Flair Exchange. I wanted something very fresh, modern, bold and simple. The ‘drums’ on the table were cheese boxes, rented from Wish Vintage Rentals. I wrapped them with leather twine and added some beads, ribbon and feathers to make them look like a drum. The drink bottles filled with lemonade were made to look like the front of Robin Hood or Peter Pan’s shirt with the criss-cross leather ties. The birch straws were an exciting new twist on the stripey straws! I told Nikki at Tikkido that I wanted a bunting that looked like Pan’s skirt and sent her a photo of something I cut out as an example. When hers arrived in the mail I was blown away. She took my vision to the next level and created something more beautiful than I ever could have. It was perfect!   The food at my parties is always a challenge because the birthday boy has a severe peanut allergy, so it’s imperative that the food is as safe as can be for him. Most everything was safe for him to eat. The crocodile and clock cookies were made by Nut Free Sweets and it was my first time working with them. Great experience! The chocolate covered Oreos by Love & Sugar Kisses were the biggest hit and Maria went above and beyond to make sure these were safe for my son.  The faux bois detail on those was amazing! The beautiful fondant toppers were by Edible Details and the gorgeous cake was by Dream Cakes. And that chocolate cake with Oreo buttercream was probably the best I’ve ever had. My mom and I made the cupcakes and ‘birch logs’ (using peanut safe chocolate) and the chocolate coins were from Vermont Nut Free.

3 LITTLE PIGS IN A BLANKET MINI BAR: This was the last idea (and one of my favorite details) I had, just a few days before the party. I put a bunch of different dipping sauces out and the platters of pigs in a blanket sat on ‘wood’, ‘straw’ and ‘bricks’ (each representing a little pigs house). I also spray painted 3 pigs gold to add a little more sophistication and keep them in the color palette.

PICNIC: A friend of mine recently had a party with picnic baskets and I loved the idea, so I decided to do something similar. Each family had their own basket with a custom tag by Frog Prince Paperie. All the food items had beautiful printables to identify and coordinate each item. There were French baguettes with jam, hummus, brie (wrapped in parchment with a gold sprayed sword), pasta salad, pirates booty, water, bags with cutlery, plates and cloth napkins in each basket. The best part was, each family got to take their basket (and leftovers) home with them, eliminating a lot of party cleanup! There were tents (by LGTPS), blankets, pillows and crates (for tables) for the guests to dine on. It created just the casual, relaxed atmosphere and environment I was going for. Guests ‘camped out’, sharing blankets and watched the movie later in the evening from their own little spot. There was also a concession area with popcorn and movie candy. CRAFTS: There were 2 craft areas: One table had all the supplies needed for the kids to make arrows…sticks, dowels, feathers, felt triangles, washi tape, glue and scissors. The other craft (not shown) was giant black paper for each child to trace their ‘shadow’ and cut out.

FAVORS: The ‘bags of gold’ hung from a birch log with a sign at the exit which read ‘THE END”. They were filled with a pirate eye patch, pirate tattoos, fairy stickers, chocolate gold coins, crocodile soap, rice krispy treats and fairy fruit snacks.

PARTY HATS: Another great detail, made by Nikki at Tikkido, were the adorable Robin Hood hats. The kids loved them.

GUEST BOOK(S): There was a wood painted target on the tree for guests to sign, made by LGTPS and ‘happy thoughts’ for guests to write and put in a jar for the birthday boy.

Happy Birthday, sweet Benjamin. You are SO loved!

To see the full gallery, click here.
2nd birthday party:  Guess How Much I Love Two
1st birthday party: Vintage Red Wagon

VENDORS:

Event Design and Styling: One Stone Events
Photography: Emma Grace Pet Photography
Printables: Frog Prince Paperie
Robin Hood hats and Peter Pan bunting: Tikkido
Tents, wooden target, ‘plank’ bench, arrow signs: Let’s Get This Party Started
Fringe arrow backdrop: The Flair Exchange
Quilts, crates, pillows, cheese boxes: Wish Vintage Rentals
Movie screen/projector: J Thor Productions
Cake: Dream Cakes
Crocodile and clock cookies: Nut Free Sweets
Fondant cupcake toppers: Edible Details
Chocolate covered Oreos: Love & Sugar Kisses
Nut safe chocolate: Vermont Nut Free
‘Bag ‘o gold’ muslin favor bags: Crafty Clementines
Crocodile soap favors: Meela Soap
Felt fire: Not Just a Hat Rack
Kids arrow t-shirt: Feather4Arrow
Ladies feather t-shirt: Marty May
Birch straws: Anthropologie
Green balloon, pint containers, chevron bags, plastic drink bottles: The TomKat Studio Shop

The post Feathers and Arrows 3rd Birthday Party appeared first on One Stone Events.

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Photography by Renee Nicole Design + Photography

The post ‘How I Met Your Mother’ Birthday appeared first on One Stone Events.

[Show as slideshow]

Photography by Darci Woodiwiss Photography

Photo of Benjamin by capturedbygalina.com

The post Feathers & Arrows 3rd Birthday appeared first on One Stone Events.

What do you get when you mix a Canadian with a New Yorker, both with mad love for the show ‘How I Met Your Mother’? A no-brainer of a theme for a big birthday bash! Challenge accepted!

I can’t even begin to tell you how much fun this party was to plan for my husband Kevin’s 35th birthday. ‘How I Met Your Mother’ is our favorite show and if you’re a fan, you’ll get it. It’s smart and funny and everything you want a sitcom to be. Just brilliant! One of the best parts of planning was that another party guru friend, Jenny of Craft That Party is also a huge fan and contributed some of the greatest details you’ll see. It was great to bounce ideas off her and she put up with all my crazy requests, so…thanks so much Jenny! We’re like ‘bros’ now…

If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll appreciate the innate detail and obsessive thought that went into everything, from the specific placement of the Ted peg doll, standing atop a pile of Architectural Digests, separate from his coupled friends, to the iconic New York coffee cups (bet they’ve never been used this way before!) and chinese takeout boxes, the use of little red hearts (on the paper and ribbon) to portray a big part of what this show is about and the symbolism of the one yellow plate on the photo wall backdrop  Speaking of which, that wall is made of paper plates. The iconic paper plate backdrop was originated by Piggy Bank Parties and I’m so glad I finally got to use it for one of my parties. It made for a great photo wall.

The main design element was the black and white checkered pattern, just like the NYC taxicabs. It started on the invites and carried through to all the printed items, awesomely designed by Renee Nicole Designs, and was also used on the fabric runner, favor tablecloth and yes, that’s checkered duck tape wrapped around the wreath and centerpiece cans.  True story. I also used yellow, red and blue as accent colors for the yellow umbrella, blue french horn and red intervention sign and tied it into all the other party details.

Every food item and detail is a reference from the show and there are so many details that I’d probably have to split this post up quite a bit to explain, so I’ll just let the photos do the talking. I love that through my Instagram sneaks, I got a few followers to become fans of the show. New fans, I hope you’re loving it as much as we do!

Some of the details include:

*the infamous yellow umbrella as part of the dessert table backdrop
*amazing sketch of NYC skyline by Craft That Party as part of the dessert table backdrop
*realistic peg dolls of the 5 main characters (Craft That Party)
*yellow drink umbrellas (Craft That Party)
*the Playbook and a stack of Architectural Digests held desserts on the dessert table
*iconic NY coffee cups
*chinese takeout containers
*pineapple guest favors
*pie chart about ‘Why we love Kevin’
*the Intervention sign
*and oh yeah, a real goat. that kind of made the party legen…well, you know the rest.

Desserts:

‘Best Burger in New York cupcakes’:…seriously cute

“Pineapple cake pops”: by Dream Cakes (so delicious!)

‘HIMYM cookies’: by The Cookie Jar (red cowboy boots, blue french horns, yellow umbrellas and suit jackets with ducky ties)

‘Marshmallows and Lily Pads’: (i had to…for those who don’t know the show, this is what two of the characters call each other. These were homemade rum vanilla marshmallows sitting on top of green apple fruit leather by LGTPS.)

Food:

‘Ted’s Superbowl Wings’

‘Eating a Sandwich’: a giant 6′ hero (or sub, depending on where you’re from) for the times in college they were ‘eating a sandwich’)

”Goat’ cheese salad’: served in chinese takeout containers

Drinks:

Since my husband is Canadian, I had to go with Canadian beer, but we also had wine and scotch (both relevant to the show) and the beer sat on a cigar box. Water bottles were wrapped with labels saying ‘haaaaave…you met Kevin’?

We had guests fill out cards that said:
How I met Kevin:
Things I learned from my mother:
Why Kevin is awesome:

The GOAT was definitely a highlight! His name was Cupcake and he was so sweet. I’m not sure who enjoyed him more, the kids or the adults! Disclaimer: No animals were harmed in the having of this party!

Everyone took photos by the checkered wall with little bubble quote signs with sayings from the show. One detail that might not come across in photos is: on the wall when you enter the house, there were 2 little signs ‘Legen’ and ‘wait for it’….and on the back patio door was ‘dary’. You’ll only get that if you watch the show.

As a parting favor, each family took home, what else? A pineapple…

For more pics, see the gallery on my website or LOTS more photos on my One Stone Events facebook page.

It was so much fun not only incorporating details from our favorite show into the party, but being able to pay homage to where my husband and I both come from (hence, the giant Canadian flag backdrop on the food table). A good time was had by all and I’m pretty sure the birthday boy felt loved. He was SO deserving of this great celebration. We were especially thankful for the Canadians who flew in just for this special occasion!

So, if I haven’t convinced you to be a fan by now, what are you waiting for? It’s the best show ever! Start watching…now. You have time to catch up before the final season starts in the fall.

And for all you other superfans out there, if you plan to throw a HIMYM bash, I hope to be a source of fun inspiration for you!

So tell me, are you a HIMYM fan? Have you ever had a party based on a show?

VENDORS:

Event Design/Styling: One Stone Events

Photography and Graphic Design: Renee Nicole Design + Photography

Custom NYC Skyline backdrop, character peg dolls, yellow drink umbrellas, blue french horn ornaments: Craft That Party

Goat: Noah’s Ark Farm

Cookies: The Cookie Jar

Pineapple Cake Pops: Dream Cakes

Marshmallows/Lily Pads: LGTPS

Cupcakes: Target (local)

Wings and 6′ Hero: Felice Deli

Yellow umbrella: Amazon

iconic NY coffee cups: eBay

Slap Bet Commissioner t-shirt: The Shirt Factory

Photo wall inspiration: Piggy Bank Parties

everything else: made or bought locally by me

The post The ‘How I Met Your Mother’ Party…and yes, there was a real goat! appeared first on One Stone Events.

Last year, my son’s 2nd birthday party had a lot of carrot, bunny and spring details that would work really well for an Easter party or brunch. Here are a few fun details for a little inspiration for your Easter celebration this year. Original party link and details below…

To see more images from this event, click here.

Here’s my write up about the party last year…

GUESS HOW MUCH I LOVE TWO- PARTY DETAILS

This party is very near and dear to my heart, as it is inspired by the book I read to my son every night, just before bed (since he was born),‘Guess How Much I Love You’. I wanted a very organic, natural feel that was relaxed, fun and informal, using an earthy color palette.  Many of the items used were recycled, upcycled and reused. While this party was created for a birthday, it would also work for a Spring or Easter party as well. The primary design elements were ferns and carrots, with bunnies and woodsy elements secondary. The paper designs, including the gorgeous invite, were hand illustrated by the uber talented Kori of Paper & Pigtails. Her designs sent my inspiration over the top and were a huge component to the design of the party.

DESSERT TABLE: I found a vintage sheet with ferns on it from etsy, and that was the base for the dessert table. I just love it! I (with the help of my hubby), created a fence, similar to the one in the book, out of pallet wood and floral wire as the backdrop. Since the story is about BIG Nutbrown Hare and LITTLE Nutbrown Hare, two rabbits, I had BIG and LITTLE versions of each dessert. We served ‘dirt dessert’ in clay pots with adorable fondant carrots by Edible Details, BIG and LITTLE chocolate cake, veggie straw cones that looked like carrots, a cookie garden of carrot and lettuce sugar cookies and carrot cake push up pops, made to look like bunnies (fondant ears also by Edible Details). I purposely left the dessert table ‘loose’ and not so structured, sort of like a botanical garden. I didn’t adhere to my normal ‘perfectly lined up’ regimen of desserts. The raffia bunnies were perfect to play the part of the bunnies in the book. The yarn ball garland was strung across the back fence. However, that was actually created to go someplace else and when my carrot chandelier couldn’t be hung over the dessert table (so sad), I needed that pop of color up there more than where it was originally intended to go. See, we all have glitches.

FOOD TABLE: I wanted the food table to feel more like a farmer’s market, with fruits in strawberry baskets and vegetables spilling from a bushel basket. We served individual cups of mac n cheese (bunnies, of course!) and bunny shaped cucumber & cream cheese sandwiches for the little ones. For the adults, we had 2 types of sandwiches, pasta salad, fruit and veggies with spinach dip, served in a cabbage head-idea from Petite Social here.  Everything was very ‘clean and fresh’. The sandwiches were each wrapped with a fern leaf that was clipped from my yard. I also hand painted bamboo cutlery in brown, orange and green. It was a nice touch!

DRINKS: the drink table was one of my favorite details with the carrots wrapped around the drink dispenser (sewn together first), sitting on a stump on the grass tabletop. We served carrot lemonade (recipe here) and in the wheelbarrow, cucumber water in mason jars. Very refreshing…and a huge hit!

OTHER DETAILS:

*The entrance had a sign that I made out of pallet wood (Guess how much I love two), painted and nailed to a post, a grapevine wreath that was SO easy to make with real ferns and carrots, a small bunting and some paper mache mushrooms, a doormat that was too perfect to pass up (welcome to the garden w/bunny image) and the planters filled with carrots.

*The year in pictures was so simple, but so effective. Mason jars with a photo inside lined up all in a row.

*The guest book was a carrot that Kori of Paper & Pigtails hand illustrated with a place for the guests to put their thumbprint and sign as the greenery. So cute! We’ll frame this and put it in our son’s room. What a nice keepsake. This is a popular idea currently at weddings.

*I decorated the big oak tree with a carrot bunting and pages from the book.

*There was an activity table for the kids to plant seeds and paint little pots as well as a table with coloring pages and crayons.

*Favors consisted of GHMILY stickers and a bookmark, seeds, bunny graham crackers, a bouncy ball and a hand sewn bunny finger puppet. The adults were given a brown lunch bag to fill up with fruit and veggies from the décor so nothing would go to waste.

*I set up the tables as one long feasting table with a fabulous bunting that was strung across the two trees. I used fence pieces as the runners and green and brown glass bottles that I had been saving up as well as mason jar terrariums for the centerpieces.

Every party I do is my favorite one yet, but I really loved doing this party. It was so much work and definitely a challenge decorating with fresh produce for a morning party, but so special and so worth it!

VENDORS:

Event design/styling: Elissa, One Stone Events

Hand Illustrated Stationery Suite: Kori, Paper & Pigtails Studio Line

Photography: Darci Woodiwiss Photography

Fondant carrots and bunny ears: Edible Details

Cookies: Bees Knees Creative

‘BIG’ cake: A Better Cheesecake

Sandwiches: Einstein’s Bagels

Fabric bunting: cucuco

Bunny/moon shirt: mypipsqueak

vintage fern sheet: GoodBonesVintageCo

Tables/chairs/props/assistance: Special thanks to Kevin Stone, Jeanne Berhalter, Eileen Stone, Lisa and Aaron Votaw, Chris Raineri, Erik and Darci Woodiwiss and Brooke Elvington.

Stay tuned for this year’s birthday party! It’s going to be a fun boy fairytale mashup with lots of feathers, arrows and targets!

How is everyone decorating for Easter this year? What kind of celebration will you have? Do you like to have a lots of friends and family around or a small, quiet holiday?

The post (Rustic) Easter Inspiration appeared first on One Stone Events.

 Here’s a little offbeat inspiration for your Valentine’s Day…The heart elements could work for a simple Valentine celebration, or if you are of Dutch descent or enjoy Dutch culture, go all out with this theme for the holiday of love.

This Dutch Folk Art styled shoot was created for an issue of Bird’s Party Magazine. It’s sort of a blend between Pennsylvania Dutch artwork and traditional Dutch desserts. To read about the desserts and details of the table, see below.

The goal for this shoot was to do something different that’s never been seen before. Inspiration can be found anywhere, including the ‘It’s a Small World’ ride at Disneyworld. The cultures and colors are so beautiful and I’ve recently found myself drawn to folk art so much, that I decided I’d make a dessert table using Dutch folk art as the theme.

I was going more for simple beauty and authenticity than the trends of dessert tables currently popular in the party scene. The color palette is very typical of this style with the red, navy, yellow and white. I also wanted to use the doves, tulips and hearts, most commonly seen in Dutch folk art. Bird of Bird’s Party made beautiful printables for me to work with, which were the foundation for every single element that went into the design of the table. Every vendor used that design as inspiration or copied it to match perfectly. The table was captured flawlessly by Darci Woodiwiss Photography.

My fabulous baker from Cakes by Costa flew to Florida from Massachusetts to do this shoot with me and the desserts did not disappoint. We had Slagroomtaart, a Dutch cream cake, which is very light and airy in taste. The Dutch apple cakes were dense and the spices made this one delicious treat. There was also a Dutch cocoa dip for the fresh fruit which was much richer than a chocolate syrup, but oh so yummy!

I ordered the Stroopwafels from I Love Stroopwafels. These tasty Dutch treats are basically 2 waffle cookies with caramel sandwiched between them. Traditionally eaten with coffee or tea, if you set the Stroopwafel atop the hot coffee cup and wait a few minutes, the consistency is just right with slightly oozing caramel and the temperature is perfect. These were so much fun to try!

The only dessert on the table that was not traditional Dutch, were the absolutely gorgeous and ornate sugar cookies, made by Bees Knees Creative. The artistry on these cookies was fantastic and they looked so beautiful on the table. They were a perfect addition to tie all the elements together.

The flowers, by Dana Dineen Floral were a must on this table. The red Tulips, yellow Asiatic lilies, blue Gentiana and yellow Craspedia with ivy looked ‘perfectly Dutch’. They set the tone for the whole table and it just wouldn’t have worked nearly as well without them.

ReDefine Design Studio provided some of the awesome serveware on the table: The cookie platters, the quirky coffee cups with saucers, the heart shaped cake pans, and the most perfect little white and blue bowl with a blue handle.

One of my absolute favorite details on the table were the adorable little peg dolls, custom made by the oh-so-talented Jenny of Craft That Party. Honestly, they are the cutest things I’ve seen in a very long time. They took center stage on my table and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

I made the backdrop with party supplies, using most of the design on Bird’s Dutch Folk Art printables. It was just foam core, wrapped in a yard of navy fabric, paper pinwheel fans, felt, paper punched circles, Martha Stewart stickers and Bird’s printables. Other décor included a little pair of Dutch clogs with a windmill on them as a cake topper, toothpick flags to emulate the Dutch flag and dessert stands for both the cookies and fruit: I put heart ribbon around each heart cake pan and used glue dots to attach them to the candlesticks, which I had spray painted yellow. The saucers that matched the coffee cups just sat on top of clear glass candlesticks. Perfect little dessert stands!

As I always use something of my late grandmother’s in every shoot, the little casserole dishes and the yellow ‘Dutch oven’ that the cake sat in belonged to her, as well as the Dutch cocoa dip bowls on both sides.

The whitewashed wood planks belong to Dana Dineen Florals and I love the different levels and the added element of vintage they added.  They were a great addition to the table.
I absolutely adored working with this wonderful collaboration of vendors. What a great team!

VENDORS:

Design/Styling: Elissa at One Stone Events

Printables: Bird’s Party

Photography: Darci Woodiwiss Photography

Desserts: Cakes by Costa

Flowers/wood planks: Dana Dineen Florals

Sugar Cookies: Bee’s Knees Creative

Peg Dolls: Jenny at Craft That Party 

Vintage Boutique Rentals: ReDefine Design Studio

Stroopwafels: I Love Stroopwafels

The post Dutch Love appeared first on One Stone Events.

Occasions Magazine has launched their Premiere Florida issue and I’m thrilled to be a small part of it! What I love about this magazine is that it not only showcases beautiful weddings, but other important milestone celebrations as well. There aren’t any other magazines that I know of that have all that eye candy and inspiration in one place. It’s a great resource for ANYONE planning a party, and since I design and style many of those other types of ‘Occasions’, it’s important for vendors like me to have an outlet like this. I want to thank Heather Vreeland, Occasions’ Group Publisher and Editorial Director, for including me as a part of this beautiful magazine. And a big thank you to all the vendors who helped to make the featured celebration such a success. (Another post devoted to the party and vendors to come, soon!)

French Bohemian Quinceanera
photo by Kathy Porupski