Easter Eggs Fit For a Teen

This year I will be spending Easter with a close friend who has teenagers. I've been racking my brain trying to come up with a cool gift for these teens who long ago figured out that thing about the Easter Bunny. So I decided to make them "fashion-inspired" Easter eggs to accompany a traditional chocolate bunny.


I started off with paper mache eggs that I got from the craft store...



First I painted the eggs with a base coat and then used coordinating colored tissue paper to decoupage the eggs.



Egg Inspiration #1 - Tiffany and Co.

Egg Inspiration #2 - Western Chic



Egg Inspiration #3 - Lilly Pulitzer



I hope the girls like the eggs as much as I do!




Linking up to:

Finally...Pics from the Tiffany Sweet 16 Party

Here are a few pictures from the Tiffany-themed Sweet 16 party that I helped plan. I feel like I've been blogging about this one event forever! You can catch the whole saga from the very beginning here, here and here... enjoy!


Tayler, the birthday girl, graced the front of a custom yard sign that greeted guests at her house on the big day...



What would a Tiffany-themed event be without these? I created an oversized Tiffany's box to hold birthday cards from guests. In lieu of gifts, the birthday girl asked her friends to bring toys that will be donated to a homeless shelter. So I created an oversized Tiffany's shopping bag to hold the toys.



Tayler invited some of her family and friends to share in her day by being members of her Sweet 16 court. The girls took their roles seriously and stayed true to the Tiffany blue theme all the way down to their nails...



Tayler and the female members of her court. Aren't they adorable?



If the shoe fits, wear it! How cool are these blinged-out Chuck Taylor Hi-Tops?



Tayler's family is Caribbean, so it was fitting that a steel pan band entertained guests during the pre-reception.



The overall color scheme for the party was Tiffany blue, white and black. Tayler's mom found and fell in love with the Wanderfuls centerpieces, that also served as favors (each wand was filled with candy).



After mulling over several ideas, I decided to place a vase of white roses on top of the cupcake stand. I couldn't resist adding a little bling to it as well...



Tayler invited 16 people who had made a significant impact on her life to come light a candle for her...there wasn't a dry eye in the room after that.



Water bottles with custom labels were also provided as party favors...



Tayler - thanks again for allowing me to help make your vision for an amazing birthday party a reality. Now let's move onto graduation party planning!

A Tiffany Style Sweet 16 Party - Part III

I just completed the final items for the upcoming Tiffany-themed Sweet 16 party. Both of the items are appropriately related to sweets....cupcakes to be exact. The planning of this party has been going on for months - all of the events leading up to now can be found here and here.

Tayler, the birthday girl, decided to serve jumbo cupcakes for dessert. She wants to have a nice, distinctive wrapper around the base of the cupcakes. I found a ton of gorgeous wrappers that would be perfect, except for the fact that they only fit standard size cupcakes. Out of desperation I turned to the Internet and found a site where they show how to make cupcake wrappers out of doilies. So I gave it a shot ...



I really liked the doily option - easy to make and inexpensive. However, my husband took one look at it and stated that the doily did not fit the theme of the party. It kills me to admit that the unsolicited advice from my non-event planning husband was spot on. So, I put together another wrapper that did get his seal of approval. What do you think?



Finally, I had to figure out a way to jazz up the gigantic cupcake stand that I received looking like this:



I decided to mimic the look of the invitation by painting the stand tiffany blue and wrapping white ribbon around it.



I also added a round buckle on each tier like the buckles on the invitation...



The party is only three weeks away, so I'll post pics from the actual event soon.

A Tiffany Style Sweet 16 Party - Part II

I just finished the invitations for the Sweet 16 party that I am planning for one of my best friends - here is where it all began.

I actually started assembling the invitations a few weeks ago, but abandoned them when more pressing things came up. So I was less than pleased with myself when I pulled out the partially-completed mess that I had made. See for yourself...



The basic design of the invitation is a "Tiffany" blue pocketfold card with a flat card attached inside. I searched and searched for reasonably priced paper since a ton of people are being invited - I found the best deal here.

The birthday girl is all about the bling, so I really wanted to incorporate jewels on the invitation. Rhinestone buckles are so popular right now, but those little things can cost a fortune. Out of desperation I searched on eBay and found the greatest deal on them - only $1 each and no shipping costs!



In addition to the flat card, an rsvp card was also included in the invitation. My friend opted to use a postcard to save on postage. I had never created a postcard before, so here are a couple of things that I learned during the process:
1) according to the post office, a postcard is defined as being a minimum of 3-1/2 inches high by 5 inches long and does not exceed 6 inches in length by 4-1/4 inches high
2) a postcard that does not meet those dimensions can still be mailed if you put a first class letter stamp on it.



Here is the outside of the invitation - I was trying to capture the classic look of the Tiffany blue box...



...and here is the inside of the invitation. I hope the birthday girl likes it as much as I do.



I have a few more projects to complete for this shindig - next up, a cupcake tower. So watch for future posts on this topic coming soon!

A Tiffany Style Sweet 16 - Part I

One of my best friend's daughter is turning 16 and I have been asked to help plan her party. This might come as a shock and a surprise, but in all my years of party planning I have never had the opportunity to do a Sweet 16. It's been a few years since I was a teenager, so I thought I'd study up on the latest trends. My research started (and quickly finished) with reruns of MTV's My Super Sweet 16. Even though it was painful to watch, I did realize that teens have strong opinions and that it would be in my best interest to include the birthday girl in the decision-making process.

The very first thing that I needed her to decide on was a theme, which took no time at all...Tiffany's. I love the color, I love the store, so this worked for me too. My friend is inviting a large number of out-of-town guests and wanted to send Save-the-Date cards asap. I happened upon a picture of the iconic Tiffany little blue box that I thought would be great for the cards. The birthday girl's name is Tayler, so I figured I could personalize the card in some way. Here is the original image...



And here is the image that I created using, of all things, Windows Paint tool...


I know there are a ton of really powerful tools out there that are specifically designed to manipulate images, but who knew that little old Paint could do all this? I had to keep the etched look of the font, so I kept playing around until I figured out which letter and symbols could be used to make the ones I needed for Tayler's name. Can you tell? Of course the T, A and Y came directly from the Tiffany name. The L was made by flipping the F and erasing the little middle part. The E was made by adding the bottom part to the F. And finally the R was made by taking a little piece from the & symbol and combining it with the F. Okay, it sounds a lot more complicated than it was...seriously. All this to say that you don't have to invest a lot of money in software to make cool stuff happen.

For the Save-the-Date card I put the 'Tayler & Co.' picture on the outside of Tiffany blue folded note cards.



Here is a look at the inside of the card...



One of the coolest aspects of this party is that Tayler will have a Sweet 16 court to celebrate alongside her. The court will be made up of close friends and family members. I wanted to come up with a fun way for Tayler to extend this invitation to her friends when I stumbled upon a large silver fortune cookie - that was all the inspiration I needed. The actual invitation was written on the fortune that was placed inside the cookie. It read..."It would be Tayler's great fortune if you were a member of her Sweet 16 Court!"



The fortune cookies were then placed in...wait for it... Tiffany blue takeout boxes. I tied a white bow around the box to resemble the original little blue box - I just love it when a great plan comes together!



I am currently in the process of designing the invitations and ironing out a billion other details, so stay tuned for future posts about this shindig.