Dream Dinner

Outstanding in the Field has been blogged about plenty, but I found myself daydreaming today about attending one of their once-in-a-lifetime dinners. I even looked into a few dinners that would be close enough to road trip to. Doesn't it sound like the perfect way to spend a warm summer evening? It'd be a great splurge for a birthday or anniversary dinner.

Photos via Outstanding in the Field.

A Gender Reveal Party

My friends Chelsea and Trae are expecting their first baby late this summer, and just last week were able to find out the gender. A few days after their sonogram (it must have been killing them!) they invited friends over for a little party to find out "Wat" color icing would be inside the cake. They asked me to make the reveal cake, and I was honored and excited to be the first to know if little Baby Wat would be made of slugs, snails and puppy dog tails or sugar, spice and everything nice.

Thankfully, friend and ridiculously talented photographer Trent was in attendance to capture everything in these lovely photos.

{The proud-papa-to-be bought out the pink and blue decor section of the local party store.}

{Big sister Pippa looks a little nervous}

{both sets of parents watched the reveal on Facetime}

{pink icing!!}

For some reason, it surprised me when they knew what it was after making the first cut. I had pictured the blog-perfect moment of them pulling the slice out and then knowing, but they got a little sneak peek when the knife came up with pink frosting (everyone screamed!). At that point, Chelsea couldn't even finish cutting the cake, she was so elated to find out that it's a girl. Friends had to remind them to keep cutting, their parents couldn't tell what it was yet! You can see it in the video on their cute baby blog.

It was such a fun night, and so special that Trae and Chelsea wanted all their friends to be there with them to find out. Hurry up, Baby Girl Watlington, we're all ready to meet you!

All photos courtesy of the talented and generous Trent Bailey.

Put A Ring On It

I have a pretty low key weekend planned (um, it might involve the second Hunger Games book) but if I were going out to a fun party, I'd want to wear this pretty rose gold cocktail ring. Isn't it great?

Happy Weekend! I hope yours is full of fun plans (be they of the cocktail ring or good book variety :)

(A Valentine's) Weekend in Pictures

{cupcake delivery}

{cupcakes ready for the party}

{eleanorasaurus}

{balloons and snow flurries}

{tiny cakes, completed}

{tiny cakes for valentine's day girl's lunch}

{galentine's day presents}

{red polka dot nails}

It was a weekend full of parties. First, I made and delivered cupcakes for Ellie's 1st birthday party and got to peek at all the cute decorations, even though I couldn't stay for the party. Sunday was more cake and more partying, this time with tiny cakes for a Valentine's lunch with girlfriends. It was bitterly cold in New York this weekend, so I was glad I had a few excuses to stay inside and eat chocolate cake.

A Triple Pink Cake

I know, I know. January is supposed to be about leafy greens, juice fasts and resolutions, not cake. But I made another Very Pink Cake for my friend Bethany's birthday and I couldn't not show it to you just because we're all supposed to be eating salads right now.





Last year's cake was pink inside and out. This year, I knew I had to top it with something pink-er. After the rainbow cake this summer, I started thinking about making the inside three different shades of pink.



I bought three different shade of pink gel food coloring, but as you can see (in the pic I stole from my friend's Instagram...thanks Murph!) that resulted in three pretty different colors of pink cake, not the three shades of the same pink I was envisioning. I corrected that with the frosting, just using varying amounts of the one shade of pink food coloring and attempted to get sort of an ombre look to the frosting.



With the addition of some sparklers, the triple pink cake was quite a hit at the party. Now, let's all dream of cake while we eat our kale salads.

Sparkly Cocktails

Do you have big New Year's plans? I think I'm keeping it low key this year with a girly slumber party with a few close friends. Even though I'm staying in, I'd love to toast the New Year with a sparkly cocktail. These are some cherry bellinis (prosecco + cherry juice and a maraschino cherry) I made for a friend's birthday party, and I think the sparkly rim would be perfect for a New Year's Eve party.





You'd just need some edible gliter (I got mine at a local baking supply store) to rim the glass with the way you would with salt on a margarita. Voila! Instant party sparkle.

Original idea via Pinterest, of course.

So Many Flowers

Oh my. I'm not sure if a blossom party is a "thing" in Europe (international readers, help me out!), but I would like to make it a "thing" in my life. I love the idea of doing a theme party for no reason—not connected to a holiday or anything, just for fun. I feel like you could do something like this with other simple, beautiful things like streamers, stripes, or confetti.

via Kinfolk

Surprise 29th Birthday Party

Apparently, I have very sneaky friends. While we were making plans to surprise our friend Tracey for her birthday, they were busy planning to surprise me for mine. A whole week before my birthday, so I wouldn't suspect anything! But, worried that I wouldn't love the idea of a true surprise (I'm not much for being the center of attention), they decided to tell me.

The night of the party as I walked to meet some friends for drinks, my roommate texted me, "Have fun at drinks! Please don't be too late for your birthday party in the garden. Starts around 7:30." The friends I was meeting for drinks were in on the whole thing! We drank bourbon-spiked Arnold Palmers, then we went back to my place to the party. It was perfect to be surprised by the fact that I was having a party, instead of by people hiding in a dark room. And oh, what a lovely party it was.



I was greeted by a garden full of my favorite friends and pretty sunflowers. Dinner was grilled hot dogs and burgers, followed by a make-your-own ice cream sandwich bar. I've been so obsessed with ice cream sandwiches this summer! There were snickerdoodles, my roommate's famous chocolate peanut butter cookies, vanilla ice cream, and my favorite coffee bean ice cream from Trader Joe's.





It's sort of impossible to put a candle in an ice cream sandwich, so Bethany held a tea light over my dessert while everyone sang "Happy Birthday." I'm sure my cheeks were bright red.

The funniest part of the night was the photo "booth" they put together. All the props were Liz-inspired, made up of my favorite items of clothing: cardigans and scarves. With the addition of some of my roommate's hats and a fur stole, there was enough in the prop box to make for quite a hilarious photo shoot.







At the end of the evening, when the sunflowers had taken up semi-permanent residence in my apartment and some folks had already headed home (it was a Monday night, after all) the last few celebrators stuck around to watch me open my present.



One of the lockets I've been coveting all year! I truly have the best friends. That birthday was so great, I think I'll just stay 29 forever.

Paper Party Hats

One of my favorite bits of party planning is thinking of a few special things to set the party apart from a regular old hang out (since my favorite types of parties are regular old hang outs with a little something extra). My plan was to make homemade party hats for Tracey's dino party as the special something, but the "homemade" part of the equation fell through. I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to create my own template and every hat ended up looking like a dunce cap. Oops!

If only I had seen this cute guide to making three types of paper party hats from Kate Spade. These look so simple!

image via weheartit

Sugar Cookies For A Party

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you'll know that my go-to party dessert is usually cake. But it's not always easy to make a cake fit into a theme party, without getting all Aces of Cakes on it. Enter the humble sugar cookie.





Cookie cutters come in all shapes and sizes, making it easy to tailor the dessert to your party's theme. For the dinosaur party last week, my friends and I found some dino cookie cutters at whisk (they were the inspiration for the whole party!). I used my mom's trusted sugar cookie recipe and frosted them in dino-inspired colors. There were blue dinosaurs, right?

Party Budget

In her first post as a blogger with the Real Simple Simply Stated blog, Jordan Ferney shared one of her favorite secrets to planning a great party. You can read it here. But what stuck with me is something she mentioned off-hand, that she and her husband have a column in their monthly budget for parties.

What a great idea! Very practical if you find yourself hosting often or attending gift-giving occasions frequently. But it's even more fun to think about the months where there's less celebrating and you end up with a little bit extra. Would you save it up for a few months and do something big? Or throw a random little get-together, just because? I'm totally adding this into my monthly budget.

image via Jordan Ferney for Oh Happy Day.

Dino Surprise Party

How to throw a dinosaur-themed surprise party:

1. Have best friends who like to talk about dinosaurs a lot. In particular, one whose name starts with T, so you can call her t-rex. Make sure she's born within a few days of Jurassic Park being shown on the Intrepid.

2. Plan to surprise her with a small, low-key birthday gathering on the deck of the Intrepid, just before the movie starts.

3. Assemble a bag of party supplies. Disguise it as a bag of movie snacks (after you take a picture of it for your blog). Make sure it includes party hats, noisemakers, dino cookies, dino temporary tattoos, a few dino-themed presents, and flowers, because even a portable party should be pretty.





4. Check the weather report. Assume that a 40% chance of rain is not a serious chance of rain.

5. While in line for the movie, watch lightning rip across the sky. Be informed by the lovely staff of the Intrepid that the ship is one giant lightning rod and the movie is canceled.

6. Do not be discouraged! Move the party indoors. This will involve quickly hailing a cab, returning to your apartment, renting Jurassic Park, and frantically texting/calling the birthday girl to tell her that the party, er, movie has been moved. Frantically text and email her fiance to ensure her arrival.

7. Get your apartment into party mode in record time. Order people around, then apologize. The sky outside will be turning greenish-black, illuminated occasionally by lightning.





8. Confirm that the birthday girl is still coming, despite the greenish-black sky. Wait by the door with a party hat.



9. Surprise her.



10. Make sure everyone has a dino tattoo before the movie begins.





11. Watch Jurassic Park while insane amounts of rain fall outside. Laugh at 1993's version of state-of-the-art technology, scream when the one person in the room who hasn't seen the movie screams, and realize that those dinosaurs are still really, really cool looking.