A Cheeky Mother’s Day Picnic

April 21, 2016 9 Comments A Well Crafted Party

This past week I got to celebrate Mother’s Day with a cheeky Mother’s Day picnic. The really cool thing about being a blogger, especially a blogger that loves celebrations, is that I get the opportunity to celebrate many holidays multiple times. Posting about my Mother’s Day celebrations after the fact will not allow for any one to use any of the fun ideas. The really interesting thing about being a mother is, well, things don’t always go to plan.

I received complimentary paper goods from Cheeky to use in my blog featured events. Additional product was purchased by me because I love it. Designs were inspired by the Cheeky Home product line.

We planned a nice picnic outdoors with wine, cheese, bread, assorted snacks and, of course, chocolate after the kids went to bed and before the sun went down. Everything was ready to go, the blanket sat by the door along with my basket of goodies and my camera. (I’m a blogger after all.) Big kiddo went to bed with no problems. Baby on the other hand hit his witching hour with gusto and did. not. stop. crying.

Once we realized that we lost the light we nearly decided to stop and wait for another day but—after an hour (off and on) of trying to calm a fussy baby— the wine and chocolate was calling our names. In-door picnic it was! Baby hung out with us as we enjoy a little snack and a relaxing glass of wine. There was at least fifteen minutes of pure bliss. And, thanks to Cheeky sending me cute paper goods, I didn’t have to wash a single dish afterwards!

I created some free printable designs to help make the Mother’s Day picnic just a little more special and a lot more “cheeky.” Tongue-in-cheek says and fun little quips cover these free printables that coordinate with the Cheeky paper goods.

Ingredients of a cheeky Mother’s Day picnic:

These ingredients can be mixed and matched to make the perfect picnic for the mom you are celebrating in your life. This picnic was definitely perfect for me!

Cheeky paper plates, napkins, plasticware and cups. The cups were from the recent DesignLoveFest collaboration while the rest was from their party ware. I found the cups in the section of Target with the paper towels and boring paper plates.
Oh Snap! pickles – First time having these and they were AMAZING.
Harvest Snaps Snapea Crisps
Tillamook cheese slices individually wrapped
French Bread
Sparkling Water
Canned Pinot Noir wine (Union Wine Company – an Oregon wine!)
Moonstruck Dark Chocolate with Almonds and Sea Salt (Moonstruck is my favorite chocolate.)
Cutting board and knife
cheeky Mother’s Day free printables
Basket

Nearly all of the items I got were from Target… not because Target sponsored me in any way, but because I shop their weekly.

Included in the Cheeky Mother’s Day printables:

Circle Tags— to affix to gift (Happy Mother’s Day), wine (Wine is better than Whine), Pickle Package (Mom, You’re the Real Dill), Snap Pea Snacks (Ah snap mom, you’re the best!), paper plates (Mom, I’ve got the dishes today), cups (Drinks on me, ma!), and cheese (Call me cheesy, but I love you!).
Bread label — Long label to be cut, wrapped around bread and affixed with tape.
Chocolate Wrapper — Wrapper to be cut out and wrapped around a chocolate bar then affixed by tape.
Wine or Sparkling Water Tags— Tags to be cut out, folded and hung on a bottle of wine or sparkling water

A Well Crafted Party free printables are for personal use only.

Click here for your free Mother’s Day Picnic Printables

And, just in case you were wondering… this is what we looked like at our Mother’s Day picnic. Just a tad tired, hanging with a needy baby and enjoying some wine. It was one of those funny and happy moments in parenthood.

More about Cheeky: Cheeky is a paper goods brand that is committed to fun designs for every day products such as paper plates, plasticware, cups, napkins and travel coffee cups. The coolest thing about Cheeky? And, no, I’m not talking about the awesome partnership with Design Love Fest. The coolest thing about Cheeky is that with each purchase the company donates a meal with the Feeding America Network. Learn more about Cheeky on their website: www.cheekyhome.com and shop for Cheeky at your local Target.

I received complimentary paper goods from Cheeky Home to use in my blog featured events. I also purchased a few Cheeky products that I had been eyeing at Target along with some tasty snacks. The Cheeky products inspired my free printable set of Mother’s Day printables. All opinions, photos and designs are my own. To learn more about my policies visit my policy page. Thanks for reading A Well Crafted Party and supporting the companies that support this blog!

Have you ever planned a celebration to have to change things up at the last minute? Tell me about it below!

A Well Crafted Party

DIY Mother’s Day Flowers

April 14, 2016 10 Comments A Well Crafted Party

Mother’s Day is around the corner! Writing about all of these amazing working mothers has certainly got me thinking about Mother’s Day a little more than I normally would. It has made me want to tell my mother and mother-in-law just how much I appreciate them. Makes me want to snuggle up with the two boys who made me a momma. These DIY Mother’s Day Flower Arrangement tips make giving flowers easy and inexpensive.

Flowers are such a beautiful way to say that you are thinking about someone. But, with prices starting at $50 for a nice small Mother’s Day flower arrangement it is fairly cost prohibitive to many. I typically love giving flowers in addition to a small item that will last for some time or be a sweet treat for that person. Often spending $50 or more on flowers is just out of my budget. Thankfully, I know a few tricks to make a DIY Mother’s Day flower arrangement look like a million bucks.

Tips for DIY Mother’s Day Flowers:

Keep it simple!

Use one flower (or one color scheme) in a low vase to make a simple, but beautiful, flower arrangement. It doesn’t take much time to make an incredibly easy flower arrangement. Your mom will love it, I promise!

Floating Flowers make great impact in an easy DIY flower arrangement - A Well Crafted Party — Photo by Katherine McLoskey Photography

Float your flowers for high impact and low cost.

Floating one or two stems or buds of flowers in water is a cost effective way to make a statement. These don’t last as long as some flower arrangements, but they are beautiful! The photo above shows a beautiful black lily floating with the bud of a white rose and some lily grass. If you would like some sparkle, try putting some sequins in your vase as well!

Use Unexpected Vessels in Creating Fun DIY Floral Centerpieces - A Well Crafted Party — Photo by West Impressions

Use unexpected vessels for your DIY flower arrangement instead of vases.

I love using unexpected vessels for flowers. Use bottles, cans, baskets, or boxes to house your arrangement. (You may need to put a small vase or jar in to hold the flowers with water, but the outer vessel can be anything really!) Get a beautiful serving bowl for a gift and put the flowers in it! Two gifts in one. We used picnic boxes for flowers on the tables at my sister’s cheery Summer Wedding. Guests received their lunches in the same boxes so it was a lot of fun seeing them all together.

Sprinkle your table with flower buds!

Last year we had a little Mother’s Day tea on the coffee tables in our living room. I simply sprinkled the tables with the buds from a few flowers that I picked up at the store and snipped out of my yard. The table looked festive throughout the entire tea party. The buds do get a bit wilted over a long period of time. But, this was a short tea party so I was able to make a small, low arrangement in a jam jar after the party that I was able to enjoy for a few more days.

Want to make some flowers that will last a little longer? Check out the posts below:

DIY Cherry Blossom Branches

These DIY Cherry Blossom Branches will last for years and are so pretty to look at! A large vase with these sticking out would be a stunning gift.

Use Paper Leaves and Flowers to Fill in Real Blooms

I love real flowers. Sometimes when wanting to create a fun, whimsical look and to save money I’ll combine paper flowers and leaves along with inexpensive real blooms.

Make a Tissue Paper Flower Arrangement for Mom

Tissue paper flowers are easy to make, inexpensive and a lot of fun. Plus, they don’t die!

What do you like giving mom for Mother’s Day?

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Brunch Potluck — Portland Bloggers’ Meet-Up

March 16, 2016 5 Comments A Well Crafted Pantry

The Portland Bloggers, a local bloggers meet-up group and resource, hosted a Valentine’s Day brunch potluck this past month. We were happy to have decoration supplied by Minted.Com and tasty mimosas with Santa Margherita Wines. All thoughts and opinions are my own. To see my sponsored posting guidelines please visit my policies page. Thank you to Jennifer Landers for helping us find a swanky venue and Suzannah Stanley for these fab photos!

What kind of potluck should I host? …. BRUNCH!

When you live in Portland you tend to come around to the amazing-ness that is B-R-U-N-C-H. You see, it may have to do something with the rain and the grey skies or perhaps it is the laid back nature of this town… but, getting up early in the morning and heading out to breakfast really is just not our thing. Yes, it happens. Yes, there are people that seem to make it out of the house before 10 AM. Those are the people who get to walk right in and sit down for a tasty meal with no wait.

The rest of us, well, we do brunch and we do it hard. We have some of the most amazing restaurants out there creating brunch menus just for us. Heck, even the amazing Gregory Gourdet of Departure (you may know him from Top Chef) is getting into some brunch mischief with a pop-up brunch feature this Easter. Personally, I love brunch. There is something about the perfect mix of sweet and savory breakfast food paried with a breakfast cocktail all while fully rested. My love of brunch is one of the many reasons why we decided our recent Portland Bloggers meet-up was going to be a brunch potluck. One of the other reasons is that brunch is perfect for a potluck.

Brunch Potluck Food

There was such a great variety of foods and treats. I love brunch foods for potlucks because they can be savory or sweet. Great brunch potluck foods include mini bagels with cream cheese, quiches, muffins, waffle bites, deviled eggs… the list goes on and on! And for this particular brunch, because we hosted the party near Valentine’s Day, there were a lot of sweet treats on top of the great brunch foods.

Brunch Potluck Beverages

One of my favorite parts of any party is the beverage choices. Because we were having a brunch, we felt mimosas were a must! Santa Margherita wines sent us some of their Prosecco to try out. The crisp Santa Margherita Prosecco was stationed in a ice bucket ready to pair with either orange juice, peach puree, or strawberry puree. My favorite pairing was with the peach puree because the lightly tart taste of the Prosecco brought out the bright and juicy flavors of the peach. We also had plenty of sparkling water to pair with the juices to round out our beverage selection.

Beautiful and EASY Party Decor

We decorated the meeting space using Minted’s Party Suites. Seriously, such an easy and beautiful solution to party decor. You simply pick your suite, customize and purchase and then a neat little party package comes to your door complete with custom items, paper straws, plates, and napkins! We chose the Valentine’s Ombre Love Party Decor in the Perfect Party package. The mini note cards made for perfect labels for the food for the potluck. The banner is such great quality of paper that I’ll be keeping it to use over and over again at upcoming Portland Blogger meet-ups.

What makes potlucks so great?

I go on and on about potlucks like they are the butter to my bread… but, heres the thing, hosting parties can be quite expensive. Going out to eat and be expensive. Heck, even a drink or two at a bar can break the bank at times. Hosting events potluck style gives everyone the opportunity to gather together to enjoy a meal while not sticking one person with the check. I love the laid back feel of potlucks. I enjoy getting to try the items that other people bring. To be perfectly honest, in the end, I love not paying for everything. Cheers to whoever invented the very first potluck—those cavemen and women who all came to the table with something to share. Cheers also to the awesome guests that came to this potluck. They brought their A-game in the food and networking departments!