#MasqueradeWineAndDine – Masquerade Mask Making Party

Inspiration – Masks from New Orleans, LA brought in by my co-worker…

It was time to make some masks! 🙂 I decided early on that I would make the mask templates and decorate them by hand. I checked into one of my favorite craft stores and even with my handy dandy coupons I’d pay over a dollar per blank mask – not cool, especially for me, a lovely lady on a budget. Not to mention I had to make far too many masks, including ones for party favors and centerpieces.

I hit the clearance rack at Hobby Lobby…

Thankfully I also had a lot of crafty items in my stash, and I pulled those out as well…

I decided to do a trial run based off of a youtube video I had found…. (( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qEt3DhILTA )) In the video it suggests that you use a piece of paper (I used a piece of white construction paper) to trace your mask, then transfer that on a thicker piece of paper/cardboard, I literally used a cut up cereal box I believe. Once I got the shape I wanted, I trimmed the mask and painted it black…

Using aluminum foil to catch my glitter I just used glue and glitter and created this effect…

I realized very quickly that this mask was probably not large enough and that I didn’t like the thought of transferring the paper onto the cardboard by glue (you could start to see bubbling taking place) and decided that I’d just opt to create the templates from cardboard and paint/decorate as needed…

I didn’t know you could get cats at Walmart, lol…just joking, here’ Sassy exploring the bag…

I believe in multi-tasking so I decided to create templates while doing other things and to get myself ready for the Mask Making Party…

Now, to have willing workers, I mean, friends…How to get them here and productive?? Why, cook for them of course….

My “famous” Cajun Chicken Pasta…

Fresh Italian Garlic Cheese Bread — no frozen stuff over here 🙂

Now, to set up for the party…

I printed these as “inspiration”…

At this point, I’d really like to give a shout out to my friend Lindsey, sister Anna, niece Stevana and new ‘niece’ June…They really showed up and helped out tremendously that night. They kept saying, “I’m not creative” or “I don’t know what I’m doing” but before you knew it we were pumping out masks left and right and they just kept getting better! 🙂 It was a lot of fun…I didn’t realize how much it would take to make so many masks, so naturally we were only able to get a portion of the masks done that night…

This was the first attempt at making MY mask—the birthday girl had to be special and I had to have options. At this point though, I was just ready for my bed and not the mask… I ended up working on them with another friend (thanks again Stephanie!) that following night… We were able to get a few more completed including my mask(S) 😀

My 3 options…

Thankfully I started this process a week before the party. It allowed me plenty of time to finish up my centerpiece masks as well as the party favor ones. My next post I’ll take you to my actual birthday and the day’s events and then to the venue and show you how we set up for the Masquerade Wine & Dine 🙂

Thanks for reading…any questions, feel free to comment.

Anita

#My1stCruise – Review: A work in progress

When I first started this blog I initially wanted something other than the review that I’d write for cruise critic just for me to share…. I have since finished (using that term lightly) my review on CC and have been pulling it over from one site to this one… This does take a bit of time as I have to reformat and size pictures etc. however it is a work in progress.

Sooooo….. If you’d like to check out my review of the Carnival Destiny out of Miami Florida visiting Nassau, Bahamas, Half Moon Cay, Bahamas and Grand Turk, slide on over to that tab where I’m working on it daily… 🙂

If not, you can view the entire review in it’s “finished” state here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1811812

Mostly Mommies Night Out – Pinot’s Palette – St. Matthews

Mostly Mommies – Monthly Night Out

This post started as me just wanting to share my cool painting, but I realized I had an opportunity to give some warm & fuzzies to both Mostly Mommies and Pinot’s Palette – St. Matthews :).

My friend Brittany is apart of a group here in Louisville called “Mostly Mommies”. It’s a group of wonderful women who just wanted to get together, discuss parenting, hang out, have play dates, etc. with no judgement. The ladies who originally created Mostly Mommies really enjoyed the thought of gathering at least monthly to just get out and enjoy some time with other women from all walks of life. It’s since grown to something that women look forward to monthly as well as their in between times of convening, play dates and the like. Pretty neat.  I have been a little reserved about joining on earlier invites to their monthly outings simply because I’m not a mother, yet. However, Brittany insisted that I could come on out anyway and this event happened to be doing something I love – being creative (painting) so I said, ‘why not?!’

Mostly Mommies FB Page – https://www.facebook.com/mostlymommies?fref=ts

Pinot’s Palette is apparently similar to a more known art add wine place called Uptown Art. Like Uptown it is also a chain and has a location here in Louisville. I have a credit for UA but I haven’t had the chance to make it out to enjoy their facility just yet, so this was my first experience with the paint add wine venue. Let me just say, it was an amazing time, even without any wine. (Did I just say that, yes I did, lol) From booking to a friendly “reminder” email to request any last minute seating accommodations, everyone just seemed so genuine and friendly. Any time I’m WOW’d with customer service I am thrilled, because it’s like a needle in a haystack to find a company who values that anymore. I’ll definitely return to PP’s in the future, especially since we’re almost neighbors 🙂

Pinot’s Palette St. Matthews –  http://www.pinotspalette.com/louisville

Random Tidbit-While the Moms and Wives were creating their monogrammed painting for their household I was thinking to myself, I don’t want a painting that says the ‘Smiths’ when it’s just me. So I opted to just my full name with my last initial…that’s not changing any time soon. 😉

#MasqueradeWineAndDine – Saying Yes to the Dress, Centerpieces and Tablescapes

Saying Yes to the Dress

I last left you with my lovely surprise from two of my very dear friends. That card? It made me cry. While, I do tend to cry at Gerber and puppy commercials, this card said much more than a puppy smashing into a can of kibble and bits. Without quoting, these women took time to celebrate and give back to me a portion of what they said I pour into others day after day. I tend to get teary eyed just thinking about that, because as women we usually don’t do what we do for recognition or thanks, but man to receive it is something else.

One of the things I’ve found that I have difficulty doing is receiving praise and gifts. Is that weird? I find that one of the things I do instead of simply accepting the praise/gratitude/compliment, etc. I often deflect and minimalize the notion. Is that humility or is that honestly not knowing how to accept something from others? Am I only familiar with the giver shoes that receiving is foreign and strange? Am I the only one like this? Surely not…right?

Anyhoo, enough of the little couch, rabbit session. I said yes to the dress and then it said yes back to me. After the gift from my dear friends, I placed this beautiful dress in the middle of my apartment, hanging on a closet door. I wanted it to be a daily reminder, a) of the upcoming party itself and b) that I am worth and deserve to be blessed by others.

Centerpieces & Tablescapes

Now that the dress was in place, it was time to make more party decisions. Location was shaping up to be a challenge as I really prefer to go the local venue route, however restaurants aren’t always equipped to handle large parties (I was looking at 30-50 attendees) and/or sometimes they simply aren’t large party friendly. 3 places fell through in a matter of 2 days for some of those very reasons.

I decided to bounce back from the disappointment by inspiration shopping, and here’s what I found…

The black and white print that I fell in love with, hot pink and silver accents 🙂

I came up with the idea that I’d get as much of the décor preparations done prior to the event as possible so that my team and I could go in, set up and be out as soon as possible.

Here’s my thought on creating the tablescapes…

Using rectangle tablecloths I trimmed them in half…

Excuse the clutter, I took my coupons/tablecloth off my dining table to work on this…My dining room actually became Birthday Party Command Central over the next few weeks….

On top of that I created a “runner” by trimming the black and white print (which happens to be gift wrapping paper by the way) the length of the table cloth. My thought process: alternating b&w print per table/tablescape…

 

Using some of my FAVORITE vases (that I purchased as an investment in my event planning business at one of my favorite budget friendly stores-The Dollar Tree) I placed that on top of the mirror centerpiece. But it wasn’t enough…

Attempting to incorporate the silver, I remembered I had the b&w print in the tissue paper as well…hmm, nope not this way…

And then it hit me: Masquerade Masks as centerpieces…

This isn’t the final “centerpiece” but I was headed in the right direction…Now to make a minimum of 40 masks for party favors and finalize the venue. I was planning a “Mask Making Party” the weekend before the actual event and was planning on hand-crafting masks as party favors, why not add a few more as centerpieces, right?! Ha…Okay…

Next at SmplyAnita’s Corner….Making Masquerade Masks…

#MasqueradeWineAndDine – I Picked a Theme, Now What?

Inspiration

So every year I like to plan a rather “large” birthday gathering to celebrate myself. I look at it like this: 364 days of the year is about everyone else, but for a few hours on the day I choose to celebrate, it’s about me :-). So, another year wiser and older means another celebration.

25 has been interesting, to say the very least. There has certainly been more good than bad, and for that I’m grateful. People have come and gone in my life, friendships strengthened, loved ones lost, but all the same I am STILL here. Each year brings new trials, triumphs and victories and as a reminder of what I’ve gone through, I CHOOSE to celebrate. So whether I consider these celebrations a reminder of all of that, as a ‘pat on the back’ for the thankless job I do daily, a time to prepare for what’s to come or simply a day to just relax and ENJOY those around me is as good enough reason as any to celebrate on such a large scale year after year.

Last year I decided to do my first “themed” celebration opting to go for a 50’s Pin-Up look. I went all out with the makeup, searching for a pencil skirt, the whole nine. To my surprise, most of my friends went along with the theme and definitely enjoyed searching for something to go along with the 50’s looks. From blue suede shoes and pin-curls to red lips and high heels, okay, maybe the high part was added.

In years past I’ve done things as simple as a color scheme for decor based on my dress choice – my yearly installment of “say yes to the dress”, but with the 50’s Pin-Up from last year I couldn’t NOT do it big again this year.

I’ve always wanted to do something with Mardi Gras, masks and the like and why not go with the theme for my party —- Masquerade Wine & Dine, that’s it! Now, to choose the usual suspects, my party helpers, a color scheme and to find a DRESS! That proved to be the harder part of the whole shindig, the dress. All the same, I had to get the date out there so I worked on a quick flyer, a “save the date” if you will…

That set the tone for my upcoming soiree – or so I thought… More on that to come.

I started dress shopping with my sister from another mister rather early, early to mid May I’d say and while some dresses were amazing, they weren’t evoking what I thought I wanted. It wasn’t until I found this photo when googling images for a masquerade party… and I stumbled across this…

I wasn’t able to find the original link – but this was “googled”

Aha! That’s it! #MasqueradeWineAndDine was the theme, but black, white & hot pink could be the color scheme. My mind was running wild with the options and it was only a few days later that I went shopping for inspiration and decided ultimately on a black & white print, hot pink and accents of silver. This made it that much easier to give direction of my dress hunt – something dainty, feminine and a statement all its own.

I hit up every fluffy girl’s friend, Lane Bryant to try on dresses, and just felt underwhelmed. A few days later my sister from another mister, the same one who went dress shopping with me earlier that month was at a new LB and let me know she saw this dress I found online that I wanted to try on before ordering. Low and behold I go and try it on, and I almost cried. This was IT! But, not that price. I sadly put the dress away, telling myself I’d order it later on when it was more wallet-friendly, I was searching early on after all. And what do you know, the very next day I get in the car to go to dinner with my girlfriends and THIS was in the back seat…

To be continued…