Wedding Flowers for Tyler & Ashley

My cousin Tyler is getting married next summer and recently, I had the pleasure of working with his bride-to-be, Ashley 😃

Ashley and I spent a morning wandering the aisles of Hobby Lobby until we found just the right flowers to create their wedding arrangements: 

These wedding arrangements were created using a mixture of sunflowers, purple hydrangea, babies breath, white tulle and burlap.

Bridal Bouquet

Ashley's bouquet is packed with more than a dozen large sunflowers and accented with babies breath and purple hydrangea.  Nestled into a formal bouquet holder, the handle was first wrapped in purple satin ribbon before being layered in a bit of burlap.

Bridesmaids

The bridal party will carry these sunflower and babies breath (hand-tied) garden bouquets.

Boutonnieres

All of the adult males in the wedding party will sport a large sunflower accented with a bit of babies breath.  The Ring Bearer will wear a smaller version as seen in the photo on the bottom right.  As a final touch, Ashley requested that the boutonnieres be wrapped with a bit of twine on the stems. 

Hair Clips, Flower Girl Sash & Headband

'Toss' Bouquet

This miniature version of the Bride's bouquet is all set to be tossed into the festivities.

Babies Breath Kissing Ball

Sometimes called a kissing ball, sometimes referred to as a pomander, this round floral arrangement can be suspended as part of the decor or carried by a member of the bridal party.  

So why am I talking about kissing balls?  Ashley wanted babies breath added to her bouquets and after a quick look through Hobby Lobby's stock, it became apparent that purchasing a pre-made kissing ball was going to be much less costly than it would have been to purchase this filler flower by 'the stem'.  The babies breath in this pomander was easily removed and then glued into the bouquets that I was creating.  Don't be afraid to think outside of the box when sourcing supplies for a project, with a little creativity, you can save all sorts of money!

And speaking of creativity:

 As I was working (and continually pulling babies breath from this arrangement), I started thinking- why not replace the babies breath with leftover sunflowers?  The sunflower bunches that Ashley purchased came with a mixture of large, medium and smaller blooms and I had plenty of the little ones leftover.....

Kissing Ball

......so I created a sunflower pomander in place of the babies breath arrangement!  Coming up with extra decor by using up leftover scraps is almost as much fun as saving money through creative shopping.  Once I get in my 'zone', you never know what might transpire 😁

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I hope you enjoyed this wedding floral post, thanks for stopping by!
-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2017

Candy Themed Birthday Party- The Party Cakes

Who wants dessert?!?!
I'm back today with all of the party treat details!

You can click here to see the party decor or here to read about the invitations.  Otherwise, keep scrolling to learn all about these adorable cakes and cupcakes:

Supplies

Kit-Kat cake:  For this cake I used a devil's food mix and chocolate icing.  Kit-Kats (of course 😁)  were used to cover the sides of the cake and pastel marshmallows served as the topping.

The idea for the Kit-Kat cake came from Pinterest.  Baby Girl and I saw lots of photos of similar cakes, but most of them featured Skittles or M&Ms as the topping.  Since our party color palette featured pastels, we decided to use marshmallows instead.

For the cupcakes I used Funfetti cake mix and icing, lollipops and more of the marshmallows.

First up, the large cake:

Step 1

I baked my cakes as usual (click  here to read more) 

and layered them with a bit of chocolate icing in between.

Step 2

After layering, I went ahead and gave the entire cake a good coat of chocolate icing.

Tip:  Keep your Kit-Kat candies in the freezer during this part.  The colder the candies, the less likely you are to smudge them with your fingerprints 😉 

Step 4

After applying a bit of icing to the back of a Kit-Kat, begin adhering them to the cake in a linear fashion.

Side Note:  I made sure that the Kit-Kat printing on each candy was going in the same direction.  It's little details like these that really make the difference in overall appearance 😊

Here is  a photo showing what it looked like when all of the Kit-Kats were in place.  Don't worry about any imperfections, such as the spaces between some of the candies, they won't be noticeable once the topping is in place.

Step 5

I added a bit of curling ribbon using colors from our design theme.
This isn't a necessary step, I just thought it would look cute 😊

Step 6

Top the cake with a pile of pretty marshmallows, and you're done!

Mini Cake

As usual, I made a mini version of the main cake.
The only difference for this cake was that I cut the Kit-Kats in half before sticking them on.

Lollipop Cupcake

  Most of the cupcakes featured marshmallows on top with a lollipop in the center.

These sprinkle filled lollipops were found at Dollar Tree and tasted like birthday cake 😍

Sprinkle Cupcake

The rest of the cupcakes I topped with pastel sprinkles (that came with the Funfetti icing)
and a gold candle from my candle supply.
-Jennifer

 🍭Those were Baby Girl's candy themed party cakes 🍭
I hope you enjoyed this how-to bakery post, thanks for stopping by!

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2017

Candy Themed Birthday Party- The Decor

Welcome to our candy themed birthday party, I hope you enjoy the decor!

🍭🍬🍭🍬

Balloons

I love using color to help convey a party theme.  It's easy to get caught up in the trap of purchasing theme specific or character printed party goods.  Not only does the difference in cost add up quickly, but it can sometimes be hard to find specific characters.  I like to keep things low cost and simple, so I prefer to use plain colors whenever possible when planning a themed event.  Therefore one of the first things I do when planning is to set a color scheme.

What better (or easier) way to communicate a color scheme than with colorful balloons?

The hues that my Baby Girl and I chose for this party were; mint green, baby pink, purple, yellow, baby blue and gold.  

In the photo you can see that I also included a confetti balloon with this years balloon bouquet.  I found these at Wal-Mart, running about $2 for a pack of six.  The package contains clear latex balloons and paper confetti that you must measure out and insert into the balloons yourself using a paper funnel (included).  Once the balloons are loaded, just inflate as usual.

(I air fill my balloons, as opposed to helium, you can read more about that  here)

Tables & Centerpieces

In addition to balloons, table coverings and paper goods are another easy opportunity to continue a color scheme.

We decided to cover our tables with a purple cloth, layered with a baby blue napkin on top.  This served as the perfect backdrop for the candy filled jars that Baby Girl helped to construct.  The finishing touch was to sprinkle pastel colored miniature marshmallows in the place of confetti.

(A how-to post explaining the candy jars will be coming soon 😋)

Side Note:  The cups and plates for the guests were pale pink with napkins alternating between baby blue and white with metallic gold detailing.

Details

Remember those stickers from the invitations?
I used some of the extras to add a little cuteness to the flatware cups and a mint-chip candle.

(You can click here to see the party invitations)

Dessert Buffet

I'll have a post detailing these desserts coming soon, but for now look how easy it was to continue that color palette I keep talking about.  Pink muffin liners and the placement of napkins added pops of color to the cupcake display and my mint green Jadeite cake stands were the perfect base for these party cakes

(You can click here to read more about these cake stands)

Here are some pretty close up shots:

Funfetti Cupcakes

Kit-Kat Cakes

Cake Pops

The day before the party I was prepping the dinner (a big pan of roasted chicken and vegetables)  when I realized that I didn't have enough sauce.  A quick trip to the store for a couple more Campbell's oven sauce packs and I passed by these adorable little cake pops.  Since we were expecting three children at the party I grabbed that many to add to our dessert buffet.  In other words, they were just too cute to pass up 😉

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And that was Baby Girls very sweet 8th birthday party.
I hope you enjoyed this party decor post, thanks for stopping by!
-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2017

Candy Themed Birthday Party - The Invitations

🍭For her 8th birthday, Baby Girl decided to celebrate with a candy themed party🍭

I'll have several upcoming posts detailing the decor and desserts, but for today lets start with these adorable invitations:

 Inspiration

I think it's helpful to have an idea of theme before starting a project.  Candy was an easy theme, but could easily have become overwhelming with all of the color choices.  By having having the color palette nailed down at the start, it helped to simplify the overall look.

I found these birthday cake lollipops and polka-dot straws back around Easter and thought the pastel hues would be great for this event.

(Straws from Wal-Mart and lollipops found at Dollar Tree)

Materials

With the theme colors nailed down I gathered together yellow paper, candy stickers and cupcake cut-outs from my scrapbooking stash.  Everything here I already had on hand, so no purchasing was necessary.  

I think the paper is from Wal-Mart and the stickers Dollar Tree, but I'm not sure about the cupcake cut-outs.  I could have gotten them at one of the same stores or found them treasure hunting, I'm not really sure! 😄

(The invitation wording was printed out on standard computer paper)

Step 1

After printing out the invitation text, I glued it onto a bit of yellow scrapbook paper.

This year's wording is pretty simple:

We've got CANDY!
And we're sweetly celebrating
(child's name here) 8th birthday
(Location, date & time)

Step 2

Next I attached the yellow-bordered text onto a paper cupcake with a bit of hot glue.

Step 3

After following up with a couple of sweet themed stickers, the invitations were ready to be sent out.


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And that's that for a simple candy themed party invitation 😊
I hope you enjoyed this how-to post, thanks for stopping by!
-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2017