A bonfire fit for any cowboy

Last week we had some ideal temperatures. Some nights dipped down pretty low. Low enough to leave the windows open, letting that cool breeze come into the house. I live for days like those. The cooler temperature sent me back to a night back in late Spring where good friends, Aaron and Cyndy, threw a cowboy bonfire at their house. Believe me when I say that this wasn’t just any bonfire. It was THE bonfire of all bonfires. Aaron and Cyndy live in Hanover with plenty of land. He built his own fire pit on his property and gathered all the wood from his backyard. The fire pit was roughly 6 feet wide so just imagine a blazing fire with flames reaching 4-5 feet tall. It was awesome. This bonfire was too good not to share with you all. It may be too warm for a bonfire now, but fall is just a few months away!

Look at all that wood. That’s what she said!

Now that is a pretty solid fire. Good job, Aaron!

Meanwhile, cornhole games were had while we wait for the fire to roar and the food to cook.

We were able to bring our puppy, Kevin. He wasn’t allowed to run around since there was a road nearby, so he was leashed up. He didn’t like it very much and later chewed his way out, but he enjoyed being with us :)

What’s a cowboy party without cowboy food? Jared and I were in charge of the cornbread. From Jared’s boyscout days, he camped out a lot. Fortunately, he had this huge cast iron skillet we used to cook the cornbread. I tried a new recipe from well-known chef, Hugh Acheson. We placed the cast iron skillet over the fire to heat up. We added loads of butter and once that melted, we added the cornbread batter. We covered it allowing to cook for 15-20 minutes. It came out perfect and paired very well with the chili.

Cyndy made two types of delicious chili. One with steak and the other with chicken. Both equally as good, super flavorful and very tender. Because chili takes all day to cook, she had to prepare them ahead of time in crock pots. I don’t think there were any left at the end of the night!

We also roasted some hotdogs which were surprisingly difficult to do since the fire was SO incredibly hot and our sticks weren’t long enough.

For dessert, we roasted marshmallows over the fire for good old fashioned s’mores. Our friend, Kara, brought a homemade fruit cobbler that she prepared at home, but cooked it over the fire in a cast iron skillet. It came out so hot that it warmed us up on a chilly night.

After dessert and a few more nightcaps, the fire finally died down. It was a great night with some great company. Thank you so much Aaron and Cyndy for having us over. Aaron, you certainly win for best bonfire. And Cyndy, you win for best chili. Thank you guys!!

If you enjoyed this post, please don’t forget to leave some love below or subscribe to the feed to get future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Anchor’s Away! Kiernan’s 1st Birthday

My sister, Sheila, is obsessed with all things nautical. Really obsessed. Just check out her nautical inspired baby shower we hosted for her back in 2011. She continued the same theme for her son’s 1st birthday this past February, but just styled a little differently. Sheila designed an “Anchor’s Away!” birthday party filled with sailor hats, an ocean backdrop, boats and flags all in a bright blue and green color scheme. This time around it was a little more playful for a kid-friendly crowd. For all the work Sheila put into this birthday, it’s sad Kiernan won’t remember any of it. But at least he’ll have this blog post to look back at his very first birthday party. Lets take a look at all the details Sheila created and hopefully you can be inspired for your child’s birthday.

Most of the graphics was based on a printable kit design Sheila purchased through Etsy. Printastic Design was the shop she worked with. She first selected the birthday invitation, which set the tone. She then purchased the signage, cupcake toppers and menu cards to continue the theme throughout the party. She printed all of it on her home printer, cut them out and assembled it.

Sheila repurposed a few things including the flags were from her bridal shower and artwork were from Kiernan’s room. Saved money on additional decoration.

As a thank you gift to each guest, Sheila ordered buttons with cute little nautical designs on each of them. She put six in each package. The kids could pin them onto their book bags or jean jackets. They were very cute.

Downstairs in the basement, Sheila created an ocean photo backdrop by cutting out the circles and shapes to create the waves, clouds, sun, sky and even a whale. So talented! Kids definitely enjoyed themselves in front of the backdrop posing with some props she also created like a fishing pole with fish cutouts and their sailor hats.

As another activity to keep the kids preoccupied, Sheila also had an art table for kids to design their own sailor’s hat with fabric crayons.

As for Kiernan’s first experience with eating a cupcake, it was picture perfect. Look at this adorable kid. His mom is blowing out his candle for him. He is licking his finger clean. I just love this kid.

‘Do I have something on my face?’

Kiernan absolutely loved these cupcakes I made for him. I found a recipe on Pinterest for vanilla bean cupcakes with vanilla bean frosting. These cupcakes were a huge hit amongst Kiernan and all the guests. Sheila decorated each stick with a cupcake topper from the nautical template she got from Etsy.

Lets dive right into the spread. My-oh-my. My parents went all out for Kiernan’s birthday. First nephew = golden child. Haha. There was so much delicious food. I know everyone loved it even the kids!

Their famous lumpia, which I’ve had a million times, will always make an appearance at any celebration.

Pork adobo, pork stewed in vinegar, soy sauce and garlic.

My dad’s awesome, awesome beef and broccoli.

Pansit, the Filipino version of lo mein.

Andddd fried chicken. Haha.

At the end of the celebration, Kiernan opened up all of his gifts. Well actually, it was more like Sheila opening up his gifts while he played with tissue paper. He was showered with tons of toys and clothes from friends and family. Definitely spoiled! :)

Instead of toys, Jared and I decided to make him his “First Year” book with the images I had taken of him from birth up until he turned one. Being a Moleskine fan, I saw they also create photo albums at a fairly reasonable price. I used their template online to upload the images and text. It was pretty straightforward. The quality of the book and photos were really nice. Kiernan couldn’t care less about the book, but he’ll appreciate it when he gets older. Sheila loved it!

In the end, he enjoyed this plastic hanger. LOL.

Happy 1st Birthday, Kiernan! Love you always!!

If you enjoyed this post, please don’t forget to leave some love below or subscribe to the feed to get future articles delivered to your feed reader.

My Only Sunshine First Birthday

You don’t have to make birthdays a huge fuss. This 1-year-old’s birthday is a perfect example of taking a simple design concept and utilizing it in all aspects of a party without blowing the budget or going over-the-top. Back in September, we were invited to Lee’s first birthday, son of Gretchen and Bryan. I swear, September and October are crazy months for weddings and birthdays. I think we had celebrated 12 birthdays between the two months! Well, birthdays for little kids are the best. They run around for a hour or so, open lots of gifts, get messy from eating cake and then pass out. Sounds like a great birthday, huh!? Lets take a look at all the wonderful little details in Lee’s adorable “My Only Sunshine” themed party.

Meet some of the important little people of the day. The birthday boy Lee in his white polka-dot navy blue bowtie, Ely taking a bite of her cupcake, Emery running around laughing and Kiernan looking like a gnome.

Walking right into the foyer, Gretchen set up a “Thank You” table for guests. She inserted lollipops in a styrofoam block for them to stand upright. The tags on the lollipops said “Thank you for brightening up my day!” Right off the bat, you get a since of what the theme was all about. All the graphic details were from Totful Memories, an etsy shop. Gretchen purchased this DIY printable party package. All she had to do was print out the labels, cut them out and arrange them accordingly. Amazing idea for those looking for a cohesive design.

Set at a different table, Gretchen provided little cards for guests to write a birthday wish for Lee. They would place their wish for Lee in the mason jar. She incorporated more of the yellow, black and white stripped/chevron design here as well.

At the mantel aka the birthday gifts and card area, Gretchen decorated the space with handmade pom-poms out of blue and yellow tissue paper and a “Lee” banner. Simply beautiful!

Of course, a party isn’t complete without food! The party took place in the early afternoon, so it was very fitting to serve sandwiches, fruit, dips and salads. It was a great spread. She had a wide assortment of cheeses, breads and meats. Guests could help themselves to as much food as they wanted. I know I had my fair share!

Saving the best for last, here’s Lee’s birthday cake and cupcakes! I just love how the cake and cupcakes were decorated with white frosting and a cupcake topper. The topper definitely stands out against the white frosting. The circle toppers either had a photo of Lee, his name or the word “one.” Even Lee’s highchair was decorated with an “I am one” banner.

Everyone sung happy birthday to the sweet 1-year-old. His mom helped him blow out his candle, but he had no help eating his cupcake. He enjoyed it so much! Thanks Gretchen and Bryan for inviting us to your son’s special day! It was a great celebration and beautifully put-together!

If you enjoyed this post, please don’t forget to leave some love below or subscribe to the feed to get future articles delivered to your feed reader.

A Great Outdoors Surprise 30th for Jared & Justin!

Planning a surprise birthday for your significant other definitely has its challenges. The fact you can’t really plan anything at home because he/she is always around is half the battle. I certainly learned that I can definitely keep things a secret from my husband…haha. If you didn’t know, my husband is a twin. Him and his brother, Justin, were born just 16 minutes apart from each other. They’re very close and pretty much did everything together growing up, which included being in boy scouts. With that in mind, Justin’s wife, Amy, and I designed the ultimate camp-themed, great outdoors surprise 30th for them.

With a theme in mind, a limited budget and a strict guest list of 50 of their closest friends and family, we were set. To make my life easier, we hosted the party at Arianna’s Grill in Richmond. Even though the Italian food wasn’t in line with an outdoor theme, they do serve some damn good Italian food. Afterwards, the party continued at our house for more fun, yard games, drinks and late night s’mores. Take a look at all the details that were involved in surprising Jared and Justin. Special thanks to our helpers — Sharon, Sheila, Emily and Rachel — and for everyone else keeping it a secret since May! Amy and I couldn’t have done it without you!

The decorations were pretty important in this camp-themed party. I was able to get everything on the Internet. I shipped items to my work and stacked them under my desk…haha. I really looked like a hoarder. The first thing I purchased were these Chinese Moon Light lanterns for $40 off Etsy. I swear, Etsy has got to be the most wonderful thing on the Internet. These lanterns were used as part of the centerpieces.

To go along with the lanterns, I cut out fabric squares out of a woman’s wool skirt I found at The Salvation Army for $3. Can you believe it?! The skirt was large enough to cut out 5 large squares for the tables. I liked the rustic colors on the fabric, a perfect platform for the colorful lanterns. I also purchased an 11-oz bag of dark green softened and preserved Reindeer moss from Save-on-Crafts for $11.

Pine cones were actually a lot more difficult to find at a store like Michael’s since they weren’t in stock yet. They might be now. So, I had to buy them through Save-on-Crafts as well, which was fine because I think it was slightly cheaper. I got 1 bag of the Lodgepole pine cones, which were the smaller pine cones, and 2 bags of the Ponderosa pine cones, bigger pine cones, at $4 a bag.

I repurposed some of birch candle holders from our wedding and included them in the centerpieces. The small birch card holders were used for the food, drink and s’mores table. I designed little signs using a free font I downloaded online called Pinewood. The signs said “Don’t feed the bears” for the food, “Happy trails” for the drinks and “You wanna s’more?” for the s’mores. The birch just worked right into the woodsy theme.

The birthday sign utilized the same Pinewood font that were used throughout the signs and s’mores tags. With 2 great friends, Rachel and Emily helped cut them out the letters and helped me assemble them onto jute twine. They hung it at the entrance of the room.

So these were the wonderful, earthy and outdoorsy centerpieces. Each centerpiece had a single lantern adorned with pinecones, birch candles, moss and a photo of the boys. They were just perfect! I’m so happy they turned out great!

For more decoration, I blew up a photo of Justin and Jared while they were backpacking in New Mexico during their boyscout days. I scanned their photo and got it printed through Costco as a 16×20. We also hung up childhood photos of the boys all around the room. We got chocolate and dark green balloons from Kroger and placed them at the gift tables.

Lets move our attention to the birthday cake. How adorable is it! We ordered the actual sheet cake, half devils and half yellow, through Martin’s. It was only $45! Not bad at all. For such a cheap cake, it pretty yummy. As for the camp topper, I ordered it through an Etsy vendor called Parker’s Flour Patch. She was great to work with. She packaged all the pieces so carefully and even though a piece of the tent cracked, I was able to use water to put it back on. No one noticed a thing! I just love the two faces of the boys, the tent, fire and s’mores on a stick. It was so awesome!

Jared and I have eaten at Arianna’s numerous times, which is a big reason why we ended up hosting the party there. I wasn’t new to any of their food so I already had in mind what to order for a hungry crowd. I had pre-ordered off the menu making it more affordable in the long run. Most restaurants have a special menu for large parties or sometimes you have to pay per head, which ends up being super costly. We didn’t have that kind of money so we stuck with some of our favorites. We got 5 bruschette al pomodoro (aka bruschetta) appetizers, 5 orders of toasted ravioli, 8 philly steak subs and 6 cheese and pepperoni pizzas. It was just enough food for 50 people. We even had half a pizza left for late-night munchies.

As a thank you to our guests for coming to the party, we made s’mores packages. My sister was gracious enough to do assemble them the morning of. She included 2 graham crackers, 1 Hershey bar and 1 marshmallow into a clear plastic bag. She tied them with butcher’s twine and hung a tag that I designed that said, “Take home for s’more fun! Thanks for coming!” These certainly were a hit because at the after party, we started a fire in our chiminea roasted some s’mores! I think I had too many for my own good :)

Photo of us roasting s’mores at the end of the night! I had convinced Jared to buy a chiminea the week before. Little did he know I had a plan in mind :)

So that wraps up our surprise birthday for Jared and Justin. All the secret planning and running around was totally worth it. The boys had so much fun. I know I did! I just wanted to say THANK YOU to all for traveling near and far to attend Jared & Justin’s surprise party. The boys had NO IDEA and were completely shocked. I know they felt the love. It was one of the best days and I know the boys were so happy and grateful to see every single person that day. Totally meant a lot to them. Thank you!

If you enjoyed this post, please don’t forget to leave some love below or subscribe to the feed to get future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Sara & Bryan’s Handmade Vintage Wedding

Meet the newly Mr. & Mrs. Sara & Bryan whose wedding we had the honor of attending several weeks ago. Let me just tell you how freakin’ lovely and adorable this wedding was. Imagine going on a wedding blog like Green Wedding Shoes or Once Wed and picturing this wedding on there. Everything about it was so personalized, it was damn impressive. Lets take a look at all the handmade details the bride and groom put together for their friends and family.

Entrance: The wedding took place at the bride’s parents’ home. As you walk towards the house, you’re greeted with just some wonderful touches right off the bat. On a table, the bride placed turquoise Mason jars with a variety of bright and colorful flowers on a floral print linen. She also made a “Bryan & Sara” embroidered sign hung on a tree trunk, as well as, a “Welcome” sign in gold glitter letters. The DIY fan programs, ideal for a hot day, were placed in an old suitcase. Family photos were displayed in vintage frames on an old desk. Gifts could be placed in a wheel barrel of sorts that was covered with a quilt. Lace was hung in embroidery hoops off to the side. Seriously, there wasn’t anything Sara missed!

Ceremony: The ceremony was set off to one side of the property where the two said their vows. A bright red-orange, Indian patterned rug was placed at the foot of their handmade wooden altar. The ceremony was very sincere and sweet. It was short, which was nice because the sun was right on top of us. However, the vows and simplicity of it all, was very tender and emotional. They even had their pet dog walk around the ceremony. So cute!

Reception: After the ceremony, guests congregated under the tent where round tables were set up. Each table was covered in white linens and some had fabric or burlap overlays. Wine bottles were covered in yarn adding more color to the table. They also included a disposable camera with “Lets Play I Spy” game. The flowers were just so simple, carefree and colorful. Around the main centerpiece were smaller bottles with a single flower in each. The reception was very rustic and homey, which was very fitting because it was at a family home. I thought the décor was absolutely perfect.

Beverages: Guests could help themselves to all the beer and wine they could drink! The couple purchased three kegs — Fat Tire, Legend Brown and Miller Lite — and placed them in a canoe filled with ice. I drank white wine most of the time since the weather was warm. But, by the time I tried getting a beer, the kegs had been kicked! Missed my chance of drinking really good beer at a wedding…darn! Haha!

Food: And the food was served! I love the chalkboard frame Sara created to display the menu. Guests helped themselves to a buffet-style meal. Wooden disposable utensils and plastic plates were set on the table. Delicious food from steamed spiced shrimp to green salad with orange ginger dressing were served, which were my favorite items on the menu. Towards the end of the night after more drinking and some dancing, I definitely found myself at the buffet table eating more spiced shrimp…haha.

Cake: Seriously, one of the best slices of cake I’ve had at a wedding. It was homemade, moist, flavorful and not overly sweet with the icing and raspberry filling. The slice I got was practically the size of my head. Couldn’t finish it all, but that’s why I have Jared. He ate the rest of my slice, as well as, a slice of apple and key lime pie that were also served.

Style: Bryan and Sara’s style was totally them. Bryan looked cool with his black Raybans, blue plaid shirt, linen vest and khaki pants. Sara was a Greek goddess with her flowy off-white dress, hair loosely braided to the side, turquoise & gold earrings and red shoes. They were rocking it that night and there was nothing I didn’t love.

Sendoff: Sparklers and a scooter. Have you ever seen a more perfect combination? I loved it. I thought this was so personal and completely them. Bryan was cheesin’ from ear to ear, and so was Sara. I honestly think this was one of my favorite parts of the wedding.

Thanks so much Sara & Bryan for allowing me to share your beautiful wedding with my PTT readers! I know I didn’t showcase every single detail, but I was having too much of a good time :) Your wedding was one of my favorites that I’ve ever experienced. You guys did such a wonderful job on all the little details. I love when couples take the time to showcase their personality and style through the décor. Makes it memorable and special. Bellissimo!

If you enjoyed this post, please don’t forget to leave some love below or subscribe to the feed to get future articles delivered to your feed reader.