Home Sweet Home Housewarming Party!

So, almost two weeks ago, we threw a lil’ Housewarming Party! The theme was “Home Sweet Home”, and I thought it turned out pretty cute! Let me walk ya through!

Here’s the invite we sent out, designed by yours truly:

For some reason the image is coming out extra wide…it was actually the size of half of a standard 8.5X11-inch sheet of paper.

I took the color inspiration from my Spring Holiday Shelf! (<– Click there if you want to see all the details!)

The return address labels I designed to match the invite, and the address labels matched, as well! (I DO love when things match!)

The following pictures are of decor and food, and not people, for several reasons:

1. I hate taking pictures at my own events, because I always feel like I’m not giving my guests the attention they deserve2. I wasn’t sure who would enjoy the idea of being posted on my blog, and who would be mortified, so, rather than have everyone sign a consent form (HA! Yeah, like THAT would have happened!) I decided not to take any pics of the 50 or so folks who were in attendance.

And, let me just interject here: if you’re having an event that will take your time up being the host or hostess, and you want pictures? For heaven’s sake, hire a photographer, or give someone else the task of taking the pics. You will enjoy yourself MUCH more, I promise! Remember, no one can do it all!

Okay! Proceeding…

This is what folks saw when they walked in the door:

These both came from Pinterest – they’re on my Inspiring Quotes board HERE.

This fun bunting I actually discovered at Party City, believe it or not! When I think of Party City I normally think of sparkly and plastic…but they’ve got some really great stuff out now!

All you do is add the sticker-letters on and thread the pendants through the ribbon! Cute!

These are just plain sugar cookies with some melted candy pieces drizzled on top for a little pop.

Came out kinda cute for just a “spur-of-the-moment” kinda idea!

These “dipped and speared” marshmallows came out cute, and were a hit with the kids who were in attendance! I found the cute striped straws at Hobby Lobby and LOVED them! I’m gonna start using more of these, that’s for sure! (Too bad the pic is blurry, I guess I was in a hurry!) Ha! I’m a poet and I didn’t know it! Okay…

Cupcakes are one of my most favorite things to make, can you tell?

And yes, these are the ones with the Duncan Hines Frosting Creations icing on them that I blogged about previously. If you want to go back and check out that post, CLICK HERE.

The cute little flags came from a cupcake kit by Martha Stewart that my mom had bought me several years ago. Aren’t they cute?!

I added some white sugar sprinkles to some…

…and some beautiful pearl sprinkles to others!

And we had cake pops! (These I did NOT make – but if you’re in the Central Florida area and you need some beautiful cake pops for a great price, I can hook you up!!!) She even matched my colors!

Aren’t they beautiful?!

I had also seen lots of parties where people put out water bottles as a drink selection, but with a little label matching the party wrapped around! So I created these myself!

I need a better template, though. These didn’t quite wrap around the whole bottle, ha! But they were still kinda cute!

My printer was dying as I was finishing them, unfortunately, so they’re not the best-looking, but they say, “Thanks for visiting our home sweet home!”

This reminds me, if anyone has a good punch recipe, I need it. I wasn’t thrilled with the recipe I used, but it sure looked pretty!

Now, here was my thinking with this next set of photos: I knew that I would not be able to give personal tours of the house to everyone who stopped by – it just wasn’t feasible. That meant that some folks were going to have to take their own tour, or at least part-way. So I created signs for the doors, so people would know what they were looking at. I ended up taking a lot of riling from the guys in attendance about my signs, but all in good fun. Everyone knows how OCD I am! Ha!

I alternated between the pattern above and this pattern:

I even had one room set up full of things we didn’t want or need anymore! I’m talking, good stuff, like an entire luggage set, and Pampered Chef stones! But we had gotten new luggage and didn’t need two sets…and I have SO many kitchen items that I just couldn’t use them all. The reaction to the “you can have anything that’s in this room” was priceless – first they didn’t believe it…then they went shopping!

It got pretty loud and it got pretty crowded, but we had a great time, and we hope our guests did, too!