event planning Archives - Social Butterflies

Thanks to Starbucks, many of us are coffee lovers. As with most weddings or parties some of our clients are looking for a fun thank you favor to hand out at the end of their parties. And thanks to Pinterest, we can now combine the love of coffee and the party favor idea into one. Here is our attempt at recreating a Pinterest pin – “Thanks a Latte” coffee favor, our treat to our guests at a special birthday girl’s Sweet Sixteen party.

1. Visit your local Hobby Lobby and check out the glass jars. They have various sizes and tons of options with clasp tops or gold twist tops. We chose a gold twist top mini mason jar. We also visited our local Costco to purchase some Dunkin Donuts fine grind Original Blend coffee to go in the jars. The jars were on sale 50% off (I waited for them to go on sale before I purchased them) – regular $1.49, got them for $.75 each. I purchased three bags of coffee at $18.99 each.

2. Next I took off the price tags from the bottom of each jar – a little tedious but I don’t want our guests to know the price! Stuck them in the dishwasher, ran an express wash so as to make sure they were clean before I added the coffee.

3. Then I opened the coffee and scooped the jar in the bag and filled up each jar to the top. I originally thought I would try a funnel but that was too messy and this was a lot quicker and a lot cleaner! I did measure out one jar with a teaspoon to find out how many it took to fill the jar. Each jar held 12 tsp. so it would make up to 24 cups of coffee; just in case a guest asked how much the jar would make.

4. I also purchased thin white satin ribbon from Hobby Lobby – they always have their ribbon on sale. I purchased four spools – 18’ each, one spool did about 12 long pieces of ribbon. I cut each length about 18” long.

5. I had our local stationary company, Mrs. Post in Chickasaw Oaks Village, print small square tags and hole punch them for me in the corner of the tag.

6. Finally, I tied the ribbon, slipped the tag on the ribbon and had the cutest coffee favor ever! Hope you enjoyed this quick coffee favor tutorial. 🙂

It is always a pleasure when you can plan both your client’s daughters weddings and also help them Christmas decorate for the holidays. This year it was our distinct pleasure to help our client Shari decorate her new home for the holidays. She has a very calm and neutral home, which gives it the perfect balance for a vintage Christmas design. Shari wanted to stick to light greens, gold, taupe colors (like burlap) and ivories instead of the traditional reds, burgundy and hunter green colors.

In keeping with the vintage theme throughout the home, we did a more natural evergreen garland on the chandeliers, buffet, dining room table and the entertainment bookshelf. We added LED ivory candles throughout the greenery and the home – lighting is a very important element for any design. You want to be able to see the beauty of the designs so light it up! We added gold glitter ribbon bows to the greenery that was attached to the chandeliers. Everywhere we decorated, we decorated in layers. The 10’ real Christmas tree was layered with big and small ornaments and tons of floral picks.

Since there wasn’t but one fireplace mantle in the home, we chose to use a vintage wooden ladder to hang the stockings on. Lanterns and an antique sled, which was embellished with greenery and a bow, complimented the entry fireplace. The amazing stick LED Christmas trees from Restoration Hardware made a profound statement on each side of the fireplace– no need to put a real Christmas tree in every room…everybody has done that! Pier 1 and Hobby Lobby were our go to places for most of her decorations. We used lanterns (some with ornaments and pine cones and some with just LED candles) to accentuate tablescapes and the staircase.

Our favorite design was the window treatment – the simple but the awesome gold sequin 3 D stars on each side balanced the glittered burlap wreath. Who doesn’t love sequins!

Although Shari really wanted to keep with the vintage colors throughout most of the home, we did add pops of red to the screened in porch and the basement media room. In the screened in porch, since it already had a rustic country feel – we chose to add pops of berries, a red felt runner on the farm table and the red mercury votives. The red pillows on her taupe linen couch complimented the other pops of red.

We did have a custom made floral door piece made by Holiday’s Flowers, Inc. The massive floral arrangement was the perfect accent to their front door. We also had white Christmas lights professionally put in the clients trees and shrubs and in her backyard. Love how the lights light up the pool.

Thanks a Latte!

Vintage Christmas Decorating