Joyful Weddings and Events » decor ideas

Sweet Lavender and Green Baby Shower

courtney.toney — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 21:39:33 +0000

Last month, I had the joy of creating decor for a baby shower for one of my good friends. It was extra special because the mama-to-be and I went through cancer treatment together and both spent years fearing that we would not be able to have babies. Sweet little Riley was born a couple of weeks ago and I could not be more excited for them!

When I am brainstorming a theme or decor scheme for a baby shower, I often look at what bedding the parents have selected for the baby. In this case, it was a perfect fit for the shower decor. The mommy to be has always loved purple (we wore purple dresses in her wedding), so I knew that needed to be prominent. She selected this cute bedding for her sweet little girl from Pottery Barn Kids:

I pulled in the look of patchwork and ribbons by wrapping vases in alternating strands of ribbon. Super easy, cheap and cute!

I do not claim to be a florist, but I always love putting together small arrangements for showers and parties. For this event, I did not have time to go to the flower mart, so I grabbed whatever flowers I could find at Trader Joe’s.

I cut scrapbook paper into scalloped squares using my Cricut and placed each centerpiece on top. I also cut out some small R’s and placed them around the party.

I used green glasses from Anthropologie as candles (they are usually in my bedroom) and incorporated fresh mint from my garden into the arrangements.

The clubhouse we held the shower at had all sorts of fun side tables and accent pieces. I used bud vases holding flowers and fresh lavender on these, along with paper hearts and R’s.

I grabbed this potted plant from Trader Joe’s which matched the decor perfectly! I didn’t have to do anything to it except add a little accent.

Of course, I had to make a couple of banners. I made a large one to go on the fireplace mantle with the baby’s name. It now is hanging in her room.

The second one I made was for the buffet area:

I had nothing to do with the food, but wanted to show the cute cupcakes that Riley’s grandma made:

A couple of friends who were also hosting the shower made cute cookies in the shape of an R as favors for the guests:

Yay for babies! Yay for showers! Yay for affordable, cheap and personalized decor!

A Few Examples of my Custom Ring Bearer Flags

courtney.toney — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 19:10:47 +0000

I have shared before that, in my etsy shop, I sell these cute ringbearer/flower girl flags:

Photo by Jessica Claire **Keep your eyes peeled for our workshop design on Style Me Pretty next week. Abby posted a sneak peak with my little cutie yesterday, which you can see here. **

These flags also make great photo props for wedding portraits or engagement photos. Here is a shot of the bride and groom holding the sign as well, taken by one of Jessica Claire’s workshop attendees, E Leigh Photography:

I also take custom orders for these flags so that they match any couple’s wedding design. I wanted to share a few fun ones that I have made recently. Each customer has wanted something different, which has been really fun. All of the pictures were taken with my iphone, so please excuse the poor quality.

For the pink one above, the bride wanted to tie the rings onto the flag, so we added on a ribbon tie at the top. Super cute!

As is shown above, we can also do custom wording. For one couple we made four, featuring the words “yipee!” “woohoo!” “hooray!” and “yay!”. I also made one for a recent client that had “yay!” on the front and “m + a” (their initials) on the other side. I cannot wait to get the professional photos so that I can share that one- I think it is my favorite to date!

If you are interested in placing an order for a custom flag, please contact me through my etsy shop. As a side note, I will be out of the office for the next week, so all orders will be processed starting August 10th.

My Cancer Story on Life Rearranged

courtney.toney — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:13:53 +0000

I’ve told you about the amazing blog Life Rearranged before. My friend Jeannett had a mission to start a blog that could inspire and do something big at the same time. Life Rearranged is that mission. She has guest bloggers share their stories and chose an organization to raise money for. There is a giveaway- great stuff- and you get an entry to win for every dollar donated. So cool, right?

Well, guess what? I’m the guest blogger this week! I was honored when Jeannett wanted me to share my story with her readers. I am raising money for I’m Too Young For This- an organization support and raising funds and awareness for adolescents and young adults with cancer. You can read my post here.

A few crazy facts about young adults with cancer:

(1) Each year, nearly 70,000 young adults, aged 15-39, are diagnosed with cancer and roughly 10,000 will die due to the disease.

(2) Over the past 30 years, young adults (15-39) have seen the greatest increase in cancer incidence than any other age group.

(3) The 5-year survival rates in young adults has not improved over the past 30 years on par with other age groups.

You can find more information on my Life Rearranged post and also on the i2y website.

…

Guess what we are giving away? A fully custom banner by me! So, if you have been wanting to order a banner for anything, now is the time. For a few bucks, you can enter the giveaway and be helping people like me.

Here are a few recent custom orders I have made:

(excuse the bad pictures…)

Also, a few new items in my etsy shop:

Thank You Banners:

(photo by Matthew Morgan)

Just Married Banners:

(photo by Meg Perotti)

Boy oh Boy baby shower

courtney.toney — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 08:03:27 +0000

Last month, a couple of friends and I threw a baby shower for a dear friend who was having her second baby- her first boy. The shower was small and sweet and we had a very short time to put it together, so we went for cute and simple. Our theme was “boy oh boy” since the mom of honor was in for a whole new world having a little guy.

We used a mix of plaid, stripes and other fun boyish paper, along with plaid plates and cups.

For food, we decided to serve kid style foods: finger sandwiches, mac n cheese, fruit and veggies and sweet potato fries in paper cones that I made.

I found the plaid plates & cups at JoAnn’s Fabric- a great random find!

For dessert, I thought it would be fun to do a grown up dirt cup. My amazing baking friend came up with the idea to put it in a dump truck toy and scoop it with a small shovel. It was so fun & absolutely delicious! I do not know what the exact recipe is, but she added a bunch of good stuff in there- all low fat I am sure

In addition, I made cute little mini ice cream sandwiches:

For the table decor we got super resourceful. Between the 3 of us planning the shower, we have 7 boys, so we have no shortage of boy toys. We decided to use toys as the centerpieces. Cute, easy and free! We also used tablecloths that we already had to save money.

Each guest had a paper wrapped water bottle waiting at her seat:

For games, we used Twig & Thistle’s quiz template (available in her etsy shop) to quiz guests on what the mom-to-be was like as a baby. We also played baby Family Feud, which was really fun and informative (you can google it to find questions and instructions).

This party is a great example of how to throw a shower on a budget, but not skimp on cute details. We use one pad of cute paper for all of the details and, other then the food and the quiz template, everything else we used was free.

Ruffle Chargers

courtney.toney — Wed, 19 May 2010 21:57:27 +0000

I am in love with these ruffle chargers from Crate and Barrel. Aren’t they adorable? If I could justify buying multiple sets so I have a set of every color, I would!

Definitely more practical for a small dinner party or event rather than a wedding with 200 guests, however if you are considering renting chargers for your wedding, you may be surprised to find out that it is often cheaper to buy chargers from a retail store than to rent them. Renting chargers can run around $8 and up a piece- you can buy these for $4.95 each or $14.95 for a set of four, making them around $3.75 each plus tax. The bonus? You get to keep them Or resell them. Or give them as thank you gifts, or as birthday gifts to everyone you know for the next year

Using these- either all in one color or mixing the colors would add so much pop to a table- especially for a fun summer wedding.

Urban Loft Tablescape for Utterly Engaged

courtney.toney — Tue, 11 May 2010 04:23:32 +0000

Back in January, I had the privilege of collaborating with JL Designs and Olive Hue to create a tablescape for Utterly Engaged’s design challenge. If you have not heard of Utterly Engaged- you need to. It is a wonderful wedding e-zine and is always full to the brim with inspiration. As a part of their New Years party, they invited teams of wedding vendors to create a tablescape to display and be voted on at the event. The guidelines for the contest were:

1. the tablescape had to be MODERN

2. the focus of the tablescape should NOT revolve around flowers but rather some other element – paper, wood, metal, etc.

3. we had to spend $150. or less (not including rentals – we could use whatever rentals we wanted but no chairs)

I am so proud of what we came up with and how it turned out! Our theme was “urban loft”- very clean, modern and striking. Here is our little inspiration board:

While brainstorming what we could do that would be truly unique, Carissa struck gold. She had eyed the pendant light fixture pictured above (from Design Within Reach) and came up with the idea to create string spheres to feature on our tablescape. She pulled a method all the way back from elementary school- winding string around a balloon, covering it with fabric stiffener, letting it dry and then popping the balloon. How genius was that?

We lined the pendants in the center of the table and Carissa placed gorgeous fuchsia peonies to accent the centerpiece with pops of color. We also hung some of the pendants above the table.

I added in a little more color by wrapping votive candles in fuchsia yarn (a super easy way to customize plain cheap votive holders for any event):

We used the same yarn on the napkin treatments. I love what Jane created for the menu cards- she blind pressed them, which is letterpressing without the ink. If you look closely, you can see the text on the paper. It was so cool!

Jane also created these cute tags for the glasses:

When I was trying to think of an idea for a favor to place on the table, I remembered that Sweet and Saucy Shop’s cake pops have a chocolate shell that is patterned similar to the string pendants we were using. Melody brought us a few of her treats to use- they were perfect!

I loved how everything turned out and we were so honored to tie for second place! You can see our feature in the E-zine here. Thanks Utterly Engaged crew for putting on such a fun competition! (& party!)

A big thank you to Jasmine Star for the great photos, Melody of Sweet & Saucy Shop for the sweet treats, Wildflower Linens & Classic Party Rentals for our rentals and-of course- to my partners in crime, Carissa & Jane, for being so insanely talented! If I could work with you two everyday, my days would always be sunny

Sneak peak of Jessica Claire’s Workshop

courtney.toney — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 18:51:13 +0000

On Tuesday, Carissa of JL Designs and I had the opportunity to design a wedding shoot for Jessica Claire’s workshop. It was so fun to see our ideas come to life and then to see the photographers capture it all. We had complete freedom to dream up whatever decor we wanted and our modern, graphic black, white and turquoise design scheme was fun, fresh and beautiful.

The pictures from the workshop attendees are starting to pop up and I cannot wait to share them all with you. In the meantime, here is a sneak peak from Jessica:

You may recognize the little guy… my son Isaiah had his first modeling job! Sean and Brianne Walker were our bride and groom models for the day- aren’t they gorgeous?

The ring bearer Yay! flag I made is now available for sale in my etsy shop. We can also make custom styles.

Stay tuned for all of the details from the workshop. We had an amazing team of vendors and etsy artists involved and I am excited to highlight them all for you.

Our Seasonal Season Parties: Winter Party Number 2

courtney.toney — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:59:42 +0000

Those of you that have followed my blog for a while know that my husband and I throw a party at the start of every season. We invite some of our close friends, have a potluck, decorate with details that celebrate that season and my hubby creates a stellar playlist and we give a copy to all of our guests. It has become a favorite tradition in our group of friends and we always look forward to the upcoming parties. You can see our past seasonal parties here and here.

Since it is almost Spring, I decided I better shape up and get the Winter party up here.

This year, I had literally one day to prepare everything, so it was definitely the most stressful seasonal party to date. I tried to keep my crafting simple, but ended up a bit over my head. Even still, it was a wonderful party and I am happy with how things turned out. Here is a little look, with photos taken either in terrible light or the day after the party.

I love paper cut art, so I wanted to have the feel of that throughout the party. I used my cricut to cut out words related to winter and stuck them all over the long tables where guests sat.

I created a runner by placing different sizes of doilies in the middle of the table. I jazzed up some old votive candles I have by covering them with glitter, flocking powder or yarn. Other than that, I grabbed whatever pillar and taper candles and holders I had in my supply and stuck them on the tables. I also whipped up some turquoise yarn balls and scattered them amongst the candles.

I hung some tissue poms and string orbs (which you will be seeing again, very soon!) from the ceiling and each guest had their soup bowl, spoon and napkin waiting for them at their seat.

Just like our last winter party, dinner was a soup potluck. Each couple brought a different type of soup- which is so fun! Most of us had multiple servings so we could try all of the different varieties. I made little labels so we would know what each soup was and had the cooks fill in the information.

I will be back on Monday with our Winter playlist, which is one of my favorites to date. A big thank you to Classic Party Rentals for providing all of the wonderful rentals.

Heart Banners- perfect for Valentines Day!

courtney.toney — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:08:05 +0000

I listed a few new heart banners to my etsy shop, just in time for Valentines Day.

These would be great for baby and bridal showers as well- or just for a cute little touch in your home!

There are also a couple of our Valentine Phrase banners left- I have one hanging in my bedroom right now and it looks so stinkin cute!

See them all here. For Valentines Day delivery, normal shipping cut of is today, Monday the 7th and priority shipping cut off is Wednesday, the 9th.

Melissa and Bryan’s Wedding at Rancho Las Lomas

courtney.toney — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:41:33 +0000

Melissa and Bryan’s October wedding was one of my favorites all year. These two have great style and are sweet as can be, which made it easy to thoroughly enjoy helping them plan their wedding! Their wedding at Rancho Las Lomas was a great mix of sweet and spunky, loaded with great color palette and beautiful vintage touches.

I will have a full post coming in the next month but, for now, I am excited to share some of the photos that the incredible Amelia Lyon posted on her blog.

Hi my name is Melissa and I am gorgeous:

Melissa and her stylin bridesmaids: (I loved their Melissa Sweet dresses!)

The guys looked pretty dapper themselves:

How fun is Bryan’s custom made tie and awesome boutonnière?

Their letterpressed invitations and save the dates were some of my favorite to date. I love that Melissa tied together all of the invitation pieces with pink and white bakers twine:

Together:

Some of the amazing details:

I have seen a lot of garlands put up on that arch at Rancho Las Lomas, but none of them could match this one designed by the incredible Kristin of The Treasured Petal. She killed it. It took two designers two full days to create this beauty- it came in twelve pieces and was like a ginormous snake when they were putting it up. I wanted to just curl it around me like a boa!

Onto the reception:

The cake. Oh the cake.

Melody’s creation of sugary beauty looked stunning against a backdrop that we created. Not to mention the delicious treats with the groom’s mother’s homemade cookies mixed in. I could have stood right there all night and been happy.

Dream clients + Dream Vendors= Happy planner.

Melissa & Bryan- thanks for being so awesome. Seriously- I loved every minute of our time together and your wedding was a dream. Amazing vendor team- thank you for all being incredible and rocking it.

The dream team:

*Venue: Rancho Las Lomas

*Photography: Amelia Lyon

*Florist: The Treasured Petal

*Cake: Sweet & Saucy Shop

*Videography: Elysium Productions

*Catering: 24 Carrots

*Hair & Makeup: Nicole DeAnne

*DJ: So Cal DJ

*Invitations and wedding day stationary: Ephemera Letterpress

*Hair Piece: Twigs & Honey

*Dress: Priscilla of Boston, Saks Fifth Avenue

*Photobooth: Cheesy Photobooths