Signature Leafy Fall Ideas

   

Its Fall again and the holidays are fast approaching. Your guests are coming into town and you are seeking new and interesting decor and entertaining ideas for your dining tables. Well here is a leafy idea! Select one element of the season and play with that element throughout your centerpieces and place settings. Here we are focusing on the fallen leaves. The leaf vases above were great finds for my colleague Winsome and myself. We found them in Michaels for a great steal...$3.99 a piece. With these low lying leaf vases...you can add small pots of moms. Place the leaf candles above in the middle and each mom filled leaf vase on either side. Place the The Classic Maple-Leaf Card Holder at each place setting. Write a note to each of your guest letting them know why you are thankful for having them in your life in the Maple Leaf Thanksgiving Card. Make a Leaf Thanksgiving Box and stuff it with these delicious Leaf Cookies. What leafy ideas!

 

Signature Sweet Sweet Sixteen

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

This sweet sixteen birthday party is for a girl who likes basketball, candy& balloons. She didn't want a frilly, pretty birthday party, just one that reflects her personality. She decided to make it a Nike themed sweet sixteen with lots of candies and balloons. We incorporated Nike swooshes on her invitation printed in two color of pinks and greens on white paper stock. Her center pieces were made inside Nike shoe boxes with candy of her party colors, basketball shaped candy  with tissue paper &balloons flowing upwards. Nike swooshesweremade in her party colors and placed on the outside of the Nike shoe boxes. Additional basketball shaped candies were placed throughout the venue in various shaped containers for all the teens to eat. Signature Shirley Temple drinks were made in green and pink and the menu consisted of the birthday girl's favorites like mini cheese burger sliders and macaroni & cheese. The cake was designed by Creative Cakes and we stacked a half basketball on top of a square cake and added the Nike swooshes in her party color around the sides of the cake. It is easy to plan a themed party with your client's personality incorperated in a way that their guests will enjoy. Just be creative, be stylish, be you!

 

Signature Head Wear

The fall wedding season is upon us....the last hooray to summer is over! Brides are gearing up for their fall weddings. There is no better way of making a statement as a bride than with your headwear. Your veil, or should I say, your unveil? Thats correct! Brides checkout the website Unveiled Bridal Designs. The designs are beautiful and unique and who wouldn't want a one of a kind veil for their wedding, that speaks to who you are as a bride and blends with the aesthetics of your wedding. HELLO..can we talk? If you are bride who is looking for a different kind of head wear, then this is your site. There is Birdcage, French Netting, Pillboxes, Peacock Feathers and Illusion Veil. All the designs are inspired by the 1940's but yet it still seems modern. Be inspired...be predated yet modern. Just be you!

Signature Cowboy's 50th Birthday Bash!

Surprissseee......they all exclaimed as he entered the Cross Creek Golf Club for his 5oth Cowboy themed birthday party.  Darrell was indeed surprised because he thought that he was going to a financial seminar, so in he walked with a portfolio in hand. This birthday boy pictured with his wife above is a COWBOY FANATIC! His basement is totally transformed with cowboy colored paint on the walls and cowboy memorabilia everywhere. In the basement there sits a bar with a flatscreen for all the games where he joyfully serves everyone drinks before the games. His favorite food to serve at the games...wings and his favorite drink is Bahama Mama. We incorperated all his favorites in his party, 3 different flavored wings, cheeseburger sliders, cheese, veggie & fruit trays and for drinks...of course blue Bahama Mama's. For dessert was a lemon flavored Cowboy's cake (his favorite cake flavor) from Creative Cakes. Everyone had a great time on the dance floor with Pisces DJ's. They played reggae, R&B, Calypso and popular dance music throughout the 80's to now. His guests were given a shot glass that says Darrell's 50th Birthday. The Cowboy's luminaria center pieces that I made was a big hit because several guests took them home also as souvenirs. It is not difficult to plan a themed party, we started with the invitation which was custom made. We printed the invitation on white stock paper that was outlined in silver and had a Cowboy's helmet on it. Your invitation is the window into the soul of your event, so everyone knew right away that this was a Cowboy birthday party. Then we continued the theme throughout with the colors of the linens, in this case blue tablecloth and silver napkins. It is very easy for you to throw a themed event, you just have to think about what your birthday person would like and what you know that your guests will enjoy. If you do this, your next themed event will be a hit...just like this party was.

Signature Event Location

                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                  






There are so many great venues that are located in the MD/DC/VA area. This location that I am featuring has managed to take my breath away. When I arrived at this venue, my colleague Winsome and I were transformed. We were so relaxed and all the burdens and the stresses of the day rolled away. Where is this place you may ask, it is Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast. It is located in the antique, wine & horse country of Middleburg, VA. We visited the location a few months back but I wanted to highlight it because this is high event season and the location and event space is ideal for numerous events. Having a wedding, birthday celebration, business retreat, meetings, picnic or family celebration, then you should check this location out. Located on the 45 acre property is a bed & breakfast for overnight stay, a venue called Fox Den that fits groups of 75-200 people, a pool and a barn. From the balcony of the Fox Den you have a spectacular view of the majestic mountains of Virginia. Close to this property just down the road, is Sheila Johnson's Salamander Resort & Spa that is scheduled to open in 2012. At Briar patch you can host your event inside, entirely outside or a combination of both. The bed & breakfast can accomodate overnight stays for your events. If you don't have an event coming up to book the facility, you can checkout their website to see what public events they are hosting and attend one, you won't regret it.

Signature Garden Party

It's all in the details! This is what it takes to throw a signature garden party. Thats what Y Lowe Signature Events did for Norma and her husband JJ at their home in Bethesda, Maryland. We had a beautiful garden setting for our venue, so we simply used flowers already blooming in the garden and other objects that we found around the home(with a few of our own items) and created a simple, serene, chic and fun event! With a few rental items we were able to obtain a scaled down but elegant event. We wrapped grape vines obtained from the garden up the pole of the umbrellas and made sinple white florals for the tables. There was a group of about 40 medical professionals including doctors that planned a 25 year reunion. Everyone enjoyed themselves and were able to reaquaint themselves with each other. We kept the menu simple and low key and it was enjoyed by all. We made different lounging areas that were seperate from the seated tables, inorder to keep the networking and conversation going. Throwing a garden party is simple and easy if you use what you already have in your home to decorate and create a simple fun menu that your guests will enjoy. Happy Planning!

Signature Manners

What is proper manners? Let us consider what the experts have to say about proper "manners" or  proper etiquette and protocol. There is no substitute for proper manners and as my mom use to say, "having a good education is  not enough, you MUST have proper manners". I was born and raised in the Island of Jamaica and having proper etiquette was a big dot deal. We were under the British rule for a long time and so we had to exhibit "proper manners & etiquette". Everyone needs to know how to behave at a formal dinner or a business luncheon with a potential employer. Etiquette and protocol is not a thing of the past and over 80% of Americans who were surveyed believe that we are rude as a society as a whole. I had the pleasure of listening to Anna Post (great great grandaughter of Emily Post) at my International Special Event Society (ISES) meeting where she made a presentation on "Etiquette in the 21st Century". The presentation was both refreshing and enlightening. Anna Post provides advise frequently on weddings and engagements and conducts seminars on business etiquette. One of my girlfriends recently published her own book on proper etiquette. Charmaine Campbell is an image and etiquette consultant.  If you need for someone to train you on what the proper fork or spoon to pickup at your next formal function is,  then she is your consultant. There is nothing worst than someone sitting beside you at a function and pickup the dinner fork to eat their salad (I experienced this recently). Then again her company Chic International is about more than that. They teach how to dress and behave in all social and business situations. Her first book is called "Money Cannot Buy Class" and you can purchase this invaluable book from her website. Her book is a wonderful tool to bring out the "chic" in you!