The Sweetest First Birthday

As you already know, we just adore Meg Fish not only as a photographer but as a person! We are so excited to share Meg's baby girl, Ella's first birthday party with you! Meg has such an amazing sense of organic style and is a lover of rustic elegance...as are we! She told us a while back that she was planning a "vintage crowns" party....what a beautiful first birthday theme! Meg had the idea to hang frosted photo tags of Ella from the first year of her life on branches so that all of the guests could write notes to Ella on the back...how sweet is that!?! She created gorgeous table scapes with beautiful sweets and perfect cupcakes from Enjoy Cupcakes! How gorgeous is that enchanting cake table, we love how the airy fabric hangs from the tree and drapes over the table! The whimsical pink ruffle cake set under a beautiful bell jar is adorned with one of the crowns from Meg's new business Crowned Embellishments, gorgeous right! And, where do we even begin...is Ella not the sweetest little doll!?! Thank you so much to Meg for sharing Ella's special day with us, it looks like her first birthday was just perfect!

photos by Meg Fish
styled by Bluebird Cotillion
cakes by Enjoy Cupcakes, los olivos
frosted photos Icing Designs

Hey Gorgeous...Seriously Gorgeous!

So a while ago we started following a lovely blog called "Hey Gorgeous"! Rhi is one seriously talented and amazing girl, she styles and coordinates so of the most "gorgeous" weddings and inspiration shoots! Well, it was Rhi and her husband Andrew's first wedding anniversary last week and she posted very familiar photos of their wedding on her blog! We knew we had seen some of the photos before because they caught our attention in the past. Well, they are all over pinterest and the wedding was also featured on Style Me Pretty! Ok...this wedding is literally one of the most beautiful, romantic, dreamy, vintage inspired weddings we have seen! No detail went untouched and there were a ton of amazing DIY touches!

Where do we start, Rhi's Enzoani gown just knocked our socks off...how amazing is that sash, she looked absolutely stunning! If you follow our blog, you know we are smitten with the romantic look of lace and we adore the way that black lace was used throughout the wedding! The oversized peach balloons were such a special and beautiful addition to the day. The couple released the balloons in honor and memory of Rhi's Nan who had passed away. All of the centerpiece vases were purchased from the Dollar Store, sprayed with glue and wrapped ivory and black lace around. Rhi and her neighbor even made the seating chart, which was made out of an old skid, ivory lace, shipping labels and clothespins that she spray-painted gray. We also just love, love, love the "dessert dresser" that Rhi salvaged and restored. The guests were able to bring homemade desserts and candies home as a thank you for coming! And the cake...so, so pretty! We really just love everything about this wedding, what a truly "gorgeous" and special day and what a beautiful couple!

Photography: Amanda Wilcher Photographers

Contemporary Bride Magazine Feature

We are really excited to have had our "frosted photo" tags, featuring engagement photos by Elizabeth Messina, published in Contemporary Bride's most recent magazine! Our frosted photos have been highly popular for us with weddings, birthday parties, engagements, anniversaries and lost of other events! They are a great way to display your photos as cupcake flags, tags or even photo garlands and are always a conversation piece! Thanks so much to Contemporary Bride for the feature, we are so excited to be part of it!

DIY Paper Flower Cake Wreaths

We hope you were able to take a peek at our post yesterday on how to make 4 different gorgeous paper flowers (thanks to our lovely and sweet DIY corespondent Katie)! Well, today we would love to share with you a great way to use them! All you need is a grapevine wreath that you can find at your local craft or dollar store. Just take your paper flowers and hot glue them in various spots around the wreath to create a beautiful decoration to put around your cake! We made a simple chocolate ruffle cake and placed it on a plain white cake stand and you can see how the wreath really dresses it up enough to serve at any party! You can even place a few of the flowers on top of the cake to add some color.





You can even use this wreath to display your ruffle pumpkin!

DIY Paper Flowers

Oh how we love paper flowers, let us count the ways! Well at least 4 ways! We certainly do have a weakness for paper flowers, they are so versatile, beautiful and easy to make! Thanks to our lovely DIY corespondent Katie, we are going to show you how to create 4 different paper flowers...that can be used in a variety of ways! Tomorrow we will share some fabulous ways to use these flowers!

Materials:
Canson Colorline Art Paper in any color you wish (this paper is the easiest to manipulate, for paper flowers, rather than heavier card stock)
Flower Template: For this flower a template for a flower shape found on Martha Stewart that was originally meant for fabric flowers was used. (Go here for template)
Scissors
Glue gun/glue

Directions:
1. Trace template onto paper and cut out 4 flower shapes
2. On two of the flower shapes, score down the center of each petal and fold inward
3. Glue one of the folded flower shapes on top of the other, staggering the petals
3. Fold the other two flower shapes in quarters, hot gluing the at the tip to keep the fold secure
4. Bend the tip of the fold and glue it into the center of the flower
5. You can bend and open the petals if need be






Materials:
Canson Colorline Art Paper in any color you wish
Scissors
Glue gun/glue
Flower lei in coordinating color

Directions:
1. Make your own patterns for a basic petal shape. The large petal is about 3" long and the small petal is about 21/2" long
2. Trace template onto paper and cut 5 large petals and 5 small petals. Also cut out one circle about 1/12" and another circle about 1"
3. Cut a small slit in the bottom of each petal
4. For each petal, place a small amount of glue on one side of the slit and fold the other side over slightly, gluing it on top
5. Use scissors to curl each petal. You can curl any way you wish. For this flower, we curled the petals toward the center
6. Take large petals and glue them around the larger circle, slightly overlapping each petal
7. Do the same with your smaller petals and smaller circle
8. Glue the smaller petals inside the larger petals
9. Cut a small piece of the lei. Fold the cut edges under and glue in the center of your flower. You can use paper to make the center of the flowers also






Materials:
Canson Colorline Art Paper in any color you wish
Scissors or decorative edge scissors
Glue gun/glue

Directions:
1. Cut out 6-8 circles using decorative edge scissors in any size. These are about 2-21/2". The larger your circles, the more you will need. If you are using regular scissors, do not to to make the edges of your circles perfect
2. Leave one circle as it is. Fold the other circles into quarters, gluing at the tip to keep the fold secure
3. Glue four of the folded circles onto your unfolded circle like a pie
4. Bend the tip of the fold on 2-3 more circles and glue to the center of your flower






Materials:
Paper
1" scallop punch
Scissors
Glue gun/glue

Directions:
1. Cut 3 circles using punch
2. Cut to make slits at each scallop all the way around the circle
3. Bend the petals inward and glue the circles on top of each other


Check out this AMAZING paper flower arch Katie made for her sister's gorgeous wedding this summer!

photo via Next Exit Photography