Posted by
Guest Blogger
Tuesday, December 13, 2011 3:25 PM EDT
When you're planning to host a party at your house, one of the first things you should ask yourself is what colours do I want to use? Different colours evoke different feelings; generally, brighter colours create higher energy. This month’s colour palette was inspired by a little clothing store I saw in my neighbourhood. In the window was a very small, but fabulously eye catching, hot pink velvet reindeer -- no other colours, the rest of the backdrop was just white. Stunning!
To create the look you have two options...go big or go home. What does this mean? It means either use colour as an accent or use it everywhere! At this holiday home party we decided to go with a white palette and added our pink accent in fun and simple ways.
Make a Grand Entrance with a Signature Drink Table
All photos by Christine Kufske
Nothing says “party” like a fabulous drink table to greet your guests. This table was our main hit of pink which, as mentioned, evokes a great high energy feel as soon as you enter. Signature drink tables are simple to do. Take any small side table and place it in your entry way. Drape a pashmina over the table to add some elegance. Place flowers at the back to ground the table. Here, we used one of our faux hot pink flower balls on a mirror base. Faux flowers can be fabulous if they are the right shade of colour and look realistic.
Signature Drinks with some Serious Style
This idea is one of my all time favourite ideas when it comes to matching your colour palette with your signature drink: add a drop of food colouring, that's it! Take any clear drink and voila, the perfect Signature Drink is born. Then, of course, you need to name your drink. Think of something fun that represents a nickname you may have, the season you are in, or it could be a play on the colour you are using.
Here we called our Signature Drink the Pink Mink. Moving on...don’t get stuck with naming your drink. For the final touch, we matched the colour of fruit with our drink. This adds a touch of decadence to your drink. Here we found dragon fruit -- amazing -- and cut into slices for each drink. Remember, this is a good splurge spot as you will only need 1 or 2 of these fruits so have fun! Other great ideas...strawberries, raspberries or even frozen blueberries would look fabulous.
MBParty Tip: Don’t forget to add a few bowls of nibblies to the table as well. We added jelly bellys in mini silver bowls to finish off the look (above, right).
Napkins Add a Touch of Formal Flair to Your Table
Try this easy napkin fold for a hit of simple chic. The napkin is a standard size rental cloth napkin – 16 inches by 16 inches. We laid it out flat, then folded in both sides to create a long rectangle. Then simply place half the napkin on the table and let the other half fall down the table. This is called a French Fold. Love it! We placed the mini-tureen on top of the napkin to complete the look.
Make your Guests Feel Extra Special
As another element to your table, you can use simple photo frames and insert printed pieces of paper with your guests names like we did above. These were plastic frames found at a dollar store and were painted in white. A simple stylish statement.
White Hot Chocolate Shooters & Timbit Cake Pops
Any white hot chocolate mix will do for this. Here we used 2 oz. shooter glasses and grouped them (as we love to do) as the focal at the back of the table. Cake pops are all the rage right now and taste delish, but can be pricey. So we decided to do white powdered timbits on grocery store skewers for this fun display. Stand them up on white Styrofoam sheets found at any craft store and weave a white boa around the base of the skewers. We flanked the white hot chocolate shooter display with two of these to create some drama.
MBParty Tip: Each timbit cake pop display had 9 timbits. The size of the styrofoam base was 12” x 12”.
There's lots more! See Part 2 of this party.
