Party Ideas!

Here are a few ideas I have for having a casual gathering at your home

(Easter ideas as well). When you are having a party that will have you, the hostess, inside and out, you may not always be standing there to answer questions, like, "where is the ice" (place a cute handmade sign or write on a pretty napkin and hang it on your fridge with an arrow pointing towards the ice maker or directions to ice), "where are the drinks", "is this sweet tea", etc. you get the point! Place little chalk boards around with directions, or take cardstock and fold over so you can make it stand up. Write little notes or directions to make your guests feel right at home!

Make a seperate area if you are going to have LOTS of dishes or if your kitchen/dining is small. This is a side table in my entry way that I decorated and it added color and excitement as people walked in and also took some of the traffic out of the kitchen when they wanted to grab some dessert. Also, see how I used an old Easter pic of Taylor and the Easter Bunny as decoration. (frames are very inexpensive and using pictures is my favorite way to decorate).

This Southern Living Bucket is my favorite item of all time! I own three if that tells you anything. It is the Entertaining Bucket. I have one on my back porch with the stand and its all old and worn out with a plant in it! LOVE IT! Then I have this one that sits in the corner of my dining room, on the stand, and do you know what sits in it that no one can ever see? My iron and starch! Yep, I grab it to iron my table cloth or to iron clothes on my bed. It's the perfect place! Then, when I have guests I hide the iron in the pantry and pull the stand out,put ice and drinks in it, GORGEOUS, right? Well, for Easter this year I put all the filled eggs in and sat it at the back door for decoration. Then, when it was time to hide them, we grabbed the bucket and me, Aunt Debbie and my cousin Jenny hid them in the front yard! Now the third bucket sits on the floor beside my tv with all our Wii equipment and games!

We have lots of older kids that hunt so we hide money in our eggs because the Easter Bunny and class parties brings them PLENTY of candy! Well, take the time to count with your kids and/or teach to roll their money. The kids enjoyed telling each other how much they found.

Pick one color and go for it everywhere! Patterns can get too busy and one color is easier to mix with the pieces you already own, like the blue platter you see. I used this green everywhere this year!

Use the objects, like baskets, presents, cupcakes, etc. as part of the decorations. These buckets were placed on the other side of my entry (5 in all) as people came in they saw lots of color and the kids were excited!