Buckets of Cherry Inspiration!

My absolute favorite place in the world happens to be (sort of) in my own back yard - Door County, Wisconsin.  My parents started taking my sisters and I there when we were young kids.  In those days, we ruffed it - actually camping, with no electricity (although we had running water and flush toilets and showers, but those were a hike from the campsite.)  (More to come later this week on Door County.)

Door County is known for many things - its beautiful beaches, picturesque lighthouses, fish boils (yuck!) and great shopping.  But most of all, it is known for its cherry orchards.  Last Mother's Day, Chris treated me and the kids with a day trip there.  Spring time in Door County is just beautiful!  The cherry trees are quite a sight.  This year, we had to delay our trip due to sick kids and the unseasonably cold (even for Wisconsin) spring temps.  The cherry trees finally started to bloom this week. 

So North we headed today.  I made us stop (literally on the side of the road) to trespass into some orchard to get these pictures.  Chris never even complained!  I love the picture of the kids!

 

So in honor of those beautiful trees (and yummy treats later to come this summer,) I wanted to do a post of some great cherry party inspiration.

I saw this party from Green Apple Paperie a while back on Save the Date for Cupcakes and LOVED it!  Honestly, I LOVE everything about this party - the gingham, the vintage look, the picnic baskets.  I am just loving light blue or turquoise and red right now. 

Loving the retro look instead of the vintage feel?  Check out Lindi's take on a cherry party at Love The Day.  Lovin' this too!!!  This would be a perfect party to hold at Wilson's in Door County.  (More on Wilson's later this week!)

Looking to make your own cherry blossoms?  Christine from Pure Joy Events put together gorgeous faux blossoms that will keep their blooms year-to-year!

Today was a great kick off to an early summer of fun, family and memories.  Have a great week!

My bucket runneth over!

Beyond my children, the person that has inspired me the most is my Grandma Gladys.  I can only begin to describe her as most kind, unselfish, sweetest and giving woman.  I only hope to be half the woman she is.

So, it is really an honor that my first "party post" is dedicated to her.  Grandma Gladys turns 90 this October!  It should come as no surprise that she does not want a party in her honor despite such a great milestone.  Instead, my sisters, mom, aunt, cousins and I are taking her for a girls' getaway to Door County. 

The party planner in me couldn't resist making this girls' getaway a party to celebrate her.  I thought it would be fun for us to wear shirts celebrating Grandma Gladys.  That lead me to think that we would probably be toasting her on an occasion or two, so of course we needed wine glasses!  And, what girls' getaway doesn't involve shopping - especially when it's to Door County!

And while I may have lots of ideas, I am very poor at executing them - that's when I turn to the professionals!  I did think of a theme for the weekend - "Gladys' Gals" and thought it would be fun to incorporate cherries given that we are going to Door County.  I also wanted to go with a color scheme.  My Grandma's favorite color combo is black and white.  I added a punch of pink to keep it fun - but those ideas exhausted my creativity!  So for this event I looked to Etsy.  If you've never been on Etsy - you don't know what you are missing.  Etsy is the mecca for all things of homemade goodness - from apparel to jewelry to party planning necessities.  Needless to say, I LOVE Etsy!

Using Alchemy on Etsy, I found the great gals at The Nesting Project.  They were so great to work with and came up with such a great design! 

(Notice the cute tag line, "established 1920" - how cute!)

I was able to find custom wine glasses from Razzle's Dazzle Designs.  Amanda did a fabulous job - customizing both sides of the glasses and personalized each glass.  So cute!
 

I also found cute fabric flowers for us to wear in our hair keeping with the pink theme from Dolce Vita Mia.  She works a lot with Kim from the TomKat Studio (a fabulous party blog).

After finding the perfect designers I found the adorable bags from the Target dollar aisle that can also double for our shopping extravaganza.  Here is my tip on the Target dollar aisle - even if you don't need something or are not looking for something, you need to stop in the dollar aisle - you never know what you can find!  And luckily this summer, I found this fun bags.  Houndstooth is fun trend again this Fall.

 This past weekend, my cousins were able to visit and we presented my Grandma with her shirt and wine glass to surprise her for the trip.  Unfortunately, the husbands let it slip a time or two in front of her so she wasn't as surprised as we had hoped. But she was definitely surprised by the fun shirts, glasses and bags.  It is going to be a great, fun weekend.  Stay tuned for an update on Gladys' Gals' Girls Getaway in October!