Farewell Fiesta

Buenos Dias everyone,

Yesterday we had a Farewell Fiesta for one of my coworkers at work.  Somehow, I was given the task to plan the party.  How does that happen to me all of the time? 

Our coworker is relocating to Pennsylvania so obviously leaving Texas.  I asked her what she would miss the most "Texas BBQ or Tex Mex cuisine".  Once she said Tex-Mex, that was all I needed to start planning the menu and theme for the party.

Now PLEASE keep in mind this party was at work, on our conference room table no less so I could not do things to the extent that I would do at home.  I planned a simple gathering at the end of the day so everyone could come by and bid our friend farewell.  I played Mexican music but I had to keep the volume low--- because we were at work...you know what I mean.  Along the same lines, I served lemonade instead of margaritas...you get the picture. 

The menu was chips and salsa from a favorite local restaurant, El Fenix, queso made by one co-worker, corn salsa by another co-worker, Delimex taquitos with three different fillings, and Nothing Bundt Cakes bundtinis for dessert.

Here is the Fiesta table. 

All these dishes and decorations are from my personal collection.  I have an extensive collection of stuff in this theme because obviously I am Mexican (LOL) and love seasonal impractical entertaining stuff that you only use once or twice a year.   I love getting the chance to use them but hate the hassel of digging them out of my dish closet, wrapping in bubble wrap and carrying off.  Oh well....

Here is Cindy with the table.  I made her wear that hat in many pictures...LOL.  My office door is in the back ground.  You can see I hung one of Micaela's little Mexican dresses from when she was a baby on our dry erase board on a make shift clothesline. (My boss thought it was "ineresting", but hey it covered the white board.    You can also see the little bull pinata that was the focal point of our table too. 

Here is a close up of some of the bundtinis.  Nothing Bundt Cakes is a national franchise for delicious bundt cakes, they have around a dozen different flavors.  We are lucky to have a location less than two miles from our office.  I decorated the bundtinis with fiesta picks I got at the craft store.

Here are the Delimex taquitos.

If you have never had these they are great.  The are in the frozen food section at the grocery store.  You can deep or pan fry them or bake them in the over.  I prefer frying them when it's a small quantity at home but these we baked off in the oven of our break room.  We split them in half so they would be more like finger food.

Here is the delicious corn salsa made by one of our co-workers.  It was delicioius and I will share the recipe when I get it from her. 

Here is a close up of my fabulous letter dishes which are one of my most recent additions to my collection of entertaining stuff.  I fell in love when I saw these on Pinterest and quickly ordered some to spell out our daughters name.  Over the last 18 months I have been adding more letters to my collection so I can spell out more words.  (it's quite addictive but oh so fun to have them on your buffet table).  I've even started to give them as gifts and everyone seems to love them.  I realized last week that if I ordered an S, I could spell out fiesta... so here is the letter S making a debut with other letters...LOL.

The Farewell Fiesta was FUN.  Cindy enjoyed it and everyone enjoyed socializing with people from other departments on a casual basis.  The last time we had a farewell party in our department was about five years ago... people just don't leave very often so it might be a while before we do this again... 

Thanks for reading this far and I hope you have a great Cinco de Mayo manana!

Sewing Baby Shower

This weekend I hosted a baby shower for one of my dear sewing buddies, Anita.  I hosted the shower at the new Stitched with Love quilting store in my neighborhood.  All of the guests are members of the Plano Quilt Guild so they are seasoned sewists and I thought the quilt store would be a great setting.

The colors for the shower were hot pink and black, chosen by Anita.  I have been making alot of things with this color scheme so I had alot of fabrics in my stash.  During the shower we had snacks and sweets.  This was the sweets table.  The pennant banner was made of fabric and the daisy chain banner was made with cardstock with the baby's name Diana Grace.

Here is a close up of the gourmet Strawberries & Cream popcorn in individual dishes.  I wanted to serve in individual dishes because I thought that would be easier than a big bowl to serve out of.  I had plenty of little bowls but not a single platter that could accommodate them all.  I brainstormed and decided a frame would do the trick so I framed some fabric and tada!   It worked perfectly, the platter and popcorn got great reviews!

Apothecary jars filled with candy are all the rage so this was the perfect excuse to purchase some.  I found some cute scoops at the Container Store.  I was surprised that hardly any of the candy was eaten, I even had little bags and only a few ladies filled them. 

Micaela and I made little favor boxes using my trusty Box #3 Sizzix SU die.  The ice bucket pictured was actually vinyl orange and yellow and at the last minute I covered it with fabric so it would match.

During the shower, we made bibs for baby Diana.  Shirly, one of Anita's friends handled the bib making process and had kit packets made up for everyone.  Here she is explaining everything to all of the ladies.  The bloomers hanging on the design board  behind Shirley are Micaela's bloomers from her toddler days.  I saved them by accident and then when I came across a bag full when I was going to take stuff to a resale shop I decided I could not part with them. 

All of the ladies had a great time sewing. 

Here is a picture of everyone with their bibs!

Here are some of the fabulous handmade gifts Anita received.  

Aren't these little fabric shoes adorable? 

 Here are some of the others.

 It was so much fun to host this shower, thanks for stopping by!

Soccer Party

Our soccer season is over, we have our Saturday's back! We had a pizza party party to celebrate. Here's our sweets table... nothing really significant to write about except I wanted to share how I put the letters on the wall. I cut these out of felt sheets just like I did the ones on the blanket a few days ago. I 'temporary' adhered them to the wall using fabric basting spray. It was fast, easy and did not leave any residue on the wall. Thanks for stopping by!

Halloween Party

We had our second annual Halloween Party on Sunday! We celebrated Micaela's 6 1/2 birthday since we never got around to celebrating with friends during April. Here are a few of my favorite pictures!

The girls made a pumpkins out of old fence posts. When we replaced our gate recently, my husband thought I was crazy when I asked him to save the wood for craft projects. After much convincing, he saved a few pieces. These little pumpkins are made from the posts. Hubby cut the post into blocks, sanded them down, added a light coat of pumpkin orange paint and a little stump made out of a dowl. The girls cut faces out of felt and glued them on, it was cute and very inexpensive! Ahh, our sweets table. This is what happens when you forget to take a picture at the begining of the party before everyone arrives. Some of the letter candy dishes had already been refilled a couple of times by the time I remembered the camera. Nothing too elaborate here. I used fabric for the tablecloth, covered the drink bottles with Halloween scrapbook paper, did store bought cookies, cupcakes and a little 3 inch cake for Micaela. Most of all, I love our new letter candy dishes (I wish I could by several alphabet sets so I could spell out many words for every occassion).

The Pinata-- a total Mexican tradition! I found this cute pumpkin pinata at the party store and thought it would be fun to add an M monogram. I cut out the M with the Storybook cartridge on the Cricut, I think it turned out cute!

All in all it was a great party-- me and hubby were very tired but our little girl was happy and that is all that counts. Thanks for stopping by!

Luau Party

We hosted a Luau Party over the weekend, here's a little video with some of the highlights!