The Bakery 2014

Who doesn't love visiting the bakery?

In addition to all of my other design endeavors, I enjoy making pretty desserts as well.  Recently we had some extended family in from around the country and got together at my house for a lunch party.  I can't have a party without cake.  Just.  Can't.  Do.  It!  

Now usually my parties involve my children, so there is some sort of birthday/ baby shower/ what have you/ theme involved.  In those cases everything relates to the theme, including the flavor and design of the desserts.  This time was different so I let Baby Girl pick out the treats.

 Her first choice was yellow cake with vanilla icing.  We added an orange creme flavor packet to the icing to give it a little pizazz.  It turned out to be really delicious, and tasted like dreamsicle ice cream!

Her second choice was double chocolate chunk cookies, because chocolate is always appreciated!

Now that we have had our fill of the goodies, lets talk about design!  I like for my guests to know what they are eating, but as hostess I can't spend all afternoon next to the dessert table.  This is one of the reasons I make the labels for the food items.  I simply cut the wording out of the store packaging and use a hole punch and curling ribbon to attach.

The other reason I like to make the labels is because I recycle them into a scrapbook.  My Baby Girl loves to help me in the kitchen and I try to always get a photo of the process.  I am compiling these photos into an album that I can keep on my bakers rack with my dessert cookbooks.  I think it will be super cute to have the labels from the party in the album with the coordinating desserts.  Hopefully my Little Guy will grow to participate as well and one day I will have yet another awesome scrapbook :)

Now remember earlier when I said that usually my parties have a theme?  After nearly five years of parenthood I have amassed  quite a few leftovers when it comes to colorful plates and napkins.  I keep them all in the drawer of my bakers rack separated by color or theme.  For this party I decided to put them to use.  I pulled out green and blue plates for the lunch area along with white and blue napkins.  The drink station had pink and green napkins, along with the dessert area.  I also used purple plates at the dessert counter.  

Now this sounds pretty miss-matched and maybe even overwhelmingly tacky.  But, it worked out nicely.  This is because all of the colors were bright (as opposed to mixing brights and pastels for example) and because I didn't mix too many colors within each food station.  Lastly, and most importantly, I used a bold statement napkin to tie together each display.  

Left over from a Minnie Mouse party (awwww!), I had just a few bright pink with white polka-dot dinner napkins.  Rather than setting them out to be used as napkins, I unfolded them and laid them out stylishly at each station.  It ended up that although there were various colors of plates and napkins throughout the party, the bright pink and white polka-dots were enough to bring consistency.  What's even better?  It cost zero dollars to bring design to this gathering because I simply reused what I already had on hand.  You can't beat that!

Hope you enjoyed this yummy post, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2014