Creative Cakes
No food says “party!” quite like a cake, especially when it’s someone’s Big Day. Or maybe you’re hosting a tea party, shower, or a just-because get-together with friends. Whatever the occasion, the first order of fun is to settle on a theme. Butterflies and blooms share the stage here, simply because I found their graceful designs on a slew of matching table accessories and fell in love with their flighty charm. You can find similar patterns by treasure hunting through craft and party stores for inspiring go-withs that capture the personality of your guest of honor. It’s a pastel palette, with the primary pinks, purples, yellows and greens pulled from the buy-as-a-set plates. A butterfly-on-gingham tablecloth matches the window valance to pull it all together.
Accent Pieces
Add height and charm to the tablescape with towering cocktail glasses, soaring lily bouquets, and a decorative rack stacked with butterfly-handled teacups. Silk butterflies hover above the cup rack, held in place with a bit of glue. It’s the little details that make this table so special—the glasses’ tall, wavy stems, the ruffled saucers, and the way the dots in the silverware handles echo the speckles in the butterfly wings and flower petals.
Window Treatment: A coordinating cornice board gives a cozy cocoon feeling. Cover a piece of plywood with fabric matching your table; mount to window. Gather the fabric into pleats and staple into place. Attach silk butterflies.
Place Cards: Store-bought butterfly holders are ready for place cards. Buy plain white cards and add colorful butterfly stickers or rubber stamps. Vary the colors used for each guest’s name to echo the table’s multicolor palette.
Centerpiece
A graceful sage green vase filled with Stargazer lilies plays off the butterflies. The petal’s shape looks just like butterfly wings. Mini high-heel ceramic shoes with butterfly buckles are brilliant vessels for votive candles; placed on either side of the centerpiece, they add yet another note of whimsy.
Place Settings: A quartet of butterfly-shape plates is the starting point for the table’s flight of fancy. With plates this pretty, let them stand solo to show them off. Oversize napkins in the softest sage tuck under the plates. They’re meant to stay on the table throughout dinner; simply place them on the diagonal and the opposite points will puddle right into the guests’ laps.
Favors
This garden-theme butterfly box holds everything from recipe cards to keys. To make, mask the box’s glass windows with paint tape and spray paint the wood trim a pale green. Remove tape. Cut the picket fence trim into four pieces, each cut to fit inside one window of the box. Squeeze hot glue onto the front of the picket panels, position them against the glass, and press into place. Hot-glue three silk butterflies to the top.
Food and Drinks
What’s to eat? Cakes, of course, and cocktails, too, starting with a Buttercream Cake Martini, a sweet lover’s dream of butterscotch and cream. It’s downright groovy how the Tie-Dyed Cupcakes give each guest a cake (or two) of their own while adding color with a clever spin art design. (Ready-made gel icings and a toothpick are all you need to pull it off.) Give the color wheel a final spin by sprinkling the sides of a white bakery cake with candy confetti and topping with a cupcake ornament.
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