SusieL – Mother’s Birthday Luncheon 2017

For those of you new to this event (and at the risk of repeating myself for the gazillionth time to those of you NOT new to this event), my mother passed away in 2012 two months shy of her 95th birthday. To keep myself from being so sad on that day, I decided to have my girlfriends over for a girly luncheon. I got out the wedding china, crystal & silver & even snail mailed out real, live invitations. It was so much fun and kept me from being very sad, so I decided to make it an annual event. This year (2017) was the sixth one and even these few years later, I relish the mental diversion of this event. Each year, when my mother’s birthday rolls around, I’m excited & planning on fun things rather than being sad. So with no further ado, I present to you, photos from this year’s Mother’s Birthday Luncheon!

The invitations…

For you paper crafters, here’s how I made the invitations.

The guests included neighbors, friends from Pilates, a lady who bought our previous house, a lady I met when she worked at the assisted living facility my mother lived in as well as ladies I’d not seen in decades. I really enjoyed seeing all these ladies on this special day. (And a few were missed because they were not able to make it this year… you know who you are!)

The menu:

mushroom asparagus quiche
cold sesame noodles
tossed green salad
kale salad
fruit salad (it was to hit 120F that week, so salads were a welcome treat!)
Rave Reviews vanilla coconut cupcakes (honestly, one of the best cake recipes, ever!)
champagne punch (I think I got the recipe wrong but oh well…)
Pink Dragon fruit tea

Each year, I try to make a “parting gift” that is not only unique, but also something that is either “usable” (and doesn’t require dusting) or “re-giftable” (if it’s not to their liking.) I was able to resurrect the Momism books. This year, I was able to crank out ~16 Momism books in an afternoon b/c I figured out my new printer will print both sides, which saved a LOT of time! Plus, I seemed to have mastered the Zutter Bind It All, which I had had some issues with, when doing the first few batches.

The other party favor was (hand) embossed cocktail napkins in a handmade box. The inspiration for these was a hostess/wedding/housewarming gift I used to do about 30 years ago. There was a place I could buy these cute cocktail napkins in a wicker box & have the napkins embossed with a personal message. I normally did “Welcome To Our Home” and on the second line, the name of the couple (“Bob & Susie”) I probably gifted about ten of these and had several made for us in different colors of napkins. I thought this was a unique gift and a nice touch for entertaining.

To make the box, I toyed with a few ideas. THEN… I realized a few years ago, I had purchased files to make boxes from SVGCuts. I loaded in one of the box files & modified it for my purpose.

Then, I embossed ~20 napkins for each box. (I think I started out putting 20 napkins in each box & then “upgraded” to 25 (it’s a memory thang…) I apologize if you’re watching this & were shortchanged five napkins.) Here’s a video showcasing each box & set of napkins. Apologies because most of the embossing is not visible in the video. (Dang!) This is a bad hair, bad nail, no makeup sort of video and the cherry on top is the tuft of hair sticking up in front. Just keeping it real. (But brows on fleek! #priorities)

So then I drug out the four folding chairs & realized they looked rather pathetic. I had two sets of two for a total of four. The one set of two (with no padding on the back) were deemed totally uncomfortable & inappropriate for a lovely ladies party & were sent off to Goodwill. Thanks to Pinterest, the other two were given new life.

I have a few sets of dishes that I have stowed away in those quilted covers/protectors. At least I have a different pattern for each set of dishes. But to quickly get the dishes out, I find it helpful to have a “cheat sheet“.

And then… the party. Great turnout & I think (hope!) everyone had an enjoyable time.