Partying Japan Style

AtticGal Rachelle says:

My dear sister Lisa celebrated a big milestone birthday this year, and my mom and I wanted to do something extra special to celebrate this extra special birthday, so we decided to throw her a Japanese party. She served a mission in Japan and loves everything Japanese, especially the food, so that is what we decided to do.

Man, I love to throw a party!

It turned out to be a terrific theme. And the COLORS!!!

We found some absolutely gorgeous Japanese printed papers at Cost Plus, and used them not only for the color scheme, but just about everywhere, like in this just too cute banner. Mom cut the kanji and Japanese dolls out with her Cricut.

We just laid the various sheets of papers on the tables, wrapped some around glass vases, and used the Big Shot to die cut butterflies out of the paper that we just stuck everywhere!

The papers were really amazing and inspiring! we just kept thinking, "What else can we do with this paper?" We didn't want to waste a scrap!

My boys also made a blossoming cherry branch for the centerpiece using a branch they found and light and dark pink tissue paper.

But the show-stopper was the delightful cupcake stand!!!

I was SO thrilled with how these turned out!!! Look at the colors!!!

I know - TOTALLY over the top!!!!!

They were cherry buttermilk cupcakes, frosted in three different colors. I found the extra large Japanese paper cupcake liners at a garage sale (of course) and they were absolutely perfect! Couldn't have been better if I had spent days searching online.

I topped each one with colorful flower sprinkles, a paper umbrella, and a tiny paper crane. I must have folded a hundred of them! I could fold a paper crane in my sleep, I think.

I also made mochi, which is a sticky rice candy. Really yummy. I bought the ones in the red wrappers at Cost Plus, because they have a sweet bean curd inside.

We also left stacks of origami paper on the table and directions for making paper cranes so everyone could try their hand at paper folding. The kids really loved this.

I had paper cranes everywhere! They are meant to bring good luck.

We even wrapped the chopsticks in tiny scraps of the pretty Japanese paper.

We also had Japanese wheat tea and cucumber water.

And fun Japanese snacks like Samurai peanuts, rice crackers, and Lisa's favorite - wasabi peas. Why do the Japanese have such great snack food?

But the highlight of the party was certainly the build-your-own-sushi bar. I provided the seaweed, sticky sushi rice, seafood, avocados, cucumbers, and carrots, as well as the soy sauce, ginger and wasabi, of course, and everybody just had at it.

It was a huge hit!

And the chopsticks came in handy to eat it.

I also made a yummy miso soup and guests could add their own mushrooms, green onions, tofu, and fish flakes.

And my dad finished off the Japanese feast with his world famous, falling of the bone, sweet as candy, teriyaki wings on rice.

It got even prettier as the sun went down and we lit the paper lanterns and votives.

It was a lovely evening with great food and great conversation. I loved doing it! Most importantly, my sister really enjoyed herself and she deserved it!

Everything turned out perfectly! I was thrilled! I think Lisa was too. No wonder she loves Japan so much - there is so much about Japan to love!

Let Them Eat Cake!

AtticGal Rachelle says:

Last month it was my turn to host our book club, and I chose Abundance by Sena Jeter Naslund. It is the story of Marie Antoinette, the famous (or infamous) queen of France who lived the good life before being made "6 inches shorter up on top."

She never said "Let them eat cake!" by the way, (but she might well have said "let them eat petit fours and macaroons.")

I decided to do my own version of an opulent royal banquet, with lots of lace and toile and rhinestone tiaras and some of my favorite sweets and breads from my favorite French patisserie, Clementine! (See my Clementine post here, then come in for a visit.) Oo la la! I also had a nice platter of French cheeses, of course. I am a cheese freak!

And French honey and fig jam, and my very own lavender lemonade (See my lavender post here for recipes.)

We discussed the fascinating life of Marie Antoinette while we nibbled on dainty macaroons, delightful petit fours, and and my very favorite pear tarts which are exactly like the ones we savored when we were in Paris! Abundance, to be sure!

And of course the discussion of Marie Antoinette ended the way her life did when I unveiled at the end a real working guillotine (on a smaller scale) that my son Nate happened to have recently built for his French class.) Perhaps a tad gruesome, but I couldn't help myself.

You know what they say,

Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow... OUCH!

You Don't have to Share!

For Mothers Day this year I wanted to do something special for some of the wonderful women in my life - so I decided to give them something homemade and decadent, and in a portion that they wouldn't have to share.

AtticGal Alysa found me a big box of these fun tins at a garage sale and knew i could do something with them. I decked them out with fun SU decorative papers and the giant circle and scalloped circle punches.

I layered those with 2 - 1 1/2 x 12 inch strips that I pleated using by bone folder then glued end to end and glued onto the lid to make a rosette.

The crown was punched out of silver paper then embossed with my Big Shot using a part of a flower on one of my embossing folders. I stuck it on along with a few little acrylic gems for a little royal pizazz!

But the real treat was inside! Handmade Oreo truffles! My favorite. Only three luscious ingredients: Oreos, cream cheese, and dark chocolate! How great is that?

If you have never made them before, this is all you do. Get a package of Oreos and take out about 8. Use your food processor to turn them into crumbs and set aside. Then dump the rest of the oreos and a box of cream cheese into the food processor and process it all together. Roll into 1 inch balls and chill. Then melt your chocolate, temper, and dip the chilled oreo centers. Sprinkle reserved oreo crumbs on top. Keep refrigerated!

SO yummy!

I hope all of my favorite mommies loved them - every single bite, since this time they didn't have to share!

Some Favorite Easter Treats

Easter is a wonderful reason to have fun with food! Here are some of our favorite Easter treats!

For Easter morning, everyone loves to wake up to this gooey nutty pull-apart bread, Paula Deen's Ultimate Coffee Cake. The recipe is here.

It is so easy. You put it together the night before. Toss some frozen yeast dinner roll dough into a bundt pan and top it with nuts, brown sugar, butterscotch pudding mix, and melted butter. Cover it with a cloth and let in sit on the counter overnight. The dough thaws and rises, and you bake in the the morning. What a wonderful aroma to arise with on Easter morning!

Another absolute must-have at our Easter feast is Jello Eggs. Jello makes an egg mold and you use the Jigglers recipe. I make them in every color so I have several molds since each mold makes only 6 eggs from 1 large box of Jello. It would take me days to make all the colors of the rainbow with only one mold, but it can be done.

I usually line an Easter basket with green leaf lettuce and put the eggs inside.

I made these with the pina-colada flavored jello. The are opaque and look just like peeled hard boiled eggs.

And, of course, what would Easter be without deviled eggs - lots and lots of them! They go so fast!

See my post about our traditional Easter deserts: the lamb cake, bird's nest cupcakes, and Italian Easter pie HERE.

Whatever your family's favorite Easter treats are, I hope they find their way to your Easter table this year, and maybe one or two new ones as well! Happy Easter!

To Dye For!

AtticGal Rachelle says:

Looking for some easy fun new ways to dye your eggs? Here are a few my kiddos had fun with:

May favorite: wrap boiled eggs in pieces of wide lace and tie it tightly with a rubber band. That's it!

Dye as usual. The extra lace makes a nice handle for easy dying, and the lace can be reused over and over.

So pretty!!!

Even easier - wrap eggs with rubber bands of different widths.

The effects are really cool!

My kids love the stickers! Use hole reinforce stickers for fun circle shapes.

Or Letter stickers for personalized or monogramed eggs,

and Easter words, of course.

I absolutely LOVED these, but the we had a tough time getting some of the stickers off.

Have fun dying your Easter eggs! Have a wonderful Easter!

Babies, Babies, Everywhere Babies!

AtticGal Rachelle says:

It seems that everyone (but me) is having babies these days! I have been invited to so many baby showers lately, so I have had to come up with some fun baby girl and baby boy gifts. I started by buying some fun fleece and making several girl blankets and several boy blankets, then assceesorizing the other gifts, cards, and wrapping to match. (I have a matching problem - everything has to match!)

The girl blankets are bright pink. I found this super darling owl pillow at Target and couldn't resist! So I used my Owl punch and SU! stamps to make these darling scalloped circle cards and also to stamp the gift bag.

The blanket was made by simple cutting a scalloped edge onto the fleece using a soup can as a guide. Then I sewed on a textural, baby-friendly applique. What a pretty package!

For the boys I got a bit messier! I made their blankets with orange dump truck themed fleece. I used the dump truck, and it's accompanying dirt as a theme for everything. The card and bag are stamped with construction vehicles moving pounds of dirt, and the word "DIRT" colorfully spelled out.

I tied the edges of the blanket and added another applique - a dump truck this time. I also added a toy dump truck to the gift.

Inside the cards I wrote "Welcome to the wonderful world of Dirt!" I should know. I happen to be an expert on boy dirt!

This worked out great! I might have to make this a habit of making baby gifts in batches like this, several at a time, so i can be ready next time there is a bumper crop of babies around here.