Leona Lane

Mocktails

We had an end of summer bash recently; we were celebrating new changes, and Joe's birthday too. We invited a bunch of our close friends over for dinner. On the menu was brisket, corn on the cob, pecan pie and biscuits. But I think the best part was the mocktails we mixed up! So I thought I'd share those recipes with you guys today! I found the recipes in the August issue of Bon Appetit, and made just a few adjustments to make them easier to serve for a crowd. (Jenn provided the photos for the post! Thanks Jenn!)

First up! "Salted Lemon and Sage Presse". This one was a favorite!

Ingredients: 3 Lemons, 1/2 Cup Sage Leaves, 1 Cup Simple Syrup, 1 tsp Kosher Salt, Club Soda, Ice.

Directions: Quarter the lemons. Muddle lemons, sage leaves, simple syrup and salt in a pitcher. To serve, fill a glass 3/4 full with ice, pour mixture up to top of ice, top off glass with club soda. Garnish with a sage leaf and lime wedge!

The other one we made is called "The Rehydrator". 

Ingredients: 1/2 cup pitted fresh cherries, 1/2 cup preserved cherries*, 2 Tbsp honey, 1.5 cups Aloe Vera Juice, 1 cup unsweetened cranberry juice, 1/2 cup of lime juice. 

*We used Amarena Cherries, they're a little spendy, but delicious!

Directions: Muddle the cherries and honey in a pitcher. Add aloe vera, cranberry and lime juice - stir to combine. Place 1 cup of the mixer in a shaker, fill the rest of the way with ice. Cover and shake until outside of the shaker is frosty. Strain into 2 glasses. Garnish with a cherry on top! (Note: we tried making this one easier by pouring over ice and adding club soda, which was ok... but the original way I described above was much better!)

To help everyone keep their drinks straight, we added little washi tape flags to the straws and wrote the guests' names on them with a sharpie. We kept the decorations simple - some string lights, a "party" sign, and a few pink flamingos. We also took Instax pictures of everyone! It was a really fun evening!

Hope you have a chance to try one of these before the warm weather is gone! Looks like we will be having one more nice week here in Seattle!

And if you like these recipes, you might like the other mocktail recipes featured in the Bon Appetit article here.

Rooftop Baby Shower

I am blown away by the shower that my work friends threw for me last Friday night. I am seriously blessed with awesome people in my life. My co-worker and her awesome daughter put this party on for me. They have experience in the party and catering industry, and they did an amazing job.

Even without fancy party decorations, the ambiance and view was amazing! We were overlooking Lake Union, and in the late evening we got to watch the sun go down over the Space Needle. Talk about epic!

The food table was just beauitful and FULL of delicious home made appetizers! One of my favorite decorations were these awesome tissue paper flowers! I love that they used lemons in the base of the flower bouquets. This added so much to the beautifully bright color scheme.

 

I love that the girls used these adorable spherical ice cubes to keep those drinks cold. The bottles are awesome, and I love that they used chalkboard stickers to label each type of drink. Orange Fizz and Pink Lemonade...yum!

Here's another look at the decor that surrounded our seating area. I love these awesome paper lanterns! If you look closely you can see those pink spirals coming out of the lawn. They look like festive pink flowers, and they were added just for the baby shower. My friends really think about all the details!

I took some of the lanterns and the paper flowers home with me and I am told that I need to do something creative with them for baby girl's room! The pressure is on!

Dessert did not disappoint! You cannot go wrong with cupcakes, especially coconut cupcakes embellished with fresh fruit and topped with a neon yellow flower. :)

Here am I am opening gifts! I have a bunch of pink ribbons around my neck because we played a game where everyone cut a ribbon to guess how wide I am. I was surprised that most people over-estimated. Still trying to figure out if that's a good thing. :) I loved all the gifts that I recieved. My friends are seriously so, so generous. (Can you spot those ruffled bloomers pictured above? So cute!)

I will follow up with a photo of all of us girls...sunset and flare and all. This was a lovely evening and I am so heart-warmed and thankful for all of their hard work and creativity. 

Sarah's Wedding: Candy Table

This past Saturday was Sarah's wedding! As you are reading this, she is vacationing in Mexico...lucky girl! The wedding was spectacular, and even though it was a little hot, the weather was beautiful. I look forward to sharing a few photos that I took at the wedding. These aren't the official "professional" photos, and I am sure Sarah will share some of those as soon as she gets those.

Today I wanted to highlight Sarah's candy bar. You may have seen a few sneak peaks of this as Sarah shared her wedding progress, but here it is all finished!

I am not sure how she found so many purple candies, but there were quite the variety! I loved the purple and white lollipops the best. Sarah used lots of different clear glass jars and dressed them up with burlap and twine. She used the same materials to make an adorable banner.

I am glad that I got the chance to take some photos before the wedding, because immediately afterward this table was surrounded by little children. It was a big hit, that's for sure!

Sarah made some customized treat bags for each guest to take home some candy. I grabbed this photo via instagram. Thanks @rachtara!

Stay tuned for more wedding pictures over the next week! I'm always a little camera happy at weddings. :)

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Personalized Baby Onesies

For Jenn's baby shower last week, we decided to steer clear of the typical baby shower games and have everyone participate in a fun crafty activity instead. We decided having everyone personalize a onesie for Jenn's little girl, would be both fun and useful! (I hear babies go through a lot of those...with their mess-making skills and all)! So today I thought I would share my tips and tricks for using fabric paint! Want to know my secret? ... most of it is common sense or is on the fine print of the bottle. 

What You Will Need:

- Onesies (we got 2 packs in varied sizes)

- Fabric Paint 

- Paint Brushes

- Paint Palette

- Paper or cardboard

- Iron

Instructions:

Once you have gathered all your supplies, sketch out your design on some scratch paper or cardboard. When satisfied with your design, slip the paper inside the onesie and position it where you want the design to go. (Trick: Having the paper in between also helps keep the paint from bleeding through.)

Pick the colors you want to use. (Tips: I found the best selection of paint colors at JoAnn's. I would also recommend getting some white fabric paint. By adding one drop at a time to your basic color, you can customize your color palette.)

Now it's time to paint! The paper in between will help to keep the color from bleeding through but be careful of splatters, the paint does not come out easily, even if it hasn't been heat set yet. (Tip: For even coloring, I recommend going over your design with two layers of paint.) 

Once you are finished it's time to be patient... if you are doing this at a party, set them aside for the host. The paint needs to dry for 48 hours. After 2 days have gone by, they need to be heat set, then they are ready to be washed and worn. 

To heat set, start by laying fabric flat over the ironing board. Set the iron to the cotton setting. Once heated properly, hold iron approximately 1/2 an inch over the painted area. Press the steam button a few times while hovering the iron over the design. Now you have heat set your design! Just wash and its ready to be worn!

Has anyone else tried using fabric paint? What did you think?? I can't wait to personalize some of my own clothes! I have some leftover gold paint that I'm excited to experiment with!

About to Pop Baby Shower

Today I'm excited to share some pictures of the sweet baby shower we had for Jenn last weekend! I was thrilled when Aileen from the blog At Home In Love and Ellen from Love and Lavender asked me to help them throw a intimate little baby shower for Jenn. (And luckily, Jenn was kind enough to photograph it for us!) We had it at Aileen's super cute apartment, which as she said was already pretty perfect for a baby girl shower, because she loves pink! It made the decorating pretty simple!

We went with an "About to Pop" theme which was really fun! Ellen made popsicle themed invitations that were adorable! The pink, orange and teal colors from the invite we carried throughout the shower. I loved how the flowers and the centerpiece turned out, so whimsical and colorful!  Aileen and I went shopping at the farmers market that morning and scored all the dahlias and other flowers for only $15! Aileen also has more details on the popsicle stick runner over on her blog today, go check it out here!

We covered the table with a huge piece of kraft paper, which worked perfectly for transitioning from food to craft time later in the shower. We also made giant confetti for the walls and circle bunting from paint strips. For favors, Ellen found the little push-pops (above) that we filled with salt water taffy and decorated with baker's twine and each guest's name.

For the food, we had a few flavors of soda pop, popsicles (of course), white chocolate covered confetti popcorn and a lemon poppy-seed cake! Ellen and Aileen made the cake from scratch and I made some super yummy lemon buttercream frosting to top it with! The little popsicle cake toppers are made out of paint swatches and stir sticks.

Instead of baby shower games, we thought it would be fun to do a craft together instead! We bought two different sizes of onesies, a variety of fabric paint, a few paint palettes and paint brushes. We had each guest make Jenn a customized onesie! They turned out really cute and there were some pretty creative ideas that her friends came up with! I'll be sharing more details, tips & tricks that I've found for using fabric paint on the blog later this week.

We really had fun putting this together for Jenn! It was a sweet day (quite literally)! Thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave any questions in the comments! Check out our pinterest board for more baby shower inspiration!