“POSH PLUM”

Totally Heart Events is honored to be asked to design a table at a charity event this year.  The 2012 Trace3 Table for 10 Culinry Event benefited Project HOPE Alliance which supports the homeless children in Orange County, CA.  The event took place the elegant the Balboa Bay Club & Resort in Newport Beach, CA.  Roy’s Restaurant Newport Beach was a part of this great event again this year.

We were asked to create a table that represents the elegant yet laid back dining of Roy’s.  To start off – Roy’s signature colors are plum purple and sage green; however,  I want to do a more modern color combination at this event so I thought I would draw from their newly designed logo of the silver koi fish named “Guchi” and the signature plum “Roy’s” logo instead.  The color scheme was plum purple, gray, white, and a dash of shiny silver.  Below is the board I came up with…

The table we were given was round table, which I find a bit more challenging to work with…but it worked out after I decided to arrange everything into 3 groups so everyone gets a “good” angle of the table decor.  This is how the table turned out…

We chose 3 different type of silver vases with different textures and finishes to hold the flowers, which I think give the design a bit of an eclectic look.  KC Floral Designs did the flowers for us again, and they turned out beautiful.

My most fabulous find must be these candle holders from Z Gallerie.  The design reminds me so much of Roy’s signature koi fish, Guchi.  I couldn’t believe I found them for just $19.95 each!

The white Casablanca lanterns (also from Z Gallerie) added some whimsy and a beautiful glow to the table.  The deep plum lotus votive holder (Z Gallerie) is a classic Roy’s style so I had to add that to the table.

And another element that I love is the silver graphic print napkins.  I made those myself from a panel of curtain!

And here are some pictures of the delicious food that E created.  The cauliflower soup looks great against the silver charger.

Here’s E working hard plating the main entree table-side…

I didn’t get to taste everything, but I did get a sample of the Nutella Macarons that were served…and they were to die for!

We had such a wonderful time setting up for this great event and  hope we get to do another one soon!

Photos: Courtesy of Bob Hodson Photography, Styles Photography, and yours truly.

“WEDDING WEDNESDAY [CHURCH]”

…holy cow!  How amazing would it be to get married in this church?

No decoration necessary.  It’s amazing as it is…

Wow~

Image: Yelloweaver

“FABULOUS FRIDAY [SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE GOWNS]”

…if you still haven’t caught on…this week’s posts have been about understated, minimalist beauty…and these gowns represent just that.  I can imagine an elegant and sleek yet soft and romantic wedding with a modern, stylish, and unfussy bride.  If one of these gowns were available when I got married, I would surely have a hard time picking just one of them.

Images: 1. Everly True, 2. The Pretty Haze

“A SIMPLE DRESS”

…so perfect for a chic and casual bridal shower in the Spring, no?

Minimalist perfection.  Love~

Image: YELLOWEAVER

“MAD ABOUT [CHEVRON PRINT] MONDAY”

I’m back doing “Mad About […] Monday” yay!  It’s been so long, but I’m inspired to write this post today because I saw this…

and this…

They remind me of how fun, fresh, and modern this particular print can be.  I have been obsessed with the zig-zag chevron print for a while, but I didn’t notice how crazy I was about it until I looked through my album from the summer and found all these photos!

Kicking off the summer with chevron pedi.  I have the best manicurists EVER!  Vanna and her sister, Valerie, are awesome.  In fact, I’m going to blog about all the cool mani/pedi they have done for me soon…

It wouldn’t be a summer without a chevron print bikini.  This set is from H&M, and it is still my favorite so far…

…rocking it at my b-day bash at the SLS pool this past summer…

And of course, I was one of those crazy people at Target when the Missoni-Madness was happening…

I scored these Alexa rugs for my living room from Overstock.com.  I couldn’t order a large enough rug because it was out of stock at that time so I ordered 2 small ones and put them side-by-side.  I think they may be back in stock now!  If you are looking for one, hurry before they are out again.  I totally love them!

And my favorite designer of all time, Jonathan Adler, came out with this iPhone case…I was beyond excited…

Lastly, when it was time to choose a design for Totally Heart Events business cards…we chose chevron.  It’s totally US!  My dear friend, Nikki, from The Collection Design Studio (who did our wedding invitations) was the creative genius behind this design.  Isn’t it so lovely?

So I think it’s clear that the zig-zag is here to stay for a while…at least for me.

Love~

Images: 1. Ada & Darcy, 2. Aletafae, Rest of Photos – my own via Instagram

“FABULOUS FRIDAY [THE WHITE DRESS]”

…my wedding was over a year ago, and I still cannot stop looking at white dresses.  I wish everyday that we can have another wedding just so I can get another fabulous white dress.  Well…there is always an opportunity for a vow renewal.  I’m already planning it in my head.  It will definitely be somewhere beachy…may be Mexico or Hawai’i…with all of our closest friends partying the warm night away.  And this dress would be so perfect for that party…

Let the countdown begin – 3 years, 9 months, 29 days…

Happy Friday~

Image: Fashion Gone Rogue

“THE PERFECT ‘PEAR’ REHEARSAL DINNER” PART III

We finally get to the “Black” element of this party.  I had envisioned super glossy, black vases with pure white blooms in them.  I thought the contrast will be super modern, and since we are try to keep everything simple, modern is the best way to go.

We purchased cheap vases and candle holders from the Dollar Store.

We then spray-painted them with a glossy black paint.

Sadly, they didn’t turn out as glossy as I would have wanted them to be, but they still work out great in the end.

We then purchased bunches of white/ivory blooms from a local flower wholesaler.  We got China Mums, Gerbera Daisies, Lisianthus, Tulips, Hypericum (which I think look like mini-pears…so cute) and some other really pretty flowers that I don’t know the name of :-(.  I really must educate myself more on flowers…

The key to make this minimalistic approach work is to stick to just black and white/cream palette.  This palette just make everything looks so clean and elegant.  To display them, we bought these laser cut scrapbook papers.  We used them as the “mat” to display the flowers on and to give the table another visual layer.

We originally wanted to make table runners, but our budget and time-constraint did not allow for that so we went with the mat idea instead.  I actually did the same trick before at my bridal shower, which worked really well so we did the same here.

And here’s how the room turned out….

Cheers to the Perfect “Pear”~

Images: Me and C. Mai Photography

“THE PERFECT ‘PEAR’ REHEARSAL DINNER” PART II

For the escort cards, we were able to find these cute, patterned scrapbook papers in a smaller than standard (12×12) size at Joann, and luckily, they were perfectly in our color scheme as well.

Each piece is perfect for 2 escort cards when cut in half.

We halfed each paper then folded each piece in half again so each card will stand up on its own.

We then printed each guest’s name on ivory papers.  Cut out each name and glued it to the outside of the card.  As for the inside, we printed each table’s name on green papers and glued it to the inside of the card.  So simple, yet so pretty.

As for the table names, we used the same patterned scrapbook papers as the escort cards, but instead of halfing each one, we used the entire sheet.  We also printed each table’s name on an ivory paper then just glued it onto the patterned paper.  We then displayed  each one on a photo stand (recycled from my wedding.  I ❤ recycling!).

We also made the signs “The Perfect ‘Pear'” and “Please Take a Seat” with the help of the Cri-Cut machine.  We simply cut the words out with the Cri-Cut on a scrapbook patterned paper then we added a plain, opposing color paper in the back so the words show.  We then framed them for the Escort Cards Table.

As previously mentioned, we tried to keep everything as simple as possible so purchasing already pretty, patterned papers saved us a lot of time.  So my advice is to always be on the lookout for pretty scrapbook papers on sale.  They save so much time and energy, and they can add so much characters to your event.

Up next – The “Black” element of this party.  Stay tuned!

Images:  By me and Courtesy of C. Mai Photography

“THE PERFECT ‘PEAR’ REHEARSAL DINNER” PART I

…since we were asked to take this dinner on (super) last minute, I didn’t come up with my own inspiration boards.  Instead, I went to the Queen of Inspiration Boards, Kathryn of Snippet and Ink and just picked a couple of them out for this dinner.  We decided on a modern palette of black, cream, and “pear” green for our Perfect “Pear” theme.  It is always a bit hard to design around a pre-existing color scheme, in this case, a restaurant, but we made the most of what is there.  The restaurant’s table clothes are cream, and they were able to provide us with black napkins so we chose to bring in green and work around that.  Here are the boards that inspired this dinner…

Because of the budget and time-constraint, I decided to keep all projects a simple as possible but still make a big impact in the room.  The biggest showpiece for this event is the Escort Cards Display.  We chose a Black & Cream Damask fabric and wrapped it around a simple foam board.  Here’s how we did it:

Start with a large foam board.  The one we used is 24 in. x 30 in. for 45 escort cards.  This can be purchased at any craft store.

We also bought a roll of batting from Joann’s.

We then wrapped the batting around the foam board.  You can glue the batting to the foam board using a spray glue, but since we didn’t have any, we just used glue gun.

We purchased a patterned fabric a little large than the foam board.

We then wrapped the fabric around board.  Make sure to pull it taut and then glue the back side.  You can also staple the fabric to the board to be more secure.

We then use green ribbons in different shades of green to wrap around the board.  This is where you’ll tuck in the escort cards.

We were having some trouble getting the ribbon to stay taunt so we ended up using thumb tags to help re-enforce the ribbons by tagging them directly into the back of the foam board.  This method worked the best – although it doesn’t look pretty in the back, but our board will be leaning against the wall so it worked fine for us.
And that’s it for the board.  Super easy.  This is the finished product…

Up next – the  paper projects (escort cards, table names, and signs).

Images:  1,2 Snippet & Ink, and the rest of photos – me.

“RUSTIC BEACH SIDE SOIREE”

…remember this Seashore & Sunset board I did a while back?  Well, the wedding is next month!  And the colors has evolved a bit (as do all weddings I’ve done so far), and we now have a calmer, more rustic palette.  The bride is incorporating a lot of craft paper colors via the use of burlap and a more muted, intense blue…like the deeper part of the ocean…is used.  She is also using a lot of ivory through the use of sand, shells, and starfish.  I totally heart starfish!  How whimsical and perfect for a beach wedding.  We are only doing the dessert table for the wedding, but I still want to make a board so that we can stay true to the vibe of this simple, rustic, beach chic wedding.

Stay tune to see how this dessert table turns out!