Hi Friends! Have you missed me? Its seriously been way too long since my last post, in fact my posting the entire last year has been non-existent. Its not because I haven’t wanted to, Ive just been up to my eyebrows in sugar. And thats not a bad thing!
I’m so appreciative of all of the local referrals and etsy sales that I’ve been given this past year but I want to keep this blog going too. I still want to focus on sharing my own work, I have plenty of content to share but I’d like to include more resources and inspiration boards. Maybe even try out some DIYs and tutorials which in the past I’ve shied away from doing. I also would love to start a series about my favorite sweet spots in NYC. My son, Hudson has started pre-k this year and is 5 full days away from mommy now. Yikes! but Yeah! too. Ive got about 25 more hours a week on my hands, so lets play!
If you follow me on Instagram (or have popped in to check on me and seen my instagram feed that changes on my blog sidelines) you have been in the know with what I’ve been up to. Ive used Instagram as a replacement for keeping up my blog. I still get to share and I love the instant feedback I get from all kinds of people. You may have figured out that I run in a few different creative circles. Im an interior designer, so I follow lots of dwelling and design peeps. Although it would seem that cake designers, cookie artists and party stylists are one big family they actually stick to their own groups, well I’m a little bit of each of those too. And then because my daughter is a ballet dancer at School of American Ballet, I love to follow the professional dancers, students, dance moms and dance photographers. I have so many interests and have made a lot of great connections within each of these creative groups, they are great cheerleaders and an inspiration to me. A year ago I tried keeping up with Twitter but I’m much too visual. I was constantly clicking the links to see the pictures and blog posts and that really takes a lot of my time. A picture is worth a 1000 words, right? So lets just get to this gorgeous party!
I had a hard time picking which sugar project to jump back in the game with, there are SOOO many good ones I havent shared. Im going to start with my daughters 12th birthday. This was a home party in August, very small, just family and 2 of Macy’s friends.
We have a running joke in our family about cat ladies, Im one, my sister is one and macy is too, except she hasn’t had a house full of cats like me and my sister have had. Macy will certainly reach that point one day but until then she can keep on dreaming because our little NYC apartment is not the place for it. We also joke about Macy being an old soul, we believe she was once a fiesty old lady, strong willed and wordly. She is a collector, to the point that I have to clean her out sometimes, she just like her stuff. So, to sum it up this Vintage Cat Lady Party was all about Macy. 
Let me first tell you about these amazing tablecloths that I used on the cake and dining table. They are from the vintage collection of one of my best friends, one of the most giving and selfless people I know. Jennefer generously express shipped me some of her most prized pieces including the pink one I used on the the dining table that was her great-grandmothers and the white lace edge one that was hand embroidered by her mother!! I was so nervous about using them but Jen just said that her great grandmother “would be ecstatic for it to be used”! When I asked her about barrowing something for the party she sent me all kinds of pictures and mock ups to choose from. At first we passed on the dark green but then came back to it and Im so glad we did, it was so perfect. I loved that it was the same emerald shade as my jadeite cake stand, just darker. I really wanted to keep that one! (Jen, if you ever find a duplicate grab it for me!) 
The party decor existed at the dining table and a smaller side table that served as a backdrop. The paper goods were a mix of the Frills and Frosting collection that comes out of the UK and the Poppy Talk for Target which was a summer collection that you cant get anymore. That magnificent cake was fake, oh yeah! I love to make fake cakes for my parties. First of all that cake would feed 100 people and my parties are small so I would never need such a big cake but I always want that big focal point. I like to serve cupcakes or smaller cakes instead, in this case I made a strawberry shortcake….with sparklers….and cupcakes with plastic toy cats on them. On top of the strawberry short cake is a cat knick knack from my childhood days of collecting cat decor for my room. We lit the sparklers when we sang happy birthday and it was awesome but they did leave soot on the cake that I had to scrape off before I served it. Not a big deal, still worth doing. The porcelain cat on top of the fake cake was also mine, dated 1990 on the bottom. 
This was a tiny party by any account, so I didnt go crazy with the sweets. I made oreo yarn balls (which were really evil cake pops in disguise) and I ordered a bag of old school butter mints AKA baby shower mints. They were the perfect pallet of pink, yellow, teal and white! 
I made some cute cat and yarn ball cookies sets, you can find them in my etsy shop here. The tuxedo cat face cookies are also in my shop here. The invites and thank you tags for take home cookies were from Sequins and Spaceships shop on etsy. 
Macy and I made wrappers for our milk bottles out of streamers and stickers from Little Dear Prints on etsy (which should win an award for cutest packaging, it was like Christmas when they arrived). 
As favors, we gave the girls these super cute cat ear headbands, they had pearls and were purrfect. They are sold at several places for a range of high and low prices. I’m pretty sure the $20 set at ASOS is the same cheap product that you can find on amazon and ebay. I order ours from this ebay seller without any problems in shipping but pearls did pop out as the girls played in them. No big deal we just glued them back in. 
The food served on my kitchen island was not a part of my decor but I always give thought in presentation, we served cucumber sandwiches, egg salad on a croissant, spinach dip and veggies on inexpensive doilies. The girls needed to eat light because after the afternoon party they did this: 
Very old lady like, right? A 2 hour trapeze lesson at NY Trapeze School, very awesome!! Two ballerinas and a gymnast flew like pros! 
I dont know how most people decided to celebrate actual birthdays for their kids but we spend it together and make it special even if there will be another party with friends. We like to do something such as see a movie and there is always a cake with candles. This year I made Macy an ice cream cake and hid it in the freezer a few days before her birthday. We spent the day out and I surprised her with the cake when we got home. Keeping with the theme, because I already had the table cloths and paper goods, I went with an ombre rosette cake. The most forgiving cake decoration there is! I highly recommend trying out this techinque, here is a link to a free Craftsy tutorial for it.
P.S. those lovely long blonde locks pictured above are getting chopped 8-10 inches today! WOW!
nikkiikkin.com 