5 Results for: mermaid party elise

Decor

Home Tour: Elise Alden’s Family-Friendly Mountain Retreat

April 3, 2017

Elise Alden's airy, cozy home in the mountains.

You know my friend Elise? The one who's an amazing party-planner and an amazing bananacake-maker, and owns the cutest kids' boutique in addition to managing glam | camp and designing and curating the most adorable little-kid clothing and accessories on the planet? (No but really: this necklace just got added to the site and I am DYING. Dyinnnnnng.)

Unsurprisingly, Elise's house is as warm and bright and sweet as she is. My favorite thing about it - besides its location in the Los Gatos mountains, which is basically paradise - she transformed it from a dark, dated space into a breezy home that's both comfortable and fun for kids, and beautifully chic for entertaining. And she did this not by spending zillions of dollars on decor, but rather by pulling together mismatched pieces from antique shops, thrift stores, and DIYing wherever she could - sidenote, the woman painted her two-story house exterior herself, which makes her an actual superhero - and ended up with a house that's completely her, from the hand-painted wall design in her girls' book nook to the ramshackle glam (sorry, had to) living room.

Entertaining

Mermaid Party, Take Two

September 29, 2016

Remember when I said that my friend Elise and I decided to go for the same theme for both of our daughter's birthday parties, so we could share the decorations (both the cost and the labor)? It ended up being such a good idea.

I loved how Goldie's party turned out - and Elise's was absolutely spectacular (ok, it helps that she had a friend with an insanely beautiful house who offered to let her throw the party in the backyard). The coolest part: even though all the decorations and activities were the same at the two parties, they ended up feeling special and unique in both venues with just minor tweaks.

Click here to check out Mermaid Party, Take One

Entertaining

The Pink Mermaid

August 16, 2016

FEELINGS.

I was prepared to be all "but my baybyyyyyyy!" about Goldie's second birthday - I've done this once or twice before, as you may recall - and so this time I came prepared with a mandate: I would remember to take a minute every once in awhile to stop being a hostess and just be with my kids. It's so easy, when you're the one throwing a party, to get caught up in cooking and serving drinks and answering the door and making sure you talk to everyone...and then boom: the whole thing is over and everyone is gone and the dishes need doing, and you realize that you just spent the past several hours running around like the proverbial chicken and completely forgot to notice what was happening.

You want the day back.

Decor

Most Importantly, Of Course, It Is Pink

September 30, 2016

Little girls are apparently way more interested in goats than antiques.

I LOVE it when you go to a flea market/swap meet/antique store with zero expectations and then accidentally stumble upon a treasure that just so happens to require exactly the (small) amount of cash that you have sitting in your wallet.

Right?!

DIY Projects

How To Make An (Inexpensive) Bubble Chandelier

August 23, 2016

When Elise and I got together a few days before the Mermaid Party to work on the decor and she told me that we were going to make a bubble chandelier, I kind of went "mmmhmmm yeah sounds great!" and then returned to hot-gluing starfish to sticks, because obviously we were not going to make a bubble chandelier. Because in my world, that is not something that people do. It turned out that I was right (that day at least): after hot-gluing many, many starfish to many, many sticks we ran out of time, and no bubble chandeliers were made. And so I forgot about the whole thing, figuring Elise had realized that trying to make one of these things was way more labor-intensive than anything created for a two-year-old's birthday party should rightfully be.

Then, on the morning of the party, Elise showed up an hour early to help me set up (I've said this before, but helloooo awesome friend), sat down at my dining room table, and said: "OK, let's get started on the chandelier."

Excusemewhat? Do you not see I am presently pouring frozen meatballs onto a sheet of aluminum foil and not exactly ideally situated for a four-hour plastic bubble extravaganza?