50th Anniversary Party - Gold Gold and more Gold!

Meet Mom and Pops. Aren't they just adorable for being almost old people?  These two have raised 9 kids, lived in a Utah, California, Florida and Illinois and are leaving Monday to be missionaries for a year in Reno, Nevada. To celebrate their 50th Wedding Anniversary this year the sibs and I decided to throw them a farewell party to rival all farewell parties - and it was a blast!

First we sent out this invitation:

Having all my immediate family together is no small task, but they all flew out for the festivities a few days early and we crafted, baked, chalked and hung out. It couldn't have been a better weekend. Then when party time drew near all the sisters went into overdrive and helped get everything organized and decorated without a hitch. Thanks for all the help!

Photo Credits: Emily Smith & Robbie Collett

On the porch we had a sign-in tree made by my brother John. This thing is amazing. I sent him a picture of what I had in mind and he just took it the extra mile. Made out of wood and foam and spray painted branches from his own yard, this thing was stunning. Guests were asked to write well wishes on some tags that we decorated with glitter and washi tape (American Crafts). That glitter tape is amazing stuff and I am slowly bedazzling everything in sight with it.

Once the guests headed inside they had a chance to visit with the matron and patron of honor and then they preceded into the dining room to be fed. If there is one thing is this world the Smith Family loves-- food--and lots of it. Every event has loads of delicious goodies and we didn't want to disappoint seeing as Mom had thrown great parties like this for each one of us a time or two in our lives. So we baked and cooked and tossed and stirred and it all turned out fabulous.

For the food we served:

Pulled Pork on Homemade Rolls
Vegetable Platter with Dill Dip
Crackers and Spicy Jalapeno Dip
Orzo Salad with Feta
Bow-tie Salad with Broccoli
Shrimp Cocktail

Mom's Brownies with Glitter Sprinkles
Mom's English Toffee
Glitter dusted Meringues
Sarah's Shortbread Cookies
Glitter Dusted Sugar Cookies in the shapes of "5's" and "0's"
Grandma Boyd's Chocolate Pound Cake (the best ever)
Grandma Boyd's Coconut Cream Pie (with my own special alterations)

How could I not end on that cuteness!?

If you are interested in where I sourced the decor:
Tablecloth: Just an old un-hemmed swash of fabric from Ikea (to my mom's chagrin) $20
Serving Platters: Things we had on hand or bits and bobs I found at the thrift store.
Pedestal Frames: Ikea and spray painted with gold. $1
Flowers: Myself and Blooms by Brittney (my friend's new floral venture)
Pinwheels: DIY with American Crafts paper
Garlands: DIY tissue and crepe paper projects
Pumpkins: Pinea Farms
Food Fancies: Orsen Gygi

A Lava Ring & Cheesecake

With our engagement anniversary rolling around the corner I thought it might be a good idea to finally blog about our wedding and the events leading up to it.

And it all started with my birthday, April 12th 2012.

I woke up to a lovely surprise of some delightful daises, a Diet Dr Pepper, and a bag of homemade snickerdoodles (husband makes the WORLD'S BEST snickerdoodles) waiting for me on my car.

Let's note that the weekend before we had spent in one of my favorite places on earth, Goblin Valley. It was the greatest—hiking, eating, hiking, eating, repeated multiple times—with my absolute favorite people.

There were some obviously great ultra romantic moments in which I thought, "yea he's going to do it now" and then...

nothin'...

Bless his heart he even thought about doing it there but he didn't want to lose the rings in the dirt.

Yes I said rings...

Anyways so then my birthday rolled around, and husband, well, isn't one to do something expected. I knew he was like this and would therefore never propose on a holiday. So all in all it was perfect because I was pretty shocked when my birthday ended with an awesome rainy proposal looking over the SLC valley.

He picked me up for dinner and we headed to The Cheesecake Factory (my birthday pick). We walked around City Creek as we waited for our table and then enjoyed a very filling meal of fried chicken bits and sweet southern succotash.

We took our cheesecake to go and drove up to the capitol building (where we had many a date) to eat it on the steps. It was rainy and freezing so we vetoed that idea and ended up driving up in the Avenues to try and find a nice lookout while we chilled in the car. We passed our friend Katie's house where we first met and we talked about how it was a good thing we ended up connecting over ultra dorky design-y jokes that night.

"Photoshop is my mistress, but Illustrator is my true love" - husband

"Why can't I just use Adobe shortcuts in real life? Ugh I ate too much...Apple Z." - me

It was a miracle at all that the golden eggplant I was holding didn't scare him off immediately. (We thought it was a good party idea to spray paint a variety of gourds.) In fact, that was the night both of my loves began taking root: gold covered anything, and husband.

Wait a second, this gives me an idea. Gold covered... husband?

Anyways, we found a nice spot to sit, dug into the Anniversary cheesecake and wished we had each bought a piece rather than split one between us. When he said, "would you like your present now?" I thought, "you bought another cheesecake?!" But no delicious confection presented itself so I knew he must have decided tonight was the night. He asked me to pick from one of two pockets. I pointed to the right—still kinda hoping for a cheesecake. 

That's when the shock really settled in as he got out of the car and came around to open my door. The best part of it all was that while he did each bit of the proposal process he told me exactly what he was up to. Nervous energy I suppose, but as he was telling me that he was, "now getting out of the car" and "getting you out of the car" and "now I'm getting down on one knee" I couldn't help but start my ultra giggly nervous reaction as he proposed with the sweetest ring on the planet. A beautiful simple gold band with a delicate diamond. Then he pulled out my "other" present. His grandma's ring he inherited that we endearingly termed the "lava ring." Gorgeous isn't it?

Actually I probably would have loved to keep the monstrosity if we hadn't planned on melting it down into our custom design together, but the new one turned out so amazing that I don't regret it. While the new ring was being made I wore the placeholder (his mom's original engagement ring he proposed with) and sincerely had the hardest time giving it up. We especially loved the cross-hatched texture of the gold and decided that it would be replicated in the new engagement ring as well as on husband's ring. Not only did it symbolize our mutual love of art and drawing, but it also carried a sentiment from his parents.

But isn't the real deal the best? Melted down from Grandma's treasure with recycled diamond and all.

This time around we'll get two cheesecakes.

Art & Food, still the best combination

I'm not sure why I am so drawn to the Art & Food combination. I mean logically they are the two most important aspects of my existence so naturally you would assume I would be drawn to them in fusion but I still surprise myself at my own weirdness.  Primarily the fact that I get so excited about the two -- together.

Take this awesome project for example:

WORLDS FIRST EDIBLE COOKBOOK

Called the "Real" Cookbook, it was designed by a German design studio Korefe. It's a cookbook, a beautifully designed one at that, AND it's a key ingredient (fresh noodles) in the recipe that it dictates -- Lasagna. I just had to wipe drool off my desk. No, seriously.

How cool is that! I keep thinking about what kind of fun side project I could do that merges my two loves... Until then I'll just have to keep gathering sweet (and savory) inspiration to drool over.

Found via Design Taxi