Wow, you guys! This past week has been a whirlwind of fun and excitement as The Party Wagon officially re-launched! So much was going on in such a short amount of time, and I want to share as much of it as I can with you!! First of all, THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE!! It means so much to me to have you here, and I invite you to put your email in and subscribe! This will be the first time I have had an email list. The first time around, I relied on RSS feed only. But, one of the many things that I learned is that with an email list, we can stay connected no matter what turns Instagram/Facebook/Pinterest/Twitter take. With an email, we can be a team and can interact even more reliably! I want to share with you, and I encourage your feedback! It really wouldn’t be a party without YOU, and so I hope you will sign up for the newsletter to be delivered to your inbox each week! So let’s get this party started with a recap of the ReLaunch Parties!!

I was so thrilled to have my logo redesigned by illustrator Joanna Baker. Joanna was a delight to work with, and she captured the feel for what I was hoping to express with a new logo. To create the new look, I styled the cart, photographed it and then sent the photo to Joanna. Because my previous logo was a silhouette of my two children in a wagon- just like the wagon I used to pull them around in our backyard when they were little. I wanted to find a way to still use the sweet, original logo that held meaning for me…and so I asked Joanna to incorporate it as a cake topper on the cake on the bar cart (which I like to think of as my newest party wagon). A bar cart can be used in so many more ways than just for a bar, and I find myself pushing mine all round our house for different uses. It is definitely the most versatile party prop I own, and I highly recommend the bar carts from Society Social for style and function! And, as you can see below…I carried the logo and its colors throughout the party…

I worked with Tara, from Bambella Cookies, to come up with a way to make cookies that represented my new logo and branding. Rather than make each cookie an exact version of the logo, Tara highlighted each aspect that was represented on the bar cart in the logo. I loved how they turned out and how they shared little pieces of what The Party Wagon is as a whole. From the actual bar cart itself, to the banner, the books, the blue and white vase with flowers, my favorite pink and white compote that I always fill with lemons, to the cake with my original logo as the topper, and the drinks and glasses with straw flags…she covered it all in the most beautiful collection of custom cookies!

I love to fill our house with flowers, but I have to be careful because my son is allergic to several flowers. I have learned along the way which ones to avoid and which ones he can tolerate (he seems to have outgrown a complete flower ban)…and roses and hydrangeas seems to work just fine. I love to temper bright colors with a little bit of pastel or less-saturated color when I decorate, and so I made these arrangements with light pink roses and white hydrangeas.

I used my favorite cache pots from Chelsea House to display the flowers on our tables near the front door of the house. As much as I love flowers in a glass or clear vase, I also love the look of a beautiful decorative vase or pot- it definitely adds interest and depth to a flower arrangement. You can use a floral oasis inside the cache pots or, do like I did here, and drop a vase with water inside the pot and arrange the flowers that way.

To help celebrate the kick-off of the updated website, artist Hannah Betzel joined in on the party and did a live painting at the party. It was so much fun to watch her creative process in action as she started with the blank canvas and painted such a beautiful, lively, playful piece of art! Here she is as the painting is in progress…

Hannah is local to Athens and lives just a few blocks away from us, which made it easy and fun to have her drop in and showcase her talents at the party. I was so happy to have Hannah here! I feel like having an artist paint live adds energy and happiness to a celebration- it gives the artist the chance to share her work and talent with the community and it gives the guests a fun way to interact along with something interesting to watch and chat about. Everyone enjoys watching something come to life, and I was so honored to have Hannah here to celebrate the day!

Speaking of local favorites, I also wanted to highlight some of my favorite restaurants from our town by serving their food for lunch at the party. This also helped me be able to pull off hosting lunch in the afternoon and then hosting my daughter’s Supper Club that same night. Luckily, Athens is quite a foodie lovers town and is full of talented chefs with great restaurants. For this lunch, I served delicious sandwiches from Home.Made along with their famous Suwanee Bites and Pigs in a Blanket. I ordered salads from Maepole- my favorites being their White Bean Salad and the Snow Pea Salad. Plus, I couldn’t resist serving Maepole’s Hibiscus Lemonade along with mini champagne bottles that I got from Five Points Bottle Shop. Each guest was greeted at the door with a little champagne if they wished and then a host of other non-alcoholic options.

For dessert, we all enjoyed cupcakes from our local Gigi’s Cupcake franchise and chocolate bunnies from Condor Chocolate- along with the cookies from Bambella Cookies. Oconee Printing Company made buffet signs telling what each dish was and from which local restaurant. We also had a fun giveaway drawing for gifts from some of my favorite local shops.

Because I was hosting Supper Club later that night, I had the table set and ready for the girls early in the day. The colors that we used on the tables were perfect for spring and for the flower theme that was the Supper Club theme this month. The vases also just happened to be the colors of my logo and are from Parker Kennedy Living- The Cellar. The owners, Lance and David, offered to share the vases with me for the party, and I loaded them with ranunculus from Trader Joe’s.

I wish I had taken more photos of the friends at the party, but I truly soaked up the fun in real life and didn’t take photos while the party was going on. I was so happy to have a chance to chat and visit with the friends who came, and I didn’t want to interrupt the enjoyment! It was such a fun day and it meant the world to me to have friends drop in and share in the excitement. As with any party, helping hands make it all run smoothly and I could not have done it without the help of my friends Lance, David, and Carrie and my favorite college helper, Kathryn. And, thank YOU for attending online with me! I am just so glad to be back to blogging and to be back with you all! Please leave comments below or send me a message telling me what you think of the new design! I was fortunate to have a lovely web designer, Nicely Built, migrate my old site and then design a new look while keeping all of the original content. There is still a lot to do as I share more with you, but I so appreciate that you are here!

Come back for more soon!

XO,

Lydia