{friday cocktail: champagne cocktail bar}

As promised, I am back this Friday with the cocktail recipes from the Champagne and Desserts party I posted about earlier this week.  I have posted about setting up a DIY champagne cocktail bar in the past when we created one for our engagement party (see those recipes here).  For the champagne and desserts party, I wanted to go with a little bit sweeter girlier cocktail creations, but as always I made sure to include the classic original champagne cocktail recipe.  The "26 candles" recipe was named in honor of the birthday celebration using pomegranate seeds, home-made grenadine & a splash of St. Germain.  The "gingerly fizz" recipe was created to utilize one of my favorite flavored liqueurs, Domaine de Canton, garnished with a slice of candied ginger and splash of honey syrup.

Download each of the recipe cards by clicking on the corresponding links:

Original Champagne Cocktail

Gingerly Fizz

Twenty Six Candles

Cheers!

{champagne & desserts birthday party}

This past Friday, we celebrated my friend Heather's birthday with a little champagne & desserts themed party at my place!  You can see the original inspiration board for the party right here.  I absolutely loved how this party turned out.  Just a few champagne cocktail recipes and a sprinkling of desserts mixed with pink and sparkly decorations created the perfect setting to ring in a fabulous birthday.  Here are some snapshots from the party and later this week I'll give you all the details on the champagne cocktail set up plus some freeeee printables!

 {desserts set up}

 {the gold sequin tablecloth that keeps on giving- originally from the sequins & bowties party}

 {one of my favorite wedding registry gifts- gold flatware from here}

 {gold & ivory tissue poms from BHLDN & the DIY glitter letter banner}

 {champagne cocktail set up}

 {pomegranate seeds for champagne cocktails in a vintage cocktail coupe}

 {the cutest bow tie bottle stopper from BHLDN}

 {snickerdoodle cupcakes- one of my favorite box-mix recipes}

 {festive jelly beans}

 {white chocolate dipped oreos with birthday sprinkles}

 {classic cheesecake cut into two-bite portions and topped with a fresh raspberry}

 {key lime tarts cut into bite size portions}

{the birthday girl!}

{glitter letter banner}

So here's the thing...some people are really good are free hand drawing letters and I just so happen to not be one of those people.  So here's a little tutorial on how you can make a glittered letter banner for yourself without agonizing over horribly hand-drawn letters.  I will warn you that this is certainly not a quick project, but it is rather simple and quite honestly I haven't found a better way to achieve letters like this (if you have please let me know)!!

I have spotted quite of few of these glittered letter banners around (like this or this or these), but haven't really got around to trying my hand at one until now.  I figured if I was going to spend the time making one that I should make a phrase which I could get some use out of in the future so I decided to make a gold glitter "happy birthday" banner for the upcoming Champagne & Desserts party.  Since I know some other people who have birthdays, I can't imagine this will be the last time this banner gets used.

The method is similar to what we used for our wedding signs (see that tutorial here) except this time the letters you are printing are to be used as stencils.

what you need:

• 12" by 12" glitter cardstock (you wanna get the reaaaaally thick stuff so that the letters hold up once they are cut) you can generally get about four to five 5 inch tall letters on each piece so plan accordingly
• regular copy paper
• scissors
• exacto knife
• cutting mat
• hole punch
• 1/4" wide ribbon 

1. Using a simple Microsoft Word document, print out all the letters you will need for your phrase. For my letters which are about 5 inches tall, I used the "bebas neue" font at size 600. In order to save ink, I also changed the letters to an outline rather than a full fill. 
2. cut out each letter using an exacto knife to get the interior areas.
3. trace letters onto the back of your gold glitter cardstock making sure to reverse letters that require it.  (one of the best parts about the Bebas font is that many letters that normally would need to be reversed will not require it! yay saving time!)
4. cut out each glitter letter and use exacto knife for interior areas
5. using a hole punch, punch out two holes about an inch apart at the top of each letter. For some letters you can punch one hole in each part of the letter like the Y or H.
6. string your ribbon through each set of hole punches.
7. enjoy!