As usual, First Dinner was amazing. We are truly blessed to fill our dining room table with such wonderful people. I wanted to share a few photos from the event. I am the master of budget parties (okay, self-proclaimed, but I love finding simple and inexpensive ideas to make even the simplest of ideas look grand!) First the invitations: a simple design that won my heart this year among the new cards I designed - I added a touch of red glitter for pizzazz. I carried the same design into the place cards and favor boxes. Each place tag was a circle mounted to red cardstock and tied to a candycane with blue ribbon. Foam snowflakes adorned the plates and under the vases, (found in the $1 bin at Target). I'm a bit partial to polka-dots and I seem to somehow work them in to just about every party I do! Here, in the napkins. 

The kid's table was fun to set up. My husband built a bench to give it more seating. Each place setting had a fun red snowflake cup with a twisty straw and an ornament they could color and take home. They enjoyed decorating the ornaments even more than I anticipated.

Of course, I can send no one home empty handed. My son and I baked and decorated buttery spritz cookies with red and blue sprinkles as a sweet little gift for each family. I found the perfect little boxes and bags by Martha Stewart (she has everything!) and added my own labels to match the invitation and place tags. 

Dinner this year was a huge success, and as always I am looking forward to this year and what it has to bring. Without a doubt, it will involve these 20 special people and even some who were unable to attend this year's First Dinner. Happy New Year!

It may just be a Texas thing, but I grew up in a barbecue house. It was pretty common for us to have some kind of grilled food five (and probably seven) times a week! We're not just talking meat here, my dad cooked everything on the grill from potatoes to pineapple... this was normal for me. When I went to college, I started to miss Dad's BBQ and always looked forward to it when I went home. Now I am lucky enough to be married to a converted Texan who's become quite the griller and smoker of meats. Thanks to his new talent, we love to have friends over for summer meals in the back yard. Our latest brought on this design, as part of our June feature you can get it on sale as a custom design as well as a fill-in version, and I suspect there will be many more BBQ invites to come!

With today's busy lifestyle, we often run out of time to do the things we planned on doing... like ordering custom birthday party invitations for your child's birthday party. But don't let a time crunch cause you to skimp on style. We've created a line of fill-in party invitations that allow you to showcase your good design sense and give you complete control over the timeline. Simply fill in the party info on the card, address, and pop in the mail. Each set of 12 comes with white envelopes; shipped straight to your door. Round out your selection with matching cupcake toppers and thank you notes and you'll be ready for party-day in no time!