I love to decorate my bar cart for the holidays! In the midst of moving and not having my it with me for a couple months, I haven’t gotten to decorate it since Valentine’s Day! I’m glad to finally get the chance again, since Christmas is my number one favorite holiday, hands down. I love that everything is so much more sparkly and cheerful this time of year, and I definitely tried to bring that vibe to my cart with this mimosa bar.
My younger sister turned 21 this year, so it’s the first time all the members of my family will be able to drink over the holidays. And there’s no better way to celebrate than with a mimosa bar on Christmas morning! I suppose technically it’s a champagne cocktail bar, since a mimosa is traditionally made with orange juice, but the sentiment is the same. Orange juice, peach nectar, and cranberry juice poured into pretty carafes helps to dress up the overall feel and add consistency to the spread. Make sure you have a couple bottles of champagne so there's enough to go around!
I’ve been adding pink into my Christmas decor for the past several years now, so it made sense to bring that theme to my bar cart as well. I wrapped gold and silver tinsel around three sides of the top bar, and strung some small ornaments from the front. The ‘cheers’ balloons provide a great backdrop, and can even be left up year round - or at least through New Year’s Eve! I also had these pink glittery cone trees from a few years ago, and they fit perfectly underneath. I added a few bottles that fit my color scheme on the bottom and displayed the leftover ornaments in a bowl to add some more color. Obviously, you can play around with the display and customize it to fit your own holiday decor!
If you’re hosting extended family for the holidays this year, try adding a mimosa bar to your breakfast spread!
SHOP THIS POST:
!function(doc,s,id){ var e, p, cb; if(!doc.getElementById(id)) { e = doc.createElement(s); e.id = id; cb = new Date().getTime().toString(); p = '//shopsensewidget.shopstyle.com/widget-script.js?cb=1481554716145?cb=' + cb; e.src = p; doc.body.appendChild(e); } if(typeof window.ss_shopsense === 'object'){ if(doc.readyState === 'complete'){ window.ss_shopsense.init(); } } }(document, 'script', 'shopsensewidget-script');
Tell me about some of your favorite Christmas morning traditions in the comments!
The weather has been super gray and rainy for the past three weeks, so I definitely needed something light and bright for this week's happy hour. Enter the French 75! This is one of my all time favorite cocktails. I could honestly drink one every day of my life. This cocktail uses two of my favorite things–gin and champagne. The flavors of these combined with the citrus from the lemon is just amazing. I dare you to drink just one.
When purchasing the ingredients for our Mother's Day mimosas, I found these small champagne bottles that were too cute to buy just one of. I still had a couple left, so I already had everything for today's happy hour–it was just meant to be.
Ingredients:
1 oz gin
3/4 oz lemon juice
3/4 oz simple syrup (recipe below)
champagne
To Make:
For the simple syrup:
Combine equal parts sugar and water in a small saucepan. I used 1 cup of each and had a ton leftover–it also makes a great sweetener for coffee, tea, or any other drinks you might like!
Bring it to a boil and simmer until all the sugar is dissolved. Allow to cool.
For the cocktail:
Combine the gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup in a shaker filled with ice and shake vigorously.
Strain into a champagne flute and fill it the rest of the way with champagne.
Garnish with a lemon twist–and a blackberry, if you wish!
The best thing about this cocktail is that it's stupidly easy. You can make these quickly and with very little effort, and you'll still feel fancy holding your champagne flute. This is the perfect cocktail for celebrating, because it dresses up a normal glass of champagne without being too difficult. Cheers!
If there's one thing I love, it's award show season. I love the red carpets, the speeches, people getting excited about receiving recognition for their hard work, and of course, all the glitz and glamour. I love spending Sunday nights curled up on the couch in my pajamas while watching my favorite celebrities get all dressed up.
The grand finale of awards show season is, obviously, the Oscars. This is the most prestigious award, because it's voted on by their peers–actors vote for actors, directors vote for directors, etc. So if you're like me and want to pretend you're a part of the Academy too, here's how to throw the perfect Oscar party!
If you're going to be members of the Academy for the night, everyone has to fill out a ballot. These are perfect for the beginning of the party while everyone is still arriving. Fill them out while watching the red carpet–just make sure you finish voting before the show begins at 8:30, or it'll be too late! You can choose one person to score them and have people turn them in to keep the winner a surprise until the end, or just go by the honor system and have everyone score their own.
Hang up gold fringe curtains behind your food table to add glam to the room. Or you can just hang them against a wall to create a perfect backdrop for your well-dressed guests to take pictures in front of!
Going to the movies is all about the popcorn, so here are three amazing recipes for munching on throughout the show! For all three of these recipes, I used unsalted, unbuttered white popcorn made on the stovetop–the perfect blank canvas for adding flavor!
Celebration Popcorn
1 c vanilla candy melts
1 c vanilla cake mix (just the powder)
sprinkles
Melt the vanilla candy melts and stir in the cake mix. Melt them together for another 10 seconds, then drizzle the mixture over your popcorn. You can toss the popcorn with the mixture to coat it more evenly if you want. Add the sprinkles over the top and let dry before serving.
Oreo Popcorn
~12 Oreos
11oz White chocolate chips
Crush the Oreos until they're finely chopped, but not completely turned to dust. You'll still want some bigger cookie pieces. Melt the white chocolate chips in 30 second intervals and stirring until they're completely smooth. Drizzle the chocolate over the popcorn, or toss the popcorn to coat it more evenly. Add in the cookies and toss until they're mixed in evenly. Let dry before serving.
Garlic Parmesan Popcorn
4 T melted butter
1 T minced garlic
1/2 c parmesan
Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and allow it to cook for 3 minutes. Spoon the mixture over the popcorn and toss to coat evenly. Add parmesan while it's still warm, toss, and serve. (This one is my favorite!)
These cookies are the real star of the show. Just use your favorite cutout sugar cookie recipe–make the same number of Oscar men and circles, and then just cut stars with the rest of the dough. A cookie cutter would work great for this, but I didn't have one, so I printed out a 6" silhouette of the statue and just traced it with a knife! They're not perfect, but I still think they're adorable. And as long as they taste delicious, who cares, right? After they've been baked and cooled, cut out a small slit in the center of each circle, just barely big enough for the base of the trophies.
Ice your cookies with a glaze made from 3/4 c powdered sugar and 2 T milk. Mix it up with a fork and add a couple drops of yellow food coloring to mimic the gold of the statues. Let the glaze dry. Stand the men up in the slits of the circles–if your cuts are too wide or they're just not staying upright, use a small amount of melted white chocolate to glue them in place. Are these not the cutest?
Rim your champagne glasses with gold sugar to glitz them up too.
And of course, what are the Oscars without awards? Give mini Oscar trophies to your guests for getting the most right on their ballot, best dressed, and anything else you can think of! Who are you watching the Oscars with this year? And more importantly, who are you voting for?? Tell me in the comments!
Since Valentine's Day is just two days away–and Galentine's Day is tomorrow–I thought I'd show you how I decorated my bar cart for the holiday. A bar cart provides a great focal point for the room, as well as serving a functional purpose. Just a few changes to the decorations and you're all set!
I got this pink shimmery backdrop paper at Michaels and hung up three long strips behind the cart. It was a great way to make the space festive without having to involve paint or anything drastic!
I framed a great holiday card to add some dimension to the cart. You could also frame a small piece of art, or even a fun drink recipe for your guests! I also punched hearts out of red glittery wrapping paper, and used double sided tape to stick them together with the string in between. Easiest garland ever.
These X and O dishes are from the new Alphabet Soup collection at Michaels–I can't tell you how excited I was that they even had an X! I initially bought it because my design studio is X Height Ment, and then when I got home and was planning my Valentine's Day posts, I kicked myself for not buying the O too. So I had to go back and get it the next day (of course).
I love how this cart turned out! It's so festive and fun, and makes for a great place for guests to gather while they're filling their glasses. Now for the real question of the holiday– Conversation hearts: love em or leave em? I love them, but I love pretty much anything that's pure sugar. I recently found out that so many people aren't even tempted by them! Which camp are you in?
I'm sure you've heard by now that we got so. much. snow. over here on the east coast! I love snow so much, and watching it fall for basically two full days was amazing. And when two and a half feet of snow is covering everything outside, snuggling up in sweaters with some hot chocolate is basically required.
These sweet treats are perfect for a snow day spent inside with some friends before (or after!) traipsing out to play in the snow. And with the colors, you could totally transform this into an early Valentine's celebration.
Chocolate chip cookies are a must. I probably ate five of them by the time the day was over! They're the perfect all-occasion treat. And rice krispie treats are the same way—just change the sprinkles to fit the theme of the party.
Hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows is another obvious choice for a snowy get-together. Make a large batch in a crock pot if you're making it for a larger group! Muddy buddies (also known as puppy chow) are also a great snack for everyone to munch on throughout the party.
Break out the board games! I love using Scrabble tiles to add cute decorations, but by then you've already pulled the game out...so you might as well play, right?! Having several games is also great to help split up a big group into smaller ones if you need to.
