I did it! We braved the corn maze last Friday, and picked up a few small pumpkins at the same time. I started the transformation by applying a base coat with some spraypaint I already had in the house. It wasn’t the perfect color (a silvery gold, not the rich metallic I was going for), but it worked to tone down the orange!

I let them dry overnight, then painted on a rough coat of liquid gilding I picked up at Michael’s (with a 50% off coupon, it was about $3.50). The gilding was extremely forgiving — it kind of melded into a smooth coat all on its own, and only one coat was needed. The only bad thing about it was that it needed to be cleaned up with turpentine, which, if you haven’t used that stuff in a while, let me remind you — it stinks HORRIBLY. So much so, that I’d recommend one of the following two courses of action to myself if I were to repeat this project:

1) Buy the correct color of gold spray paint and forgo the gilding all together.
2) Use a paintbrush that you don’t mind throwing away at the end of the project.

In the end, though, the outcome was so cute for so little effort and expense! Highly recommended.

Of all the options out there for decorating with pumpkins, adding gold accents is my top pick. Five of my favorite examples:

Top to bottom: Country Living | Martha Stewart | Martha Stewart | Twig & Thistle | Martha Stewart

I particularly love when they’re mixed with cream and natural pumpkins — gives a little earthiness to this glam look! If you’re interested in trying this (I am!), I think the key is to get a darker, more yellow gold than white gold spray paint. I found some tips for gilding here, too, if you choose to go that route!

Have you picked out/embellished pumpkins this year? We’re hoping to get ours this weekend — since we don’t carve, they might last through Thanksgiving!

There are several topics I need to cover before the wedding, and one of them is my wonderful bridal shower! I actually ended up having two bridal showers, but when this one took place (July), I thought it was going to be my only one. Even if it had been, I would have been completely satisfied — it was such a fun morning!

John’s two sisters and mom were the hostesses, and they did a remarkable job! The loose theme was “All You Need is Love” (perhaps an homage to our proposal video?), with heavy doses of pink, laid-back picnic style, and Parisian flair. A few of my most favorite things!

Marget sourced the invites from Minted. It was so exciting when this pretty showed up in my mailbox!

The day of the shower dawned exceptionally hot, especially for New England – about 95, with bright sun. Since we were outside, the ladies made a last-minute store run for several extra beach umbrellas, which went a long way towards keeping everyone shaded and cool!

The tables were delightful, filled with glitter-rimmed berry baskets, pink seersucker runners, gold painted mason jars (a DIY project!), and sunflowers in picnic baskets.

John’s mom is a phenomenal cook and baker, and his sisters are not far behind. The spread at the shower was delicious! We had chicken salad, egg salad with dill, croissants and baguettes, pea pesto salad, and watermelon and feta salad, and for dessert, an assortment of quick breads and mini cupcakes. YUM!

Once everyone had filled their plates and sat down to enjoy, the ladies went around the table saying something they loved about me, or sharing a memory from our lives together. Let me tell y’all — best thing ever! Since the attendees included my grandmother, my best friend from birth, the parents of my best childhood girlfriends, and many other important people in my life, the stories shared were wide-ranging and brought back memories I had almost forgotten about.

The rest of our time was taken up by two activities: a fun Emily and John trivia game, and opening this stack of goodies:

Me oh my! I’m working on a post about our registry right now, and I’ll highlight a few of my favorite gifts in an upcoming post! Needless to say, we are blessed with very generous family and friends.

Speaking of whom, here I am with John, my bridesmaids, my future brother in law, and my beautiful ribbon bouquet!

Back to the game for a minute. They titled it “Who Said It?” and it was a fun twist on the usual newlywed type game! Marget and Natalie came up with a list of questions (What was the best trip you’ve taken together? When did you know he/she was the one?), and got our answers beforehand. At the shower, guests split into teams of two, and each team was given a mustache on a stick and a pair of lips on a stick. The gals had chosen either my or John’s answer for each question, and teams had to guess which one of us said it. (They indicated their choice by holding up either the mustache or the lips!) It was harder than it sounds!

At the end of the morning, guests left with these sweet seed packet favors.

Everything was so thoughtfully planned. I had the best time, and am so thankful to John’s family for hosting, and our friends and family for braving the heat!

Thanks to a mix of attendees for sharing these photos!

P.S. The bridal shower I threw for Marget

Striped shirt from Chance, napkins from Martha Stewart, sailboat and oar menu from Rue Mag

Happy Fourth of July, one day early! I’ll be taking the next few days off from blogging to hang with my family. Enjoy the fireworks, and see you back here next week!

P.S. Another happy Fourth

One of the highlights of my crazy week was co-hosting a bridal shower for John’s sister, a topic of much discussion on this blog. Her wedding is coming up in just less than one month, so I figured it was high time to show you the finished project! To recap, I gathered inspiration here, shared our inspiration board here, and sent out these invitations.

See all of the credits on the original post!

One of Marget’s best friends graciously allowed us to host the shower in her apartment, and it turned out to be the perfect size for our intimate gathering – about 15 gals. The food table was the main focal point, and I have to say, I’m pretty proud of our spread! I designed a menu in Illustrator to match the invitations (I used the Love*Jenna clipart from this PDF for the frame – great resource!). The individual servings of fruit salad with washi tape-secured cocktail forks were a big hit! (I was inspired by this birthday party.) The plastic cups and forks were from Party City.

Rounding out the edibles were individual cups of cut veggies (we added the ranch dressing right before guests were scheduled to arrive), delicious cucumber sandwiches (we loosely followed this recipe), and deviled eggs. The veggie cups were also from Party City, and happily, we were able to save and hand wash many of them for use at a future party!

We did a really fun “mix your own mimosa” bar for drinks, with orange, grapefruit, and strawberry apple mix-ins.

Finally, for dessert, we had quite the spread: a fruit tart, a carrot cake, and a donut croquembouche! One note, if you’re thinking of making something similar: buy a lot of donut holes!! I think we used about 75 on this baby. The drink stirrers and flags were made by me.

For decor, we kept things simple: gorgeous pink peonies, and lots and lots of hand-punched confetti, including more gold glitter hearts.

We had two main activities at the shower, besides the usual mingling, nibbling, and watching Marget open gifts. As guests arrived, they each selected a little envelope. Each envelope had a date on the outside, and a blank card on the inside. We asked the ladies to write Marget a note appropriate to their date, and then at the end of the shower, we gave all of the sealed envelopes to Marget. The ideas is that she’ll have a sweet note to open every day for the two weeks leading up to her wedding! The cards and envelopes were from Paper Presentation, and the little stickers were from Martha Stewart’s Avery Line at Staples.

The second activity of the day was our version of the Newlywed Game! While M + S were visiting John and me earlier this spring, I distracted Marget while John filmed Seth answering a series of questions. We edited the short clips, then asked Marget the same questions at the shower, and compared her answers. Fun!

We of course didn’t send the ladies off empty-handed – favors were tiny bottles of Essie nail polish, tied off with cute “Live colorfully.” Kate Spade approved, indeed :)

We had so much fun putting this shower together for Marget, and I think she had a great time! I hope y’all enjoyed following along!