Crawfish Massacre 2013

A few years ago Tom decided that he wanted to have a craw fish boil for his birthday. It was a good time, so we decided to make it a tradition. This was the 3rd annual Crawfish Massacre, and the first in which we actually took pictures (or rather, pictures with other than just a camera phone).

This was the extent to which I decorated. I think I used my party planning steam up on my tea party (also, Tom likes nothing better than a low-key affair) so about 20 minutes before people started showing up, Angie helped me create this crepe paper runner on top of a Target tablecloth. So fancy, right?

The one craft we did prepare ahead of time were the t-shirts. This was our second year making shirts for our party guests and we were really happy with how they came together. Tom created the artwork and then helped me screen print them, fun couple project!

CRAWFISH!

Ezra, sitting in his precious Ezra-sized chair, wearing his sweet Ezra-sized craw fish boil t-shirt.

Family pic in matching shirts! Not sure who Ezra is fist bumping...

Colin and Angie being fantastic, as usual.

Tele, happy puggin'. Hanging out in the backyard with tons of people who are likely to drop food is one of her favorite things.

 First round of crawfish hitting the table.

Melissa made Mark and Ezra matching bibs - contrary to the picture above, they both loved them.

And for the sake of time, here are a whole bunch of other pics from the party - I'll let them tell the story. First though, thanks to Meredith for grabbing my camera for a good long while. It's nice to actually be in a few pictures, and really nice to have a good amount of pictures from someone else's perspective. Yay, Mere!

Just a simple invitation...or something

So I like invitations. That might be an understatement.

When I decided to have a small gathering of ladies over for a tea party for my birthday I got very excited at the prospect of going maybe just a little bit crazy on a small batch of invitations. 

I gathered up 8 little wooden boxes from several different craft stores and painted them an array of peachy-pinks and golds.

I then took little glass jars and filled them up with loose leaf Earl Grey and attached a little tag of instructions with baker's twine.

I also included some disposable tea bags as well as some bits of bakers twine with cute little pink tags for tying off the tea bags (they don't need it, but they just kind of up the cute factor).

I broke out the calligraphy pens and gold ink and hand lettered the invites. They are definitely not fancy or super well done, but I liked being able to hand write them like ladies did in England back in the day.

Then I packed all the pieces up together in the painted wood boxes and tied them up with pretty ribbon.

 And then I hand delivered them! I would set them on my friends' doorsteps and text them pictures letting them know there was a little something waiting for them.  

I had such a blast putting these together! I don't think they're TOO over the top, but I do think they gave my guests a slight taste as to what they were in for - and hey, who can turn down Earl Grey, right?