Boo! It's a Halloween House Party (for the big kids)!

This wasn't just any Halloween party. Sarah (in the 1st photo) took great pleasure in hosting Halloween parties until she past away 5 years ago. This year Sarah's best friend, Clover, decided it was time to bring back the tradition and StellaPosy was lucky enough to help out a bit with creating a little spookiness in her home.

For florals, we used white roses and white spider (no pun intended) mums with those little black spiders "crawling" inside the blooms (Thanks, Martha Stewart Living). We also used thick layers of Black Magic rose petals and black feathers throughout her living and dining room.

Clover did a lovely job with the floating candles. You can see the rose petals and black feathers here.

Can you see those super ADORABLE skeleton cookies from Granite Bakery?

I cannot take credit for these eyeball Cosmos with black sugar rims (Clover did good). But I can take credit for drinking too many!

These manzanita trees were the perfect effect.

The appropriately-named Spider mums.

That was for the adults. The kids got to "party" the next night...

Easy table decor: Book Club

Nothing brings me more excitement than a night with my book club. These ladies are class-A, super sharp, and as you can see, gorgeous. In addition, they are all really good chefs. I'm not quite sure how they let me "in", but I really try to live up to their culinary and cerebral standards.

I cannot cook, but I can set a dang good table. My dear friend, Maria, helped me with the menu: salmon with mango salsa, cilantro rice and green salad. I wasn't able to take close-up photos of the table setting, but you can see, its VERY simple and INEXPENSIVE to do.

That's me at the head of the table. It was a baby shower for our friend Alethia, so we all wore PINK and I served pink lemonade.

The trick of this table setting is SO easy. I purchased a thick, high-quality wrapping paper for the "runner" and for the "placemats". Since I already owned green napkins, I choose RASPBERRY PINK and MOSS GREEN as my color palette. Since I have a very narrow table, I just use bud vases, votives, and hot pink rose petals going down the center.

I used these fabulous "double" lilies, which are a new variety I just saw for the first time this summer. They are as fragrant as their cousin, but you don't have to worry about the messy pollen stems. I also put a few single stems of hot pink hydrangea in bud vases to add that extra punch of color.

Remembering my Mexico wedding

I got married seven years ago in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. I would like to think that my friends that married before me started the whole destination wedding craze. To this day, I have only attended 4 weddings in Salt Lake City and the rest of them have been in destinations like Carmel, Saratoga Springs, Pointe Reyes, and Palm Springs (California got a lotta money out of me). We (me and the Mister) also traveled to Southern Utah, Rhode Island, Virginia, Illinois, New Hampshire and the South of France. Seriously, I have spent the last 10 years planning vacations around the weddings of my best friends. Not a bad way to live, huh?

Why get married in Mexico? The night we got engaged, our first thought was getting married on the beach. How romantic, right? Well, it was. Since then, I've seen several weddings working on the planning side and although there are tiny details here and there I think to myself "Oh, I should have done that", I still would not have changed a thing. It was my perfect day.

But then Martha (and Style Me Pretty) goes and publishes this fantastic Puerto Vallarta wedding just to show me up! Shame on the photographer Kate Headley for taking such fabulous shots. (You know I kid, right?) This is definitely a wedding that is making me think, "Oh, I would totally do that again."

K, wait...I just have to point out (since we are all about flowers here) that these lilies are fabulous. I used to think that lilies were a little too everyday for weddings, but I've been using them lately as a less expensive substitute for orchids. They really can take on an exotic mood, as shown here.

You can view more photos here from Style Me Pretty. (Please note that StellaPosy did not provide these florals.)

If you went back to your wedding day, what would you change?

Petal and Print: Fabric flowers

These fabric flowers could just put me out of business, but I had to share them because they are delightful. They are custom hand cut, hand dyed, hand ruffled, and hand sewn by Katie McDonough from Petal and Print based out of Baltimore, Maryland. Lead time is about 6 weeks, but can be longer or shorter depending on the complexity of the order. Much like working with StellaPosy, Katie recommends sending along color swatches and any other visual ideas of what your wedding style is. Katie ships nationwide and the great thing about these beauties is that you can hold onto them as a keepsake after your wedding. Katie, we love your work!

Freedom of Creative Reign

Typically, I am instructed to do what my clients tell me to do. I have all the freedom to offer up suggestions, but when it comes down to it, my client is, well, the boss. So it's always a great pleasure when I'm hired by a client (ok, it was my mother-in-law) to do whatever I want. Keeping in mind our budget, here's what StellaPosy did for her company party.

We used very structured and shapely groupings of flowers (a nod to one of my fave florists, Jeff Leatham) using yellow cymbidium orchids, avalanche roses, peegee hydrangeas (from my garden!) and some tropical leaves. I also threw in some bittersweet and viburnum berries just because I was really feeling drawn to the autumnal berries at the flower market. Have a looksie...

Bringing preppy back

Dear Preppy, where have you been? Gosh, don't get me wrong I do love the vintage, retro, anthropolgie-inspired weddings, but I was really craving some clean lines and bright colors. So, in walks Rebecca into my studio. Many StellaPosy brides are destination brides with a mountain rustic wedding on their minds, however Rebecca is from the good ol' S.L.C. and while she choose the Stein Eriksen Lodge in Deer Valley to celebrate her nuptials, she was very clear on what she wanted: simple, clean, fresh, bright and cheerful. Oh yeah, bring it on.

The lemons and limes have a little 2003 vibe to them (is 2003 retro, yet?). Fruits mixed in with flowers was uber-popular right before I started StellaPosy and I can see why. Yellow and green are a phenomonally fresh color palette. Along with the fruit, we created very simple "cloud" of white and yellow flowers for Rebecca. Check out those enormous yellow Deja Vu roses!

Oh, I apologize for the quality of photos. I had to use my iPhone. Once I get the professional photos from Swenson Photography, I will post those!

Deer Valley Wedding: Southern hospitality in the Wasatch Mountains

Designing a wedding is not an easy task over the phone and while this was not my first destination bride to have hired me over the phone, this Southern bride knew exactly what she wanted. She sent me photoshopped photos of her ideas for the ceremony "trees" that we built her and tracked down the exact name of the dahlias she spotted on the Style Me Pretty blog here. Since we didn't meet until 2 days before the wedding, the bride requested we replicate as closely as we could this Style Me Pretty wedding. Of course, this could present its challenges, but I really think we nailed it.

Check out those dahlias!! These Cafe Au Lait Dinnerplate dahlias were larger than my hand. Huge! With the soft hued garden roses, white hydrangea and magnolia (this was our Southern addition), this Stein Eriksen Lodge wedding was warm and classic.

In fact, warm was a key factor since my car read 38 degrees when I arrived to set up that morning. If rain on your wedding means luck, what does rain, snow, wind and fog mean? Ha! They had every intention to marry outside on the Flagstaff Deck overlooking the ski runs, but that chilly June frost forced an indoor wedding by the fireplace.

Baby Shower Ideas: Incorporating gifts (oh, and flowers) into your table decor

Now that I'm on baby #2 and I've been to several baby showers in the last 6 years, when Doug Smith of Scenemakers approached me about donating a "Party in a Box" for the Rape Recovery Center's Auction this year, I was naturally drawn to a baby shower theme.

My first idea was not an original. In fact, I will give credit where credit is due. This onsie clothesline came from one of the first baby showers I attended for my dear friend, Kendall. The hostesses had put an 8-foot or so long clothesline into a laundry hamper (also a gift). Then with a drumroll, 2 of the hostesses took each end and with a grand Ta-Da!, several pink and white onsies and burp cloths were strung from one end of the living room to the other end. Adorable!

From there, I wanted to be sure that this was a unisex "box" so it would appeal to any bidder at the auction. I used bright hues of yellow and green with a hint of blue and hot pink. Many of the items I accrued from World Market and Target.

My Party was titled "Brunch for Baby" that included:

Simple bud vases of singular flower groupings,

a diaper bag filled with swaddle blankets, a duckie bath towel, onsies, and diapers,

juice glasses and lemonade,

a cupcake tower and a floral runner,

a diaper "cake" (not sure if that's just a Utah thing or not),

and simple white ceramic plates and cereal bowls, kelly green placemats, and bright blue napkins.