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...