Party Details...Part One

I'm finally getting a few pictures of Ashley's Acres organized in order to share with everyone.  We had an amazing time celebrating Ashley's birthday.  We surrounded her with family and friends and enjoyed having  the opportunity to share her with all who came.  

I've put collages of photographs together and tried to arrange them in order of topics.  There are hundreds of pictures to go through and more details than most of you are interested in, but I'm trying to answer questions of those who are interested.  If I miss a particular detail that you are wondering the hows and wheres about just send me a message and I'll do my best to address it.

Here goes.  Enjoy!

Welcome to Ashley's Acres.  This ranch style interest greeted our guests as they arrived at Ashley's Acres.  

Here are a few shots from inside of our barn.  You can see the outside entrance in the bottom left.  This was one of my very favorite details of the entire party.  It came out just as I had imagined.  I love, love, loved the barn!  The farm windows in the upper left were a gift from a dear friend.  They hung over the back wall of the barn which you can see in the top right of this photo.  The barbecue was served from behind this wall and our guests walked in front of the wall, to receive their plates.  Ashley's name was spelled out with a rope and stapled into the wood of the wall.  The other two pictures  show images from inside the barn.  The backside of the entrance was decorated with old farm house dishes, farm tools, watering cans, horse shoes, etc.  You can kind of see the diner table in the bottom right of the photo.  I used old duvet covers and bed skirts picked up in Canton for my linens.  The crisp, clean look reminded me of freshly laundered linens hanging on a clothes line.  Hay bales were lined up along the sides for seating, complete with burlap covered cushions that were hand painted with our brand for Ashley's Acres.  I'll show pictures of the cushions in a later post.

Here are a few more details from inside the barn.  If you click on the image I believe it will show it to you on a large scale so you can see the photos a little better.  The top right pictures is a view of the lighting we used inside the barn.  An old wagon wheel chandelier hung in the center.  I removed the electrical and glued in some taper candles.  You can also see the mason jar lanterns we made.  Another detail I loved!  We lined them with chicken coop wire, glued in a glass votive holder inside, and hung with chain.  So cute.  I used several old farm house windows I picked up in Canton and stapled chicken wire across the back.  I stenciled  Ashley's Acres on the glass and then mounted a series of photographs of Ash through the year on burlap.  I hung a string of just across the glass, clothes pinned the photos on the line and hung them in the barn. I'm now hanging those windows in her bedroom:)  Our napkins were made from bandannas.  We cut them into fourths, hemmed all the edges and made the sweetest napkins rings out of a brown floral type wire and a sunflower.  The center picture shows the main center piece.  I used an old metal milking bucket for the container.  My mom did all the floral arranging.  She is amazingly talented!  I originally wanted fresh flowers but the budget would have been blown so I settled on silks.  Lots of sunflowers were used.  They were the main focus of all centerpieces, including the wreaths we hung on the outside of the barn.  I'll show a photo of the wreaths in a later post along with the cushions.  The bottom center photos is a view of another dinner table we set outside the barn.  The center pieces were smaller for this table.  We used mason jars for the containers, lined with chicken wire and more sunflowers.  Loved them.  Will have to add close ups of those in the next post too.  Finally you can see the cupcake jars we designed.  They were at all the place settings along with metal pails of fresh strawberries.  We designed tags that said "from the kitchen of Ashley's Acres", attached them to burlap and hung them from the jars.  Delicious red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing were baked inside.

Lots of props were collected for this party.  My goal was to give it an old farm look.  Obviously we live in the city and aren't country folk, but the props were able to transform our front yard.  The look and feel was exactly how I had imagined it to be.  I gathered old wagon wheels, milking cans, jars, water pumps, plows, lanterns, seed dollies, seed carts, barrels, and much, much more.  I used them all around the yard, in the flower beds, against the barn, in the barn, etc.  Every where you looked you saw some nostalgic piece of farming equipment.  I spent the summer collecting from garage sales, antique dealers, Canton, and my dad's place.  All those hot summer days spent digging in barns, garages, and fields really paid off.  

I'll finish this post up with produce.  I wanted bushels of produce scattered everywhere for this party.  I had carrots, apples, corn, peaches, cherries, strawberries, watermelons and more.  The produce served two purposes.  Great decorations and delicious snacks!  We built little produce stands to hold our bushel baskets and scattered them around the property.  I lined the baskets with red bandannas.  Most of the baskets came from estates sales and Canton.  I didn't order any of them new because I really wanted them to have the look and feel of being aged.

This post is just the beginning!  I have so many things to share from this party.  I'm hoping to find some more time later this evening to put up another details post.  If your not interested in reading all this stuff please feel free to skip this and the upcoming posts.  I totally get that.  

Hope your having a blessed day.  I'm off to Walmart!