For my brunch, I wanted the food to be delicious and easy to eat and the décor to be simple, pretty, modern and cost effective.   So I called my friend Sharon of Cupcakes & Cutlery, the “simple, pretty, modern & cost-effective ” Party Queen to see if she had any ideas….and of course, she did.  Sharon said she found some pretty yarn at the craft store the other day and had been thinking about how she might use it. She thought of the idea of making eggs by soaking the yarn in a glue-water mixture and wrapping little balloons (balloons are egg-shaped, aren’t they?).   After the glue dries, you simply pop the balloons with a pin and voila….you have these beautiful little eggs for the most unique décor!

We continued the yarn theme by wrapping simple white napkins with it  and Sharon used macramé style knots to make these beautiful strands of garland giving our celebration the perfect touch.

The tablescape included a plain white tablecloth I already had in my arsenal of linens and a modern orange dot fabric runner found at a local fabric store. We decorated with little succulents picked up at the hardware store and stacked them on rustic wood pieces.

We wanted our brunch to have a cool, easy, relaxing California feel and it we did it with very little expense....in fact, I'll bet you already have a few balls of yarn laying around somewhere..so go dig them out and get started on the easiest decorations ever!

For more details and pretty pictures, visit www.cupcakesandcutlery.blogspot.com

KID'S CORNER

For the kid’s table, I made a batch of gluten-free waffles (one of our little guests has a gluten allergy) and served the waffles on a big platter with agave syrup and fresh bananas, blueberries and raspberries that the kids could add to their waffles as they pleased.   They were all so mesmerized by the “blood” orange juice from our mimosas that we decided to make them a little mocktail with equal parts juice and ginger ale.  That might have been the biggest hit of the day!    I made the waffles according to the package directions, substituting applesauce for the oil and adding ½ teaspoon cinnamon and 1 teaspoon of vanilla to give them a little extra somethin’.

After the kids ate, we cleared off their table and gave them some colors, paint, a handmade coloring book (thank you Sharon) and some large cutouts of butterflies that I found on www.coloringpages.info.   After the kids painted their butterflies and let them dry, we glued each one to half of a toilet paper roll, cutting alongside one edge of the roll so as to make a kind of bracelet they could slip onto their wrist.  The kids had a ball flying their butterflies around the backyard and it was a fun craft for them to do giving the mommies at least 5 minutes of uninterrupted conversation!   We also had fun dying eggs, getting them all ready for the Easter Bunny.

For more how-to on these lovely decorations, visit www.cupcakesandcutlery.blogspot.com