A deck party

To celebrate the completion of our deck, we invited a few friends over this past weekend. Chris spent much of a very warm day outdoors mowing the lawn and building an 8-foot table out of wood scraps. He finished just in time!
I picked up a cute table cloth from St. Vincent De Paul Society and used that as the inspiration for colors for the party. It's a blue, green and purple flowery print and just screamed summer to me. I picked up on the greens and purples for the flowers. My china and cloth napkins matched the blues. There's something to be said for using what you've got on hand.

We had to have a dessert table (with the table cloth) complete with a photo board that showed the process of deck building.

I made little signs by using photo editing software (free online) to create a line drawing based on a picture of the completed deck. I was going for something that would evoke "blueprints" without actually using blueprints.

The table Chris built is covered up with a table cloth, but it is perfect! Exactly what I was hoping for, a long, skinny table. At least 10 people could fit around it, easily. The two benches work nicely.

 I think this is the only picture I have of the lavender lemonade. It was SO good. I'll post the recipe later this week. If you have food grade lavender around and need to use it up, this is the perfect recipe.

I am a big fan of this small wooden box. I found it in Iowa at a junk shop and probably paid too much ($7) for it. But if you place a few drinking glasses inside, it makes a nice looking container for some store-bought flowers.

The menu: I went with ricotta cheese drizzled in olive oil, bruschetta and sesame toasts for an appetizer, then we had pork chops, tomato and basil orzo and green  beans tossed with capers and lemons for the meal. More on the food tomorrow.

When Chris and I got married, we used Mason jars as the vases for our centerpiece flowers. They were in the basement collecting dust, so I brought them up and used them to hold candles. (Fire on the deck makes Chris nervous!)

Some of the jars still had dark green ribbons glued around them, and a little tag with the table number. I took off the table number and punched a hole through my mini sign. 

After dinner we had mini peach and blue berry cobblers that I baked in tiny mason jars. I'll post more about this tomorrow. They were great with a little scoop of ice cream on the side.

A few people sat outside with me to eat dessert. But honestly, it was too hot! We retreated inside and about 20 minutes later it started pouring. All of my lovely guests ran through the rain to bring in table cloths, candles and food. We finished the deck party in the air conditioning. I'm thinking deck party 2.0 will have to be in September!