From Russia, with love.

It's official, the Moscow Mule comeback has finally arrived at our humble abode. With refreshing ginger beer serving as the base, plus an added citrus zing from the lime juice, the Mule is the perfect drink to help us all endure a Pacific Northwest winter. 

Not to mention, the Moscow Mule is essentially responsible for popularizing vodka in the United States. Can I get an amen?

Ingredients are as follows: 

- vodka

- ginger beer (commonly you use Crabbie's, which also contains alcohol. However, you can also 

  use other brands, as well as non-alcoholic versions)

- limes

Superbly simple!

So here is how one puts together such an enticing concoction:

1. Fill your glass with ice. The Mule is best served in a tin-lined copper mug which helps keep the libations deliciously cool.

2. Add 2 oz of vodka, juice from half of a lime, and top off with the ginger beer.

3. Stir together and garnish with a lime wedge. 

And if you're feeling adventurous, you can find some amazing variations on the classic Mule here.

And last, but most certainly not least, you can use Mule as the perfect excuse to acquire fabulous monogrammed copper mugs from Mark & Graham to add to your barware collection. 

Happy sipping!

Off with her head!

So I haven't posted in practically forever. There's been plenty worth sharing, I just never had the motivation to sit down and share it.

Well it's a New Year and with it come new priorities. My goal in 2014 is to take more pictures, document more memories, and stop making excuses. Easy, right?!

Luckily, I'm back with a bang! This past weekend the Ella Dynae team and I pulled off a Valentine's Day photo shoot inspired by Alice in Wonderland. The shoot featured a fabulous tea party and a brand new Queen of Hearts costume.

The costumes are being featured in Party Style Magazine's February/March issue, so I'll hold off including those images (as incredible as they are!). Stay tuned to The Diary of Ella Dynae blog for those images soon!

What I can share is the tablescape that I designed for the tea party scene of the photo shoot! Check out the whimsical fête below!

Photography by Merlin Showalter

For the tea party table, I was feeling an eclectic vibe and wanted to create a cohesive hodgepodge of decadence (a contradiction, I know, but it makes sense in my head). I collected antique bone china teacups of various floral designs, filled old glass bottles with water tinted by food coloring, and used dusty gold lace for the tablecloth.

Photography by Merlin Showalter

In the theme of hodgepodge, I mixed metals by pairing the gold tablecloth with silver serving trays and serveware. I hand made the "drink me." and "eat me." signs by using a chalkboard paint pen on matte scrapbooking paper. Finally, I tied in elements from the costumes to the table by using the same checkerboard fabric from the Queen of Heart's dress for the napkins.

Photography by Merlin Showalter

Some of the teacups I chose to stack, evoking a tea party thrown by the Mad Hatter. I secured them using duct tape (there is seriously nothing that duct tape can't do!) and adorned them with garden variety flowers in the party's color palette. The rest I filled with sweet treats like red velvet cupcakes that I decorated with heart stickers stuck on toothpicks.

Photography by Merlin Showalter

Ok guys. This was seriously the hardest thing in the world not to take apart and eat. I am a sucker for any carb, but then you cover it with sugar? Oh. Dear. Me. Unfortunately, seeing as the donuts sat out for over 48 hours, their edibleness was greatly diminished.

And finally, here was the full finished product:

Photography by Merlin Showalter

In a perfect world, we would have held the photo shoot in an actual garden, but alas, we live in Oregon and are perpetually cursed by rain, wind, and fog in the month of January. Le sigh. So we tried our best to create an English garden atmosphere and I think we faired rather nicely, if I do say so myself! In fact I think the fake topiaries and oversized paper flowers added to the overall cartoonish Wonderland feeling. And props to the hubs for the idea of hanging the clock ;-)

Brunch with the bride.

This past November, bestie blessed me with a bridal shower! The theme was "Brunch with the Bride" and was put together in a palate of ivory, metallics, and blush to complement the fall season. It was a perfect excuse to eat all the carbs!

First of all, aren't the invitations precious! Once again, bestie and I tweaked wedding invitations into shower invites. Much classier and they come with an online template. Plus they were crazy on sale at Michael's! 

We used tons of my mom's old silver to serve on, plus some gems that she found at the Dollar Tree (to which she always reminds me that, "It's only a DOLLAR!". Silly Mom.) Not to mention there were all the donuts and bagels a girl could hope for. Have I mentioned that I haven't met a carbohydrate that I didn't like?

Look at the delicate antique lace and the sparkly potpourri that bestie also gave out as favors! I am also being won over by the beauty and effectiveness of bud vases over full arrangements. More bang for your buck!

 Look at that concentration! Unlike so many horrors of cheesy bridal showers past, bestie planned cute games that totally took advantage of my addiction to celebrity gossip websites.

  
In the end, brunch makes for a happy bride and bridesmaids...not to mention a happy kitty who gets to reap the rewards of leftover gift bags ;-)

Consider yourself showered.

Last June I threw a bridal shower for the bestie who will be getting married this summer. It was intended to be a fabulous outdoor garden party, complete with adorable yellow chevron place settings and day-drinking. Unfortunately, we live in the climatically unpredictable state of Oregon and apparently late June does not guarantee you garden party friendly weather.

So the soirée was moved inside my in-laws house and even though it wasn't what I had originally envisioned, it was still pretty darn cute. if. I. do. say. so. myself. And there was still day-drinking.

I'm a sucker for all things monogrammed.

See, I told you the yellow chevron was fabulous. I couldn't find any table runners that I liked, so I sewed these myself.

 Goodwill find #1: fantastic serving tray.

Mmmmmm dessert. The scrumptious lemon bars (the bride's favorite) were made by my darling friend Lauren. The macaroons were served in Goodwill find #2. And how precious are the raspberries stuffed with chocolate chips served in gold-rimmed teacups (Goodwill find #3)!

The bar! I really should have made both tiers with pink champagne punch because, let's be honest, everyone loves day-drinking. Hindsight is 20-20.

This was the color inspiration for the whole shindig. The bestie's colors for the wedding are marigold yellow and slate grey, so I thought this would be a fun, Spring twist on things. Bonus: we are going to reuse the empty Izze bottles as bud vases at her wedding reception by spray painting them white and filling them with crespedia. Genius. We know.

Nothing like a little food coloring to spruce up some mason jars!

Guests were asked to bring a recipe for the bride to the shower (the recipe cards were actually refashioned RSVP cards from a wedding invitation template that I used for the bridal shower invitations). They also left advice for the bride on little pink stationary in this fantastic silver catchall. Goodwill find #4.

Serious haul, right?

These "Thank You" book marks we supposed to be at each place setting before the rain put a stop to that. Inspired by the bestie's love of books.

Despite the downpour, looks like a happy bride/bestie to me. Mission accomplished.

Photography courtesy of the wonderfully talented Kaela Lee at Kaela.Mey Photography!