Happy 55th Birthday Jeanne!

Happy Sunday Everyone!

My sister Jeanne turned 55 yesterday. She has loved the Anne of Green Gables series of books since she was about 10 years old so I decided to create an Anne of Green Gables theme for her party.

Many years ago I gave Jeanne a copy of the Anne of Green Gables cookbook which is now out of print. I decided to use the recipes in that cookbook for the food for our party. I didn't want Jeanne to know what I was planning so instead of borrowing her cookbook I took the cookbook and a copy of the Anne of Green Gables book and video out of the library. I reread the book and watched the video a few times while I was working on the decorations and Jeanne's gift.

Anne of Green Gables was published in 1908, but the story takes place in 1878. Anne and her best friend Diana wear straw hats as do many of the other characters in the story. I went to a craft store in Arlington, MA called PlayTime and found a package of tiny straw hats. I attached a piece of elastic cord to the inside of each hat to transform them into napkin rings. I decorated the outside of each hat with some thin Martha Stewart ribbon and a floral brad from Eyelet Outlet. In place of the brads tiny silk flowers could be used, but I already had the brads so I used them.

 

Jeanne loved the lanterns I made for Rob's party so I decided to make new ones for her party. I used spray glue to adhere large paper doilies to sheets of 12" x 12" lavender tag weight scrapbook paper. The glue dried almost instantly. I cut each paper so that it measured 9" x 12" (that left me with a 3" x 12" scrap) and then folded and cut the paper into lanterns. I cut 3/4" x 12" strips from the scraps to make handles for the lanterns. I hung the lanterns from the umbrella on our deck as I had with Robbie's.

 

I used some of the "scraps" to make tiny treat baskets, but forgot to take a picture of them. Like the lanterns they were lavender with pieces of the white doilies on them. I used a hot glue gun to glue a piece of lace around the top of each of them.

Anne loved flowers so I used some floral patterned paper from my stash to create placemats for our picnic table. I used my Martha Stewart circle cutter to cut the floral circles before I adhered them to oversized paper doilies.

I cut some real flowers, used cordial glasses as tiny vases, and placed a vase at each place setting.

The recipes that I chose from the cookbook were Saucy Chicken, Chocolate Goblin's Food Cake and Chocolate Fudge Frosting. On the Internet from another cookbook I found and used recipes for Anne Shirley's Creamed Potatoes and Anne's Favorite Peas and Green Beans. I also prepared Diana Barry's Favourite Raspberry and Old Fashioned Lemonade and served each of them from tall glass bottles. Those recipes are from the Anne of Green Gables cookbook. Jeanne LOVED the raspberry cordial and like Diana Barry drank most of the bottle, but in the book Diana actually drank nearly a bottleful of currant wine. I am not a fan of raspberries so I drank the Old Fashioned Lemonade which I plan to make again and again using Splenda in place of sugar.

I used the cake batter to make chocolate cupcakes. I waited until hot and humid yesterday to bake and decorate them so I didn't fuss with them and just quickly swirled frosting onto each of them.

I found images of the main characters from the Anne of Green Gables movie on the Internet and pasted them into Printmaster. I printed the images, fussy cut them and attached them to scalloped circles I punched from and EK Success scalloped punch. For each cupcake I glued images onto 2 scalloped circles. I glued a toothpick to the back of one of the scalloped circles before I glued the 2 scalloped circles together. Anne is on the front of one circle and Gilbert is on the back. Marilla is on the front of one circle and Matthew on the back and so on.

Jeanne LOVED her party. I will share the gifts I made for her in tomorrow's post.

Have a great day!
Carol