An Afternoon Date Tablescape and Beignets

Happy Thursday! I didn't get much sleep last night and I had an early start at work, so I was looking forward to going home. I took home some flowers {tulips and stocks} with me today. I have a date tomorrow with one of my best friend who's getting married later this year. I know that she has been stressed and overwhelmed with all the wedding planning, I wanted to put something special {and simple} together for her.

I put together some purple tulips {tulips are on sale right now at Central Market after the Valentine's day rush} in my favorite vintage clear hobnail vase. I also put out some of my favorite wedding magazines.

Happy almost Friday!

I gonna make some Beignets and fresh Vietnamese Coffee for her tomorrow. I think it'll be a fun afternoon snacks for our date. I got the Beignets mix from a friend and I have been dying to try it. I will be sure to post more pictures after tomorrow and tell you about the Beignets.

Check out some more fun tablescapes over at Between Naps on the Porch's blog.

A romantic Lunar New Year dinner for two

I won't be able to have Lunar New Year dinner with my whole family like usual. We'll be meeting up on Sunday. I still wanted to celebrate Lunar New Year, so I set up a little intimate dinner for my hubby and I. This will also serve as our Valentine's day dinner date, because the hubby will be working on Valentine's day {boo}.

We had the red lanterns from my husband proposal a few years back.









I got these two clay statues from our trip to Viet Nam last summer. Each statue is from a different region in Viet Nam.












Above are yellow Jenny's spray rose. They're my boss lady favorite!! They're quickly becoming mine too. Each bud have like a million tiny petals.



A simple and intimate way to bring in another year. It is an Asian superstition that however you spend Lunar New Year, the rest of the year will follow. That is why everybody always work and clean their house before Lunar New Year and take it easy with family on New Year. I'm a bit sad about not spending it with my family, but I definitely don't mind a whole lot more quality time with my husband this year.

Chuc Mung Nam Moi!!


Check out some fun Valentine's Day Tablescapes over at Between Naps on the Porch.

May your holidays be filled with love and whimsy

On Monday I got the pleasure of inviting Vivien from the Eclectic Life {her blog is pretty awesome and so is she} along with her hubby Jon and one of our mutual friend Kimmy over for a small intimate dinner. I love love love dinner parties {especially small intimate ones}, but it also mean I got to do some major cleaning around our condo. Due to poor time management since my condo was a lot messier than I thought, I didn't have as much time to plan the table setting as I like. In the last 15 minutes before people would start arriving I scramble around my condo and manage to put something together.

I ended up loving the table scape, especially since I was able to put it together in 15 minutes. I used a footed bowl vase {any low or short wide vase will do} and filled it with red and gold ornaments I got from Walmart. The tea light candles are from Ikea. I used two different set of plates and fabric napkins from Target {my happy place}. I'm all about mixing and matching dinnerware.












This is my absolute favorite detail of this whole table scape. Since the table scape was pretty simple, I wanted to add a touch of something extra special and in this case whimsy. For the fabric napkin, I tied it with a skinny red ribbon {if only I had some red baker twine} and attached to each napkin was a free printable hand drawn gift tag from Eat Drink Chic. Aren't you just dying over that gift tag. I am head over heals in love with it.

My wonderful dinner guests and the hubby.

I made sloppy joe, mash potatoes and grilled asparagus.
I got the recipe for sloppy joe and mash potatoes from the Pioneer Woman blog.



The girls. {Please excuse the double chin and squinty eyes. They always make an appearance when I get super excited.} It was an evening filled with laughter, food, friends and some great conversations. My hubby is usually not a people person {it takes time for him to warm up to people, and once he does he is the most loving and loyal friend you'll ever have} and as soon as our new couple friends was out the door, his first words were "I like them", I considered that an extremely successful night.


Also, check out some more fun and major table scape over at Between Naps on the Porch blog. I"m linking this up to their Table scape Thursday party. I first heard about this from my friend Amanda {The Ivy Cottage Blog}, and I have love the idea ever since.