Lovely Ladies' Brunch

This weekend I played hostess for a Ladies' Brunch at our church and in true Janell fashion, waited until the last possible minute to finish my planning.  Why do I do this to myself?  I had a career in event management for goodness sakes!  I guess I just like to work under pressure.  Fortunately for me, there is a site called Pinterest.

Aren't they cute?  I'll have to make the deviled egg version at Easter now!
I used caraway seeds for their eyes and the beaks are little carrot triangles.

These were so beautiful and had all of my favorite fruits too!  (No melon here friends)

You also MUST try this recipe for Baked French Toast Casserole from Paula Deen and the Food Network!  Warning: contains butter.  (Coincidentally, now so do my dress pants since I spilled it down my leg while carrying it into the church.  Oops!)

Amazingly however, I also broke out some of my own creativity too.  Once I dust the cobwebs away, there's some decent stuff in there!  First, while not original, was the "guess the number of jelly beans in the jar" game.  Always a good way to foster some friendly competition at the table.  Since this was a inter-generational event, we also provided coloring pages and crayons.  For a fun twist, we printed ice breaker questions and attached one to each crayon.  Some of my personal favorites were:

"How often do you clean between your toes?"

"Time machines are real! Where would you go?"

and

"If you were a pirate, what would your name be?"

If you find yourself stumped for questions like I did, there is a great list I found while search around the web.

CF "Ice Breaker" Questions 

Finally, I've been taught that any good church event needs centerpieces (or maybe I just made it up).  So what does a girl do for budget-friendly centerpieces on March 9?  Look to the front yard and her closet of course!

Our yard is currently a wonderland of fall and winter "fallout" and I found some lovely branches that were happy to be painted white and stuck in a boot.  When I mentioned that there were Easter eggs and flowers involved, they practically leaped from the trees! The fluffy green Easter grass and my adorable, yet rarely worn galoshes were just the ticket to corral the twigs.

I had also just seen a fun little DIY article for tissue paper flowers that I decided to add in for a perfect finish to the project.  They are so cute and easy that I'm going to give up on buying bows and attach these to gifts from now on!  I'm even working on putting something together to show you how I made them.

Now that they event has passed, I just can't give up the twigs and eggs.  So I guess my hubby will have to tolerate the giant Easter tree in our house until the holiday has passed. 

Hmmmm . . . then what should I do with them?