Chess Girl Party!

A few weeks ago my friend and fellow creative collaborator Karyn Hlad Miller asked me if I would help her with the styling of her daughter's party. Of course I would! It did not matter that I was going out of town that weekend and had stuff of my own to do...this is what I do when someone as amazing as Karyn invites me to participate in something creative. I have to say yes!!

Karyn is an amazing photographer and an incredible baker so that part was covered. We discussed the general layout of the party dessert table and refined what goodies would make the table fun, tasty and beautiful. The ChessGirl Party theme is so unusual and perfect for her daughter who loves chess. We made the classic black and white color scheme more girly adding accents of royal purple.

The food...
The party table was covered in a black tablecloth, with purple ribbon across the top. The white streamers are a great way to make the solid black table look fun and festive! Karyn used all black cake stands from her personal collection and used white platters for the other foods. She served lemon cupcakes with chess pieces moulded from white chocolate tinted purple. The cake was chocolate and vanilla checkerboard inside (using those concentric circle baking pans) with a rich purple frosting piped to look like ruffles. She added black and white brownies, "ChessGirl" cookies from Pepperidge Farm and purple rock candy in a jar.

The decorations...
Karyn used the blank frames from my birthday party (I tell you, those frames have made their original $3 investment so worth it! I've used them--what--4 times since June??) to hang on the wall. We cut out silhouettes of the horse (I'm a little embarrassed that I do not know the proper chess lingo of that piece, wait, I think it's called a Rook?) and the queen of course, out of purple scrapbooking cardstock for the smaller oval frames. The center frame was a number 8 and the purple ribbons were added for color and a final girly detail.

The paper products...
My part, of course, was to create the printed pieces of the party. I aimed to create an invitation with a modern but young and feminine feel. I used the overall square shape and borders that nod to the chessboard. The font was a classic Garamond in varying sizes and italics to enhance the flow of the text. The party favors were made with old fashioned stick candy in grape flavor with the tags threaded through. Those could easily have been cute stickers or tags for favor bags too! The printable files are at the bottom of this email and will be available for free downloading this next week. After that, I'll have them on my etsy store.

A fun party game...
Karyn enlarged and printed a photograph of Sophia and cut out crowns to play "Crown Sophia", a twist on the ever-popular Pin the Tail on the Donkey party game.

Thanks Karyn for including me on this really fun and unusual Chess Girl Party theme. All I have to say is, "What's next, girl?"

To use these printables, right click to save the jpg files to your desktop. Then open the files as a photo box in your word (or other program), type your text in place and print.