How to Beautify your Home with Garden Decor

Intimate Gathering Space

Just create a cozy, nice space to have your morning tea or evening coffee and enhance the beauty of your garden in the process. Prepare the ready-for-entertaining spot by surrounding a table with a couple of rattan armchairs, a fire pit, and one or two freestanding umbrellas. If you want to enjoy some quality time with your loved one, just keep a small, bright-colored table with two chairs. Decorate the table with two tiny potted plants and you’ll have a small retreat with lovely natural scenario around.

If you want to add a touch of fun by adding tropical punch to the seating area, Real Simple has a lovely idea.

Colorful Vertical Garden

Whether you already have a garden blooming with colorful flowers or lovely seasonal produce or not, adding up a vertical garden along the fence will further add up to the curb appeal. Spray paint some cans with bright colors, plant flowers in them, and attach them to the fence. Choose bright colors as the pot paint, which will create a stunning consonance with the red, blue, or yellow flowers in the pots. Plus, the bright pots and flowers will breathe life into your garden decorations.

Decorative Lanterns

Lighting can bring a dramatic change to any place of your outdoor home decor. The warm glow of lighting has the magic in it to transform a confined outdoor garden into a cozy one. If you have trees nearby the seating area in the garden, hang three to four lanterns sporadically from some low-hung branches. Some ornamental tree-hung lanterns casting moody glow over beds of green grasses will take the visual of the place to another level.

The lanterns will create a festive look when you will throw a summer party during the hotter season.

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Garden Ornaments

Ornaments add another dimension to a landscape and give it a unique charm. Garden ornaments can effectively transform the look, shape, and feel of your garden decor. A wrought-iron gate, a display of used garden tools, a curved bench, etc., if carefully placed, can offer subtle but effective clues.

This garden fountain turned into a charming planter in Better Homes and Garden is lovely, isn’t it?

These garden decor ideas can give your outdoor home a finished look for all the four seasons. The trick is doing what you can pull off and to not overdo it. Our tips for garden decorations are pretty basic and you can make them work for any place of your outdoor garden.

Want more garden decor ideas for your interiors? Why not try adding a gorgeous natural wreath to your front door? How To Make A Burlap Wreath has tons of ideas!

How to Throw a Great Labor Day Party

Image via: Southern Living

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Decorations

Patriotic decorations usually dominate Labor Day parties. In addition to stars and stripes, you can add rich oranges, earth tones, yellows, and golds because of the slight chill in the air. If your party lasts into the night, you can add twinkle lights, tiki torches, and candles in hurricane lamps to keep things bright. Use citronella candles to get rid of flying critters.

Image via: Good Housekeeping

Fun End of Summer Theme

An end-of-summer theme can add spice to your Labor Day party. If you are going back to school, throw a back-to-school bash with rocking music and inexpensive snacks. You can also throw a beach party to relive the days of summer. It will be a while before you can enjoy the warm weather again so light a bonfire and make s’mores to make the most of your last few days of summer. If you like to dance, throw a dancing party. Dance under the stars and enjoy the warm night. You can hire a band and tell your guests to dress up in retro clothes.

Image via. HWTM

Labor Day Menu – Food ideas

Make use of fresh fruits, vegetables, and other warm-weather foods at your party. Serve juicy berries, sweet corn, colorful tomatoes, watermelon, steaks, lobster, and ribs. You can also make kebabs and mix your favorite veggies and meats. They are easy to make and to clean up. Dessert can be a berry crisp, a fresh fruit cobbler, or a sundae bar. For Labor Day recipes on Stagetecture, click here.

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These Labor Day entertaining tips will help you to throw an unforgettable party. You can rekindle old friendships and get to know your neighbors. Celebrate summer with bright colors, cheerful décor, and outdoor dining. Simple decorations combined with tasty food will create the perfect festive atmosphere. Remember to keep things simple so that you can enjoy the company you invite. You’ll have fun interacting with your family and friends late into the night.

What’s your favorite Labor Day party theme?

Summer Entertaining: How to Plan a Casual Cocktail Party 

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Choose a Theme:

We’re not necessarily advocating that you ask your guests to show up in costume – though that certainly is an option. However, having a theme makes the planning stages of your pre-party prep much easier. Once you have a theme in mind, you can tailor your drink, food, and decoration selections to fit within those parameters. Even if you strive for more of a feeling than an all-out theme – such as “sophisticated” or “laid-back” – it can help to give yourself and your guests a little direction.

Create a Drink Menu:

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need a fully stocked bar with multiple liquors and bitters to throw an unforgettable cocktail party. Instead, focus on creating a cocktail menu that fit within your party’s theme while keeping costs down and saving you from having to serve as bartender all night long. Offer three cocktails – one that sweeter, one that is more classic, and one that fits somewhere between the two. To make things even easier, try to select cocktails where the ingredients overlap. As far as the amounts, plan on each of your guests having two cocktails during the first hour of the party and one cocktail during each additional hour.

Image Via: Brides

Serve Multiple Hor D’oeuvres:

There’s no need to worry about planning a sit-down meal with this one. Simply serve a few hor d’oeuvres, or small finger foods that can be eaten in one or two bites. If your party falls outside of regular meal time hours, offer five or six choices of hor d’oeuvres, preparing two per person. However, if your cocktail party is meant to take the place of a meal, you should have eight to ten distinct bites and make sure there is enough for each person to eat three. Choose recipes that can be prepared in advance and served at room temperature to lighten your workload

Image Via: William Senoma

Set the Scene for Mingling:

Luckily, you don’t have to orchestrate much of the entertainment during cocktail parties since most guests will be content to mingle. Just be sure to set up the space ahead of time that will get people talking. Serve the food on a single large buffet table or space the dishes out on multiple smaller ones, leaving an easy-to-access walkway between them. While you don’t need a ton of seating, there should be enough for about 20% of your guests to be seated at the same time. Rather than full place settings and silverware, focus on napkins and smaller cocktail plates and don’t forget to designate a spot for people to dispose of them once they’re done snacking. Add in a few cute decorations, enough lighting, and some soft background music for your party to be a hit.

Image Via: Flora Grubb

Summer entertaining doesn’t get any simpler than a cocktail party. You provide some drinks and a couple snacks while your guests will take care of the rest. Follow these tips to ensure that your next cocktail party will be unforgettable.

Do you have a great cocktail party tip or recipe? Share it with us in the comments below.

The heat is on and it’s time for entertaining and enjoying party going. While summer parties are meant for having fun, socializing, and letting loose, you have an obligation to be a well-mannered, polite, and considerate guest. If you have been invited to a party; irrespective of how formal or casual the event is, abide by these etiquette rules for optimum summertime fun.

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RSVP

RSVP’s allows the host to effectively plan for the event by accurately amassing the head count. Not acknowledging or responding to an invitation is considered rude and inconsiderate. So, make sure to respond to an invite as early as possible. If you receive an invitation with a specific RSVP date, be certain to honor it.

Be punctual

Always be punctual and arrive at the time communicated in the invitation. However, for any reason if you cannot make it on time, any more than fifteen minutes delay is pushing it. On the contrary, even though being fashionably late by few minutes is acceptable, never arrive early and inconvenience the harried host, who may be busy doing last minute preparations.

Image credit: The Glitter Guide

Bring a gift

Bringing a host gift is a kind gesture and a great way to show your appreciation for being invited. It does not have to be ostentatious or lavish. A bouquet of flowers, bottle of wine or scotch, candles, chocolates, or assortment of fine cheeses are generally a safe bet. It’s also a good idea to throw in a small thank you card with your name written on it.

Don’t overindulge

Practice moderation when you eat and drink. No matter if the wine is flowing freely or how much you love that one particular snack, do not overindulge. Your intention should be to leave a positive impact on your host and fellow guests. One good way is to never come starving to a party.

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Say thank you

When it’s time to leave, make sure to personally thank your host for their hospitality. A second thank you by phone is considered polite the day after. If the event was formal, written thanks is always appreciated.

While displaying good party etiquette is a sign of courteousness and politeness, there is a more selfish reason to fit your behavior to the occasion; it ensures many more party invites coming your way!

For more summer ideas on Stagetecture, click here.