So Thankful

Living in a military community is always hard.  People are constantly moving away and it  seems like you are always saying goodbye to people you care about.  I recently had to say goodbye to a dear friend who is moving and I wanted to show her how thankful I am to have her in my life.  Since it's November it just seemed natural to give thanks for the wonderful friendship we have instead of saying goodbye.  

I went with an autumn color palette and theme of pumpkins and falling heart shaped leaves to go with the Thankful tree I had on the table. 

I found the idea of a thankful tree on Pinterest from Honeywerehome.blogspot.com and couldn't get it out of my head.  I think it's a great idea for a family thanksgiving or in this case a going away party.  It's a great way to honor someone and show them how much you care.  I created the roses (one of my new favorite things) out of crepe paper and glued them to the tree so the it wasn't quite so bare.  The paper hearts/leaves were just cardstock hand cut into heart shapes and the guests wrote their own message of thanks.   

I created some printable decorations for the party with pumpkins and hearts to go with the thankful Thanksgiving theme.  I found my first apothecary jar so of course I had to use it.  We gathered chestnuts from our own backyard to fill the jar. 

I have been dying to use large shot glasses to serve a dessert in and this occasion was perfect.  Looking back my Pumpkin Pie parfaits could have been a little more even but overall they tasted pretty good so I don't think anyone noticed.  These cute little glasses contained pumpkin mouse, maple flavored whipped cream with a ginger cookie crumble. 

My friend makes  very yummy Cranberry White Chocolate cookies which go perfectly with Autumn or even Christmas.  I didn't have her make them for her own party but made them myself and of course hers are always better.  

I don't know what goes better with fall than apple crisp.  Since I was trying to make everything bite sized the apple crisps were cooked in tiny single serving ramekins, topped off with rum flavored whipped cream. 

 

Going along with the bite sized theme I made mini chocolate cupcakes with a chocolate mousse cream filling.  My son absolutely loves these and I've had to hide them to keep him away from them. 

It was a wonderful party with wonderful ladies but still sad to say goodbye to our dear friend. 

All of these printables including the mini cupcake wrappers are available in my Etsy shop