Today Show Labor Day Party Ideas

Click on the title to be directed to my last minute Labor Day party tips as shown on the Today Show. I want to send a special thanks to my husband Marc for taking these photos and my team of talented, hard working staff, especially Sisi! Happy Labor Day!

The Last Hurrah of the Summer! Here is a Great "Oh Wow" Factor to Add to Your Labor Day Party.

Kick this Labor Day off with a BBQ to end all BBQ's. If you are looking for an "oh wow" factor -I have it... or if you need a gift to bring to a Labor Day bash...look no further...

I just discovered this amazing "Pickle Guy". Horman's Pickles make every kind of pickle you can imagine, southern cajun, the new dill, honey mustard, horseradish, red flannel...well you get the pickle (I mean picture).

My favorite is the southern cajun and the kids will love the pickle on a stick (see video). These slices will surely spice up any burger you'll serve! I'm sure if you ask nicely Nick can ship you some before your sizzle hits the grill. nick@hormansbestpickles.com

Stroller Traffic: Me, Me, Me

Stroller Traffic: Me, Me, Me

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Summer Birthday Card/Gift Idea

You don't have to spend a lot of money to make your parents proud! In fact, for a recent birthday gift to my mother-in-law, my daughter and I created a fun family card that doubles as a gift she can display. We designed a homemade accordion card using 5x7 photos. We chose a photo of my husband and his mom when they were toddlers and I added photos of my daughter who is two. We used double stick tape and poster board, which I just folded accordion style at the edge of each 5x7 photo. My husband came up with the clever sayings that matched the photos. For the front; the line reads "You are one cool birthday girl" and the back card reads "Setting the bar high for generations to follow". We developed the photos at CVS and you can add type on the photos in the store. It cost about $9.00 for the 5- 5x7 pictures. Voila we made a thoughtful gift and it can be displayed in her office for all of her friends to see. I hope this can inspire you to create something meaningful as a gift for someone you love.

Rainy Day Fun

Today in New York City it was a very rainy day. The kind of rain that soaks through your raincoat and whips past your umbrella. I know because I walked in it for an hour with my two-year-old.

To avoid the day being a complete washout we created a fun, indoor activity that would make both of us happy! I must give credit to my friend Jen Macaluso-Gilmore for the inspiration for our arts and crafts extravaganza.

When you have a small space sometimes you have to re purpose items, so I transformed my NYC convertible coffee table into a large drawing area. here are photos of my activity for this Rainy Day Friday!

I used craft paper to cover my table- one roll was about $2.50 at my local drug store
Crayola new washable kids' paint- the 6 pack was 4.99
Crayola washable markers (I already own)
Colored pencils (I already own)
and assorted crayons

For less $8 dollars we had an afternoon of fun.

Family FunTastic Weekend and My Summer Essentials

Happy almost summer! I am so happy warm weather is here. Pool fun, barbecues, even more reasons to celebrate everyday.

This weekend I celebrated family time with 5 full days of sailing, swimming, reading and relaxing with my husband, daughter and in- laws. My father-in-law is a volunteer firefighter and on Memorial Day my two-year-old enjoyed watching him drive a fire truck in their Memorial Day Parade. It was a nice way to honor the memory of true heroes.

My favorite weekend moments are being with my family. We have a small, blow up bounce house in the back yard and it provides hours of jumping fun and laughter. Its one of the items on my summer essential list below!

Here are a few things that I love during the summer that I want to share with you!

Kid friendly sunscreen that's great for adults too
Bug repellent
essential fold up bag from patagonia
Snacks- carrot chips, blueberries, watermelon, yogurt smoothies
Thank you notes
Portable, inflatable bounce house
Kid's clothing with UVA/UVB protection
Bubbles
Sunflowers all summer- these are great gifts and brighten up your own home.

Thank you David Monn for introducing me to the JOYFUL REVOLUTION

Last night I attended the most amazing event in NYC, The Joyful Heart Revolution Gala. Thank you to David Monn, Lifestyle Authority, for including me in the joy. I was inspired by the stories of abused women who have been helped by the Joyful Heart Foundation, founded by Mariska Hargitay. The evening honored Dick Wolf, creator of Law & Order; a show that investigates crimes of abuse, shedding light on a serious problem that affects one out of every four women. As the economy spirals down, the domestic violence cases increase. The event was hosted by Debra Messing and Chris Meloni. There was a special performance by Lupe Fiasco, Paula Fuga, and Sheryl Crow. I am grateful for my new awareness of a huge problem in our society and the people who are trying to solve it. It is exciting to discover a charity dedicated to helping all victims of abuse, especially women and children, to heal their spirit. I hope you now will join me in the Joyful Revolution-to learn more click here.

A lot of amazing folks donated their time and products for the event including event designer David Monn and his team, led by Lisa Archambault. Below are a few photos from the evening.

Three Everyday Family Activities Turned Into Celebrations!

Celebrate Living!


Activity to transform: rainy day lunch
Transformation: Indoor picnic- take an old sheet and place it in your living room, or move your dining room table out of the way, and transform your indoor space into a fun, outdoor picnic. Serve finger foods like funny monster shaped sandwiches, veggie booty, ants on a log, and carrot sticks with guacamole dip. For dessert, pile blueberries and strawberries in mini filo dough baskets.


Activity to transform: exercise with kids
Transformation: Dance Party- choose a time to stop everything and put on music that will make you and your little ones move. I have a two year old and my family playlist includes favorites such as Jack Johnson, Beyonce, Reggae Randi, and Lori Berkner.

Activity to transform: laundry
Transformation: the Great Laundry Adventure- inspire your children to help out with chores like folding clothes, by turning them into stories. This weekend Riley and I went on a Great Sock Adventure. She helped me find all the matching socks from the laundry and mate them. We had a blast. She tried on all of mom and dad's socks and laughed her head off. It took a little longer yes, but seriously I felt so great from our laughing I wanted to find other fun ways to do laundry!

Dish and Dine -new video cooking website

My friends at Stone House Productions have created the most amazing cooking website called Dish and Dine.

It is like having your grandmother's best recipes in one spot. Folks from all over the world load their favorite dishes and how to make them. Its a community too, so you can let people know why you love to Dish and Dine!

In this video I am cooking with my 20 month old. She's now two and she LOVES to help out in the kitchen. I give her lots of responsibility, like rinsing all the vegetables and setting the table. She is a huge help and it boosts her self esteem. I hope you find Dish and Dine a great spot for your family!

April Birthdays

I love birthdays. I'm lucky to have to share my birthday month with so many awesome people, including my daughter. I spent all of last week at party after party...

It was such a fun time! We started off celebrating April 6th at the Metropolitan Museum off Central Park for my brother-in-law's birthday and didn't stop until yesterday at a new restaurant Fishtail. Somewhere in between I created a party for my daughter in central park with less than a week's planning time and no budget. We also attended a wonderful family fun party in Great Neck. Sometimes last minute parties are the BEST.




Happy Birthday to all of you fellow Taurus's (and Aries too).

Baby Shower Decor Ideas

I sit here typing this with my own 22-month-old in my lap and, honestly, babies are such fun! The best way to celebrate an upcoming birth is with an affordable, creative party. My own baby shower was co-ed, thrown by a team of friends led by Elayne Duke, and it was one of the most fabulous parties I had attended! I keep that feeling in mind as a guest for every bash I create. Recently, I was hired by Hot Moms Club to help design a baby shower for Charlie and Brook Sheen in LA. Whether you have a small budget or big, my tips below still remain the same.

The most important ingredient to any party is great, happy guests. For a baby shower its the best time for your friends and family to shower you and you husband with LOVE! I recommend choosing a cost effective location, such as someone' home or outdoor area. To create color and set the theme fill apothecary jars or candy jars full of jelly beans, Jordan almonds, and fun colored candy from Oriental Trading and Economy Candy. I found amazing table cloths to rent online at Total Table. Accent with rental chairs in this fruit wood brown. Add your ipod music with some Motown mellow grooves and voila you have simple effective decor for your next family party.

For more photos check out US Weekly the March 14 issue and coming soon, the May issue of Pregnancy Magazine!

Gratitude List, Family First

I was a busy lady last week and could not have pulled off my super-human efforts without a ton of help. Thank you to my husband and my in-laws for watching Riley while I was in Los Angeles. My team who helped me design and lay out all of the decor for Hot Moms Charlie and Brooke Sheen's baby shower deserve a standing ovation. Sisi Soestrisno and Berly Ellis are two of the most talented, hard working women who I love dearly.

It was wonderful to work with Natalie Klein and Jessica Denay of the Hot Moms Club too. I also had the pleasure of meeting a top notch team of west-coast caterer's Paola and Craig Petrella from Two Peas and Samantha Barnes from the Kitchen Kid. Total Table and Classic Party Rentals also rock!

One of my dear friends had a baby girl, Sunday, while I was in town, so I got to meet Maximilliane! Congratulations Vic & Tom. And, a big shout out to Nick and Jerianne for their generous hospitality, too.

I had such a wonderful weekend in Los Angeles that was topped off by an unusually pleasant airport experience. I'd like to thank the Delta Airlines Staff, the porter, Kamal, who has a baby about 2-years-old, JP the manager and the wonderful woman behind the counter who found me a first class seat on the first flight back to NYC!

Photos from the event are coming soon! And, send me what you are grateful for in your life!

Craft project for Valentine's Day

One of the most creative people on earth, Darcy Miller, sent out a Valentine's day box last year that was the cutest thing I had ever seen. It inspired me to create my own little personalized box greeting. Here are the supplies you need.
Craft Scissors (I used the Majestic pattern), Elmer's Glue, a fine point red pen, 2 style of boxes from papermart.com; a 31/8x21/16x11/4 slide box and a 4x3x2 white tuck box, craft paper shred, $1.68 stamp, Hershey's kisses, shiny card stock or photo paper, velum and label paper. A paper cutter is a huge help also.
I'll confess for an over-achiever, time-stressed, business woman, with child this was a challenge to complete quickly. I would rate it a code red on the crafty time scale. I have to give a big THANK YOU to Julianne Austin, Laura Irizarry and Caitlin McGettigan. Without my co-workers I would have not pulled this off.





Print 2 different photos on glossy card stock, cut with craft scissors- the corners take a little work (thanks Julianne), glue on front and back of slide box. Create vellumn artwork - I just drew mine on plain paper- print on vellumn. I recommend using an inexpensive paper cutter to cut these sheets. Add Hershey's kisses and place vellum on top. Volia instant message Kisses from Cathy and family.

For the outer box, again, I did original artwork and made copies on label paper. Stuff with paper shred, I used red foil shred that I found at Lee's Art Supply in NYC for $3.99 a bag. You only need 1 or 2 bags - I sent out 75 boxes and 2 bags were perfect.

Add stamps and mail!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Connection through celebration

I would like to help guide people to become more connected to each other. I believe connection through celebration is one way to a better life, cultivating your relationships and connection to family and friends. A vital part of a healthy lifestyle is the act of celebrating the everyday rituals of life; meals, games, story time, relaxing on weekends, that we have pushed aside in recent years. Carving time out of our busy schedules is essential to our long term happiness, something that is not found through instant gratification. So the next time you sit down for breakfast, lunch or dinner make it a celebration. Create a fun theme or turn an idea upside down, like a a breakfast picnic in your living room, Involve your family to help prepare the meal, set the table, don't be afraid to ask for help or offer to teach a new skill and open your mind to a new way of doing things.


I teach a class "How to Become an Event Planner" and I often tell a story about how I got into party planning as a career. It was because of the sense of control and instant gratification I felt once a successful event was completed. Now that I have a young daughter, it has made me reflect on "instant gratification" a little more deeply. We are in an age where almost everything can be "On Demand" your music, your TV, your video games. Is having such easy access to these things eroding our sense of patience and perserverance? So for my belated New Year's resolution I'm dedicating a day every week to celebrate, in my own way, my family. I hope I can inspire you to do the same.

Alpine Creative Invitations

For the Engagement Party and my Mother's surprise 60th Birthday I went to one of the BEST invitation spots in the country. Alpine Creative, based in NYC. Here is what we created for the celebration. Its a 2-ply, square, two color invite. I ordered personalized stamps and extra postage was needed because I chose a square shaped card. They were a hit!

Surprise 60th Birthday Party Plan

Over the holiday's I also squeezed in a little surprise party for my mom's 60th birthday. It was also an engagement party for my cousin Tim and soon to be cousin-in-law Jamie. Here is my party plan and a few photos. You can check out my Riva Events facebook link too for more photos.

My mom has worked in the Mobile, Alabama school system for years. She was a teacher and now she is a media specialist. She is selfless and very giving, so I wanted the party to really honor that. Because she does not like too much attention thrown her way my aunt and cousin's devised the perfect cover plan -another party, an engagement- so she could also HELP me plan the bash.

The two things I think are most important in planning an event are knowing your audience, providing fabulous music and quality food. That's where I spend most of my budget. The rest goes to decor.

The time was set for a 3pm party so folks could just drop by and be home by dark. (Its also a money saver so you don't have to provide a full meal) I wanted it to be somewhat casual since folks would be coming from other holiday parties. We chose a great seafood spot on the bay called Blue Gill. The buffet menu was crafted from their favorite foods crab claws, boiled shrimp, catfish bites and grilled chicken.


I hired an old friend, Lonn Spencer, who owns a FANTASTIC DJ business Azalea City DJs. Seriously, if you are planning an event on the Gulf Coast his team is the best.



The cake was so DELICIOUS from Butter Cream Dreams. I always buy a cake to feed half the number of guests I have coming. Most folks don't eat huge pieces of cake. We had about 80 people attend this party and the sheet cake fed 40 and we still had leftovers.


We had about 12 young children, ages 15 months-6 -years-old so i created a kids station. I bought a roll of white butcher paper to create a paper table cloth kids could draw on. i went to the dollar store and purchased crayons, stickers, activity books and markers. the kids loved it!


The decor was simple. The restaurant had a very rustic outdoor deck that we turned into a nice red and white cafe. I rented 15 gingham clothes from Port City Rentals, what a great resource to have in Mobile. I bought 40 balloons from Party City. I used galvanized buckets as my centerpieces filled with napkins, flatware and condiments for the food. I made composition books as an homage to my mom's years as a teacher and from oriental trading we had a few engagement items.




The most loved element of this party was a slide show that ran continuously throughout the party filled with photos of Jane, Tim and Jamie from all eras in their life. It was a fun way to ring in 2009. If you'd like more tips please leave a comment and I'll be happy to send you the budget and other ideas!

Happy New Year!

A celebration of the history of cocktails

Last night I had the pleasure of a NYC night out on the town with my friend and mixologist Elayne Duke to celebrate the 75th year of the repeal of Prohibition, also our 21st amendment of the Constitution.

We began at Devin Tavern on Greenwich street. I had the honor of meeting Jill DeGroff, an amazing artist and wife of the legendary cocktail creator Dale DeGroff. Above are some images from her Cocktaillian Calendar. I was lucky to have my friend Simon Ford and new acquaintance, Brian Van Flanderan, autograph the libatious creation too. You can catch them on the new reality show "On the Rocks". And, if you have never been to Tales of the Cocktail, a week long festival, July 8-12th, in New Orleans, celebrating the history and culture of cocktails- don't miss it!

Handmade gifts can be the BEST!

Thank you to the students of the Fashion Institue of Technology! I was a guest speaker at Professor Karen Middleton's fashion club this week. It was such a pleasure to meet students with passion and excitement for their upcoming event in April. I really love this handmade card. And, I hope it can inspire you to do more homemade gifts this year, I know I will! Thank you.

Gift Wrap Ideas (on the cheap)

I find the easiest way to save money for is to plan in advance, be creative and re-use what you already own. Since most folks don't have a ton of time, I thought I'd help out with a few ideas for the holiday's that I hope save you stress. This week I'll show you some creative ways to wrap gifts. Thank you to Sisi Soestrisno for these great gifts used at the My Great Gatherings entertaining store.


Items you'll need:
Glue Gun
Newspaper
Dollar store wrapping paper
Old Christmas Ornaments
Packaging Paper
Scotch Tape
Pine Cones from your yard or Bed Bath and Beyond sells them for .99 a bag
Birch Bark or Tree bark from outdoors
Cinnamon Sticks also from Bed Bath and Beyond

NEWSPAPER CHIC-Wrapping gifts in newspaper can be cool. As a nod to our economic woe's, Sisi used the "Financial Times" a newspaper that has a nice pinkish hue. You can use your hometown newspaper too. They key with newspaper is to embrace it and make it look crafty. Once the package is wrapped instead of a traditional bow, add an accordion folded fan out of paper or cut snowflakes out of newspaper and add on top. You can also add pine cones with a glue gun for a few pennies more.

DON'T HAVE ENOUGH PAPER- Don't fret if you have swatch of paper that does not fit the gift, you can still use it. The present in the photo covered with a strip of birch bark is used to mask the two inches where the paper ran short. The present with the brown packaging material is also used to hide the lack of paper.

NEED RIBBON?- Use newspaper instead of ribbon this year. Strips of newspaper make for great decoration on your gift!

INSTEAD OF BOWS- Pine cones, Cinnamon sticks, newspaper, old ribbon from years past, old ornaments or dollar store ornaments look terrific on presents and your recipient will rave over how creative you are!

DOLLAR STORE DECOR- I love Jack's .99 store in NYC, but any Dollar Store has gift wrap, tissue paper and bags. So in a pinch you can always find inexpensive ideas right in your own home town!


If you have great money saving gift wrap ideas please comment on this blog for all to use!

Spinach and Artichoke Frittata Reciepe

On Saturday I hosted a holiday party at My Great Gatherings in Annapolis, MD. I shared my favorite tips for celebrating an economical Thanksgiving and a festive Christmas! The caterer was The Main Ingredient. They supplied terrific food, including a wonderful recipe for a Spinach and Artichoke Frittata. I've had a lot of requests for the recipe below. They also had a FANTASTIC server, Connie King, who was a great help and a wonderful person.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and don't forget to take time to be grateful for the family, love and support you have in your life!

This makes enough for about 40 bite size triangles, hors d'oeuvres size.

Spinach and Artichoke Frittata
12 Eggs
6 cups of Cheddar Cheese
3/4 cups of Bread Crumbs
1 cup of melted Butter
3 #'s of Artichoke Hearts
3#'s of Spinach, frozen chopped is best
1-1 1/2 cups of chopped Onion
1 1/2 tsp. fresh Garlic
1 1/2 tsp. Oregano
1 1/2 tsp. Tabasco
Salt and Pepper to taste

Grease a 9X13' baking pan. Bake at 375 until firm.