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Birthday parties are my favorite thing to plan! I normally don’t plan big lavish parties for myself, but hey… you don’t turn 40 everyday. I wanted to plan a wonderful evening with friends and let them know how much I love them all! I highly recommend planning your OWN 40th birthday because it sure takes your mind off of getting older! ha.

The best part about having a September birthday is the weather. I have always wanted a pretty outdoor dinner party, so I moved just about every chair, plus a few of my neighbor’s chairs, into my backyard for the big night!

I hope you enjoy photos from my birthday party. Today, I’ve got a great giveaway and will have more giveaways with details about the party later this week. So be sure to check back again soon!

Outdoor Party Table

I did everything myself. Yes, I moved 30 chairs, about 5 tables and made most of the decor. My friends are SO worth it!!

I found some pretty vases and candles half off at Michaels, then bought grocery store flowers and paper lanterns for my table. I love bright colors so pink, orange and purple were a no brainer for this girly girl!

My centerpiece was branches from a tree, spray painted black with silly photos of myself. I wrapped the glass vase with ribbon to hide the bottom which had rice in it to hold the branches. I also designed little wine glass labels for each friend.

Gifts to Celebrate Friendships

My party was all about celebrating my friendships. It’s not very often that I see many of these women, so I wanted it to be a special night.

Each guest was surprised with a beautiful hand-stamped heart Vintage Pearl necklace on her plate. I love The Vintage Pearl! Check out their lovely jewelry here. Erin, the owner of The Vintage Pearl, was so sweet and also included a beautiful “Living Locurto” necklace for me as well! Thanks Erin!!

Gussy Sews made the most awesome party favors ever!!! Aren’t these bags adorable, fun and bright?

Gussy made these especially to match my party colors. I love seeing them all together. She make the most beautiful products. (Scroll down for a gift from Gussy!)

Dessert Table

It’s not a birthday party with dessert! My friend Christy from C-Star Cakes made me the MOST amazing cake ever!!

How fabulous is this cake?? It was chocolate of course. Thanks Christy for doing such a wonderful job!

I just bought simple mini cupcakes and added pretty flags to them.

Party Decorations

The party decorations are my FAVORITE part of planning parties!! I saw this picture tree on Pinterest from a wedding and thought it would be perfect for a milestone birthday party. I attached little sayings and photos of my friends. Some from long ago and some new.

I even made a chalkboard sign for the menu. I’ll show you how I did this later. It’s super easy!

My girlfriend made the best Sangria! Of course I had to have cute signs to go on the table:-)

It’s not a 40th birthday without a little silliness! Guest could help themselves to some gum and atomic fire ball candy!

(I’ll make these designs available for you soon!)

Outdoor Movie

For the after dinner entertainment, I created an outdoor movie theater in another part of my yard. Yep… more chairs to move! I sure got my workout that day! ha!

I set up my photography backdrop stand and projector. We watched Bridesmaids and had some fun laughs!

I snapped this photo during dinner so I could remember what a special night it was to be with such wonderful friends!

Thanks so much to all of you who came and made it so much fun!! I missed those of you who couldn’t be here. You might recognize Laurie from Tip Junkie on the left and my girlfriend D’Ann was great and took photos for me. Yay!

Party photos by Amy Locurto and D’Ann Wright.

Now, I have a party favor for you! A $100 Giveaway!

Because I couldn’t invite ALL OF YOU to my party, you can still get a party favor.

Gussy Sews is giving one lucky reader a $100 gift card to her shop! You can choose whatever you like. YAY!

Click here to enter the giveaway.

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The Help movie just opened in theaters. I told you earlier this week about how my friend and I got to visit the movie set last October (and also included a review with a great giveaway). Here are more fun behind the scenes photos of the movie set!!

Long story short, my suitcase never came, so I was without clothes. (You can read more about what happens when you loose your bags in Mississippi here. ha!) A nice young man from the hotel in Greenwood dropped me off at the local JCPenney to pick up some undies and a few shirts. After my shopping spree, he was proud to show us around the town.

I snapped a photo of this house because of the old cars outside. Little did we know until watching the movie that it was Elizabeth’s house! Kind of cool when we saw my photo on film.

The next day, we headed to the set to watch the filming of the movie. Ever wonder what the inside of those trailer’s look like? Me too! Most were the movie star’s trailers, so we couldn’t barge in on them. But we did get to visit one!

This is the make-up trailer! I wasn’t supposed to take photos, but I did anyway. Really, there’s not much to see here, so I think I’m okay:-) Although I’m guessing that’s Celia’s wig.

We got to see a lot of photos from the movie here and talk to the head make-up artist. It sounded like they were so busy and had a huge job with those costumes. I think she said it took about 3 hours to do one person’s hair and make-up. But what a fun job!

Lunch on Set

I have NEVER been to lunch on a movie set. So I was fascinated with the huge tent full of food. Movie stars were walking around in character and I’m taking photos of the food. Ha! Yeah, something is wrong with me. I’ve never seen so many bottles of salad dressings and hot sauce in my life! I had to take photos.

Really? How many different condiments do you need? You should have seen all the food. Southern heaven. If I ate that for 6 months, I would have gained 30 lbs at least! I’m guessing those actresses don’t eat much.

I was also fascinated by the HUGE amount of pork skins at the local gas stations too. What’s with me and food? ha!

After lunch, we went back into the warehouse for more filming and shopping for props, then we were off to the Viking Cooking School with the rest of the winners. No pork skins there.

What a wonderful trip! It was fun to see actors we recognized (Ted Danson & Kieran Culkin) walking around the town and hotel. I’m sure the people of Greenwood had a ball with the movie being filmed in their town!

Go see the movie and don’t miss my giveaway of an autographed copy of The Help book.

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The Help opens this week in movie theaters.  Last year, I won an amazing trip to visit the movie set in Mississippi. I took my friend Naomi who told me about the book. We had a blast! Not only did we get a chance to talk with several of the main actresses and director, Tate Taylor, we even got to share a slice of Minny’s famous chocolate pie!

A few nights ago, I saw the movie and wanted to let you know my thoughts and how it compares to the book along with some fun stories from my trip and a giveaway!

When you love a book, you know the movie is not going to the same. There is no way to fit every scene from a book into less than two hours. As a fan of the book, I have to say… this movie was well done! It’s hard to imagine, not too long ago, this was reality for black women in the south. I think Tate Taylor did a great job of telling the women’s stories while also keeping true to the book. From the costumes and set designs, to the wonderful acting and doses of hilarious humor thrown in, you can’t help but be moved.

While on the movie set, we were lucky enough to watch this scene with Skeeter (Emma Stone), Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer). It’s the scene where Minny reveals the “terrible awful” about what she did to the mean-spirited, social-climbing Hilly Holbrook.

We weren’t actually on the set with this view, we were sitting with the directors watching it on a monitor and listening to the sound through head phones. For such a dramatic scene, we were amazed by the actress’s talents. They would be cracking up about something silly in between scenes and then as soon as they called ACTION, it was serious business.

Let me just say… this scene is one of the BEST parts of the movie. Sissy Spacek who plays Missus Walters is a scene stealer. There was so much laughter in the theater that I need to see the movie again just to know what was actually said!

What’s amazing, is most of the movie was shot in a giant warehouse. We weren’t allowed to take photos of the set, but if you can imagine walking into a huge building and going back to the 1960′s, that’s what it was like. They had the interiors of everyone’s homes built here, along with a giant backdrop of the New York City skyline for the outside of Mrs. Stine’s office.

When you’re on a movie set like this, time stops. There are no windows and you’re back in time. It was the oddest feeling. I couldn’t imagine working there for 6 months to a year! I talked with Viola Davis, who plays Aibileen, at lunch and she said yes, it’s really hard to be gone from home for so long. She will go home and forget how to work her TV remote control. Viola was so nice and down to earth. It was a pleasure talking to her, but so crazy because she was dressed as Aibileen! She was perfect for the role, she made Aibileen even better. It was like I was in the book having lunch with Aibileen. So strange!

They were close to wrapping up the movie, so all of the props were in another warehouse for sale! I walked into this room and about had a heart attack when someone told me I could shop! Look at all of the amazing furniture… and this was just a portion of the props. A vintage junk shopper’s heaven!

Unfortunately, everything good that I wanted to buy already had the director’s name on it. Tate Taylor had just bought a plantation while he was in Mississippi and needed to furnish it. Too bad for me, he has great taste:-)

Besides the hilarious Minny, Celia Foote was my favorite character of the book. Each rack in the warehouse was sorted by rooms and characters. I was excited to find this old jewelry box on Celia’s rack. So that was what I went home with. I looked for it in the movie, but didn’t see it. If you do, let me know!

When I read about the actress playing Celia (Jessica Chastain), I couldn’t picture her in this role. Well, she was absolutely amazing. Besides such a wonderful story, the actors are truly incredible.

One actress that I think you’ll see a lot of in the future is Octavia Spencer (Minny). We met her at dinner one evening with producer, Brunson Green. She just plopped down beside us and had a conversation. Absolutely the sweetest woman. She is hilarious too and who writer Kathryn Stockett based the character of Minny on in the first place.

We had such a fun time in Greenwood, Mississippi. I’ve shared more behind the scenes of the movie here as well. Go see it and tell me what you think!

Giveaway

We of course came prepared with books for the actresses to sign. Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer were kind enough to talk with us and sign our books. I brought an extra one, just to give away to a special reader!! I’ve been saving this for nearly a year and excited to give it away!!!

(This giveaway is in no way affiliated with the movie.)

To enter to win, just do these 2 things: (This giveaway is now closed)

• Leave a comment here letting me know what you loved about the book. If you haven’t read the book, but saw the movie tell me what you thought.

• Visit my Facebook Page and like my page if you don’t already. (Leave a comment here telling me you did this- not on Facebook.) Bonus: When you like my page, you get a free gift too!

**For an extra entry, follow me on Twitter and tweet this: Tweet

Only three entries per person. You must let me know you did each item in the comments below. This giveaway will end on Wed. the 17th. Winner will be emailed and announced on this post.

Winner Update

Congratulations to Michele!!

I loved reading the comments and learning how much this book touched so many of you! Michele and her sister loved it so much, they did “The Help Road Trip “to Mississippi.

I’m so excited Michele won the autographed book. You’ll see why when you read the comment she left here:

Oh my goodness – what a movie!  I’m sitting in our hotel in Jackson, and my sister and I are so glad we did this trip!  Ironically, we played Johnny Cash’s “Going to Jackson” in the car to start a trip, having no idea that this was the song that would open the movie!
Once in Jackson, we started with Brent’s Drugs for dinner, and took tons of pictures everywhere we went.  It was so much fun to see the diner we had eaten in yesterday afternoon on the screen last night!

Next we did the Help Driving tour – again, pictures of everything. It was cool to be familiar with the street names and places like the Jitney Jungle (now called McDade’s) when we were watching the movie. Our final destination was Medgar Evers’ house, which ended our tour on a somber note.  While the house is maintained by organizations, it sits in a horribly run down area of Jackson and has very little fanfare.  No signs on the roads that I could see announcing Medgar Evers’ home, merely a large bronze plaque on the house and a historical sign at the curbside.  Sobering to look around and realize that his neighborhood was so run down and didn’t look like a place that anyone would choose to move into.  Economic disparities were so obvious in Jackson, and it made me wonder just how far we have really come.

On to the movie- ours was sold out, so every seat was taken.  I LOVED the movie!  When I saw the cast months ago, I couldn’t envision any of them as the characters I had construed in my head. Now I can’t remember the characters I had imagined because the actors so embodied the personalities in the book. We laughed and cried, and we must see this one again!
On to Ole Miss today, then our Help vacation is done.  My sister returns to Maryland in a few days, and my 3 month stay at St Jude ends in 2 weeks.  I will remember this little 2 day adventure as one of the most awesome vacations ever. Amazing how 1 book could inspire so many of us.  Hopefully, it will actually bring some much needed change in the way we all see each other.

Thanks for sharing your trip pictures and for the chance to win this book.  Also, thanks for the opportunity to chronicle my little adventure in my 3 entries – I don’t have a blog/website, but now I have a mini journal of my escapade!

Michele

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If you have been following me on Facebook, you’ll know I have been in Mississippi. I wasn’t sure how much I could talk about what I was doing on my blog until now…. so here is the scoop!!

Have you read The Help by Kathryn Stockett? I did and absolutely LOVED it!! At the time, I thought, this has to be made into a movie! So I found their Facebook page, which confirmed they were making a movie, which lead me to a link about a contest where you could win a trip to be on the movie set. With about 2 hours until the contest closed, I entered a photo and talked about how the book inspired me. Never thinking another thing about it, because I never win that sort of thing.

Turns out, I did!! I was one of the five grand prize winners! So earlier this week, my friend Naomi and I, had one of the most wonderful girl trips EVER to the cotton capital of Mississippi to meet movie stars, hang out with wonderful people, and stuff ourselves silly with fried southern food.

This wouldn’t be a good trip with out something happening right? After arriving at the Memphis airport, I find out that my luggage never made it on the plane. What?? A car was coming to pick us up in about twenty minutes and drive us two hours away for only one day. I really needed my bag that day!

My luggage would be put on another plane, but not arriving until later that evening. Ack!! I’m going to meet movie stars and have no underwear, make-up or my high heels!! Noooooo! So that’s exactly what I said to the workers behind the counter at the “Lost Luggage” place. This is how the conversation started in a very southern drawl…

Luggage Lady : “A movie set? Well gosh! So, where you gonna be staying at? We’ll have someone deliver your bag when it gets here.”

Me: “A hotel in Greenwood, Mississippi. I think it’s several hours from here. We actually have to go soon to catch our ride. Is there anyway possible my bag will get there tonight because I’m only here for one day?”

Luggage Lady to Luggage Man sitting next to her: “Hey, isn’t Morgan Freeman from Greenville?”

Luggage Man: “Yes, I think he is!!”

Me: “Excuse me, I said GreenWOOD, not Greenville.”

Luggage Man: “I swear, I thought he was from Greenville, but now that she said Greenwood, I think that’s where he’s from!”

Luggage Lady: “What would you know, you’re not from the south anyway!?!?!”

Luggage Man: “Hey now, I’ve been here long enough to know where Morgan Freeman is from! Is he in that movie you’re going to see?”

Me ( Ignoring Luggage Man): “Sorry, are you sure you got that I’m going to GreenWOOD and not Greenville? I really need my underwear.”

Luggage Lady: “Oh honey, I almost put down Greenville! Good thing you corrected me because that’s a really far drive. I wondered why you would you be going there? Unless they were filming that movie there, because that’s where Morgan Freeman’s from, you know?”

Several long minutes later of trying to figure out where Morgan Freeman was from… I leave the Lost Luggage office more confused than ever, but ready to have a good time no matter what and just cross my fingers my bag shows up sometime that night. I’m in the deep south. This should be fun!

Evidence of being in the south. I’ve never seen so many flavors of pork skins in my life!! ha.

After arriving at the hotel, I noticed a few gorgeous clothing boutiques right across the street. Of course, in small towns, nothing is open on Sunday and if it is, it closes early. I call Delta and told there is no way my bag will get there tonight. Ack! We leave for the movie set in the morning!

Twenty minutes before our scheduled dinner, one of the hotel workers drives us to JcPenney (it’s either that or Walmart) to find some clothes. I feel so much better just knowing I’ll have some underwear!!

As we walk into JcPenney a worker gets on the loud speaker and says. “Attention shoppers, we will be closing in 10 minutes, please bring your items to the check out counter.” Noooo!!! Seriously cracking up, my girlfriend and I split up for a super quick shop-a-thon!! LOL! I think the lady working there thought we were crazy. After 10 minutes, I had a few tops, a necklace, and best of all underware. Too bad they didn’t have make-up and hairspray at that store.

On the way back to the hotel, we got a short tour of the town and saw some antique cars that were being used for the movie. The guy driving told us the cast was mostly gone because they had the wrap party the previous night. It was a big to-do, the town even had fireworks for them!

I have to say Greenwood is beautiful and the magnolia trees are bigger than houses!

We made it to dinner, got to know the other winners and meet the film studio’s publicist. I found the stories about the movie fascinating and the fried shrimp and fried green tomatoes amazing! It was such a fun time, so what if I was wearing granny panties from JcPenney!

Then out of nowhere we heard a loud southern voice say, “Did someone order some chocolate pie??? You better hurry and eat this because I’ve got five kids I need to get home to!”. It was Octavia Spencer, who plays Minny, and one of the producers Brunson Green, holding chocolate pies. If you have read the book, you know the significance of that pie… and this was the pie that would be in the movie!

Octavia is one of the nicest, funniest people you’ll meet. The character Minny was actually based on her. It was a blast having her at dinner.

We enjoyed the most incredible chocolate pie I’ve ever had. I’m guessing it had caramel in it as well. YUM!

The producers are from the area and their moms bring in homemade pies and cakes. Apparently everyone has gained weight from working in Mississippi. After eating this pie, I can see why!

The next day we were off to the movie set to watch scenes filmed with Emma Stone (Skeeter), Viola Davis (Aibileen) and Octavia (Minny).

I’ll continue my story soon… maybe when the movie comes out.

**UPDATE- The movie is opening in August 2011. I’ll write about my behind the scenes look soon!

So have you read the book? What did you think of it?

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Are you a Netflix user? Check out this site for some fun ways to recycle your paper. Too funny!

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Also, be sure to check out Printables by Amy! Find easy and affordable digital files to download and print at home or at your local quick print shop. Each product is custom designed by Amy, a professional graphic designer. Amy makes do-it-yourself projects a breeze!