Utterly Engaged: Designers Challenge

In January we had the privilege to attend an industry event put on by the fabulous ladies from Utterly Engaged. The Utterly Spankin' New Year party was quite the hit! We were able to meet and hug so many of the faces we've seen only through the computer screen and twitter conversations. It was a wonderful evening and we met so many new friends.

Carter & Cook, along with Posh Paperie decided to enter the designers challenge. There were many rules to our table entry. It had to be a form of 'modern', and use some sort of industrial material, paper, or fabric. We chose to focus our table on Modern Craft and the use of all things paper, with a bistro flare! We didn't win the challenge, but did receive an Editors Choice award in the recent issue. Such FUN! Read about it in the latest issue of UE here.

To keep the look clean and simple, we used a table with all neutrals, whites, creams, and browns. The table's main focus and centerpiece was not supposed be flowers so we found very simple cream vases from Ikea with three large white peony blooms, and lots of paper flowers made out of old books. All white china, and white utensils, along with a cream dish cloth for napkins.



Paper was used in so many ways! The table runner was brown craft paper, laid over a white linen tablecloth [yes, we need a hand held steamer! :) ]. We decided to do beer with cheese and bread baskets, so we had brown paper boxes lined with parchment paper to fill with gourmet cheeses and breads.

The beers had darling custom labels that served as place cards, also created by Posh Paperie. Our paper bag styled menu fit our modern bistro spread.

The paper flowers were a definite DIY, and quite easy. I might be putting together a tutorial for those, so watch for that on the Utterly Engaged blog.

The candles were all wrapped in various forms and textures of vellum, paper lace doilies, and a cream paper mache. It's hard to tell in the photos, but the glow from your candles through the textures of paper is so beautiful and soft. This is an affordable way to jazz up your standard glass pillar candles.

My favorite part about the table was the front of the linen. We saw an art piece online, and decided to try to incorporate that into our tablescape. We used dozens of sizes of paper cupcake liners, to create a fun design along the front of the table linen. We secured them with silver push pins. Several of the cupcake liners were spray painted tan to give a pop against the linen.

Heather and I enjoying the party!


Henny, Lucia and Eva..the three lovely women behind Utterly Engaged. Thank you again for such a fun party! And a huge thank you to Jasmine Star, and JD for shooting the party, and all of the designer's tables. All photo credit goes to Jasmine Star.