LEMON AND LIME CENTERPIECE

Whenever I throw a dinner party I always try to look around the house to see if there are items I can use to incorporate into the decor. You’d be surprised how many things you have around the house that look great if you just style them a little differently. Specifically speaking – have you looked at your fruit bowl lately? You know that lovely pineapple that is about to go bad (am I the only one that has SO much trouble cutting these damm things up before their time expires?) or that delicious watermelon =  those are your future flower vases! Fruits can be used in so many different fun ways and today I will show you just that!

I enjoy decorating with fruit as well as using it in my party menus – hello fruit water tower! Sidenote – is there anything better than fruit flavoured water? (I mean not counting sangria of course). I could do a whole post of my favourite flavoured water combinations for entertaining but I’ll save that for another day. When it comes to decorating with fruits I love to use citrus kinds as the bright colours provide an amazing pop of life on a sometimes plain looking table. I dream that one day I will own that villa in Tuscany which will be surrounded by beautiful lemon trees which I can venture to anytime I need fresh juicy lemons. As of right now – I get my butt down to the local farmers market and indulge in some freshly picked fruits.

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EASTER BASKET INSPIRATION: POLISH TRADITIONS

One of my favourite things about Easter (aside from the delicious food!) is getting our family Easter basket ready. Easter is all about gathering with friends and family and traditions like these get me excited for the holiday every year.

Coming from a Polish background, the Easter basket is enriched with old traditions that have been passed down for centuries. The basket is filled with the typical goodies (chocolate, decorated eggs etc.) but additional items are added in which each represent a specific meaning (described more below). As a child, I always loved the trip to the European grocery store to help pick out all the items we were adding in. Obviously I would always sneak some additional chocolate in – for good measure of course. Once the basket was put together, it was taken to be blessed before being used for Easter morning. Another favourite memory for me was the drive home after blessing. That Easter basket never stood a chance! My brother would go straight for the meat, my sister and I would split up some chocolate, someone got the bread and that was usually how it went down every year. We all had good intentions – but it never made it home in one piece!

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