Pop, Fizz, Clink! Kate Spade pardons the turkey! – A Kate Spade Flamingo Thanksgiving Party

Everyone loves the Thanksgiving holidays…

Everyone, that is, except for the 50 million or so turkeys that are served up by the American population during the annual Thanksgiving feast.

Every year since 1989, one lucky turkey, has, however, been granted a stay of execution by none other than the President himself (the first pardon was granted by President George H.W.Bush), gifting freedom to the recipient to live out the rest of his/her days in peace.

To mark this political tradition, and to recognize that this year Thanksgiving also fell on my birthday, I decided to celebrate Thanksgiving 2014 in a less traditional way. I knew that it wouldn’t really be Thanksgiving without a big-bird being involved in at least some way or another, and so I decided that I would incorporate a flamingo into the mix to represent the Turkey’s absence from our feast. I then decided to take it one step further, by complimenting the flamboyancy of this magnificent creature by dressing the occasion in fabulous Kate Spade style.

I am a MASSIVE Kate Spade addict!

Until quite recently, I had to rely on waiting to get her products during visits to the US, but now, there are a number of UK stores, and a brand new UK website that I can use to acquire these lovely things! Kate Spade is a wonderful designer, and Kate Spade quirky and vivid products are truly aligned with the firm’s motto of “Live Colorfully”, yet remain loyal to classic fashion designs.

One of Kate Spade’s popular colour combinations (and my absolute favourite!) is to use the clashing combination of orange and pink, and this is the scheme I chose for my Kate Spade Thanksgiving Party. I wanted to stay focused on ensuring that this scheme was fully integrated throughout the party, from the decor, drinks, right the way through to the food to be served.

Decorations

With the main theme being orange and pink, I created a base for these colours using black and gold, and you can see the stripe table runner at the centre of the table. I also used some gorgeous telephone photograph holders as place tags and my wonderful Kate Spade telephone salt and pepper holder.

The pink lanterns were actually a fabulous purchase from Primark – a real bargain at £6, and they are battery operated, which makes them very flexible to use. I also created some bunting and posters using pink craft paper and glitter card.

The flowers are actually from M&S, and worked amazingly with the scheme. I also scattered the table with pastel sequins.

Running with the “sparkling” theme, I also used my glitter Kate Spade coasters, and used a piece of thick sequin fabric to cover the coffee table, which was used to serve my trusted colour-matched M&Ms!!

Food

As you already know, there was not a turkey bite in sight, and instead we had venison sausages with homemade marshmallow & sweet potato pie and red cabbage. The menu was actually inspired by my wedding reception, where we also had colour co-ordinated food, way back in 2009.

For desert, a pumpkin cheesecake nodded to the traditional fare, but with an added layer of pink sour cream marshmallow topping for a little extra splash of colour!

We also had some delightful little savoury smoked salmon and cream cheese macarons as appetisers, again, in the pink and orange scheme.

The stripy vanilla birthday cake, whilst not strictly needed with the cheesecake, looked lovely and allowed me to use my mini sparklers!

Beverage Bar

I was quite pleased to be able to source some mini bottles of fizz for the party. These are miniature bottles of Freixenet Cordon Negro Brut Cava, and were a perfect match to our decor. Cute little LSA glasses served Kir Royals, using the wonderful Chambord liquor. Again, a lovely little bottle!! Hard liquor in the form of Hendricks Gin was also supplied for the hardier guest.

Party Bags

I used to love party bags as a child, and so I always look to provide departing guests with a couple of small treats to thank them for joining me in my celebration.

This time, I had some great Kate Spade treat bags, that I filled with retro sweets, an amazing fortune telling fish (completely reliable, of course!), a couple of Kate Spade idiom pencils, and a pot of “flamingo” pink Barry-M nail varnish.