This past weekend was my girlfriend, Nicole’s, 40th Birthday.\u00a0 Her family asked me to help plan\/design a wine & cupcake tasting party for her.<\/p>\n

I wanted to show you a few simple tricks I did in order to make a great party without all the trouble!<\/p>\n

You can find the Wine Tasting Printable Collection<\/a> in the shop now.<\/p>\n

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I wanted to create a simple dessert bar for this party….\u00a0 Understated, yet sophisticated and stylish.<\/p>\n

Since the focus was on the wine & cupcakes, we didn’t think it was necessary to have a ton of extra sweets.<\/p>\n

I made chocolate covered pretzels, strawberries and raspberries to mix with the wines and cupcakes.<\/p>\n

We had Heather McDonnell of the Cupcrazed Cupcake Bar<\/a>\u00a0(who won\u00a0the\u00a0Food Network\u2019s Cupcake Wars<\/a>)<\/em><\/strong> create three mini cupcake flavors to try during the tasting party.<\/p>\n

She made Dark Chocolate, Cafe Mocha and Pumpkin.\u00a0 (by the way… Pumpkin was voted best cupcake and it was UUUHHHH-MAZING!!)<\/p>\n

The funny thing, is that Maureen is our dessert specialist, when we put together our dessert bars…. so I had to create desserts that the average dessert dummy could make.<\/p>\n

No baking, just decorating!<\/p>\n

Ingredients:<\/p>\n

1. melting chocolate<\/p>\n

2. short pretzels<\/p>\n

3. strawberries<\/p>\n

4. raspberries<\/p>\n

5. sprinkles of your choice<\/p>\n

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To start, I dipped pretzels in melting chocolate (follow package for melting instructions)<\/p>\n

Then added 2 sprinkle types to 2 dozen pretzels, while chocolate was still warm.<\/p>\n

I left one dozen un-sprinkled… when the chocolate was hard, I drizzled white chocolate on top.<\/p>\n

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Next, I dipped the strawberries and raspberries in the chocolate and let the chocolate harden.<\/p>\n

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Then I drizzled white chocolate on top of these berries as well.<\/p>\n

For the dessert bar – I used an old window frame, and\u00a0stapled \u00a0fabric behind the glass.<\/p>\n

I strung a happy birthday banner across the window frame.<\/p>\n

Remember the poms I showed you how to make out of tissue paper?\u00a0 I created some poms out of the orange and grey small cocktails napkins.<\/p>\n

(4 layers of grey, and two of orange and vice versa)<\/p>\n

I unfolded the small cocktail napkins (ends up being 10″ x 10″) to make the large flowers, and cut the napkin pieces (to 5″ x5″) to make the small flowers.<\/p>\n

What a great way to utilize supplies you already have… plus it helps keep your colors all the same!<\/p>\n

I used wine glasses and glass cake stands to show off all the desserts (with black-eyed peas for lining the glassware)… again, simple & clean and so easy to do!<\/p>\n

See below for all the fun party pics!<\/p>\n

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Here’s the birthday girl and her hubby, Stu….<\/p>\n

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Our best friend, Jaci, came in from Ohio\u00a0to surprise Nicole… so great to have my girlfriends all together!<\/p>\n

All in all the party was a total success… you’ll find wine & cupcake scorecards in the collection so you can create this exact party.<\/p>\n

This would be a great theme for a bridal shower, engagement party or even just a dinner party….\u00a0 who doesn’t love to try new wines and cupcakes!!!<\/p>\n

Thanks Heather for your fabulous cupcakes – we had sooo much fun trying all of them!!!<\/p>\n

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Did you find this article helpful?\u00a0 If so, leave us a comment and share with your friends!<\/p>\n

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This past weekend was my girlfriend, Nicole’s, 40th Birthday.\u00a0 Her family asked me to help plan\/design a wine & cupcake tasting party for her. I wanted to show you a few simple tricks I did in order to make a great party without all the trouble! You can find the Wine Tasting Printable Collection in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5,58,25,31,209,823,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birthday-parties","category-cupcakes","category-decorations","category-dessert-tables","category-diy","category-parties","category-ruff-draft","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n