A Home to Share Book Launch Backyard Party

Wow. I hosted the Book Launch Backyard Party this week and it was incredible. The party was way beyond my expectations and simply amazing!

I knew I wanted to host this party even before I was done writing the book. To be able to open up our home and share it with those who enjoy My 100 Year Old Home and A Home to Share, was the perfect reason to throw a backyard party.

My new book, A Home to Share, is available now! Click here for more details!

The Most Amazing Book Launch Backyard Party

As I said earlier … WOW! In my wildest dreams, I never imagined the Book Launch Party for A Home to Share party would turn out as great as it did.

And what was so special?

The amazing people who came to the party!

Over 250 people attended the party. Many flew from out of state, drove seven hours from Northern California, or came from all over Southern California. And I think I met almost every one of these incredible people that made a huge effort to come to my home!

I was so touched by all of the stories everyone shared about ideas I have shared on my blog that they had done in their homes. So many shared pictures of my DIYs they had made. They also mentioned which recipes were their favorites. And they showed photos of the home decor items they had bought that I had shared on my blog.

It touched my heart that so many had been inspired by my blog and now wanted to read my book! I loved meeting so many incredibly wonderful people and cherished to learn that we had so much in common.

The Book Signing of a Home to Share

Everyone that attended the event was given a signed copy of my book. I signed 250 books the day before the party, which saved a lot of time. I spent over an hour at the party personalizing the books for whoever wanted one, and that was fun because I got to meet even more people.

Are you curious how long it takes to sign 250 books?

Since I did them ahead of time, it took about one minute each, which was just about four hours!

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Family Photos

You all know how important family is to me and I was so happy all of the boys were able to fly home for the Book Launch party. It was such a special evening and Michael made the most incredible introduction speech. If anyone has it on video, please send it to me!!

Set Up for the Backyard Party

Although the backyard party was held outdoors, we did have the house open to welcome everyone inside. I cannot believe how many people looked around and I loved listening to their comments!

The decor for the party was understated, and we did feature a few items from the book. You can see the wooden boxes and hanging wood arch that is featured in A Home to Share. The hanging floral vintage chandelier is one of my favorite items in the book.

Flowers

We went to the flower mart early on Monday morning and the photo above is all of the arranged flowers stored in our wine cellar!

You can see more photos of the hanging chandeliers below, plus pictures of the flowers arranged for all of the tables.

A Home to Share

Do you need a copy of my book? You can buy it here.

A funny thing happened when I was signing the books the night before the event. Charlotte, my daughter-in-law, noticed how great the books looked when lined up together!

How cool is that?

The Menu

Before I share the recipes, I wanted to share some fun presentations I used.

I bought these small pizza boxes and stamped the logo of the book title on the inside. Then we filled them with some wonderful homemade tarts.

For the desserts, I covered some of my favorite books with white paper and used the logo mailing tape on the outside. Then we placed the desserts on top of the books.

Sadly, no one in my family has a photo of the dessert presentation. (Of course, if any of you have one, please send it my way!)

Here is the menu and I linked to all of the recipes. Some of the recipes are mine, and some of them are from other bloggers, including my favorite food blogger, Half Baked Harvest. All of the recipes by other bloggers link directly to their sites.

Charcuterie Display

Sweet & Spicy Seasoned Crackers

Salad – Grilled Corn and Basil Salad (recipe available in the Half Baked Harvest Cookbook)

Salad – Fumi Cabbage

Salad – Arugula Blue Cheese and Cranberries

Turkey with cranberry/orange muffins

Crab cakes with lemon dill sauce

Roasted Garlic Pizza Dip Sliders

BBQ Chicken Sliders

Wrapped Cranberry Brie Bites – modified recipe coming in a blog post next week!

Caprese Pesto Tarts

Desserts

Chocolate Dipped Peanut Butter Cookies

Home to Share Cookies

Frosted sugar leaf cookies

Chai Spiced Maple Sugar Cookies

If you want to learn more about how I personalized this party, go to Planning a Party? Personalize It!

Check-In

The check-in to the event went very smoothly and you can see the small vintage floral chandelier hanging from the board across the top. If you own my book, you can see how easy they are to make!

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I started a fun new series of Amazon Lives, called A Peek Inside My New Book and I will be sharing each chapter. This live shared Chapter 1 – A Timeless Kitchen.

Click here to watch the show.

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