Gorgeous Cup Cake or Cake Stand

You can make these cute peppermint cupcake or Cake stands with just a few simple items! Set them on dessert tables or serve your holiday dessert on its own unique little cupcake stand!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

4 regular candy canes
Christmas ribbon
4-inch cookie cutter
peppermint candies (unwrapped)

WHAT TO DO

1. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
2. Spray the inside of your cookie cutter with cooking spray and set on parchment paper.

3. Fill the cutter with peppermints. Bake for 6-8 minutes (as it starts to melt, it goes fast so watch carefully).
4. Let cool several minutes then carefully push out of cutter.

5. Use adhesive glue, hot glue, and tape to hold candy canes together. We used a bit of tape around the top and it barely showed. Tie holiday ribbon around the candy canes.

6. Use a drop of hot glue to adhere the round disk to the candy cane stand. Enjoy!

CHRISTMAS TREE AS A 

CENTER PIECE

Christmas time is right around the corner. You probably started decorating your home and thinking of inviting your friends and family for Christmas or New Year party or you may just want to decorate your home and give a sense of Holiday feel to it.

You can create a pseudo Christmas tree with various elements. One example is what I did in the above picture.

Here is How:

• To create an exact look that you see in the above picture, you need to have 17 wine glasses; approximately 7" to 8" height, glue dots for securing the glasses, silver decorative beads, red satin ribbons, decorative snow flakes and white votive candles.

• First decide where do you want to display your pseudo Christmas tree, because when you set your display, you aren't able to move it around. So you need to be sure where you want to place it.
• There are five tiers of glasses need to be set in order to create your Christmas tree. 
• To create the first/bottom tier: Set seven wine glasses horizontally next to each other. This is considered as your bottom or first tier. You can use glue dots on the  bottom of each wine glasses to secure them to your table.
• To create the second tier: You need four glasses for this step. Facing to your first tier of glasses that you have created and starting from left to right; 1) Place your first glass in between the rims of the second and third glasses that you set on the bottom/first tier, 2) Place your second glass in between the rims of the third and fourth glasses that you set on the bottom/first tier, 3) Place your third glass in between fourth and fifth glasses that you set on the bottom/first tier, 4) Place your fourth glass in between the rims of fifth and sixth glasses that you set on the bottom/first tier. Now you have created your second tier of your tree. You can use glue dots at the bottom of your wine glasses to secure them and prevent them from falling down.  
• To create the third tier: You need three wine glasses for this step. Facing to your first and second tiers and starting from left to right; 1) Place your first glass in between the rims of the first and second glasses on the second tier that you have already created, 2) Place the second glass in between the rims of the second and third glasses that you have already created on the second tier, 3) Place the third glass in between the rims of the third and fourth glasses on the second tier that you have already created. Now you are done with your third tier. You can use glue dots on the bottom of each glasses to secure them and prevent them from falling down.
• To create the fourth tier: You need two wine glasses for this step. Facing to your first, second and third tiers and starting from left to right; 1) Place your first glass in between the rims of the first and second glasses in the third tier that you have already created, 2) Place the second glass in between the rims of the second and third glasses in the third tier that you have already created. Now you have done setting up your fourth tier of pseudo Christmas tree.
• To create the fifth tier: This is the final step. You need only one wine glass for this step. Facing to your first, second, third and fourth tiers, place your glass in between the rims of the first and second glasses in the fourth tier that you have already created.

Now that you have created your pseudo Christmas tree, it is time for you to decorate it. I've used silver decorative beads and red satin ribbons. I have also used decorative snow flakes that I've placed on the rims of my outer glasses. I've used white votive candles around my tree and I've place one red long candle inside my glass in the last tier to give light and shine to my tree. You can decorate anyway you like. Let your imagination fly and be creative.

Enjoy your tree.

Moji      

DECORATE WITH EMPTY BOTTLE WATERS

I saw these Voss bottle waters that have been displayed in Four Season Hotel. It is a great way to reuse the empty bottles and a beautiful Green Initiatives.

So, instead of throwing out your empty bottle waters, fill the bottles with water and insert fresh grasses in them, or insert your dried flowers or use your creativity and enjoy your showcases.  

Moji 

CHARMING EMPTY CONTAINERS

Don't throw your empty boxes or empty containers out. Use them as a vase and display your flowers in them. It creates rustic and organic look.

Moji

Dried Flower Arrangements - By Moji

Dried Flower Arrangement - Moji

                 HOW TO DRY FLOWERS

When someone gives me flowers, I don't put them in the water and that's because after couple of days they loose their freshness and I 
have to throw them out. 

In order to preserve the memory I preserve the flowers by drying them out. After few weeks I take the dried flowers and make a beautiful flower arrangements in stunning displays and keep them on my tables and remember the good memories every time I see those flowers and those arrangements.

What a beautiful way to preserve memory. Like pictures, they remain forever!!!

HOW to Dry Flowers and Make Beautiful Flower Arrangements:

• Hold all you flowers in one big bunch or hold them together in separate and small bunches by wrapping the stems together with rubber band. 
• Hang your flower bunch upside down in kind of dark and dry area away from sunlight.
• Let them be hanged for two to three weeks until completely dried out.
• Take your flowers down and spray them with hair spray to give them more protection and keep the petals in place. Not too much hair spray tough and you need to spray them from distance and not too close too the flowers. This step is not necessary, because I have dried many flowers and they are still look beautiful and intact without spraying them but it is step you can take.
• Now  it is time to think about your arrangement. First choose the vase or any glass or whatever you want to put your flowers in it. Fill your vase with decorative stones, sands or pebbles and decide on the height  and look you want to create. Cut the stems very carefully according to the height you want to achieve and place them in your favorite vase or glass.
• Try to keep your arrangements away from direct sunlight.
• In order to make your dried flowers smell like fresh flowers you can inject or spray them with floral scented perfumes.

Well enjoy your memories.

Moji

Pictures of Hurricane Sandy Fundraiser Event in Collaboration with Moji

Moji Manoochehri teamed up with some of the best restaurants and vendors in New York in support of Hurricane Sandy Fundraiser Event and provided the stunning complimentary displays; Hors d' oeuvres Station, Wine Displays , Sushi Station, Flower Arrangements, & Couture Food & Wine display Cards for the event which was hosted at Space Odyssey – Event Venue owned by  Elvira Grau - Located at Englewood, NJ – on Friday, 30^th November, 2012.  

Moji Manoochehri Support of Hurricane Sandy Fundraiser Event Dazzles with “Real Housewives of New Jersey” and Bravo TV

Moji Manoochehri teamed up with some of the best restaurants and vendors in New York in support of Hurricane Sandy Fundraiser Event and provided the stunning complimentary displays; Hors d' oeuvres Station, Wine Displays , Sushi Station, Flower Arrangements, & Couture Food & Wine display Cards for the event which was hosted by Elvira Grau and it was held at Space Odyssey – Event Venue owned by Elvira Grau - Located at Englewood, NJ – on Friday, 30^th November, 2012.  

“Real Housewives of New Jersey” (Reality TV Show in Bravo TV Channel) together with their husbands attended and generously contributed in this fundraising event and Bravo TV Channel has filmed the whole function for televising purposes which will be aired in season 5 of “Real Housewives of New Jersey”.

Among the many people who contributed their time, products and enthusiasm were Moji Manoochehri; the President of Moji Manoochehri Events in Nyack, NY, Doug C Nguyen; the owner of Wasabi Restaurant in Nyack, NY, Robert Krause; the owner of  Mrs. Morgan’s Flower Shop in Bronxville, NY, and Alan Bennouna; the owner of Zitoune Restaurant in Mamaroneck, NY.    

The event was a tremendous success as a result of invaluable contributions and supports provided by both NJ and NY communities as well as generous contributions from “Real Housewives of New Jersey”. 

STUNNING TABLE SETTING - DESIGNED BY MOJI MANOOCHEHRI

FABULOUS MENU DESIGN - DESIGNED BY MOJI MANOOCHEHRI 

CANDY BUFFET - DESIGNED BY MOJI MANOOCHEHRI

CANDY BUFFET - DESIGNED BY MOJI MANOOCHEHRI

ESCORT CARDS & ESCORT CARDS TABLE DESIGN  - 
Designed By Moji Manoochehri

Whisper in the Winter - Martini - Created By Moji M anoochehri

This is absolutely delicious martini.

The followings are the ingredients:

• Grey Goose Orange Flavor Vodka
• Clementine Fruits
• Grand Marnier
• Sugar 

How to make:

Muddle sugar and clementine in the shaking glass, muddle well. For unique taste, try adding star anise or clove as you are muddling. Fill up the shaking glass with ice and add Grey Goose Orange Vodka and Grand Marnier . Place metal tumbler on top of the shaking glass and start shaking very good. Strain into martini glass. Top it of by pouring liquid nitrogen on top of the martini for dramatic look. Instead of liquid nitrogen you can garnish your martini with star anise.

Experiment and enjoy!!!

Moji Manoochehri Events - Stefani's Party

HOW TO DESIGN THE VASE

This vase is Designed By Moji Manoochehri for the event in NY.

This vase is a gorgeous center piece for small table or high cocktail table.

How to Design your vase:

• Get black ceramic vase - 12" HT, 4" diameter opening on top 

• Wrap silver diamond wrap around the neck of the vase; not to close to the opening of the vase, preferably 2" down from the opening of the vase, use double sided tape to secure the diamond wrap to your vase

• Use moss and natural colors midollino (Italian Sticks), shape them into your desired shape by soaking them in to water for about five minutes, in order to bend and shape them easily

• Hang vase/crystal jewelries from midollino

• Use fresh flowers - Orchids, or use "real touch" artificial orchids and insert them into your vase

• Place your vase on the center of your cocktail table

• Place hurricane candle holders with black candles in them and place them around your vase

Enjoy your design!

Moji Manoochehri

HOW TO PREPARE PROPOSAL FOR YOUR CLIENT

The followings are some guide lines for you as an event planner or an event designer to make your event planning/designing proposal for your client:

PRELIMINARY STEPS FOR PREPARING YOUR PROPOSAL

• You need to meet with your clients and start asking all the necessary questions. You can make questioner sheet ready and print several copies of them in advance, so that way you can just fill up the answers.

• Have a proper note book/note pad for taking note of additional information or making sketches. 

•  Listen to your clients and let them tell you their ideas and their dreams for their events. 

• You need to ask your clients about their budgets. Please note that sometimes the customers do not want to be up front and honest about how much they want to spend and that is because they want to see whether they can squeeze the planner or designer to get the cheaper prices. They might ask you how much is going to cost to design and plan their events? You should tell your clients that without developing the concepts and the designs, you can't quote them any pricing. 

• One of the important question that you need to ask your clients is that do they have any venue booked or do they have any venue in mind for their events? The structure, size and the type of the venue plays an important part in designing and costing processes.   

• Now that you have all the information, it is time to go to your office and make your proposal ready for your clients.

STEPS FOR PREPARING YOUR PROPOSAL

Please note that there are two things involve in preparing your proposal : (a) developing your design concept, and (b) preparing your costs based on your design concept.

DEVELOPING YOUR DESIGN CONCEPT

• You need to go to the venue, look around, get a feel and sense of the place and surrounding and take several pictures to help you in your visualization and designing processes. If the venue has already been booked by your client, then you can ask the F&B Director of the venue to provide you with the floor plan; not necessarily a scaled floor plan but the outlines of the structures.  

• You need to develop a concept, a theme and color schemes based on your clients ideas. Each of us are different from one another, as a result every designer has a different mental process for developing a design concept. You can visualize and then sketch your visions and develop your concept in this way. You can flip through magazines, books and etc. or go through on line resources to get your inspiration and develop your design concept in this way or any other way that can help you to develop your concept.     

• After developing your design concept, you need to determine the actual design elements, decorative items, furnishes, fabrics, materials, floral and so on that will be used to create your design concept; this has a direct correlation with your clients budgets. 

• Now that you have developed your design concept and selected all the materials that will be used to create your concept, it is time to start the presentation process. This means the way you are going to present your concept to your clients. The followings are two options that you can choose to present your concept to your client:

          Presentation Board

• To create a presentation board, you need to buy foam boards and organize all your final and completed sketches, pictures, and fabric swatches on the board. Don't forget to label them all. You can also utilize the pictures of the venue to show your client how are you going to transform the place based on your design concept and design elements that you have in mind.Please note that in presentation board you are actually incorporating and showcasing actual pictures, sketches, fabrics/material samples that will be used to produce your design concept. The best is to come up with three design concepts with different design elements, in order to let your clients to choose the one they like the most. Thereafter you can refine your design concept and your design elements based on the chosen design concept.     

          Inspirational Board or Story Board

• This is similar to the presentation board, except that in Inspiration/story board, you are presenting similar concept, theme and color schemes not  your final and completed design concept. You can showcase pictures, photos and samples of similar items, elements and materials that you are going to use in your design elements. So this way you get the feel from your clients to see whether they like those ideas or not and then you can present them with finished, and completed design concept and design elements, material, fabrics, and so on. If the client likes your inspirational board, then this means that you need to develop a presentation board to show your clients the actual and completed design concept and design elements that will be used to produce the event.  

PREPARING YOUR COSTS

• After developing your design concept and the materials, elements, fabrics and so on that you are going to use to produce the event, now it is time to determine how much each element is going to cost to be rented or to be purchased. Also you need to determine how much the other vendors' charges are - if you are going to use outside vendors, for example, florist, lighting company and etc..

• After determining your costs, it is time for you to mark up those costs, in order for you to make a decent profit. I have learned this in a hard way, because I used to just charge my clients only for my designing and planning services and not marking up rental and purchasing items. I have actually learned this recently through the event that I have designed and planned for one of my client. I have put so many hours of planning, organizing, and designing, which was not tally with the amount that I have charged for my services. I will talk about this in more details in my next posts. Let's focus on the subject in hand.

• Another important thing that you need to be careful of is the shipping prices. If you are ordering any items which require shipping charges, then you need to establish a system for estimating the shipping charges in your proposal. For example, you can estimate 30 to 40 percent of the cost of the items as your shipping estimate.

• Another thing to consider when you are preparing your costs is to calculate the taxes. 

• Now that you have all your costs, it is time to determine how much your are going to charge your client for the services that your going to provide. This is a subject by itself, which I will talk about it in my next posts.

• O.k., now that you have all the numbers, it is time to print them on the nice paper and present it in the nice folders.

Now it is time to call your client and present your proposal.

Good Luck!

If you have any question regarding the above mentioned statements, please call me or e-mail me, I will be more than happy to guide you guys through your planning and designing processes.

Moji Manoochehri