Garden Retirement Party for my Co-Worker Rose

I met Rose close to four years ago and we became fast friends.  When I found out she was going to retire, after wiping the tears from my eyes, I started planning her party.  Most of my research came up with traveling themes and since she was not planning on traveling any place, I needed to come up with something else.  I know that she loves to garden and since her name is Rose it kind of made since to create a party around that.

Decorations:
For decorations I went with simple and cheap.  I found the template for the flower on Yahoo Images and printed them on colored card stock.  I then cut them out and punched a hole in the center for the Pops.  I found the brown plant starters in the garden section and stuffed it with a round styrofoam ball.  I found the foam flowers at the dollar store and added them to the outside.  They kept falling over so I added some fish tank rocks I had at home to the bottom to give it a little more weight.

Food:

For the knives, spoons and forks....i put a napkin in a flower pot and then placed the items inside to give it a more decorative look.  

 We ended up with a lot of food and it was all gone by the end of the party. 

 I took the buns out and placed them in my Longaberger basket. 

 A friend made the veggies in the flowerpot.  It was so cute and Rose was able to take the flowerpot home to reuse. 

 These are bite size Greek Salads made with Cheese, cucumber and tomato.

Next I made "Dirt Dessert", White Oreo Truffles, Banana Pudding and Cherry Cheese Cake.  I love making desserts :-)

 The cake was made by Krogers.  We asked them to come up with a Garden Theme cake and this is what we got.  I think it looks awesome and is one of the best cakes I've had from Krogers.

 Gift:

Coming up with a gift was really hard.  What do you get someone that has everything?  We decided to go with the Garden idea again and just made a basket for her of things she could use.  

 I wanted something unique for all of your co-workers to sign to say good-bye besides a card that would more then likely be tossed into a box and forgotten.  We went with a coffee mug.  Everyone signed just a plan white mug with different color sharpie markers.  Allow the writing to dry 5 minutes before someone else signs so the ink has time to dry.  After it was finished I baked it in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  I tested a small dot on the bottom to see if it would wash off and it stayed.  So now she has a mug she can use and think of us every time she drinks her coffee.

 After we figured out what to get her, the basket was rather easy.  Knee pad, flower wind things (can't think of the name right now), garden tools, bug candles, flower seeds, garden magazine, garden gloves and a bucket to put it all in.  Bug spray or sun screen would have been good but I didn't think of it at the time.

This party was both fun and sad.  I will miss my friend at work but am happy that she can now enjoy the time doing something she loves.  Hope you find some of these things helpful in any party that you may want to have.