It's Fall, Doll!

This month's dinner was a bit of an odd theme, but it ended up being pretty fun and nostalgic to plan.  I hosted this dinner with a paper doll theme, and since it is the beginning of fall, I called it "It's Fall, Doll!" I'm excited to share the details of this theme with you.

Invite: The invitation was simple and straightforward with fall colors and paper doll images/clothing pieces. I don't love the doll I initially chose, and would have switched her to one of the other dolls I used in the party, but at the time I designed this invite, I didn't have the rest of the decor prepared. I do like the paper doll-related wording for added fun.

Decorations: I covered the dinner table with a brown tablecloth and purchased some dried fall flowers for the center. Along the middle line of the table, I placed paper doll clothing pieces that I cut out from images I found online.

I also cut out paper doll chains in fall colors.

Each place setting had a paper doll for guest's to dress with items from the middle of the table. I used my Cricut to cut out mini hangers with small "blankets" hanging from them.  The "blankets" were the place cards with each guest's name and instructions to doll her up.

The fall colored napkins also had an item of paper doll clothing on the top.

I designed my wine labels to play off aspects of the theme. For the red wine, I designed the label to have a paper doll with a red dress on and holding a wine bottle like it was a paper doll accessory with tabs on it.  The wine bottle was "An Essential Accessory" and I included a tag line that stated, "Because no outfit is complete without Cabernet."  For the white wine, I played off the little black dress idea, but changed it to "Little White Dress Chardonnay" with an image of a paper doll white dress.  The tagline was, "A must-have cut-out in every doll's closet."

For wine charms, I just used small paper doll clothing items in various colors.

Menu: I always like my menu to go with theme, and this was a bit challenging with this theme because I had a specific idea in mind.  I wanted to have each menu item reflective of a specific article of clothing that would then be added to a paper doll throughout the meal to create a complete outfit by the end.  

We started with an Autumn Apple Salad with Maple Vinaigrette to represent a beret and titled it Greens Beret.  I mostly followed the recipe, but I did leave out the cranberries and the bacon.  I love bacon, but I just ran out of time to cook it.  The dressing and recipe were great without it, but I'm sure its amazing with.

Our menu doll's next article of clothing was a petticoat represented by Petticoat Potatoes.  I purchased boxed scalloped potatoes to save time.  They honestly tasted great and were so easy to make in the oven.

Next article of clothing was the skirt to cover the petticoat.  For this I served Skirt Steak with Lime that my husband grilled for us.  It was so tender and delicious.

For the doll's top, I served cooked carrots that I called Cardigan Carrots.

For dessert, we cut frosted cookies in half and put them together with frosting to make a purse.  For the handle, we used Mamba Magic Sticks candy.  The bead clasp on the front was just an edible candy ball.  I served these Clutch Cookies with a small bowl of ice cream.

And our doll at the end of the meal...

Favor: For the parting gift, I made Hello Dolly bars.  The tag read, "Because every doll deserves a little something sweet."  These bars were easy to make, but do take a lot of ingredients, so the price adds up.  They lived up to my tag though, as they are super sweet and tasty.

These are the details of this fun dinner!  If you planned more ahead than I did, you can probably order a book with paper doll cutouts to save time.  Thanks for reading!  Hope you enjoyed this dinner theme!

Palette to Palate Dinner

As a vibrant end of summer dinner party, I decided to theme August's monthly dinner around colors.  I decided on a Palette to Palate theme where the decor would center around painting palettes and bright colors while the food would play into a colorful palate with each course.

Invitation: I designed my invitation to be bright and colorful.  I found an image of plates and dishes with bold colors, and then added a paint swatch look on the right with colors that matched the dishes.  I asked each guest to chose a color to wear from head to toe for added fun.  I had them RSVP with the color they chose, so I could match the place setting details to those colors.  The guests RSVP'd on a group text thread, so others could see what colors were already taken.

Decorations: I cut brown butcher paper to fit my table and then painted splotches to look like a paint palette.  The colors matched the specific colors my guests were going to wear for the dinner.

As a centerpiece, I used a small paint can from Michaels as a vase and purchased bright flowers to place inside.  Around it, I placed snacks in various colors for guests to nibble on - pepperjack cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, cheddar cheese, black olives.  My intent with this was to pull in the "palate" part of the theme. I also add the invitation on a mini easel.

For the napkins, I went to the hardware store and picked up paint swatches in the colors my guests were wearing.  I folded a napkin of their color, made a small slice in the swatch, and slid the bottom of the napkin through.

The placecards were paint palettes and brushes to match the guest's color.  I cut these out of cardstock with my Cricut machine and used a paint pen to write the names.

The place setting when it was put together for each guest...

I like my wine labels to be themed to my dinners as well, so I designed these with the theme in mind.  For the red wine (merlot), I found an image for a red wine glass and paint brushes.  I added a paint swatch of the wine colors and labeled this wine "Merlot-dramatic Palette." For the white wine (chardonnay), I used the phrase "hard to resist," but switched it to "chard" to resist the golden hues.  Again I added a color palette and an image of white wine and grapes.

For the wine charms I used a second set of the same paint swatches from the hardware store I used for the napkins and cut out a circle a little smaller than my wine glass bottom.  I then cut an inner circle and a slice to wrap them around the stem before taping the slice closed. Free and easy.

Menu: I wanted each course to be monochromatic which surprisingly wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be.  We started with an appetizer of all ORANGE.  I hollowed out an orange pepper to hold a red pepper hummus.  As dippers, I had orange peppers, carrots, and sweet potato chips.

Next, I served a GREEN salad. This was romaine lettuce, spinach, peas, cucumber, avocado, and green pumpkin seeds. I served it with an avocado lime dressing.

The main dish was RED.  I made red pepper pasta with rotisserie chicken.  It was a new recipe, and very popular with my guests and my family.  I will definitely make it again. I chose this recipe because it was low carb, not time consuming, and it was bright red! It was used chicken (that I didn't have to take time cooking by the way), so I knew the red color wouldn't be diluted like it might if I used ground beef or turkey.

Dessert did not go initially as planned, but worked out great. I found a recipe for an easy purple cheesecake, but could not find blueberry jello anywhere.  The closest I found was berry blue.  So I followed the recipe, but with berry blue jello instead.  This changed my dessert color scheme to light blue which was fine since I topped it with blue berries.

Favor: For a parting gift for my guests, I bought boxes of candy in the colors that each guest wore to the party. I designed a tag that read "Thank HUE for adding color to our Night" and attached it with matching ribbon.  For display only, I added a small bottle of the matching paint color to the display.

This was a fun theme to put together (I know I say that every month!).  It was neat to have each of the girls dressed up in their color too.  Would totally recommend this party theme. Hope you liked it!

Thrillers & Chillers: A Summer of Suspense

As a teacher, one of the great things about summertime is having a lot more time to read. To add some reading fun to our July monthly dinner, I hosted a Thrillers & Chillers: Summer of Suspense dinner party with thrilling books filling all aspects of the theme.

Invite: I created the invitation on PhotoShop compiling knife, fingerprint, and crime scene tape images I found online.  I incorporated some popular novel titles into the wording.  The Guest List, Behind Closed Doors, and The Woman in the Window were all great novels.  I asked guests to bring a new or gently used mystery or thriller novel (wrapped for even more mystery) to exchange to add more fun to the evening.

Decorations: I set the dining table like a crime scene - a  black plastic tablecloth that I drew the outline of a body with a wide-tipped paint pen. I set out some suspenseful books around the body and made yellow evidence number signs to place next to them.

I made mini evidence bags to hold the napkin.  I purchased mini ziplock bags from Michaels Craft Store and created a label on PhotoShop. The label had each guest's name as the detective and then the item collected was listed as Subject A's napkin, or Victim A's napkin, or Witness A's napkin, etc.  The date collected was the party date and the case number was 226.  Why? Because this monthly dinner is the 226th one I have hosted for these ladies!

For place cards, I made small evidence folders. I took large manilla folders and cut smaller versions out of them.  I wrote each guest's name on the top of the folder and created a Top Secret label to place in the middle. 

Inside the folder, I had funny things about each guest.  An alias, motive, and last scene phrase that matched their personality or something about them.  It was fun to read these aloud while we ate our dinner. Some of the write-ups shown here are a guest who had her last chemo treatment the day of the party, an avid wine drinker, and a junior high English teacher.

When I designed my wine labels, I searched for mystery/suspense book titles with white or red in the name.  I found Little White Lies by Philippa East and used that cover for the white wine.  I changed the author to Sharda Nay (chardonnay) for added fun, and created a new tagline - "Deceptively Crisp. Deliciously Good."   

For the cabernet, I decided to use the cover of James Patterson's novel Confessions of the Dead.  I liked the alliteration of Cabernet Confessions, so I added Cabernet to the title.  Again, I swapped the true author to a fake one -- C.A. Bernet (cabernet) and the tagline to be "Spill it All -- Just Not the Wine" to go with the idea of spilling confessions.

For wine charms, I printed out mini book covers for other suspenseful books.

Menu:  Since books were the focus on this theme, I also created my menu to be summertime related, but also related to mystery books. I served grilled hamburgers with all the fixings for guests to add on - bacon, grilled onions, cheese, lettuce, tomato.  I swapped out the word dragon for burger in the novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Along with the burgers, I served grilled vegetable kabobs with zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms, and red, yellow, and orange peppers. I swapped out the word woman for kabob in the book The Woman in Cabin 10.

As one side, I made coleslaw changing the manslaughter to manSLAWter in the novel Murder, Manslaughter, and Mayhem.

The final side was watermelon.  For this, I swapped out the word woman for watermelon for the novel The Woman in the Window and added a evil looking watermelon face into the cover.

For dessert, I made chocolate mousse. We topped the plate and the whipped cream of each serving with an edible fake blood mixture made with mainly cornstarch and dye. I used my Cricut cutting machine to make mini cleavers with blood splatter to use like cupcake toppers.  The book title I used for this was Murder on the Orient Express and just swapped murder for chocolate.

Favor:  Since we were having a mystery book exchange during the party, I decided to make a bookmark as my parting gift.  I used PhotoShop to create a crime scene body outline and added some blood splatter to it.  I added the phrase "For my partners in crime (fiction). Always love our killer nights."  I used my Cricut to cut the image out as well as blob of red cardstock behind to add to the murder scene idea.  Added a string with a bead at the end.  I slid some of the favors into or on top of suspenseful books for added decor.

We really had a great time at this dinner party, and I cannot wait to read the novel I got in the book exchange. I have only a couple weeks left of my summer, so I better get reading!