At the beginning of the pandemic last March, my daughter and I began painting rocks to decorate our yard and place around the neighborhood for others to enjoy. I thought this would make a fun craft to do during a monthly dinner, so I have been waiting to do this theme until our monthly dinner group could begin meeting in person again. This month was the time! So...let's get ready to ROCK!
Invite: I put together the monthly dinner invitation on Photoshop with images I found online. I used a font that looked like paint to match the theme.
Decor: I kept the table very simple and craft-friendly. I used a cheap plastic tablecloth so that if paint dropped on it, it wasn't a big deal. The centerpiece was just the craft supplies we would need for the fun. This included a basket of various paint colors, a paint can with brushes, a tray of paint markers, and a glass bowl with rocks to choose from. I also added some rocks that I painted to the table.
I used bright pink napkins for a fun pop of color. I added a small paint palette and paintbrush to the top of the napkin and tied a ribbon around all 3.
I was originally planning to paint a rock specifically for each guest and use it as a placecard, but I ran out of time. Instead, guests drew another guest's name from a paint can when they arrived, and they spent the first bit of the party designing a rock for that person. It was sweet to see what the girls came up with.
With summertime approaching, I decided to serve a simple drink "on the rocks" for guests. I went with a low calorie and refreshing drink that mixes a shot of Smirnoff pink lemonade with Lemoncello La Croix. I painted a lemon-themed rock to place next to these ingredients. This might be one of my go-to drinks for the pool this summer.
I also served red and white wine, and tied them to the theme with the wine labels I created. I loved the pandemic mask of a wine glass rock! Cracked me up. I also painted a rock with a wine theme to place next to the bottles of wine.
Menu: I wanted all my menu items to keep with the rock theme. I painted rocks to go with each dish, but also wanted the rocks to be silly/fun to add to our painted rock garden.
For an appetizer, I started with a pepper jack cheese ball that I shaped like a rock. I called it the Pepper Jack Cheese Rock with "Boulder" Flavor. The recipe calls for some of the shredded cheese to be reserved to roll the ball in, but I put all the cheese inside the ball and crushed blue corn tortilla chips to coat the cheese ball with to give it more of a rock color/look. This cheese ball was easy to make and very tasty. It was polished off quickly by all of us.
