Home Alone Christmas

It's the holiday season, and one of my kids' favorite holiday movies is Home Alone.  It is part of our family traditions to watch this movie together each year.  It made for a fun theme for my monthly dinner this December as well.

Invite: I found some Home Alone images online that I incorporated into the invitation.  These included the stack of Little Nero's Pizza boxes, the movie logo, and the pizza can.

Decorations: There are so many fun ideas for decorations that go with this movie.  You could boobytrap your home with obstacles for guests to weave through!  For my decorations, I kept it simple with just table and some other decor.  I set the table with a red tablecloth & a centerpiece with some of the Battle Plan hazards from the movie.

I covered a small paint can with black construction paper and added the word tar on the front.  I set this on top of piece of black sandpaper with the largest nail I could find sticking out the top for the part of the movie where Marv walks up the tar stairs and brings his foot down on the huge nail.

I purchased large paint cans and used my Cricut cutter to cut out paint drips in a few colors.  Even empty, these were a bit too heavy to hang from the ceiling, but I did attach them to the ceiling above the dining table.  These represented when Harry and Marv are clocked by the swinging paint cans in the movie.

Next on the table was a VHS movie of "Angels with Filthy Souls."  I printed out the labels from images online, and attached them to an old VHS of a different movie.  In front of the VHS, I had a crowbar and a BB gun like Kevin and Marv use in the film as wells hot wheels cars.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Harry walks through the door into saran wrap covered in glue and then Kevin turns on a fan which covers him in white feathers! To incorporate this scene into my table, I added a box of saran wrap, a mini fan, and put some white feathers in the fan.

Another favorite scene is when Marv goes to turn on the light in the basement and an iron comes down the laundry shoot to smack him in the face. Hence...an iron as part of the centerpiece.

Lastly, I added a photo of Buzz's girlfriend with Kevin's famous line from the movie, "Buzz' girlfiend, Woof!"

For placecards, I printed out Kevin's mom's photo from when she realizes they forgot Kevin at home, and instead of her screaming out "Kevin!" I replaced it with each guest's name.

As a napkin ring/decoration, I put a box of Tic Tacs and created a ring with the line from the movie when the smoking Santa has run out of candycanes and gives Kevin two Tic Tacs instead saying, "There you go. Don't Spoil your dinner."

My daughter also drew out the Battle Plan from the movie on a piece of foam board that I used over the drink table.  I would traced it, but she's so talented she did it all by hand!

Just for fun, I also put a photo of Marv's face coming through the dog door on my wall.  I put some hot wheels in front it - another one of Kevin's hazards.

On my front door, I put a paper electric BBQ starter like Kevin uses in the movie to heat up his door handle.  I don't have a real one, so I just used scrapbook paper.

Coming up with sayings to put my wine bottles is always fun.  For my red wine, I decided to use the famous line from the movie during the battle when Kevin asks, "You guys give up or ya thirsty for more?"  I simply added "red wine" to the end of this phrase!  For the white wine, I played off the part in the movie where Kevin thinks he made his family disappear and then challenged the guests to make the white wine disappear.  I also served a rose wine.  For this label, I used the lines from when Kevin's mom calls the police station and talks to Rose, then gets transferred to another cop, then this cop sends the call back to Rose saying, "Rose, hyper on 2."

For wine charms, I cut out iconic people or items from the movie.  Some of my favorites were the Michael Jordan cutout used to fool the robbers, the "Kenosha Kickers" jacket that John Candy wore with is polka band, a bottle of Brut aftershave for the famous "AAAHHH scene," and a toothbrush "approved by the American Dental Association." 

Menu: I wanted to incorporate Buzz's tarantula from the movie into the evening somewhere, and I didn't think I could handle having even a fake one on my table while we ate, so I decided to incorporate it into my menu. I made mini tostada boats and cut olives to look like spiders.  The boats were simple with refried beans, taco seasoned meat, cheese, tomatoes, and lettuce, sour cream was piped on to look like a spider web, and then the spider olives went on top of that. 

For a main dish, we of course had pizza as Kevin orders "a lovely cheese pizza just for me" in the movie after he doesn't get any of the pizza when the whole family is there.  I went to my local pizza joint, and purchased a pizza box.  Then I covered the top with white posterboard and created a Little Nero's Pizza logo to put on the top.  I made a pizza, but cheated a bit by adding pepperoni and mushrooms after asking the guests their topping preferences.

I also served a caesar salad. I took the line from the movie when Kevin's sisters taunts him with, "You are what the French call les incompetents" and just replaced the last two words with la salad Cesar (cesar salad in French).

Right before the robbers invade the McCallister home in the movie, Kevin makes himself a microwavable Mac and Cheese dinner.  I incorporated this into my menu by making macaroni and cheese cups in muffin tins.

For dessert, we had Rubbish Ice Cream sundaes.  A small ice cream sundae bar with toppings.

Favor: I was pressed for time and needed an easy parting favor for guests.  I purchased cans of Pepsi and red striped straws.  My tag read, "Fuller! Go easy on the Pepsi!" to go with that line from the movie when Fuller's parents are trying to limit his soda intake.

This was a fun night with my girlfriends.  I did purchase or borrow a few things to make the decor happen, but most of it I had around my house (like Kevin did).  This kept my costs for decor low.  I would totally recommend this theme for a holiday movie night or dinner with friends.

Pumpkin Spice Party

Fall is the season of pumpkin spice.  From Starbucks drinks to pumpkin spice flavored desserts at restaurants, it seems the pumpkin spice craze is everywhere.  I must admit, I have never even tried a Pumpkin Spice Latte, but I decided this might be a fun theme to use for our November monthly dinner.

Invite: Using images I found online, I designed a simple invitation inviting my guests to have a "latte" fun at our pumpkin spice themed dinner.

Decor: Obviously pumpkins made up much of the decor.  I used a brown tablecloth and white plates with several small pumpkins on the table. I found some small paper plates with Fall leaves on them to use for the salad plates.

For a centerpiece, I made wrappers for to-go coffee cups that matched the invitation and other decor.  I placed a couple of them amid various small and mini pumpkins for a simple decor.

I had fun putting an idea to the test and crafting these napkin coffee cups.  I folded a white paper napkin in the shape of a cup, and cut out the lid shape using my Cricut cutter.  Starbucks gave me the cardboard wrappers, that I cut apart, turned inside out to avoid the Starbucks logo, and resecured with glue.  The center logo I designed on Photoshop and used on the centerpiece cups as well.

For placecards, I purchased mini cloth pumpkins from Amazon and attached a name tag to each.

I designed my wine labels to have a bit more fun with the pumpkin spice idea.  For the red wine, I used calorie counting to show why drinking red wine is better for your health.  380 calories for a pumpkin spice latte and only 120 for a glass of red wine.  "Choose wisely, my friends" was the comment at the end.  For the white wine I used the saying "Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice" and just changed it to "Pumpkin Spice or White Wine is Nice."

For wine charms, I used my Cricut to cut out small coffee cups in various colors.  They all had a pumpkin on the cup wrapper to match the theme.

Menu: There is a lot of food out there that use pumpkin spice or pumpkin somehow, but not everyone loves pumpkin.  I tried to incorporate some menu items with pumpkin and some without just in case. For an appetizer, I made a Roasted Garlic & Pumpkin Hummus which I served with carrots and pita crackers.  This was a pretty good dip, but it did have a strong pumpkin flavor to it. It was easy to make though and could be made ahead.

For the main dish, I made an Autumn Pasta dish I saw on traderjoes5itemsorless on Instagram.  The Autumn pasta is only 3 ingredients, easy to make, and SUPER delicious.  The pasta sauce has pumpkin and butternut squash in it, but it is a slight taste and not overpowering.  I couldn't really taste it much.  For the guests I had that didn't want to try it, I served the pasta with butter and burrata and left out the sauce. The guests really enjoyed this dish.

Alongside this pasta, I made a Roasted Pumpkin, Spinach, and Feta salad. It was served with an olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing mix that was tasty.  For any guest that didn't really like pumpkin, you could serve the pumpkin on the side, and it would still be a yummy salad.

For dessert, I used my mini bundt cake pan to make small pumpkins.  I used a boxed spice cake mix and added a little pumpkin puree. Once the cakes were baked, I trimmed the bottoms of each and fit them together to make pumpkins.  Drizzled white cream cheese frosting over the top (also store bought), and added a thick pretzel rod as the stem.  These are larger pumpkins, so we shared each pumpkin.

Favor: I decided to package some pumpkin spice flavor treats together for my party favor. I purchased pumpkin spice hot cocoa mix, pumpkin spice Milano cookies, and pumpkin spice belVita biscuits.  I created a simple tag thanking guests for coming to attach to it.

Overall, this was a easy theme to do.  However, if I were to do it again, I would have the decor pumpkin spice, but may not include much pumpkin in the meal.  Some of my guest's were not pumpkin spice fans, so they were hesitant to even try many of the foods, and I had to try to accommodate this. Might have been better to just go with an Autumn menu.

Seventeen Magazine Party

Hard to believe, but this past Monday, we celebrated 17 Years of Monthly Dinners!  Yes, I started hosting these parties seventeen years ago before some of us ladies were married or had kids! What a great 17 years it has been.  To honor 17 years, my theme was based around SEVENTEEN magazine.  The decor and meal were full of silly headlines & aspects of this magazine, so it was super fun to come up with what to do.

Invitation:  I found an image of the cover of Seventeen from October 2006 to use for my invitation since this is the month and year that I started hosting monthly dinners for my friends.  I then used Photoshop to change the taglines around Hilary Duff on the cover to represent things about my dinners as well as the party details.  For example, "204 Fun Theme Ideas" because this dinner was our 204th dinner, etc.

Decorations:  I used bright colors for my table because Seventeen magazine always uses bright pink or red as a focus color.  Kept the centerpiece simple with some beautiful and bright flowers in vases.

I wrapped each vase with two Seventeen magazine covers I printed out on my computer and then taped around the vase.  Simple.

For placecards, I asked each guest to tell me their celebrity crush.  I then printed out a photo of that celebrity as a magnet.  I created a Seventeen magazine style tag for each that read, "How to Be a Guy MAGNET & attract your Dream Man" for fun.  Hopefully you get the magnet play on words with this.

I used bright napkins and created a simple napkin ring with the Seventeen logo on it to wrap around them.

I found another issue of Seventeen Magazine to adapt for my menu.  Each item of the menu had a tagline around Jennifer Lawrence.  These took a bit of creativity to come up with and then to Photoshop onto the magazine image, but it was fun.

I used two more magazine covers to PhotoShop for my wine labels.  I found a Seventeen magazine cover that talked about a Massive SHOPPING Guide with style blogger's coolest pics and makeup deals, and changed it to a Massive WHITE WINE guide with wine blogger's coolest pics and wine deals.  

For the red wine, I used the Katy Perry cover that has The Best FALL CLOTHES for Your Body, and changed it to The Best RED WINE for Your Body.  The rest of the taglines on the cover stayed the same.

For wine charms, I printed out other Seventeen magazine covers.

Magazine Menu: As stated above, all menu item had a tagline on the Seventeen magazine cover I set on top of each plate at the table.  Our starter was a delicious cheese dip with crackers.  This went with the line, "Cheesy Pick-Up Lines - Don't Fall for that DIP."

For the main dish I served chicken legs that were really tasty.  They were easy to make and baked in the oven, so I didn't have to fuss with them too much.  The seasoning was so good, I made it again later in the week as well.  The tagline for this dish on the Seventeen menu magazine was "Get the Best LEGS ever! Look so tasty, he'll gobble you up!"  The original magazine, had "Best Jeans Ever."

The original Seventeen cover had 250+ easy hair ideas as a main tagline, so I had to think of a menu item that could somewhat go with that.  I decided on straight and curly French fries since hair can be curly or straight.  I purchased curly and regular fries and just popped them in the oven.  I didn't make them from scratch.

Taking some sort of beauty or health related quiz was always popular in Seventeen magazines, so I decided to incorporate a quiz into my menu as well.  My quiz tagline was, "Would you rather VEG out or go out?"  For vegetables, I served red, orange, and yellow peppers, zucchini, mushrooms that I grilled on the stove.

For dessert, I made Orange Crush Cupcakes.  The cupcake is only two ingredients -- a can of Crush soda and a box of vanilla cake mix.  The buttercream frosting had a few more ingredients, but was tasty too. I added a piece of orange slice candy to the top for added fun.  The tagline on my menu for these was, "Guy's Crush Confessions."

Favor: For the party favor, I had various skin and hair projects found in the travel section of Target.  I found a Seventeen magazine cover that had a bold tagline about hair and skin and simply printed up that part of the cover to use as a tag.

I am not sure if teens know anything about Seventeen magazine since it is only online nowadays, but this was a fun theme to play with.  It could easily be adapted for a teenager's birthday party and just change the magazine title if the teen is not seventeen.