Welcome to Adulthood - Celebrating 18 Years

It's hard to believe, but this October, we celebrated 18 YEARS of monthly dinners together!  Yep... that is 216 dinners happening once a month over the past 18 years.  These have been such a blessing for me as they are a chance to catch up with girlfriends in our busy schedules & strengthen friendships.

To celebrate this milestone, I decided to theme my dinner "Welcome to Adulthood" and plan the decor and meal around everything you can do when you turn 18.  It was a lot of fun to plan.

Invite:  I created the invitation on PhotoShop with a fun sign with the theme on it.  I added images along the bottom of various things you can do once you turn 18 - join the military, play the lottery, vote, get a credit card, buy cigarettes, and buy fireworks.

Decorations:  I set the table with a black tablecloth, and then added items to the centerpiece that you can do when you turn 18 much like I did on the invitation.

To represent being able to VOTE, I used some flags and a hat decoration from my fourth of July decorations.  I also included a local ballot packet from the upcoming election under it.

I found some toy handcuffs to go with 18 as the age when you can be taken to JAIL.

I printed out an image of some fun and silly tattoos for when you can get a TATTOO without needed parental consent.

I hate cigarettes, but it was fun to make these pretzel and candy ones to represent 18 year olds being able to purchase CIGARETTES. I got thicker pretzel sticks, and used white and red candy melts to cover them to look like cigarettes.  I used some black sanding sugar mixed with some regular sugar to dip the red tip.  For the ash trays, I filled small dishes with crushed oreos mixed with sugar.

Also in the centerpiece I had some cans of spray paint, some fireworks, and a jury summons.

For place cards, I made name badge stickers using PhotoShop and added a little tag on top for guests to CHANGE THEIR NAME which you can legally do when you turn 18.  We had guests change their name to everything from Princess Consuela Banana Hammock from Friends to childhood imaginary friend names.

For napkin rings, I wrapped some camouflage scrapbook paper around the napkin and designed a tag for each branch of the military since a person can JOIN THE MILITARY at 18.

Designing wine labels is always a lot of fun.  For the white wine, I created the label to show a waitress serving white wine.  At 18, you can serve alcohol.  I just changed it to serving white wine.  For the red wine, I designed a wine-related image that looked like a tattoo.  At 18, you can legally get a tattoo without parental consent.

I made simple wine charms for various other things that you can do once you turn 18.

Menu: It was a little bit of a challenge to come up with menu items related to the theme, but I think I pulled it off.  I started with an appetizer of humus and pita bread as well as taquitos and salsa.  At 18, you can get a Costco card, so I served these appetizers in white cupcake wrappers in small portions like they do for samples at Costco.

Next I had a green HOUSE salad to represent that you can purchase a HOUSE at 18.

For a main dish, I made chicken parmesan.  I will admit, this one was a bit of a stretch to fit with the theme.  I was originally planning a GUILTLESS grilled chicken to tie in with 18 year olds being now called for Jury Duty and having to determine guilt in court cases.  Of course, switching to a chicken parmesan instead of just grilled chicken kinda took away the healthy eating idea with that that yummy cheese and sauce!  Oh well...it was delicioius.

Along with the chicken parmesan, I served spaghetti, but I served the blended sauce in a blood bag since 18 year olds can DONATE BLOOD.  I bought these bags from Amazon.  Since they are typically intended for drinks, I did blend the sauce a bit to make sure it could easily come out of the opening.

For dessert, one of my friends helped me by bringing delicious cupcakes from her work (Small Cakes in Huntington Beach).  

They were a beautiful pink and white with white edible pearls on top.  I added a diamond ring to each cupcake purchased at Party City.  These represented that you can GET MARRIED when you turn 18.

Favor: I tried to pull in more things that you can do when you turn 18 with my party favor.  I matched up various candy with these things, so each guest chose which candy they wanted to take home.

I designed the favor tags to match the invitation and the rest of the party details.  

What an amazing 18 years of fun it has been with these friends.  Although these monthly dinners are a lot of work, I love doing them to be able to spend this one night with my closest friends.  Hope you enjoyed my post!

Lingo & Laughs

My girlfriends took me out for my birthday, and we had a silly conversation about the crazy slang that our teenagers and students use.  Nothing makes you feel more old than hearing this lingo & not knowing what it means! This funny conversation brought me to the idea of hosting a Lingo and Laughs party to have a little fun with teen slang.

Invite: I designed the invitation with bright neon colors to add a teenage vibe.  I played with various teen slang phrases to come up with the wording which was quite fun.  "No cap" (no lie) and "straight fire" (great, awesome, cool) are two of my son's favorites currently.  I also am constantly being called "bruh" by him on accident, which lead to the "RSVP Bruh" at the end.

I set the table with a black tablecloth and bright colors to match the invitation.

Two friends gave me beautiful flowers on my birthday.  I used the bright pink roses as part of my centerpiece, and the smily face mug that the other flowers came in as well. I had a light up board with a message using some teen lingo.

For the mug, I filled it with neon glowsticks I purchased at Dollar Tree.  

For a table runner, I designed a timeline of teen logo through the decades.  Starting with the 1950's "Come and get it, Daddy-O" to the 2020's "Dinners a vibe, pull up!"  I just printed these out and taped the cardstock together to create the runner.

I had fun coming up with slang text conversations for my placecards.  I used an image of a iphone screen, and designed text boxes with silly conversations between two friends.  (Sorry photos not great of these placecards).

Each place card had a different slang focus: Savage, Slay Queen, The Real MVP, Glow-Up Goddess, Extra AF, Lit Legend, Bae, and Boss. I added a Reeces Peanut Butter Cup candy bar to the back to make it a thicker (more like a phone) than just card stock.

For the napkins, I purchased various bold colors and then added a slang flashcard to the front.  I tried to use different phrases than were on the place cards. Things like: Mid, Gucci, Cringe, Drip, Delulu, etc.

Designing wine labels to match the party theme is always a fun challenge for me.  For these labels, I incorporated more teen slang of course.  "Lowkey" this white wine is "Savage" for the chardonnay label.  For the red wine it was, Don't be "Sus" - "Slay" this Cabernet.

For the wine charms, I used popular emojis that teens use in their text threads.  My daughter helped me with the most popular ones, and then I added the ghost (for ghosting) and the GOAT (greatest of all time) that represent popular slang terms.

Menu:  There is a lot going on for me right now, so I decided to make the menu super easy, and catered most of it.  We started with guacamole, salsa, and chips as an appetizer.  I used alliteration with slang words to call these "GOAT Guacamole and Salsa with "Turnt" Tortilla Chips.

The main dish was tacos with two meat choices.  I called these "Bussin'" Beef Tacos and "Lit Chicken Tacos."  Bussin = extremely good or tasty; Lit = exciting or excellent.

Alongside the tacos, we had "Basic" Beans and "Rizz" rice.  Basic = average in slang; Rizz = charisma in slang.

For dessert, we had "Fire" cupcakes.  Vanilla cupcakes with red, yellow and orange frosting piped on to look like fire.  Fire = exciting or cool.

Favor: As a fun decoration and silly parting gift, I decided to make kitchen tea towels with silly slang phrases.  I purchased flour towels on Amazon that were thin to help make the permanent iron on vinyl stick longer.  I used my Photoshop to design the images, cut them out using my Cricut, and then ironed them onto the towels.  I hung them up on ribbon like a clothesline over my beverage station.  I had 8 different phrases, so guests picked which one they wanted as they left.

A silly theme, so we had some laughs out of this one trying to figure out what the phrases meant & laughing at the changing slang through the decades.  It was a fun VIBE all night and the theme was FIRE!

Puzzle Party - Piecing Together Great Times

The monthly dinners are a fun evening each month with 10 of my close girlfriends, and they are a chance for us to catch up, laugh, and just have a good time together.  The monthly dinner for this month fell only a week after the passing of my dad, so it came at a time when I needed a little joy and friendship.  I wanted to find a small way to honor my dad with this month's dinner theme, but to do so in the positive spirit and joy typical of my monthly dinners.  I decided to host a jigsaw puzzle themed dinner as my dad was a huge fan of puzzles, and I loved doing them with him and my mom.

Invite: I found an image of a heart puzzle and designed my invitation around that.  I added words on each piece that I associate with our monthly dinners and came up with "Piecing Together Great Times" as my slogan for the evening.  The puzzle piece graphic at the bottom I used to include the details.  For this dinner I thought it might be fun to do a puzzle swap, so I asked guests to bring a new or used puzzle with them to the dinner.

Decorations:  I used the colors of the invitation as my party colors.  I had a red tablecloth and used yellow accents.  

For the centerpiece, I put together a 300 piece puzzle to use as a base.  Then I purchased two puzzles from the Dollar Store and used these pieces to fill vases and added fresh flowers.  I didn't include any water, so I did have to take the pieces out and add water after the party.

Alongside the vases, I placed boxes of puzzles I already owned to add to the decor.

As place cards, a friend of mine agreed to use his amazing woodworking skills to cut out puzzle pieces and stands and include the guests name on each piece.  It is so nice to be surrounded with talented people that are willing to help at every turn.  Check out his website: johnscustomww.com

For napkin rings, I glued 3 small puzzle pieces from the Dollar Tree puzzle to a piece of cardstock to wrap around the napkin.

It was fun designing the wine labels for this dinner. For the red wine, I found a puzzle of a red wine bottle and glass.  I put this in the center and added text around it: One Piece = One Sip?  I am always bargaining with myself when I do puzzles to complete a certain number of pieces to earn a reward, and I am sure I am not the only one that does this!  For the white wine, I used the text "Chardonnay...An Essential Piece that fits with any meal."  I designed  two puzzle pieces with a white wine bottle, a glass, and lips to show that these 3 things fit well together.

For wine charms, I used PhotoShop to create puzzle pieces in various colors, and put each guest's name on them.  I had to play with the size a bit to make sure it fit on the stem of the wine glass without falling off, but it worked.  At first I used real puzzle pieces, but decided that no one was really going to remember which random piece was theirs, so I needed to have names on them.  That's why I went with this idea instead.

Menu:  Instead of having menu tags to label each dish like I usually do for my monthly dinners, I decided to make each item a puzzle.  Each guest paired up with another guest to put together a puzzle of part of the menu.

We started off with a pear salad.  I used this recipe for the salad and dressing from Gimme Some Oven.  I loved the dressing and the salad with the gorgonzola, fresh pears, avocado, and candied walnuts.  Will definitely make it again.

For the main dish, I served Pork Tenderloin with a Balsamic Glaze.   I mostly used the recipe from Primavera Kitchen, but I put the foil wrapped tenderloin outside on the grill instead of heating up my house with the oven.  

As side dishes, I served steamed broccoli and mashed potatoes.

My dad loved ice cream, so since I was honoring him with this dinner theme, I decided to have a simple ice cream bar for our dessert.  We had vanilla or chocolate chip ice cream, cherries, nuts, sliced bananas, whipped cream, caramel syrup, and chocolate syrup.  

I also used a chocolate mold to make colorful puzzle pieces for guests to eat or put on their sundae.

Activity:  I didn't get a chance to set up the activity I had initially planned for this monthly dinner, but wanted to include it here because I think it would be a fun idea.  Often my parents and their couples group at church would host puzzle parties.  They would have several card tables, each with a different puzzle, and guests would rotate around the room at times to work on different puzzles and converse with different guests.  A cool idea if it works for your group.

Favor:  I had fun making the parting gift for my guests.  I created a collage on PhotoShop of images from the invitations from the last two years of monthly dinners, and made a puzzle for each guest to take home.  Instead of putting them in a bowl, I used a puzzle. Here is what the finished puzzle looked like when put together. 

I designed it to be 5x7.5", so it would fit perfectly onto 11 wide popsicle sticks.  After printing the image, I lined up the popsicle sticks and taped the back to keep them in place.  Then I used modge podge to adhere the design to the sticks and to cover the design in a gloss to protect it.  Once dry, my husband used an exacto knife to slice apart each stick.  I put them together randomly, tied them with a ribbon, and attached a puzzle shaped tag I made on PhotoShop.  

It was another great dinner with friends, and a beautiful way to celebrate my dad's love of puzzles.