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.