Eggless Easter Party

The price of eggs is super high right now, so I decided to have a little fun with that idea for my April monthly dinner. I decided to host an Eggless Easter party theme.  It was a lot of fun to put together the decor, menu, and all the details.  Check it out...

Invite: I typically design my invitation from scratch using Photoshop, but this time, I decided to use Canva as I found a sweet Easter party invitation already created.  This required very little effort on my part which was nice.  I added a no symbol around the Easter egg and an empty egg carton to have the invite match my theme.  I also tried to incorporate some egg-related words.

Decor: Instead of just using my typical Easter decorations, I tried to stick with egg-related decor, but still in the pastel colors of Easter. I set my table with a green tablecloth and white and pink plates.

For the centerpiece, I had a few different ideas displayed.  At the center was a pink Easter basket fill with I.O.U. eggs made out of paper instead of real eggs.  The sign in front read, "Eggs to be provided when prices drop" for an added giggle.

On one side, I borrow decorative chickens from a neighbor. I made picket signs and taped these to each chicken.  The signs said things like, "Stop the Egg-Cessive Prices" and "Will Lay for Fair Wages" among others.

On the other side, I set out an empty egg carton with ceramic and decorative eggs on top. The sign with these said "Egg-comy Crisis!"

For place cards, I bought mini egg cartons with egg-shaped chewing gum inside.  I ordered these online from Walmart. I swapped out the advertisement on the inside for a card with the guest's name on it that I made with Photoshop.

With each napkin, I printed out a funny meme about egg prices.  These were all different and hilarious from a guy proposing to this girlfriend with a carton of eggs rather than a ring, to eggs being compared to drugs to peddle them to make you rich, etc.  I just found memes online that I thought were funny and printed them out until I had one for every guest.

Creating and designing the wine labels for this party was fun, but challenging.  For the chardonnay, I used the phrase "No Yolk, Just Oak" and for the red wine, it was "Crack Open the Cabernet." You can't see it in the photo, but the bottom of the red wine read "Un-Hatched Reserve."

The wine charms were clipart images of various egg cartons with price tags attached that I resized and printed out.  Each had a different color background to distinguish them.

Menu:  I didn't just want to serve foods that did not involve eggs, but I wanted menu items to either look like eggs or have some sort of egg reference. I started with a green salad with CHICKpeas and other toppings.  I used an oval shaped plate and filled the bottom with romaine lettuce.  Then I layered the toppings to look like a painted Easter egg.  The toppings I used besides chickpeas were shredded carrots, olives, tomatoes, shredded cheese, and corn. 

For a main dish, I served CHICKen with HATCH Chili Salsa on top.  This was a complete experiment as I did not have a recipe.  My husband grilled the chicken, and when it was cooked, I spread some store bought hatch chili salsa on top.  Easy and really tasty.

I also made twice-baked potatoes, but used mini potatoes and made them look like Deviled Eggs.  I didn't use a recipe for this either as the recipes I found were for true deviled potatoes (served cold with relish and everything).  I wanted these hot, so after using a melon baller to carve out a pit in one side of the potato half, the carved out potato was whipped with butter, salt, pepper, and chives before piping it back into the hole of the potato half.  I baked these for 10 minutes to heat them up and cut a few more chives for the top before serving.  Aren't they cute?

For a vegetable, I served Easter Bunny's Carrots.  Nothing to do with eggs for this one, but carrots are Easter related, so I went with that.  Plus they were easy to make as I just seasoned baby carrots and then roasted them.

For dessert, I made a delicious bird's nest out of chocolate and butterscotch chips, peanut butter, and chow mein noodles.  I followed this recipe, which makes cookies, but I added more chow mein noodles as I wanted big nests rather than just a cookie size. I used an egg cookie cutter to shape vanilla ice cream into eggs before the party, and then put them in the freeze to keep their shape.  I pulled them out right before serving to place in the center of the nest.  I called this dessert "Egg-celent Nests with an Affordable Egg."

Favor: I had a bit of fun with my party favor.  I purchased plastic 6-count egg cartons from Amazon. I filled the carton with CHICK-shaped Peeps in a variety of colors. Once closed, I used a pastel ribbon to wrap around the carton and affixed a tag.  The tag read "Eggs to too expensive, but you CHICKS are my favorite Peeps anyway!"

Definitely used my creativity with this party, as it is not your typical theme, but it was really fun to plan and execute. I'd say the most popular aspects of the party were the memes, the salad, the mini deviled potatoes, and the party favors.  Hope you enjoyed this party and my post!

A Flu Season Soiree

It is never fun to have the flu, but it sure was fun to throw a flu themed dinner party! This flu season was no joke, and it went around our house and made us miserable.  When it was monthly dinner time, and we were finally all healthy, I decided it would make a fun theme, and it did not disappoint.  It was a great evening of laughter and fun with with my girlfriends.  

Invite: I found this cute image of a girl with the flu and designed my invitation around that.  Tried to pull in some flu-related terms like "sick" of winter, "coughing up" fun, and "spreading" great company. I asked guests to come in pajamas or comfy clothes like they would if they had the flu.  The girls loved this idea.

Decor:  This was a super easy theme to decorate for because I already had so many flu-related items in the house.  For the centerpiece, I used tissue boxes in matching colors and added fun sayings to the front of them.

I also set out Theraflu medicine boxes and Halls cough drop bags.

Along the table, I also spread cough drops like confetti.

For placecards, I made thermometers out of cardstock using my Cricut.  Instead of a temperature, I put the guest's name and used a font that mimicked the typical font on a thermometer.

Next to each thermometer, I crafted a card to match the designs on the invitation.  Each one had a different saying that pulled in flu-related terms.

As usual, I designed wine labels to match my theme. For the cabernet, I found a Flu Fighters logo that had two syringes meeting at the top, and used Photoshop to replace the syringes with wine glasses and the company logo with the sick girl image from my invitation.  I changed the wording to say "flu fighters favorite."  For the chardonnay, I created a symptom checklist with white wine filled glasses instead of check marks. I went with the saying "Sippin' Through the Symptoms" to pull in some alliteration.

Just for fun, I filled some fake syringes with wine. I already had these from my Fake an Injury theme monthly dinner back in 2012.

For wine charms, I found various images related to the flu and fighting the flu.

Menu:  Home sick often means a bowl of chicken noodle soup, so I decided to have fun with this idea with my appetizer.  I served a "dose" of chicken noodle soup using the mini plastic measuring cups that come with cough syrup.  

I heated a single can of soup and poured it into these for a fun shot or "dose" for each guest.

Have you heard of the BRAT diet?  The BRAT diet is a bland diet that is easy to digest, and it is recommended for during the stomach flu.  The letters stand for Banana, Rice, Apple, and Toast. I incorporate each of these as a menu item although I didn't go in order of the acronym.

T = Toast, so I made Toasted Bruschetta as an appetizer.  I cheated a purchased a jar of pre-made bruschetta from Trader Joes.  I sliced a loaf of french bread, broiled it briefly to toast it, and spooned the bruschetta on top.  I added some Italian seasoning on the top of each. Easy and delicious!

A = Apple.  We had an apple, walnut, and goat cheese salad with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing from Trader Joes.

R = Rice.  For the main dish, we had rotisserie chicken and wild rice.

B = Banana.  I made a Banana Cream Pie for dessert.  I used this recipe from Cincy Shopper.  For how easy it was to make, I was surprised how tasty it was.  We all really enjoyed it.

Favor: As a take home gift for guests, I had three items.  I had gift bags for guests to put them in with a tag on top that I designed to match my invitation.  It read "It's Flu Season.  Friendship is the Best Medicine."

A neighbor gave me empty pills bottles that I designed a label for using PhotoShop.  I added the warning labels to the label design like you see on some pill bottles.  My warnings were a glass of wine icon with "Should be Taken After Girls Night" and a smiley face icon with "Known Side Effects Happiness." I filled each bottle with Mike n Ike candies.

A second part of the favor was a mini packet of tissues.

The final part was a mini bottle of hand sanitizer. I designed a label for it with the sick girl graphic from my invitation and a saying that read "Sanitize to Be Flu Free and Fabulous."

Although a bit of a random theme, it was all in all a fun and funny night.  Hope you all stay healthy this flu season!

Wigs & Wine Party

Looking for a little fun for your next party?  Then host a Wigs and Wine Party & see what your guest's come up with!  This was such a fun theme to host, and the girls and I were laughing at the variety of wigs each guest wore to the party.

Invite:  I designed the party invitation on PhotoShop.  Kept it simple with a few images with wigs and the party details.  I asked my guests to wear a wig (I provided the wine).  Make sure you send out the invite with enough time for guests to get a wig if they don't have one already.

Check out some of our fun wigs!

Decorations: Due to our family Halloween costumes through the years, I have several wigs that I used to decorate the table.  Everything from Princess Lea, to the charcters of Inside Out, to a normal ombre wig.  I purchased styrofoam heads from Michaels Craft Store and placed them on the table with the various wigs I already owned as the centerpiece.  A piece of cardstock under each head brought in the colors of the invitation.

In coming up with ideas for this theme, I looked up various hair styles that are often made into wigs.  I tried to incorporate some of these into the food and decor for the party.  On top of each napkin I created a card having fun with the "pixie" style of wig.  The message was "I WIG always PIX you!"  Only problem with this was, after I created the tag, I discovered that the company that makes Pixie Sticks no longer sells them!  They are discontinued!!  I decided to make them myself.  I got a paper straw and hot glued one end.  Then I mixed a half a cup of sugar with one packet or Kool-Aid mix. I poured it into the straw and hot glued the other end.  Done (and tasty too).

I usually have place cards set on my table with my monthly dinners, but this time, I decided to let the guests design their own place card and choose their spot at the table.  I bought 4" wooden circles from Michaels, painted them a generic skin color, and drew on eyes and lips.  I purchased play dough from the Dollar Tree for guests to craft their own wig on top.  

Some of the guests matched their play dough creation to the wig they were wearing at the party.  Others created just a fun wig for their wooden piece.

I designed my wine labels playing with the word WIG.  For the red wine, it was "Care for a S-WIG of red wine?" and the white wine read, "Wiggin' Out?  Let your hair down and have some white wine."  I designed this second label to have a white wine glass with a wig on it.

For wine charms, I printed out the same wig images I used on the invitation plus other matching images. I used my Cricut machine to cut these out.

Menu: We started the meal with a 7-layer salad which was delicious and fairly easy to make.  I made it the morning of the party before I went to work, so it was one less thing to worry about.  To fit with the wig theme, I called this the "layered" salad with an image of a layered wig.  I followed this recipe, but I switched out the celery and green onions and swapped in orange bell pepper to substitute.  I wasn't sure if my guests would be okay with all of these ingredients, but it was very popular.

For the main dish, I served Garlic Herb Spaghetti with Baked Chicken Meatballs.  The only substitution I made to this recipe was to serve it with angel hair pasta instead of spaghetti.  I switched this to match with the theme: "angel hair" pasta and "mullet" meatballs.  This was very good, and I would definitely make it again with spaghetti or any type of pasta.

Along with the pasta, I made a Garlic and Herb bread that was "braided" to match with the theme.  I followed this recipe. The bread was tasty, and if you are willing to make bread from scratch, this recipe was not too difficult.

For dessert, I made a chocolate fondue with fruit, pound cake, and Nilla Wafers.  I used one of the styrofoam heads and used a Sharpie to add punk makeup to it.  Then I used skewers with fruit on them to push into the head like a Mohawk.  It looked so good and definitely added some decor to the festive party.

Favor: I played off the "beehive" wig for my party favor and gave guest's a Burt's Bees lip balm.  I created a tag that read, "Even if we all lose our hair...Our friendship WIG always be BEE-utiful!

This was a really fun theme and it was so great to have this fun WIG my close friends! Totally recommend you try this theme for a future party!