May the Fourth Be With You - Star Wars Party!

I have always wanted to host a Star Wars themed monthly dinner, so I have been waiting and waiting for our dinner to fall on May 4th.  It finally did this year...hence, the May the Fourth Be With You theme! This theme was so fun, and super easy to pull off.

Invite:  I made the invite on PhotoShop.  The Star Wars font is available for free from tons of sites.  I used the Star Wars Rounded font for most of the invite.

Entry:  I have a very talented student leader in my class this year, and she helped me make this amazing Darth Vader entry sign to welcome guests "to the Dark Side".  We made it out of poster board and card stock.  I borrowed some light sabers from a friend to add to the entry.

Inside Decor: For the dinner table, I bought a Darth Vader backpack from a local store to place as my centerpiece and some mini C3PO figures to place on each side of it.  I used fishing line taped to my ceiling to hold up two crossing light sabers.

I love the C3PO water bottles and R2D2 cups I created for the party.  I found the template for the cups online on the Catch My Party website here.  I just used white paper cups I bought at the Dollar Tree and glued them on. Since these two droids are always together, I wanted to have C3PO next to him.  I came up with these water bottles. I bought gold metallic spray paint and sprayed them after removing the label. I then cut two large circles and the rectangle mouth out of gold card stock, drew the lines in thin black sharpie and taped them on.  Super easy.

I bought black square plates from the Dollar Store and used scrapbooking tape to adhere a Star Wars logo to the middle.  The light saber napkins were easy to make. I came up with the idea for these and was rather excited, but then discovered someone else on the internet had this idea too. Lucky for me, they had already create the image, so I just used what they had already created here.

I thought long and hard about what to make as a place card.  I even watched the original movie one more time to get inspiration.  I came up with these super cute tie fighter place cards.  They do take some time to make, but since I was only making some, I was able to get them done.

I designed two simple wine bottle labels using PhotoShop. For the Red Wine, I chose to use Darth Vader who is associated with red. I used Yoda for the white and phrased the label's words the way Yoda speaks in the movies.

Menu:  I went with a simple menu because these items were easy to fit with the characters of the Star Wars movies.  I started with a Tie Fighter appetizer.  These are just octagon crackers I found at the grocery store and cheese rectangles.  The are held together with cream cheese mixed with garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and a little bit of salt and pepper.  Yummy!

For the main dish, I served "Han"burgers of course after Han Solo.  I placed all the fixings on the side to add what they wanted.

I served easy to prepare fruit kabobs as one side dish. Since I teach all day on the days of these monthly dinners, it is great to do some things the day before.  Definitely helps with my stress level -- yes...I am always super stressed since I'm always so last minute!  These Obi-Wan Kabob-ies were also a way to tie in the character Obi Wan Kenobi.

I called on my amazing friend Deanna for help in making a pasta salad.  She is an amazing cook, and this salad was just another example of her talents.  It was delicious. We used bow tie pasta to represent the character Boba Fett.

For a yummy and sweet dessert, I made Princess Lea cupcakes.  These are so cute, this awful photo doesn't do them justice.  I used black frosting to make the hair and attach the Oreos.  At first my plan was to use brown (so it would be more like Princess Lea), but that meant I would need to dip the Oreos in chocolate so they would match.  That was too much work for me, so I just went with black.  The rest is just frosting I piped on.

Favors:  I had so many ideas for a thank you for coming gift, that I had to figure out a way to incorporate them all! I designed these Darth Vader and Storm Trooper bags using card stock and bags I found at the Dollar Tree. Don't you love how they turned out?

I designed these tags to attach to the bags.

Inside, I used little favor bags bought from Michaels to put small candy in.  Rolos for Han Solo (Rolo), gummy bears to represent Ewoks, and chewy Lemonheads to represent Chewbacca.

This is a great theme for a kid or adult birthday party.  My kids were loving everything, and they are already asking for a Star Wars themed party of their own!

Happy May the 4th...May the Fourth Be with You!

Frozen Fantasy Dinner

As a Christmas gift, my mother-in-law wanted to host a "Fantasy Dinner" for our family.  A few days after Christmas, she kicked us out of the house, and she spent the entire day decorating for this surprise.  We returned home to beautiful decor with blue and white lights on our patio, candles everywhere, elegant decorations, and even floating candles in our pool.  We ate off her China, and had a great time eating by candlelight.  She encouraged me to use parts of the decor for my January monthly dinner.  When my daughter saw all the light blues and whites, she immediately suggested I do a Frozen party.  I didn't want to "Let it Go" to waste, so I began planning a Frozen Fantasy Dinner.

Invitations: I originally designed this invitation without Olaf on it because all the guests would be my female adult friends, so I didn't want to go too Disney and too kid-like.  However, I decided to add Olaf in the end because he's just so lovable.  I guess he is "worth melting for!"

I lined the driveway and walkway leading up to my door with lit candles in light blue and white bags. I borrowed my daughter's Frozen poster for the entry door and added "Love is an Open Door" to it using my Cricut machine.  It wasn't my original plan for the door, but when time was short, plan B was put into action.

Although the dinner my mother-in-law put together was hosted outside, the weather was a bit chilly for me. I didn't want my guests to get a "Frozen Heart", so I moved many of the decorations inside. Over the dinner table, I strung blue icicle lights in a V pattern.  Along the wall, I had blue lights and hung sparkling ornaments from the strands.  My mother-in-law had already used Snow "spraypaint" on the windows, so I kept this to add to the ambiance.

I set the table with a white tablecloth and a sheer blue sparkled netting over it. I used beautiful blue chargers (purchased at Michaels) under each plate.  The vases and candle holders were all from the Fantasy Dinner.

Here are some closeup shots of some of the centerpieces.

Once the lights were low, the sparkle and candles really set a "fantasy" mood.  (That's the Frozen movie playing in the background).

I made blue snowflakes out of Popsicle sticks for the place cards. I cut the sticks in half, rounded the edges, glued them together, and painted them.  The beads I got from the Dollar Tree and added them right after the paint so the paint would dry and hold them.  It worked and I didn't have to use glue.  To make them stand up, I took the wick out of tea lights, widened the hole, and stuck the snowflake inside.

I found photos of the Frozen characters online to use as wine charms.

Menu:  As an appetizer when guests arrived, I served snowflake cracks and cheese.  I discovered at the grocery store that Ritz makes snowflake shaped crackers this time of year, so I picked those up. I used a cookie cutter to make the cheese snowflakes.

I used the same cookie cutter to make cheese snowflakes on Elsa's Snowflake Salad.

I tried to incorporate the Frozen characters into each aspect of the meal, so the main dish was turkey meatballs that I named after the Trolls in the movie.

With them, I served cooked carrots -- Sven's favorite snack in the movie.

And of course mashed potatoes that I used a butterball scoop to shape into snowmen to represent Olaf.  Black pepper and a small wedge of cheese (leftover from the appetizer) made the buttons and nose.

Anna and Elsa both love chocolate, so I decided to serve Chocolate Fondue as my dessert.   I served a milk chocolate fondue and a peanut butter chocolate fondue.  Both were popular.  For dipping items, I had strawberries to represent Anna's Frozen Heart, cubes of pound cake to represent Kristoff's ice blocks, pretzel sticks to represent Olaf's Arms, and marshmallow's to represent the giant snowballs Marshmallow throws.

Favor:  I needed a super simple and easy favor, so I decided to give the guests Hershey's Hugs since
Olaf loves warm hugs.  I found a tag online, and I changed the wording to say, "Here's some warm hugs!"  The little blue boxes I found at the Dollar Tree -- 8 for $1. You can't tell in the photo, but the boxes have little white dots on them.

It was a beautiful party to start off 2015.  Happy New Year!!

My Favorite Things

This past Monday, I hosted a My Favorite Things party designed around The Sound of Music. I took the lyrics of the song and tried to incorporate them into as many of the party details as possible.  We had a great time and food was yummy!  This would be such a cute theme for a birthday party or any gathering with a gift exchange.

Invite:  I designed the invite on PhotoShop using an image of Julie Andrews I found on Google.  I asked each guest to try to wear white with blue ribbons to match the lyrics of the song.  For the gift exchange, each guest was asked to purchase 3 of their favorite item.  I set a low price limit so it didn't get too crazy.

Entry Decor:  For my entry door, I made a giant door covering and attempted to make it look like the mountains/poppy fields from The Sound of Music.  I cut up tissue paper and construction paper for all parts of it.  My kiddos were excited to help make the cotton ball clouds.

Table Decor: I set the table with a white tablecloth and yellow napkins.  As a centerpiece, I placed items from the first verse of "My Favorite Things".  This included roses from my garden that I sprinkled water on to look like raindrops, a kitten stuffed animal that had whiskers, a copper kettle, mittens, and a brown paper package.  I didn't have a copper kettle and they were SUPER expensive online, so I just found a white kettle from Goodwill and then sprayed it with copper spray paint.  I included a card with the verse on it in case guests didn't know the song.  I borrowed a black wooden music note from my dad to add to the centerpiece.  I also included a few items from the second verse of the song.  I hung snowflakes from the ceiling and placed sleigh bells down the center of the table.

I had a hard time deciding what to do for a place card, but I finally decided on taking the movie poster and replacing Julie Andrews' face with each of my guest's. As I am not an expert at Photoshop, so some of them were pretty funny with the facial color vs. neck color.  It made for some good laughs.

To hold the silverware, I made blue mittens out of felt and yarn.  Easy to make and great for a winter party.

I designed simple wine labels to go with the theme..."one" of my favorite things and "another one" of my favorite things!  The sheet music of "My Favorite Things" and the glasses were images I found online.

For wine charms, I pulled out the various items mentioned in the song, and found images of each online. Not super creative, but the best I could do in my last minute efforts.

Menu: The song only mentions two specific food items, but I wanted to include a green salad with the dinner. I kept looking at the lyrics to see what I could adapt to go in a green salad, and I came up with snowflakes cut out of cheese.  I bought a mini snowflake cookie cutter at a local cake shop and sliced Monterrey Jack cheese thin enough to use.  The salad also had tomatoes, cucumber, croutons, and walnuts.

For the main dish, I served Schnitzel with Noodles. I had never made this before, but it was delicious especially with the lemon juice. There are recipes for both chicken and pork.  I think one is Austrian and one is German?  I choose to use boneless pork chops.  The noodles are just egg noodles that I then added butter, garlic, and peas. This is a delicious dish, and it of course is mentioned in the song.  Just keep in mind that it is prepared on the stove top right before serving.  It can't be made ahead or it will get soggy.

For dessert, I served the other food item mentioned in the song, warm apple strudels.  Again, this is a dish you have to put together during the party in order for it be warm and not mushy. I made the filling before the party started, but I had to do the puff pastry and the baking right before serving.  The recipe I used for this I found here. I chose this recipe because it looked easy and because it didn't have raisins.  Many of the strudel recipes I found had raisins, and I am not a big fan of cooked raisins, so I avoided those.  That may make it not "authentic Austrian", but to me it made it "edible"!

Party Activity:  The super fun aspect of this monthly dinner was the My Favorite Things gift exchange.  On the invitation, I asked guests to purchase 3 of their favorite item to bring to the party.  For example, one of my favorite movies is Pride and Prejudice and I am a popcorn and Gobstopper junkie, so I put together 3 of these packages.  We put all the guest's names in a pot and each guest drew three names, talked about their favorite thing, and then gave the 3 guests whatever it was.  Some of the items people brought were Starbucks cards, the ingredients to make a Moscow Mule drink, comfy socks, a favorite necklace, etc.

To take their goodies home in, I made these favors bags with another verse from the song.

We had a lot of fun at this party, and I am excited to enjoy/try out the goodies I got in the gift exchange.