Mean Girls Dinner Party

With Mean Girls the musical playing in Orange County, I decided to organize my girlfriends for a fun Girls Night Out to see the show.  This month's monthly dinner was a few days before our tickets to the theater, so I decided to keep in theme and host a Mean Girls dinner.  It was so fun (and the musical was amazing too!). Check out the details.

Invite: I modeled the invitation off the iconic Burn Book from the movie downloading a free font that was similar to the actual book.  I then added the party details using as many references to Mean Girls quotes as possible.  All of us wore pink which added another fun element to the theme.

Decorations:  Of course I went with pink, black, and white as the main colors for the party.  I set the table with a bright pink tablecloth and white plates.  The centerpiece was iconic items from the movie/musical.

The Burn Book centerpiece was made with a rectangular vase and cardstock that I then drew designs and cut out letters to paste on it.  I purchased bright and light pink flowers from a local florist to fill the vase.

Also on the table was a Santa hat to represent the routine the girls did for the Winter Talent Show.

A cube of butter represented Regina George's question at the cafeteria table asking if butter was a carb as she was trying to perfect her figure for Prom.

The tiara symbolized the Prom Queen tiara that Cady won that she then breaks into pieces in the movie.  The DumDum lollipops represent Karen and her constant stupid questions in the musical and movie. 

I always find the cut out white tank top scene of the movie and it's corresponding "trend" at the high school hilarious, so I wanted to incorporate it somehow into my dinner.  I decide to cut white paper napkins into tank tops with cut outs over the breasts just like the tank top in the movie.  I placed a small piece of purple cardstock in between the napkin like Regina's shirt underneath in the movie.

As place cards, I printed the guest's in the same Mean Girls font that I used on the invitation, and paired each name with a popular saying in the movie.  I printed these and placed them on the center of each plate.  Besides the above examples, some other guests were "So Grool," "So Fetch," or "She's REALLY pretty." 

In the movie/musical, the three main girls are called The Plastics because of their fake nature.  I decided to use plastic utensils instead of silverware to tie in this piece.  I created a sleeve for the utensils and designed a "Beware of the Plastics" image to glue to the front.

I created a simple banner out of cardstock and fishing line to read "That's So Fetch" with lips in between words.

I designed wine labels to match common sayings in the movie as well.  On one bottle I tweaked the "You Can't Sit with Us" phrase from the movie into "You Can't SIP with us".  For another bottle, I played off the Halloween scene where Karen says, "I'm a mouse, duh" when she has mouse ears on.  Just switched mouse to wine bottle.

For wine charms, I designed small circles will various iconic items from the movie/play.  The iconic pieces were pretty easy to find online and create into charms.  Some of the items I used: The Burn Book, Boo You Whore, You Go Glen Coco, etc.

Menu: There are a ton of food references in Mean Girls, so it wasn't too difficult to come up with a menu.  We started with a Caesar Salad to represent when Gretchen gives her speech about Julius Caesar and let's her class know "We should totally just stab Caesar".

For the main dish, I served delicious hot dogs.  I didn't want just plain hot dogs, so I purchased Roasted Red Pepper and Garlic Chicken Sausages, and they were tasty.  This dish went with Janis Ian's response to her note in the Burn Book, "Made Out with a Hot Dog? Oh my God, that was one time!"

Along with this, I served cheese fries to with with Regina George's comment, "Whatever, I'm Getting Cheese Fries."  Frozen french fries and shredded cheese...easy.

For dessert, I made strawberry shortcake out of Toaster Strudel.  I baked the strawberry toaster strudel, cut each in half, and layered the halves with sliced strawberries and whip cream.  This went with Gretchen Weiner's comment about her father.

Favor: For a party favor, I had a Kalteen bar for each guest. I bought Hershey bars from the grocery, and then wrapped a new wrapper around them to look like the Kalteen bar in the movie.  

This was a super fun and easy theme for a girls night.  It would be great for a birthday party or movie showing night with the ladies.

National Chopsticks Day - February 6th

Did you know that February 6th is National Chopsticks Day?  Neither did I until I was looking for a theme for my monthly dinner and a friend told me some February 6th holidays.  So, this very random day became my theme as we celebrated all things having to do with chopsticks.

Invite: I found the image in the circle online and decided to design my invitation around that color scheme.  I found an image of chopsticks that matched this color to place in the background and then just added the dinner party details.

Decorations: I kept the decor cheap and easy for this dinner.  For the centerpiece, I purchase plain white Chinese to-go boxes from Michaels and a bouquet of bright flowers.  I printed out the National Chopsticks Day circle to glue to the front of each.  I placed a small drinking glass inside each box and divided the bouquet between the three vases.  To top it off, I added a pair of chopsticks into each mini bouquet.  These to-go boxes were placed on top of scrapbook paper in colors that matched the party invitation.

For placecards, I made chopstick holders and added each guest's name to the front.  To spice them up a bit, I followed a Youtube video on folding paper into a Japanese crane which looked neat.  To save money, I just used scrapbook paper I already owned for this, but since my paper was thick, it was challenging to fold into perfect cranes.  It probably would have been better to purchase origami paper, if you really want these to be easy to fold and have a tighter look.  I bought chopsticks off Amazon that matched the theme, and slid a pair into each crane.

On top of each napkin I created a tag with a fact about chopsticks.  Each napkin had a different fact.  The girls and I had fun reading each fact aloud during the evening. 

I designed wine labels that to match out theme and meal.  For the white wine, I designed a fortune cookie with "Wine is in your future" as the fortune.  For the red wine, it was "let the good times ROLL and the wine flow" which sushi rolls and chopsticks.

For wine charms, I painted toothpicks in various colors and attached a pair to each wine glass with fishing line to look like mini chopsticks.

Party Games:  I used two Minute to Win It games that involved chopsticks to add to the evening fun.  The first was the Marshmallow Chopstick Challenge.  A bowl of marshmallows is placed in the middle and each guest is given a small bowl and a pair of chopsticks.  Blindfolds are usually used, but I didn't have enough of them, so we just closed our eyes.  

The participants have one minute to see how many marshmallows they can transfer from the large bowl to their own little bowl.  It is definitely harder than it looks!

The second game was the Chopstick Chapstick Challenge.  For this game, guests have to stack 3 chapsticks on top of each other using only chopsticks.  This is timed, so the winner is the guest that can do it the fastest.

Menu:  We started the evening with vegetarian egg rolls as an appetizer.  I purchased these at Costco rather than making them myself.  Cheating a bit, but as a working mom, I have to make some concessions.

For the main dish, I made Grilled Chicken Teriyaki.  I put them on skewers so they would look a little bit like chopsticks, but decided against using actual chopsticks since they are so much thicker than a skewer.  This recipe called for several ingredients I don't usually use, so it was a bit more expensive to make, but they were easy to make, cooked quickly on the grill, and were delicious.

I also made Chow Mein which was tasty.  I followed this recipe, but left out the chicken since I was having the skewers already.

For dessert, we had s'more sushi.  This was really popular and liked by all the guests.  The recipe makes it look easy, but it is a bit of a challenge to get and keep it in a tight roll.  I had to keep it in the refrigerator until serving so the marshmallow didn't melt and alter the shape of the roll. We also found that the recipe didn't call for enough marshmallows in the bottom layer.  Discovered this with the first attempt, so we added more marshmallows for the next two rolls, and it worked much better.

Favor: Trying to come up with a parting gift that centered around chopsticks was a challenge because I didn't want to just give the a pair of chopsticks.  Instead, I decided to buy Pocky to simulate chopsticks.  I bought small Chinese to-go boxes from Michaels and placed a fortune cookie inside each one before adding the Pocky to the top.

This was a fun chopstick filled evening.  Might have to repeat it next February 6th!

Hats Off to a New Year

It's 2023! I am looking forward to the new adventures and happenings of this year for sure.  This first monthly dinner of 2023 we had some simple fun with a hat themed dinner party.  Hats as decor, hat shaped/themed food, and hats on each guest.  It was an easy theme to incorporate into a birthday party, new year party, or just a gathering with friends.  

Invite: Of course the invitation had to have lots of hats.  I decided to use red as my main color because I already had a tablecloth in that color.  I designed the invitation to have various hats on it - simple and cute to wild and fun.  Other than that I kept it simple.

Decorations:  Hats, hats, and more hats made for easy decor.  I borrowed hats from friends as well as used hats of my own to decorate. I used mostly my kids' dress-up hats for the centerpiece since they are small and more can fit on the table.  I just lined them up along the table like a table runner and used some candles/cups to elevate some of them.

For the place cards, I made top hats out of cardstock.  I cut black cardstock into a 5.5" x 2" strip to use for the top hat, cut two slices for the name card to slide in, and then secured the cylinder with glue from a glue stick.  The bottom circle was 3" in diameter.  I used hot glue to adhere the white ribbon and then printed a name card to slide into the top.  Super simple and quick to make.

For the napkins, I created a simple origami hat using napkins from the dollar store.  I wanted the rim to have a different color, so I just used two napkins in the fold.  I stapled the ends of the hat since it was so thick and I didn't want them to come apart.  They were still easily broken apart for guests to use during the meal.

For my wine, I designed labels that matched with the theme.  For the chardonnay, I changed it to Char-beret and added an image of a French beret.  "J'aime le vin blanc" was also added to tie in the French vibe.  For the red wine, I used the image of the joker's hat from the invitation letting guests know that it was no joke that the wine was good.

For wine charms, I found clipart images of various fun hats.  Printed them, cut them out, and tied them to the glass stems with ribbon.

Menu:  I had to get a bit creative to match my hat theme to my menu items.  I started with a Kentucky Derby cheese hat appetizer.  If you do this theme for a party, create this appetizer because it is super easy to put together and the guests gobbled it up.  I bought a brie round for the bottom of the hat and a Boursin garlic and fine herb cheese round for the top.  I loosely tied a ribbon around the Boursin, added some parsley for a flower garnish, and spread Wheat Thins around the hat.

The main dish was a Cowboy Hat Stew.  Loved this recipe because it was a one pot dish, very filling, and tasty for sure. I used the recipe from Gonna Want Seconds.  It was a hit at the party and with 2/3 of my picky children, so I think I will definitely make it again.

Along with the stew, I served a Chef Hat Salad.  This is a hearty salad, so after this and the stew we were pretty full.  This chef salad was a bed of romaine and iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, hardboiled egg, cucumber, bacon, turkey, and cheddar cheese.

For one more hat, I made garlic bread witch hats out of crescent rolls.  Just folded up the bottom of the triangle and curved the top, brushed each with melted butter, seasoned them with Italian seasoning and garlic powder, and then baked them for 10 minutes.

For dessert, we had make your own ice cream sundaes served in mini baseball caps.  Many of us were very full after the meal, but there's always room for ice cream, right?

Favor: I decided to make homemade salsa for each guest as a party favor.  I put the salsa in small mason jars and added yellow ribbon and a mini sombrero to the top.  I purchased the straw hats at Hobby Lobby along with some mini pompoms and used a glue gun to space the pompoms out along the rim.

I didn't give out prizes for the hats, but it was fun to see the ladies wearing their various hats.  Hats off to you in 2023.  I hope you have an amazing year!