Twilight to Eclipse

Nothing like a book full of teenage drama and vampire escapades to pick for a monthly dinner party theme.  As a high school English teacher, I felt it was my responsibility to read the Twilight book series since it is so popular among my students.  I did actually enjoy the books, so I decided to theme a monthly dinner after the series, From Twilight to Eclipse.  The invitation for this party could be a movie ticket (the girls and I did go see the movie together on a different night).  You could also make the invite a flyer for a Forks Town Hall Meeting (it takes place in Forks, WA) to discuss warnings about wolf attacks.  The best part about this party is the decor which is one reason it was voted Favorite Decorations by my friends.

Decor:  At your entry, create a sign that says Welcome to Forks with arrows pointing one way for Werewolves and the other way for Vampires.  I also set out the Twilight book with a real apple on top to make the cover 3D.  For the original party I threw in July of 2010, I also had the favors set out on the entry table.  One was Bandaids in a small clear party sack with "From the Office of Dr. Carlisle" on the tag.  The second favor was a pack of Eclipse gum with a quote from the Eclipse novel.  At the Top 5 After 5 Favorites party, I didn't need the Twilight themed favors, so I added a wolf scarf (borrowed from my mom) and some red vases with candles.

The table was amazingly beautiful.  I used a black tablecloth with a burgundy runner I bought at Target.  The centerpiece was a cake platter with apples arranged on it as well as 10-12 pillar candles.  I borrowed a few candlestick holders and got the rest at the Dollar Tree. I also set out a side table with more candles and the remaining two books - New Moon with a dying rose (like the cover) and Eclipse with a red ribbon. To play up the blood theme, I bought bottles of sangria at the grocery and covered the original label with these printable vampire bottle labels I found online.  As a place card, I printed each guest's name on white paper and stuck a mini fork through the paper and into a red apple. 

Menu: After doing some research online, I found out that ravioli is Bella's (the main character) favorite food, so this is what I decided to serve. Here is the yummy recipe I found online...

Ravioli with Sun Dried Tomato Sauce

1 pound frozen meat or cheese ravioli

1/4 cup olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 ounces sun-dried tomatoes, chopped (about 1/2 cup)

28-ounce can crushed tomatoes in puree

8-ounce can tomato sauce

1/4 cup red or white wine

1/4 teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil or 2 teaspoons dried

1/2 cup heavy cream

Grated Parmesan cheese

Bring a large pot of water to the boil for the pasta.  Add salt and the ravioli and cook according to package directions.  Drain well and return to the cooking pot to keep warm. Meanwhile, make the sauce. Heat the oil in a large skillet or saucepan and cook the onion over medium-low heat for about 5 minutes until softened.  Add the sun-dried tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, wine and pepper.  Cook gently, uncovered, for 10 minutes, stirring often.  Stir in the basil and cream and cook 5 minutes more.

I paired this with my mom's yummy recipe for garlic bread, a vegetable medley, and a Caesar salad.  I stuck a toothpick in each guest's food with Team Edward or Team Jacob just for fun.

For dessert, I made werewolf cupcakes! These cupcakes are very simple to make.  You simply take chocolate frosting and frost a cupcake trying to leave jagged edges and forming two ears at the top. I then used two green M&Ms for the eyes and one brown M&M for the nose.  The mouth I piped on with red and then white frosting in a tube.

This was a fun theme to do.  All the candles created a mysterious atmosphere and added to the ambiance of the party.  Of course, if you decide to do this theme now in 2011, you would need to add on the final book, Breaking Dawn. This would mean adding a white chess piece (again like the cover of the book) some where in your decor.  Your parting favor or an addition to your dessert could even be a white chocolate chess piece.  The possibilities are endless! 

A Survivor Soiree

Television shows make excellent party themes. I realized this back in June of 2008 when I flipped on the TV one evening and saw a clip from a Survivor episode.  While I am not really a huge fan of living for months in dirt and eating cockroaches, I do love challenges and the thrill of competition.  This is what I decided to bring to my Survivor Soiree monthly dinner (not the gross bugs).  A cute invitation for this would be to send guests an application similar to the application someone would fill out to be a contestant on the CBS's Survivor.  You can find this on the Survivor website.  You just have to change the info to reflect your event.  Another idea would be make your invitation look like a torch or send a bandanna or map with the party details written on it. In my invitation, I asked guests to dress in camouflage, but only a couple did.

Decor:  Set up tiki torches on the walkway leading up to your door.  If you can get palm tree branches or other shrubbery, this just adds to it.  As guests enter they are given a colored bandanna or strip of fabric to symbolize which team they will play on.  I gave them out as guests arrived alternating colors, so the teams were random, and I wouldn't be accused of stacking my team with good players!  My table was set using a black tablecloth and coconuts as the centerpiece. The coconuts are actually drinking cups I found at Party City which is where I also got the camouflage napkins.  I also added leaves to the centerpiece to add more jungle theme.  My place cards were handmade torches with each guest's name printed on them.  I saved toilet paper rolls and covered them with the paper from brown paper lunch sacks.  I then crumpled red, yellow, and orange tissue paper as a flame.  The bottom of the flame was held together with safety pin.  This gave guests something to grab a hold of when it was time to "extinguish" their flame (see activity section). 

Activity:  This party was the winner for Favorite Activity at our Top 5 After 5 party.  Just like the television show Survivor, there were several activities which pitted the red team against the yellow team.  I set the party up to have an elimination after each challenge.  To do this, I put each guest's name on a strip of paper and placed it in the coconut designated for their team.  If the red team won a challenge, I would pull a name out of the coconut designated for the yellow team.  That player would then "extinguish" their torch (yes..that means pull the tissue paper flame down into the toilet paper roll!).  Even though players were eliminated from being the Ultimate Survivor of the evening, everyone still participated in all the challenges. There were a total of 7 challenges:

Challenge #1:  Memory Tray --  large tray with camping/survival items on it.  Give guests a couple minutes to memorize items. Then take the tray away and have them make a list.  Team with highest number wins.

Challenge #2:  Target Practice -- create a large target using butcher paper and red paint.  Each team member must shoot a toy bow & arrow at the target.   Two shots, best score counts.  Team with highest score wins.

Challenge #3:  Tent Set-Up -- time which team can put up a tent the fastest

 Challenge #4:  Puzzle -- I created two puzzles each with a collage of photos from past monthly dinners.  I just did mine on the computer and printed them on card stock.  It was too much money to have them done professionally.  Team that puts both puzzles together the fastest wins.

Challenge #5: Survivor Guess -- Quiz with clues of survivor movies, tv shows, and books. 

Team that has the most correct wins. 

Challenge #6:  Can Tower -- Two members of each team are blindfolded and have to stack empty soda cans into a tower.  The other two members have two marshmallows each & can use these to try to knock down the other team’s tower.  Tallest tower at the end of 2 minutes wins.  This game is SOOOOO fun!!

 Challenge #7:  Paper Chain -- Use blindfolds to tie all members wrists to another team members.  Give cut paper strips and tape to each team.  Team that works together to create the longest paper chain

in two minutes wins!

Food:  Unfortunately, this is one of my parties that I cannot remember what my main menu was.  I do, however, remember the appetizer and dessert.  These were the only "bugs" allowed at this Survivor Soiree!! As an appetizer, I served spider crackers. I simply cut green olives into slices for the eyes and created a sandwich with cheese and Ritz crackers.  I then used 8 Chinese noddles to represent the spider legs.  The dessert was also a spider.  I frosted cupcakes with chocolate frosting and made eyes by piping white frosting onto the cupcake.  I used red hots as the eyeballs and cut thin black licorice into strips to use as the 8 legs.  I looked everywhere for thin black licorice and finally found it at Sweet Factory.

This party was so much fun because it was active. It would make a great game night or a fun birthday theme for someone who is outdoorsy.  I have also used some of the game ideas as leadership lessons to play with my high school student leaders.  They are fun, but also involve teamwork and overcoming obstacles.  Definitely one of my favorite dinners that involved an activity!

MayPOLE Day

In the category of Favorite Dessert, the cake from our May-Pole Day Dinner in 2010 was the winner.  As you will see, this is not necessarily because of the taste (although it was yummy), but because of the comedy.  This is a dinner theme that took some bravery on my part, but turned out a huge hit.  I started out with a simple pastel invite which read:

May Day is typically May 1st...
a day to celebrate the arrival of
Spring and weave the beautiful ribbons
around the Maypole.
Let's celebrate this day with an
evening of ribbons and dancing for a...
"May Day Dinner"

Arrive wearing you favorite dancing shoes, a colorful ribbon in your hair, and an appetite for merriment.

Little did guest's expect, but they arrived in their pastel shirts and hair bows to see this poster on the front of my door...

Decor:  Oh yes, conservative little me hosted a stripper themed party!  After entering, guests were immediately giggling at the centerpiece....my metal shower rod with a blow up stripper doll on it!!  There were also dollar bills spread out on the table to add a little more fun, and I wore some black lingerie with tall boots to play up the theme even more!

Notice the guests in their pastel shirts & ribbons!  So funny!

Oh, and let's not forget the placecards.  I used bright red straws I "borrowed" from Jack in the Box and found images of strippers online.  I cut out the strippers and glued them to the straw replacing the image's face with the face of a guest...so funny!!

Food: As is typical with my parties, I tried to find menu items I could link to theme.  Here is what I came up with...

• Herbed "Strip" Steak with Balsamic Sauce
• Silver "Dollar" Potatoes
• Asparagus "Poles"
• "Stripper" Cake

As I mentioned at the start of this post, the cake is what won for Favorite Dessert!  It is a simple vanilla cake baked in a 9 x 13 pan and then cut with a knife in the shape of a body.  You need two cupcakes as well.  The entire thing is frosted with peach frosting and then I piped on the stars in red and the blue stars for the bikini.  The belly button I made just by sticking the bottom end of a wooden spoon slightly into the cake.  The cake was a huge hit.

This is one of the parties that is still talked about by my friends because it was so unexpected.  If you are brave enough, it really is a fun Ladies Only party.  There are even pole dancing fitness classes offered in many cities that would be a fun (and funny) fieldtrip!

Fond-of-You Fondue

In the category of food, the girls voted the Fond-of-You Fondue party as their favorite.  This was our party theme back in January of 2009.  If you've never had fondue, you really should give it a try.  It is absolutely amazing.  Just know it can get very expensive depending on what cheeses, meat, and fruits you buy.  One way to make it less expensive is to ask your guests to each bring part of the meal.  An invitation for this party could be a fondue pot with the event title on the outside and a fork coming out the top.  Make the pot like an envelope so the fork can pull out and put your event details on a strawberry or piece of meat/cheese (paper of course) that is on the bottom of the fork.

Decor: This party was all about the food, so there were not many decorations.  You need a lot of fondue pots, so these become your centerpiece.  Just remember, you are using hot oil, so you'll need to protect your table.  This is why I used a plastic tablecloth over another old tablecloth. You can also play up the Fond-of-You part of the theme by writing fond wishes on the plastic tablecloth.

The placecards at this party were fondue pots made out of cardstock with the party title on the front.  The fork in each pot matched the fondue fork colors the guest would be using for the evening, and the guest's name was written on the paper fork.  Upon arrival, all guests were given small slips of paper with the name of each guest in attendance printed on one of the papers.  It also had the words, "I'm fond of you because...".  The task was to fill in the rest of the sentence with a positive comment, fold it, and place it in the fondue pot placecard.  This was easy for our group to do because we had been having monthly dinners together for over  2 years when this party took place.

Food: This party was voted favorite menu for the food.  Here are the recipes for some the fondue we made that night.

Dipping Items:

 French bread

Veggies – carrots, mushrooms, cauliflower, broccoli, etc.

Top Sirloin Steak, cubed

Fruits – strawberries, bananas, berries, apples, etc.

Cakes – pound cake cubes, lemon cubes, etc.

Classic Cheese Fondue

 2 loaves French or Italian bread – get unsliced

1 pound Emmenthaler cheese, diced (or use Swiss)

2 tablespoons flour

1 clove fresh garlic

2 cups dry white wine

1 tablespoon lemon juice

¼ cup Kirsch (or Rum)

Nutmeg and pepper or paprika to taste

Cut bread into 1” squares with crust on one side of each square.  Place cheese in a bowl and sprinkle with flour.  Mix so that each piece is coated with flour.  Rub casserole and wooden stirring spoon with cut clove of garlic.  Pour wine into the casserole and place or moderate heat until small bubbles rise to the top (simmering; not boiling).  Add lemon juice.  Add cheese one handful at a time, stirring constantly until each handful is melted before adding another.  Continue stirring until mixture starts to bubble lightly.  Add Kirsch and spices.  Stir until well blended.  Put on table over warmer.  Serves four.

 

Fiesta Fondue

1 10¾ ounce can cheddar cheese soup

1 8 ounce package sharp cheddar cheese

1 cup salsa

1 cup whole milk

Mix together over low heat.

   

Hot ‘n’ Spicy Dipping Sauce

 1 cup chili sauce

½ cup chopped onion

3 tablespoons lemon juice

2 tablespoons salad oil

1 teaspoon brown sugar

2 teaspoons vinegar

1 clove garlic, crushed

½ teaspoon tobasco

¼ teaspoon dry mustard

¼ teaspoon salt

Combine all ingredients in saucepan.  Heat to boiling; simmer 5 minutes.  Serve warm or cool.  Makes 1¼ cup.

 

Blue Cheese Dipping Sauce

 ½ cup sour cream

¼ cup crumbled blue cheese

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

¼ teaspoon salt

Combine and refrigerate.  Makes ¾ cup.

Chocolate Mocha Fondue

 1 bag semi-sweet or mild chocolate chips

1 can sweetened condensed milk

2-4 tablespoons of instant powdered coffee granuals

Whole milk or more condensed milk as need

Melt one bag of semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips in a fondue pot. Stir in one can of sweetened condensed milk and 2-4 tablespoons of instant powdered coffee granuals, to taste.  Add whole milk or more condensed milk as needed to achieve desired thickness.
 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fondue

4 (1 ounce) squares of unsweetened chocolate

1 cup light cream

1 cup sugar

¼ cup peanut butter

1½ teaspoon vanilla

 In medium saucepan, combine chocolate and half and half. Cook over low heat until mixture is smooth and blended, stirring frequently. Add sugar and cook 2-3 minutes longer, until sugar is dissolved. Add peanut butter and vanilla and stir until blended. Remove from heat and pour into fondue pot or chafing dish. Serve with slices of fruit, angel food or pound cake, and marshmallows for dipping. 6 servings

Rags to Riches

Since I have been hosting themed monthly dinners for my friends for exactly 5 years now, my next 5 posts will detail the Top 5 Favorite Monthly Dinners based on 5 different categories.  I gave the girls these 5 categories to vote in for our October dinner which will be a collection of all of them.  Winner in the attire category was the Rags to Riches party.  Guests chose which they wanted to represent and came dressed in that attire.

The premise of this party was to trade your unwanted items (rags) for items you wanted (riches).  Each guest was instructed to bring 10 items they did not want any longer.  The girls brought everything from clothing & purses to household items and games.  Guests drew numbers and we went "shopping".  This was so much fun & I definitely got some great riches from others' rags.

Decor: The decorations were super fun for this one.  Since the guests were split half rags and half riches, that is how I divided my table.  On the riches side I had a black linen tablecloth and crystal candlesticks.  I used my fine china, glass stemware, sterling silverware, and folded cloth napkins in a standing fan.  For the placecards, I made elegant cards like you'd have at a wedding and referred to the guests formally "Ms. Susan Johnson". 



On the rags side, I used newspaper as my tablecloth and set up ugly mugs with tea lights inside as their mood lighting.  No fine china for these ladies...this side of the table ate off paper plates, plastic utensils, styrofoam cups, and paper napkins.  Their placecards were torn pieces of scratch paper with only their first names hastily written in pencil.






 The centerpiece for the table was a pile of rags with money sticking out of it to tie in the two sides.

Food: At first I had a hard time thinking of a menu that would be eaten by a wealthy person as well as someone living in rags.  So instead, I played up the idea of money.  I cut a large dollar bill stencil using my Cricut machine. I placed the stencil on a large tortilla and used green food coloring to stencil a dollar bill onto the tortilla. These I made into chicken and steak burritos and served them with Spanish rice and corn with diced red peppers.

 For dessert I continued the money theme.  I served both sides mint chip pie with an oreo cookie crust.  The "rich" were served on fine china with 100 Grand bars.  The "rags" were served on a paper plates with penny coins.

This theme was so much fun and the girls keep asking to do it every year so they can get rid of unwanted items and gain some great riches.  It would be a neat party to do for a church or community fundraiser as well. It's an added spin to the generic garage sale!  Definitely try this one!

Blogging Here I Come!

So I've only done a few write-ups so far, and I am still figuring this blogging thing out, but I am so excited to share this site with everyone. I hope you'll become a follower and comment from time to time.  Also...if any of you out there want to help to design a cool heading and logo I am definitely looking for one!  This plain text box with writing is about the extent of my abilities when it comes to graphic design!

A Ba-BEE Shower

Back in 2008, I hosted a baby shower for my close friend who was having her second little girl. I decided to go with a bumble bee theme and pull in pink as well.  The invitations were simple with bumble bees and pink and yellow paper.  The English teacher in me wanted the wording to rhyme, so this is what I came up with: 

What’s all the buzz about?

Wendy’s ba-bee girl is soon to pop out!

We’ll celebrate at my little bee hive

To (hostess’ address here) you’ll drive.

Saturday, May 17^th, 2008

At 1:00 pm so don’t be late.

Lunch will be served, so come for the fun

Just RSVP to Carole at (phone number here)

No solo gifts as per mom-to-bee’s request

She’d like a dual stroller from all of us the best.

(Please let me know if you’d like to contribute)

As each guest arrived, I had a guestbook for them to write well wishes in.  I made this out of the same cardstock paper and colors that I had made the invitations.  I did simple daisies as the centerpiece and added sliced lemons to the water to give color and hide the stems.  I also found small wooden bumble bees at Michaels that I added to the flowers.  

I also had two favors that I placed at each guest's setting.  One was a collection of some of my favorite songs.  Although the outer appearance of the CD was bee-themed, the songs were definitely not!  The second favor was a jar of honey with a cute tag replacing the label.  They had honey bears at the 99 cent store, but I thought they were ugly, so I did pay more and got them at the grocery store.

The delight came with dessert. My ultra-talented mother helped me craft an amazing beehive cake. We made 4 round cakes in various sizes and stacked them up on top of each other frosting them with bright yellow frosting (it would probably be smoother with fondant, but I hate the way it tastes).  To make the bees, I just used black frosting to pipe on the stripes, tail, nose and eyes.  Lastly,I cut out the wings from wax paper.  I also added white daisies to the cake to tie it with with my centerpiece flowers.

Absolutely nothing about this party theme was difficult except maybe the cake.  And..the hardest part of the cake was transporting it from my mother's house to mine!!  The other details were super easy, but added a lot to the party.  If you are planning to host a ba-bee shower in the future, this is definitely a great theme.