April Fools' Fun

Ready for a wacky taste of some April Fools' Day fun?  That's what was in store for my friends this past monthly dinner as the date fell right on April Fools' Day.  As you can tell from the above photo, we had a blast!

Entry:  The fun started before guests even approached our door.  As the gusts parked in front of my house, they were met with silly signs and warnings -- Caution Tape and Danger of Poison signs blocked off the entire front yard, Wet Cement and Caution Tape cordoned off the driveway (and we wet it with the hose to look wet).  This left no way for guests to reach my door!  At the front door, the doorbell had the Shock Hazard sign and the door said Wet Paint.

Decor: Guests walked through upside down balloons after walking in the front door just for fun.  In the bathroom, rubber duckies were floating in the toilet!

I set the table with a bright colored tablecloth and multicolored napkins. I bought silly glasses at the Dollar Tree for each guest and folded the napkin inside of them.  Two upside down balloon bouquets were above the table with a silly wooden doll and a flip calendar sign that I made on my computer as the centerpiece.  Next to each wine glass was a fake lottery ticket I also got at the Dollar Tree.

As a place card, I printed off a joker playing card from the internet and put each guest's face in place of the joker face.  I glued these to real playing cards so they would look from the back and feel like a real playing card.  This isn't a great photo if it because of my flash, but you get the idea.

Menu:  After a yummy salad with colorful fruits in it, I came out this with birthday cake.  The guests laughed and assumed I was doing the Groundhog Day thing of starting out with dessert. They soon discovered that this was a meatloaf cake with mashed potatoes as frosting! The red decorations are cherry tomatoes.  This was served with carrots -- Starburst candies that is!! I put orange Starburst in the microwave briefly to soften them, then molded them and used a fork to make the crinkled look! I replaced these with real carrots as we started to eat.

I also served Strawberry Italian Sodas with the meal which was really strawberry jello.

For dessert, I served hamburgers and french fries in baskets I bought at Smart & Final and linings Ruby's Diner let me steal.  The hamburger is a cupcake!! The bun is a vanilla cupcake that I cut out the middle of. I used a little water to adhere the sesame seeds. The meat is the top of a chocolate cupcake.  The ketchup and mustard are red and yellow frosting and the lettuce is coconut I tinted with green food coloring.  The french fries are pieces of pound cake cut in the shape of fries and placed in the broiler for 30 seconds to crisp and brown a little.  The dipping chocolate is just white frosting I added red food coloring to.  Super fun April Fools' prank as it really did look like a real hamburger/fries!

Added Fun:  While I was serving dinner, my husband snuck outside to play some more jokes on my guests.  We decorated one of my single friend's cars with a "Just Married" sign and cans tied to her bumper.  The other guests all received fake parking tickets each with a different citation!  We were going to toilet paper another friend's car, but did not have a chance.

Favor:  No April Fools' Day party is complete without Whoopie Cushions!  I bought Whoopie Cushions at the Dollar Tree to use as my favor.  I attached this silly card to each.

We had a great time at this monthly dinner with our mismatched/wacky attire, silly jokes, and funny food. The only thing I created, but then forgot to play was my activity.  I had post-it notes with random things I was going to stick to people's backs during the night.  Anything crazy, like "Flap your arms when I talk" or "Spin in a circle every time I say the word 'I'" or "Call me Suzy." I definitely recommend trying some of these ideas next April Fools' Day!  If you need any of the templates, feel free to email me!!

A Knight of Medieval Madness

The district-wide senior trip to Medieval Times fell on the same day as my monthly dinner this month, and because this caused me to miss their yummy dinner and show, I decided to host my monthly dinner medieval-style.  To my great fortune, the folks at Medieval Times even agreed to loan me some items to really help the evening seem authentic!

Entry:  Medieval Times gave me this huge knight and horse cardboard stand-up which I used to greet guests.  I also placed a shield my husband borrowed from his work with a sign telling my "knights" to enter. 

Decor:  I asked each of my guest's on the invitation to choose a colored knight to be for the evening.  They all came dressed in this color, and I incorporated these specific colors into the decor.  Of course we had Medieval Times crowns to wear and I altered the front to include my guest's names.

I set my table with a black tablecloth and used colored cardstock under each place setting corresponding with the guest's knight color.  The plates and bowls were borrowed from Medieval Times as well as the amazing knight centerpieces and the royal banners around the room.  The swords we already owned.

I used my Cricut machine to create individual knights as my place cards.  I tried to make the hair the same color/length of each guest.  The banner each knight is holding represented the color knight the guest was for the evening and her first initial.

I also used my Cricut to create shield wine charms in the colors/initial of the guest.  The swords for the napkin holder were also made with this machine.

Menu:  I wanted my menu to be similar to what Medieval Times serves, so I molded it after their menu.  I think that their food is delicious, so why change it!!  As a starter, I served a Lentil Soup.  This was a really good soup and super healthy.  It was difficult to eat without a soup spoon though (I was trying to stay authentic medieval).  I would recommend a soup that is more liquid based if you are not going to give your guest's silverware.

As the entree, I baked chicken quarters, potato wedges, and garlic bread. I didn't have any more oven space, so I grilled the asparagus spears on the outside grill. I made the menus on card stock and just burned the edges.

For dessert, I made a shield cake. I baked a 10x15 cake and then cut it to look like a shield. I made a stencil with wax paper to put the horse on. (Thanks Mom for helping with the frosting on this cake!).

Activity/Games:  Since this was a Medieval Knight's Tournament, there had to be some games!  The first was a Minute to Win It Game, that I altered to be called "Slay the Dragon".  The "Knight" had to unravel two rolls of streamers using only their arms.  The "knight" that did it the fastest scored points for her team. I used my fireplace mantle to have the 4 banners of the games we were playing displayed.

As you can tell, we had a lot of fun with this one.

The second game I titled "Medieval Madness".  In this Minute to Win It game, the "knight" has to get 50 M&Ms into the correct cup designated for each color.  There are 5 colors and 10 M&Ms in each color.  In the original game, they can only use one hand, and they must go in a specific color order.  We didn't follow these rules and just timed which "Knight" did it the fastest.

The third and fourth game I had planned the girls and I did not get to play as our evening ran late. I think they would have been really fun though.  The third game was "The Joust".  I bought pool noodles and used duct tape to make them look like lances. I added tissue paper to the end as well. In this game, the guests were going to be pushed on scooter boards across my hardwood floor and attempt to get the "lance" through as many rings as they could as they slid by.  The rings were plastic diving rings from our pool hanging on a piece of thin rope.  Probably would have been pretty funny had we had the chance to play it.

The final game was another Minute to Win It game called "Don't Blow the Kings."  The 4 Kings of a deck are placed face up on a pizza stone and the remaining cards in the deck are then placed face-down/spread out on top of them.  The "knight" has one minute to blow the cards off the pizza stone and leave only the Kings. All four of these games are easy and fun. If you are looking for other Minute to Win It games, check out  my Minute to Win It party post.

Favor:  As I favor, I made pretzel "lances" in each guest's color. I tried to play up some medieval words in my tag for an added laugh!  The "lances" are melted chocolate on one end and then card stock as the cone.

All and all this was a fun party. As you can see...even my kids loved it!! I want to thank Medieval Times for letting me borrow the decor to really make this party come to life. If you haven't been to a Medieval Times and seen the show, you really should check it out.  I can't wait to take my two little munchkins in the future!  They loved this party, so I know they would love to watch the real horses compete rather than us girls horsing around!!

Valentine's Cards for Kids

I am very excited about the Valentine's cards I made for my kids this year.  Last year, I looked on Pinterest and found a cute idea, but this year I wanted to come up with my own crafty idea without stealing someone else's!  I have no idea if these ideas have already been done, but at least I feel better knowing they came from my own creation.

My son LOVES trains.  He calls every bus, semi-truck, or large moving vehicle he sees a Choo-Choo, so I wanted to theme his card around this.  I found the image online and just adapted it.  The only candy I could think of that had the word "chew" in it was Big League Chew gum or Charleston Chews...neither of which are very appropriate for a 19-month year old. I decided instead to purchase Chewy granola bars which I then adapted to say "Chew Chew".  You could also attach Hershey Hugs to this card to play up the Hug-a-Hug-a part.

This is a horrible photo, but I wanted to show you the granola part too.  I just taped the granola bars to the back of the card before giving them out.

My daughter is obsessed with Princesses just like your average 3-year old.  Since my daughter's name is Ella, I decided to theme her Valentine around Cinderella.  I do not know how to use Photoshop, which you can easily tell by the cropping of these images, but I made do with the simple editing skills I have.

I decided to use Pixie sticks as the candy on this one, so I made the Pixie stick the fairy Godmother's wand.  I just used an exacto knife to cut a slit for the Pixie stick.  My daughter was thrilled when she saw these.  She's really excited to hand them out to her friend's.

I created both of these cards on Mircosoft Word, so they can be easily edited for your child.  Just let me know if you'd like me to send them!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Party with the Presidents!

I was in a panic last week as I was racing to finish grading all my student's essays before I had to turn in semester grades.  I took a one second breather when finished and then realized...I have a monthly dinner on Monday, and I haven't even come up with my theme!!  So on Friday, I finally decided on a theme and set to work to create a President's Day party theme. For a rush job, I love how it turned out...

Decor:  I set my table with a red tablecloth and some patriotic napkins/mini runners that I borrowed from my mom. Using my kids' toys, I crafted a fort out of Lincoln Logs to tie in Abraham Lincoln.  M&M's were on sale, so I bought some Valentine peanut M&Ms (because they are larger and you don't have to buy as many) to fill some small vases I already owned with the red and white ones.  The blue M&Ms I got from a regular bag of peanut M&Ms.  As added decor, I drew a giant cherry tree on butcher paper and taped it to my wall.

At each place setting, I used Photoshop to create Mount Rushmore place cards replacing one of the President's faces with the face of my guest.  These were hilarious! I stacked Lincoln Logs to use as holding stands.

Here's a shot of another vase with the M&M's and flags.  I wrapped the napkins in patriotic ribbon with the Seal of the President. 

Menu: To craft my menu, I printed off a list of all the U.S. Presidents and tried to find ways to incorporate their names/variations of their names into each menu item.  Some are quite a stretch, but they got the idea across.

For an appetizer, I served Van DeCamps brand fish sticks and tarter sauce.  I created menu tags with the President and the menu variation of the President's name so guest's could see the correlation.  Jimmy Carter and Martin Van Buren were the inspiration behind this appetizer.

Along with wine, I also served Kool-Aid inspired by President Calvin Coolidge.

I served a regular green salad with two choices of dressing -- Ulysses S. "Ranch" (Grant) and Roquefort (Rutherford) B. Hayes. (If you don't know, roquefort is a type of blue cheese.)

For my main course, I served Dripping Roast Beef Sandwiches with Melted Provolone.  These I termed, Franklin D "Roast-a-Melts"!  They were very easy and very yummy.

1 (10.5 ounce) can Campbell's Condensed French Onion Soup

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

3/4 pound thinly sliced deli roast beef

4 Hoagie rolls

4 slices diced provolone cheese, cut in half

1/4 cup drained mild pickled banana pepper rings

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. In a 2-quart saucepan, heat the soup and Worcestershire sauce over medium-high heat until it comes to a boil.  Add the beef and heat through, stirring occasionally.  Divide the beef evening among the rolls and top with cheese slices.  Then place onto a baking sheet.  Bake for 3 minutes or until the sandwiches are toasted and the cheese is melted. Then spoon a little of the soup mixture onto the sandwiches and top each sandwich with 1 tablespoon pepper rings.

I also served Bush's Baked Beans. I suppose you could use any brand of beans, but the fact that there is a real brand "Bush's" is what led me to come up with this menu item.

I love this "Barack-oli" in honor of President Obama.  It was a perfect play on his name.

Even though the menu didn't need another starch, I couldn't help adding some tater tots inspired by President Taft.

For dessert, I made a Chocolate Strawberry Lincoln Log.  It was pretty easy to make and very tasty.  To make the lines on the tree, I just used the tines of a fork.  I added my husband's ax for the photo, but didn't really cut with it!

Chocolate Cherry Lincoln Log

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup baking cocoa

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Confectioners' sugar

1 quarter strawberry or cherry ice cream, softened

Frosting:

1 ounce unsweetened chocolate

1 tablespoon butter

1-1/4 cups confectioners' sugar

2 to 3 tablespoons milk.

Line a greased 15x10x1-inch baking pan with waxed paper; grease the paper and set aside.  In a large bowl, beat eggs for 3 minutes.  Gradually add sugar; beat for 2 minutes or until mixture becomes thick and lemon-colored.  Stir in water and vanilla.  Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt; fold into egg mixture (batter will be thin).

Spread evenly into prepared pan.  Bake at 375 degrees for 10-13 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched.  Cool for 5 minutes. Invert onto a kitchen towel dusted with confectioners' sugar.  Gently peel off waxed paper.  Roll up cake in the towel jelly-roll style, starting with the short side.  Cool completely on wire rack.

For frosting, in microwave-safe bowl, melt chocolate and butter; stir until smooth.  Gradually beat in confectioners' sugar and enough milk to achieve desired consistency.

Unroll cake; spread ice cream evenly over cake to within 1/2 inch of edges.  Roll up again. Place seam side down on a serving platter.  Spread with frosting.  Cover and freeze overnight.  Yield: 14 servings.

Favor:  Although I already had dessert for my guest's, I wanted to tie in George Washington since he (and Lincoln) are the two holidays we celebrate in February.  I made these mini cherry pies in my cupcake/muffin pan.  I followed the recipe on Adventuress Heart although I used canned cherry pie filling since cherries are not in season.  I made the tag and these favors were waiting on each guest's plate when they arrived.

If you are looking to host a last minute gathering for President's Day weekend, this was really an easy dinner overall.  The pies took the most time, but the remainder of the meal was very easy.  If you would like the menu tags, favor tags, or napkin ring image, just comment below with your email address.  They were all created in Microsoft Word.

Those of you who are teachers like me...enjoy your day/days off this month!  To all of you...hope you enjoyed this post.  Please comment and let me know your thoughts!

Wii Love Bowling

Back in July of 2011, I hosted a super fun monthly dinner titled Wii Love Bowling!  It was so much fun, and we had a blast competing as teams. I totally recommend a Wii party if you are looking for a fun activity that gets your guests active, but doesn't require a ton of props.

Invite: I found a cute birthday bowling invitation on Google images, and just adapted it to use for my dinner. I asked guests when they RSVP'd if they would be willing to be a team captain and design the shirt/come up with the team name for their team.  Once I had all the RSVPs, I randomly drew names to assign to each team and told the captains their team members.

The team captains designed these super cute "uniforms" for their team, and it made the tournament so fun.  One team opted for "The Pin-Up Gals" and the other team was the "Pinguins."  We used the felt that has glue on one side to make these.

Entry:  I bought foam board from the local dollar store to make these giant bowling pins.  I drew the pins and then cut them out, used red scrapbook paper for the stripes, and taped them to cans of canned food to keep them upright.

Decor:  I set my table with a bowling lane down the middle.  The lane is contact paper I bought for a dollar at the Dollar Tree (same paper I used for the Dancing with the Stars dance floor).  I added a few triangles with scrapbook paper to make it look even more like a true bowling lane.  The mini bowling set I got from ToysRUs in the $3 bin.  They were not heavy enough to stay in place on their own, so I taped the bottom with clear tape.

As a place card, one of the girls helped me out by making mini Wii people to look like each guest. She designed them on the Wii, took a photo with her phone, and then added the guest's name.  There are ways to do this online, but I was having difficulty doing this, and my friend was willing to help.  We attached the printed images to straws and added them to the table.  We put them on straws because I served "MargaWiitas" at this monthly dinner instead of the usual wine, so straws were needed.

On each plate, I also put a score card for the evening.  The Wii kept score for us, so this was not necessary, but it was an easy addition I mainly added just for more decor.  The front was the photo and the back was the score boxes.

Menu:  For an appetizer, I made a cheese ball molded to look like a bowling ball.  I served this with wheat thins.  For the main meal, I served Teriyaki Bowling Meatballs,  potatoes shaped like bowling pins with yummy spices, and asparagus.

Dessert:  For dessert, I made this bowling lane cake.  I followed the recipe on Spoonful.com.  The only difference was I did not use black licorice for the black line because it was not available at my local grocery store.  I just piped it on with black frosting instead. My bowling pins are just plastic pins I found at a local cake shop.

Favor: I normally try to keep my favors fairly inexpensive, but I couldn't resist purchasing these mini Wii remote Pez dispensers from Walgreens.  I think they were $1.50 or so a piece.  You can buy them in bulk on Amazon as well, but I didn't need that many and I was fairly last minute, so I got them locally.  I wrapped them up with a tag to play up the bowling theme.

We had so much fun at this party.  The matching team shirts really helped keep the fun vibe going the entire night as well.  Another party I totally recommend throwing!