Better Late Than Never Dinner Party

Our monthly dinners are generally the first Monday of every month, but this month, I fell ill and then had surgery scheduled for the following week, so I thought we might have to cancel.  It has been 18+ years of never missing a month, so this devastated me.  Luckily, I felt well enough to host, so we had a belated dinner.  To have a little fun with this lateness, I decided to theme the dinner around it with a Better Late Than Never party.

Invitation:  I designed the invitations with clipart images of various styles of clocks.  I added a few time-related words in the wording as well.

Decorations: I wanted several small clocks as a centerpiece.  I used 2 of my own and borrowed the others from neighbors.

The Wonder Woman clock (my teenage daughter's) was a fun addition.  I love the variety and colors in the clocks that I used.

Thank you to all my neighbors to loaned me clocks for the evening.

I used a variety of wristwatches for napkin rings.  Some were heavy and flattened the rolled napkin, so I used some wooden pieces inside the napkin to prop them up.

I am a teacher, so one of the first things I thought about when I came up with this theme, was tardy passes.  I decided to use this idea as my place card.  I had a lot of fun coming up with short reasons for guest's to be late, matching the reason with each guest's personality, hobbies, etc.

I used the tardy slip (or sip in this case) idea in designing my white wine label as well. Chardon-Me, I'm Late instead of pardon me for the chardonnay bottle.  Never RED-y on Time for the red wine.

For wine charms, I cut out some of the images of clocks from the invitation as well as others I found online making sure I had a variety of types of clocks.

I also added a clock image to the display on my mantle.

Menu: Due to my surgery, I needed to come up with a menu that I could handle in my short spurts of energy.  One of my guests also offered to cover the appetizer, so she brought all the ingredients and quickly assembled them upon arrival.  Decided to call these Procrasti-nachos to go with the theme.  Delicious.

For the main dish, I served a Baked Lemon Thyme Chicken which was very good.  I found this recipe in my quest to use thyme to go with my time theme. I was able to make the marinade early in the morning and let it marinate throughout the day, so when it came time for the party, there was little else to do besides put it in the oven.

Baked veggies were the side dish for the party.  One of my guests came early to help with sliceing and preparing the vegetables.  We used zucchini, red, yellow, and orange peppers, and mushrooms. I went with alliteration in naming this dish - Very Late Veggies.

I also used frozen rolls for ease.  Just baked these with butter. Titled these ROLL-in In Late.

I also used frozen rolls for ease.  Just baked these with butter. Titled these ROLL-in In Late.

Although it took a bit more effort to make creme brulee for dessert, I decided I wanted to do it.  Since I am off work after surgery, I had the ability to make these earlier in the day as well.  These were delicious, and I would definitely make them again.  I called these Creme Delay-ee.

Favor: I wanted to keep the parting gift simple, so I purchased packs of Now and Laters from Walgreens.  I designed a tag that read, "Thanks for coming NOW...even though the party's a bit LATER than expected."

I am happy that I was able to host this gathering and not miss a month's dinner even through life's health challenges.  Grateful to have such amazing friends that helped out as well.  It was a fun theme, great food, and of course outstanding company!

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!

Beats & Bites: A Drums & Dinner Party

In the 18+ years I have hosted these monthly dinners, I have had some random themes.  This month I was trying to come up with something and thinking about March and what might go with that month.  The phrase "march to the beat of your own drum" popped into my head, and I decided to run (or "march") ahead with it.  I don't really know much about drums...but it ended up being fun to plan and a neat theme.

Invite: I found a neat drum set image online to build my invitation around.  The MDG image on the bass drum represented Monthly Dinner Girls for this party.  I used some drum phrases for added fun and asked guests to wear a band tee shirt to keep in theme.

Decorations: I borrowed a toddler drum set from a neighbor to use as a centerpiece.  She apologized that her son had covered it with stickers, but they were a perfect addition to the theme! I borrowed drumsticks from another friend to use as well. I added some yellow pieces of card stock under the set to add a bit of color.

For place cards, I used my Cricut to cut out an image of a drum set in black and in light blue.  I then cut out portions of the blue to glue and make the image two-toned.  The bass drum had each guest's name and the MDG image from the invitation.

For the napkins I created a sleeve with music note scrapbook paper and added am image of various drums to the center of each.  

I used the same images on the napkins as the images for the wine charms - timpani drum, snare drum, drum sticks, bongos, cymbals, and others.

For themed wine labels, I designed a white wine label with the phrase "Snare & Sip - Chardonnay that Hits All the Right Notes." For the red wine, it was "Rhythmic Red - A Beat of Bold." I added an image of a glass of red wine to the bass drum for this label.

Menu: Continuing with the theme, I tried to chose a menu with foods related to drums.  We started with a beet salad with arugula and balsamic vinaigrette.  I called this a "Keep the 'Beet" Salad" to play off the "beat" of a drum.  I followed the recipe, except I used the Trader Joe's balsamic vinaigrette dressing instead of making my own.  Wasn't sure I liked cooked beets, but it was tasty.

For the main dish, I served bbq chicken drumsticks that I made in the crock-pot and then put in the boiler to crisp before serving. The recipe was easy and only 4 ingredients.

One side dish was potato bites, a family favorite recipe I make often.  Just potatoes, butter, and seasonings make these easy to make.  I called them "Snare Drum Spuds."

I also made "Kick Drum Kabobs" with peppers, zucchini, mushrooms, onion, and yellow squash.  Grilled these outside on the grill as I love the grill flavor.

Along with this, we had dinner rolls.  I called these "DrumROLL Please" baked rolls.

For dessert, I made mini fruit tarts with vanilla pudding.  I didn't really follow a recipe on these.  I bought mini crusts, a box of vanilla pudding mix, and cool whip, along with the fruit.  I mixed the vanilla pudding with the cool whip and spooned it into the shells.  Then added cut kiwi, strawberries, and blueberries to the top. I called theme "Timpani Tarts" for some alliteration.

Favor: I decided to make mini snare drums as a parting gift for guests.  I bought metal favor jars from Michael's Craft Store that I found in the wedding section.  I filled them with M&M's and then crafted a snare drum to fit around the jar. I designed the snare drum in the size I needed on PhotoShop, and then used my Cricut machine to cut out the black part and glue it to the red. I found chocolate Pocky sticks to place on top as drumsticks.

This was a fun theme to plan even though I didn't really know much about drums.  It would be a fun theme for a birthday party or band party if you do have a drum lover in your life.