Oops...Wrong Party!

We had so much fun at our July monthly dinner.  It was an Oops...Wrong Party theme. For this theme, you basically pick a party (Halloween, birthday, etc.), and come dressed up for that party! I asked all the guests to RSVP with the "party" they would come dressed as (just to avoid duplicates), and it was super fun.  We had ladies ready for a Halloween party, a pool party, Octoberfest, etc.  I dressed for a Search Party with a neon safety jacket, flashlight, and a missing person poster complete with photo of the one friend that was unable to attend our festivities!

Invite: I designed the invite with clipart images of various parties - ugly sweater, pajama, graduation, toga, disco, etc.  Other than these I kept the invite text simple.

Decorations: I pulled out of few of the many holiday decorations I own for this dinner. I didn't have to buy anything as I already had most everything.  At the front door, I had a Halloween pumpkin bucket, my Santa happy holidays sign, and my 4th of July sign I already had up from the weekend.  I lined my mantle with various party-related items and mixed up holiday banners throughout the party area.

For the main table centerpiece, I set out decorations like a table runner.  These included a graduation plate with grad announcements from two of my guest's children, a witch hat/candle/sign, a disco ball, Santa/wrapped present/bell wreath, birthday hat/glasses, football jersey/football, 4th of July hat/flags, and a mascarade mask.

I used AI to help design my place cards.  I chose various parties, trying not to repeat when possible, and created pretend invitations to those parties adding the guest's name to the top.  In case you need inspo - I created ones for a bachelorette, book club, luau, class reunion, new years,  birthday, tailgate, disco, and Kentucky Derby.

I mixed up my napkins too which took some creativity.  My mom keeps everything, so I went through her napkin stash to find some holiday napkins.  I created the others with various ribbon from my own staff and just items I could find around my house to dress them up.

The wine labels I designed for this party were based on a Retirement Party (off the clock cabernet) and Super Bowl Party (championship chardonnay).

To keep it easy for the wine charms, I printed out logos representing various parties and taped them to the front of the glass stems.

Menu: I had so much fun coming up with a menu for this dinner!  The possibilities are endless!  Personally, I decided to design menu items for parties that guests were NOT coming dressed as just to keep the variety, but if you have a bigger guest list, that might not be possible.  For the appetizer, I borrowed my mom's Haviland tea cups and saucers and made individual charcuterie cups for each guest. I called these Charcuter-TEA cups to represent a tea party.  In each cup were almonds, grapes, cubed gouda cheese, cubed mozzarella cheese, an Italian salami flower.  A few crackers were placed on the saucer before serving.

To make the salami flower, I made them using the rim of a shot glass to keep them tight and compact.

The main dish was Drunken BBQ chicken wings that we grilled on the barbeque.  These represented a Frat Party, so I served the side of BBQ sauce in a red solo cup shot glass!

We had mashed potatoes as a side dish, but added a little surprise to the center of each one to represent a Gender Reveal Party.  Much like a gender reveal cake, we piped in blue or pink dyed potatoes into the center, so that when guest's cut into them, it would "reveal" the pink or blue.

My plate revealed "It's a Boy!"

To represent Toga Party, we had a simple Caesar Salad.

I made a fruit cookie pizza for dessert to represent a Pizza Party.   I bought a large pizza box from a local pizza place to use as a serving tray. For this recipe, I did not have to make my own cookie dough.  It called for Pillsbury sugar cookie dough already made!  You can put any fruit you want on this pizza, but I kept it simple with only strawberries, blueberries, and kiwi.

Favor: The parting gift for the guests represented Slumber Party.  I tied together a sleep mask from the dollar store, an individual box of cereal, and a spoon.  For the tag, it read, "You came dressed for another party...but everyone loves a slumber party."  Then under that text I added, "Cereal-sly, Thanks for Coming!" My serving "tray" for these was a pillow for added fun.

This is the perfect party for a random occasion or a birthday party.  It was so fun and easy to put together without costing a lot of money.  Hope you throw a party like this soon!

It's Summer, PHO Sure!

As a teacher, summertime means a little time to relax and destress a little, but of course my monthly dinners still continue.  When trying to come up with a theme for my June monthly dinner a friend suggested a pho theme.  I have never even tried pho, but I decided to run with the idea and combine summer and pho into one theme...

Invite: I found a clipart image of a pho bowl I liked online and centered my color scheme and invite around that.  Added a few puns and simple text.

Decorations: I kept things simple for decor. I used a large wooden serving tray and accent pieces I already owned to place in the center of the table and serve as a pho bar of toppings.  I crafted a couple paper lanterns to set in the tray as well. The toppings I used were limes, cilantro, mint, green onion, bean sprouts, cilantro, soy sauce, and siracha.

I had some fun coming up with place card names for each guest that somehow incorporated "pho" into the description -- un"pho"getable, "pho"cused, "pho"nominal, etc.  I added the guest's name after the description and set them on a pair of chopsticks.

For the napkins, I took blue paper napkins and folded them to look like a karate gi.

I designed the wine labels with pho sayings as well. My favorite was Pho Crying Out Loud...Pour the Red Wine! The white wine played on the Pho-Cast and weather with a 100% chance of chardonnay.

For wine charms, I designed tags with various ingredients of pho and a fun title - Meat Maestro, Broth Babe, Lime Legend, etc.

Menu: Pho the Appetizer, we had chicken potstickers.  I purchased these from Trader Joes.  Simple and quick to prepare on the stovetop and tasty to eat. 

Of course the main Pho-cus of the meal was pho.  I looked at a lot of recipes, and decided on a Vietnamese Beef Noodle Pho from thekichn.com.  To save time, you can purchase the base/broth premade, but I decided to try it from scratch.  Having no experience making or even tasting pho prior to this, I don't really have much to compare this recipe, but I thought it tasted good.  My guests thought the same, but definitely had preferences to the local restaurants they generally order from.

For the dessert Pho-nale, I made a Key Lime Eclair Cake.  It was simple to make & tasty.

Favor: As an easy take-home gift, I purchased individual bowls of Pho from the local dollar store.  I added a pair of chopsticks and a tag that read "Thanks PHO Coming!"  Super simple, but perfect for the theme.

It was a Pho-nominal evening with friends I am Pho-tunate to have!

 

Devil Wears Prada Dinner

The Devil Wears Prada 2 just came out, so I thought it would be fun to host our monthly dinner party with this theme and then go see the movie with the girls at a later date.  My own fashion sense and style is more like Andy pre-Runway for sure, but I definitely had fun pulling things together for this theme.

Invite: I recreated a movie poster with the iconic devil heel for my invitation.  Then kept the rest of the invite simple.  I added "Attendance is Not Optional" for a little Miranda Priestly humor.

Decor: I went with a color scheme of black, white, and red.  I set out a black tablecloth with white and black plates and a red "runway" down the center.  For the centerpiece, I borrowed a Prada wallet and a Louis Vuitton handbag from a friend along with the boxes they came in. I added a vase of white roses (a favorite of Miranda's) and used my Cricut to cut a large red heel to match the invitation.

I also recreated Miranda's Runway binder to add to the centerpiece.  I bought a large spiral notebook from Michaels (I couldn't find white), printed the original cover from the movie to place on the front, and added post-it tabs along the sides and top like the book in the movie.

I folded red paper napkins to look like pleated dresses.  These were easy to make - I just fan folded the napkin and tied a blue ribbon around the waist to secure it.  Then folded the top half inward to look like a strapless dress.

For place cards, I created Runway magazine covers for each guest.  I used ChatGPT to help with these. I added fun details about each guest for taglines and asked ChatGPT to glam up the photo I uploaded of each girl.  They were fun to read and laugh at for sure.

The same friend who loaned me the wallet also had bags, so I used them on and above my beverage table for added fun.

I always design themed wine labels. For the red wine, I called it Miranda's Couture Cab with an image of Miranda and a background of fashion logos. For the white wine, I called it Andy's Cerulean Chardonnay and added an image of Andy in her not-so-glamorous cerulean sweater.

For wine charms, I found images of the main characters that I printed out and cut to adhere to the wine glass stems.  I had a pre-fashion Andy Sachs and a glammed up Andy, but the others were all single characters.

Menu: I started with an appetizer of a mini bowl (dollar store purchase) of corn chowder and a strip of grilled cheese. This was to represent Andy's choice of food in the cafeteria her first day at Runway, and Nate's special grilled cheese he makes Andy that night.

For the main dish, I served ravioli that I toasted in the oven.  I purchased fresh ravioli from Costco for this.  The directions said to boil it, but since I wanted it slow-toasted to go with Miranda's famous quote of "moving at a glacial pace," I looked up some online directions for toasting and tried it out...they were delicious this way!

Photoshopped a Prada logo to add a bowl of "Prada Parm" for added fun.

I served a Cesar Salad as well tying it in with another famous Miranda quote from the movie.

And of course breadsticks because we all need carbs in our life!

I incorporated another fun Emily quote for my dessert, but instead of a cube of cheese, it was a cube of cheesecake. Three different flavors came in the package (from Target).  They were chocolate, raspberry, and New York.

I served coffee with dessert for those interested.  Andy makes so many coffee trips in the movie and it always has to be piping hot for Miranda.

Favor:  I absolutely loved my favors for this party, and they were so simple to put together.  I purchased these mini purse favor bags from Amazon.  They come with the satin fabric to tie and were perfect for this theme.  I filled each purse with a little tissue paper and some mini chocolate bars.

This was a super fun party.  All the girls dressed up in some form, and I played the movie in the background, so it made for some fun conversations throughout the dinner.