Where's Waldo Dinner Party

This party was the beginning of August, so there was just one week until I would back to teaching. I love being a teacher, but I do love my summer free time!  For August's monthly dinner theme, I went with something fun, but tied in the school year beginning as well.  It was a Where's Waldo theme! I asked the girls to come dressed in stripes and jeans, and they did not disappoint!

Invite: To match Waldo, the party and invite colors were red, white, and light blue. I found images of Waldo online and designed the invite around that.  I kept it simple with the tag line of "Before you get LOST in the school year, come FIND your favorite people."

Decorations: I set the table with a blue tablecloth and found some red and white 12x12 strapbook paper in my stash to lay out as a table runner.  I borrowed some Where's Waldo books from some neighbors to set on top of the striped paper.

I ordered a Where's Waldo hat and glasses from Amazon for the centerpiece and added a red and white striped ribbon to a dollar store vase that I spray painted red and placed fake white roses inside.

In the frame was a Chatgpt created image with my guests inside.  I found unique photos of each guest, then asked Chatgpt to create a Where's Waldo scene with each guest somewhere in the scene as well as Waldo himself. The guests were easy to find which was perfect as it just served as a quick and fun activity. I added a couple Waldo images cut out with my Cricut machine around the frame.

How did the guest's know what to look for in the created image?  I created their place cards with the original photos I gave Chatgpt to create the scene. Instead of Where's Waldo, I photoshopped the logo to replace the Waldo text with each guest's name.

I found striped napkins at Michaels Craft Store which fit perfectly with the theme.  Just set a pair of Waldo glasses to the front cut out of card stock with my Cricut.

I designed my wine labels to match the theme and party colors.  For the white wine I photoshopped Waldo with a glass of white wine inside a magnifying glass with the text "Found It! Waldo's White Wine."  I used a red and white striped background.  For the red wine, I used an image of Waldo holding a sign.  On the sign, I designed the logo to say Where's Waldo's Wine? and added the phrase "Searching for Sauvignon."  The background was an image from a Where's Waldo puzzle.

I kept the wine charms simple by just finding images of Waldo in various poses.

Menu: I brainstormed red and white food or striped food to create my menu. We started with a Wandering Waldo's Wedge Salad. I LOVE wedge salad, and I think in the almost 20 years I have been hosting these themed dinners, I have never served one! The salad has red tomatoes and white (blue) cheese along with red onion and bacon.

Next was chicken parmesan (red spaghetti sauce and white cheese). I wish I had purchased thinner chicken breasts or pounded them a little as they were each a big portion, but they were tasty.  I served the chicken over spaghetti noodles with additional sauce.

Along with the chicken, I served striped breadsticks.  I followed this recipe, but just used generic store bought pizza dough rather than the brand in the recipe. I didn't shape them into candy canes since this was not a Christmas party.  Reminder: wear disposable gloves when you dye the dough unless you want red hands!

For dessert, I made red and white striped jello cups topped with a dollop of whipped cream.

Favor: I purchased red and white striped popcorn boxes from Amazon (stripes are going the wrong way, but oh well). I filled them with popcorn and red and white M&Ms from Michaels.  FYI - the M&M's were SOOOO expensive even with a coupon. If you ever think you'll do this theme and want a favor like this, try to purchase the M&Ms around Valentine's where you can get red and white M&Ms for much cheaper.

The tag I designed for these pulled in words like search and find to fit with the Waldo idea, but linked it to friendship - "You don't have to search far to find the sweetest part of life...good friends."

Only a few of the girls were able to attend this month, so it was a smaller group than usual, but it was no less fun.  We used the paper glasses from our napkins for a fun photo.  Yes...I have the most amazing friends!

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!