Happy Grannytine's Day!

For our February monthly dinner I added a little twist to the typical Galintine's Day idea and hosted a Grannytine's Day dinner.  The girls came dressed up in bathrobes, granny glasses, cardigans and more which added a fun and silliness to the evening. It was a great chance to laugh together as even our conversations turned a little bit toward the amazing old ladies we all hope to become.

Invite: When designing the invite, I wanted to stick with Valentine's Day colors, but add in a doily and other cute granny-like images.  I kept it simple with a clipart granny holding a heart and a yarn heart with knitting needles. I added in verbiage like "supper club" and "dearie" for added fun.

Decorations: A red tablecloth and borrowed crystal vases and dishes became my centerpiece. The table runner was a white crocheted shawl that I lay across the center of the table.  I placed the crystal dishes and vases on top with simple baby's breath flowers and filled the dishes with candies that remind me of my grandmas - Werther's Originals hard candies, butterscotch circles, gum drops, Mounds and Almond Joy bars, mints, and strawberry hard candies.  I found most of these at the dollar store and/or Walmart.

For place cards, I made yarn hearts. I used an old See's candy box to cut out cardboard hearts in the size I wanted.  Then I wrapped yarn around the heart until you couldn't see the cardboard underneath.  I used hot glue at the point to help it stay and then hot glue to seal the end to the back.  I left a little extra yarn to add a tail to give the knitting look and stuck two toothpicks in the top like knitting needles.  I added the "so glad we're knit together" for added fun.

My mom happened to have just enough of these Valentine's Day napkins which were perfect for this dinner with their doily hearts.

I designed some creative wine labels in theme.  First was the red wine which I termed Prescription Strength Prune Juice. I used the same doily and grandma image from the invitation.  For the chardonnay, I wanted to play off the word "glasses" using it both in terms of eyeglasses and wine glasses.  I found an image of a grandma with a wine glass online and asked AI to use that image, but add wine glasses surrounding her. Voila!  I took the common grandma phrase, "Where Are My Glasses?" to put at the top to tie it all together.

For wine charms, I simply printed out icons often associated with grannies - yarn with needles, crossword puzzle, prescription bottle, dentures in a glass, eyeglasses, bridge cards, rocking chair, and newspaper with magnifying glass.

Menu: I wanted to have fun with the granny theme without being too harsh on grannies.  I decided to serve a casserole as my main dish. I chose a casserole that my mom made often when we were kids and one I know I liked - Ground Beef and Noodles in Sour-Cream Sauce.  I called it a "well-seasoned" casserole to pull in the theme.

I also served simple breadsticks - Breadsticks of the Golden Years.

The danger of accidentally peeing when you sneeze is not just a granny problem, but I had fun making this the title of the peas!

For dessert I made a 2-ingredient fluff (strawberry jello/sweetened condensed milk). I called this DEPENDS-ably Sweet dessert for a little old lady humor.  A friend gave me the super cute Valentine paper cups to serve them in which was perfect. A little whipped cream and a half strawberry to top them off and done.

Party Game: What old lady event is not complete without BINGO!  I designed a Bingo sheet to look like my invitation, but instead of numbers, I had grannyisms and things associated with grannies - bridge club, "Back in my Day," "Turn That Music Down," Sunday Supper, "I've Got Coupons," etc.  The free space was the same yarn heart with knitting needles from my invitation. As markers, we used conversation hearts from the party favor.

I gave the Bingo winner a puzzle! I looked for a cat puzzle or a knitting-related puzzle, but went with an old country scene instead.  Made sure it had "extra large pieces" and was only 300 pieces.

Also gave a box of chocolates to the best dressed granny of the evening.  I looked for a Whitman's Sampler because that reminds me of my grandma, but I didn't find one easily, so I went with the next closest thing.

Favor: As mentioned above, my party favor was a pill box for the week.  I filled it with conversation hearts that we used during Bingo, so the favor served two purposes.  I created a tag to go with it that read "A Daily Dose of Friendship."

Not all our ladies could make it to this dinner, but those of us that made it had a great time laughing and really getting into character.  It was a super fun theme!

Dinner in the Upside Down

The final season of Stranger Things was released just before my monthly dinner, and with all it's fun details, it made for a perfect theme for our January monthly dinner. I had so much fun crafting the decorations and details of this dinner, and we had a great time with our "Dinner in the Upside Down."

Invitation:  Must say I cheated a bit to make the background for this invitation.  I found the background image with movie theater text on it, then used ChatGPT to take away all the writing and add the "you're invited" lights at the top.  I downloaded the Stranger Things font to then Photoshop the rest of the invitation.

Decorations: I created a wall portal behind my dinner table.  It was actually really easy and inexpensive.  Didn't even take me long to put up.  I found a small strand of mini red Christmas lights and used blue painter's tape to tape them in a spiral pattern in the center of my wall.  I bought red and black plastic tablecloths from the dollar store to use for the rest.  I folded the red tablecloth to thicken it and then taped it over the lights.  I then folded a black tablecloth on each side of the red, taping it on inside to create the portal.  I cut the last plastic tablecloth into strips, taped each strip on the underside of the portal and twisted them taping them sporadically to the wall as they fanned out. It looked really cool in the dark.

For my table centerpiece, I borrowed and created some items iconic in the series.  I started by creating a table runner with tan butcher paper.  I set out 80s style Christmas lights on it, and then painted a letter of the ABCs next each bulb like Joyce Byers does in the series to talk to Will in the Upside Down. 

I plugged the lights into a cordless battery, and hid the rest of the lights inside the box they came in.  I covered this box with plastic tablecloth leftover from my wall portal and printed an image of an old-school TV screen with static (another iconic item from the show) and the name of our dinner to put in the center of the table. Under the "TV" I placed a Dungeons and Dragons book.

Eleven in the series is obsessed with Eggo waffles, so I used empty Eggo waffles boxes as vases and added dark red fake flowers from the dollar store.

Adding even more to the centerpiece, I borrowed Scoop's Ahoy ice cream pints and a demogorgon mug from a friend, used a sailor's cap from my dress-up bin, and set out various cassette tapes to add to the table.

I love these paper napkins I folded to look like demogorgons!  I looked up flower napkin folds online and found this one that was close to the demogorgon shape.  After folding, I printed a scary looking open mouth to lightly glue to the center and used a white paint pen to draw lines for teeth.

For placecards, I used AI to create Dungeons and Dragons game cards for each guest (front and back).  I gave AI a photo of each guest, a photo of what a real game card looks like, and some details about the guest's hobbies, then it did all the work and generate these super fun placecards!

A neighbor was giving away these three Stranger Things posters, so I grabbed those to hang up above a side table and added more of the twisted black tablecloth pieces.   Borrowed Stranger Things funko pops, Polly Pocket walkie talkie and legos to add to my mantle too.

I created wine labels to match the theme as well calling my red wine Hellfire Club Red with the Hellfire Club's logo.  I added that the wine was "bottled in Hawkins, IN" and that it was "Dark & Delicious" to further bring in the D&D reference.  The white wine I named Mindflayer Melt Chardonnay.  I added an image of the mindflayer from season two with glasses of chardonnay in it's arms.  For added fun, I included that it was only available at Starcourt Mall, an iconic setting in season 3.

For wine charms, I printed images associated with the series: a Scoops Ahoy employee shirt, Dustin's cap, "Running Up that Hill" cassette tape, crushed coke can, Surfer Boy pizza van, a demogorgon, Eleven's eggo waffle, and the WSQK van.

Menu: For this dinner, I started with Demogorgonzola Pizza as an appetizer.  I used pie pastry crust to shape into a demogorgon head. Then I spooned on grilled onions, gorgonzola cheese and cooked bacon before baking it in the oven. I served it right out of the oven.  So yummy.

Next was Benny's Upside Down Burgers. Benny's is the burger restaurant from season 1.  These were just normal hamburgers/cheeseburgers that were assembled upside down.  I printed a small image I found online of Benny's Burgers logo to put on a toothpick and stick in the top.  I had grilled onions and bacon for guests to add to their burger as well as lettuce and tomato.

French fries and burgers go together so of course we had fries, but I served waffle fries to tie in Eleven's love of eggo waffles.  "Friends Don't Lie" is a popular line for the show, so I added "Friends Don't FRY" to my menu card for this one.

For dessert we had red velvet cupcakes with a white buttercream frosting.  My friend offered to make these for me which was amazing.  She added a mini eggo waffle to each cupcake, and then used M&Ms for lights, and piped on string and letters to represent the alphabet wall from season 1.

I also served a fudge swirl ice cream cup to go with the cupcake.  I created a small circle to put on the top with the Scoops Ahoy logo.

Favor: For a party favor, I made cookies inspired by The Upside Down.  I used a red velvet cake mix with 1/3 cup oil and 2 eggs.  Once whipped together I scooped the dough into balls and rolled them in crushed oreos (removing the cream part before crushing them).  Then baked them for a little less than 10 minutes.  Super simple and tasty.  Hindsight, I could have just purchased black wafer cookies without the cream to save time, but didn't really think of that until after I was already scraping out cream from Oreos.

This dinner was a ton of fun to put together and the girls had I had a good time as well.  I played a Stranger Things playlist in the background throughout the party.  

All Rapped up for the Holladay$

I typically pick a holiday-related theme for our December monthly dinner, but this year I had a bit of fun with it.  I decided to have a rap music theme and call it "All Rapped up for the Holla-day$!"  It was so much fun to plan and the girls and I had a great time.

Invite:  I kept the invite simple with a gold chain at the top and a rapper in Santa gear that I found online.  Incorporated some rap slang into the wording with "fo' shizzle", crib, beat, etc.  For added fun I asked guests to come dress up as a rapper with chains, etc.  I loved what some of the girls came up with.

Decorations: I asked around and borrowed almost everything for my centerpiece.  In the middle, I borrowed my daughter's old school stereo.  

I purchased a Snoop on the Stoop to set on top of the stereo.  The wooden music notes my brother made decades ago when my dad was president of Community Concerts and needed them, so I just pulled them out of my party supply bin in the garage. The gold chains I borrowed from friends & neighbors.

I purchased empty CD cases from Amazon, and then used Photoshop to create rap albums that were holiday themed.  These were added to the centerpiece.  The Snoop album already existed, so I didn't do anything with that beyond printing the cover.  The Missy Elliott CD became Christmissy Elliott with single being "Wrap It" instead of "Work It."  The Ice T album I just changed the first word "Deck (Check) Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself."  The Stormzy album was "Mistletoe and Grime."

I made napkin rings to look like money rings using my Cricut machine and gold glitter cardstock.

I had a ton of fun designing my place cards.  I did my best to incorporate each guest's name into an existing rapper - Missy Elliot became Mi-shell-iot for my friend Michelle for example.  I found an album cover online for each artist and then used PhotoShop to replace the rapper's face with the face of my guest and the rapper's name with the creative name I came up with. 

Love the will.i.am swap to jill.i.am for this one.

Just a couple more of them -- plays on Ice T and Queen Latifah became Nazlifah for my friend Nazly.

I found art prints of rap artists online, that I printed to use for wine charms.

Created these fun wine labels which is always one of my favorite things to do with each of my dinner parties. For this dinner, the chardonnay was inspired by Snoop Dogg - "Twas the Nizzle Before Christwizzle, and all through the Nizzle, We Drank Chardonnizzle."  For the red wine, I used an album cover of Ice T's for the song "Big Pimpin'" and just added "Cab Sippin'" for the cabernet sauvignon.  

Menu: Seriously so much fun coming up with menu items to match with famous rappers.  Started with a Notorious B.R.I.E (after rapper Notorious B.I.G.) made holiday style.    It was easy to make 8" round brie, one can of cranberry dressing, a few pecans, and crackers. I heated the brie for 15 minutes in a 350 degree oven, then topped it with the cranberry and a few pecans.  This was a popular appetizer.

Next was a green salad I named after Queen Latifah calling it Queen La-Toss-Ah Salad.  This was romaine lettuce, sliced pears, candied pecans, feta, and pomegranate seeds. The dressing was made with apple juice, maple syrup, and dijon blend.  I don't normally eat pomegranate, but they were fun and festive on the salad to add the holiday flair.

We also had a Drake Your Own (build your own) baked potato with lots of fixings.  I had butter, onion, cheese, chili, bacon bits, and broccoli. I called these Snoop's "Baked" Potatoes. Yummy.

Next it was shrimp skewers I called Run DMC-food.  I cooked these on the stovetop in butter with Salt N Pepa!  On each of my menu cards, I tried to alter a popular lyric from the artist to match the food as well,

For dessert, we had an apple crisp I called Ludapple Crisp (after rapper Ludacris). Instead of ice cream, I served it with LL Cool Whip! Super tasty dessert for sure.

Favor: As an easy favor, I made Eminem/M&M Shots.  I bought plastic shot glasses from Dollar Tree and filled them with red and green holiday M&Ms. I attached a tag with a twist on a famous lyric by Eminem "Please come back...back again."

We had a great time!