19 Years - 19 Crimes

Crazy to say, but this month we celebrated 19 YEARS of continuous monthly dinners! Our group of ladies has changed a little bit over the years, but the majority of us have been enjoying these dinners together every month for the entire time.  Every October when we have an anniversary celebration I like to theme my dinner around the number somehow.  For this dinner, I decided to theme our dinner around 19 Crimes - the wine company.  

Invitation: I wanted the invitation to read like an old-time prison charge and sentence, so I had fun coming up with fun wording. Other than that, just a 19 Crimes bottle image and the logo on the invite.

Decorations: For all the decor for this dinner, I tried to keep a muted tone with criminal elements to match the vibe of 19 Crimes wine. I reached out to the 19 Crimes company to see if they might be willing to provide some images, decor, or even wine, but I didn't get a response, so I had to do it all on my own.  

For the centerpiece, I stayed simple with just bottles of 19 Crimes wine on a serving platter with small additions.  The small additions were two pairs of handcuffs, a decorative sphere piece made of old keys that I already owned, and my daughter's dying bouquet from her Homecoming dance.

I spray-painted an empty wine bottle black, and designed a wine label with all our monthly dinner girls in a photo from one of our dinners to add to the centerpiece.  Under the photo, I included "Guilty of Friendship - Sentenced to 19 Years (and Counting)."

As a mini table runner next to the platter, I printed out a "wrapping paper" image that I found on the 19 Crimes website.

I had a bit of fun making my place cards and turning my imagination into reality. I had the idea to fold my dollar store paper napkins to look like wine bottles.  They didn't come out perfect, but I think they look alright! I folded them around a toilet paper roll and taped the top around a wine cork. 

I created the personalized labels for the place cards on Photoshop.  The photos used for each guest are from monthly dinners throughout the span of the 19 years we've had our dinners.  It was so fun to look back on all these.  My close friend and fellow monthly dinner guest helped me with the write-ups to make sure they were fun crimes that matched the monthly dinner they were taken from.

Loved pulling even more past monthly themes into my wine labels.  Like the placecards, I used the format of a 19 Crimes wine label that I designed on PhotoShop.  The photos were changed to black and white sepia tones.  I chose a photo from Our Kentucky Derby themed monthly dinner we had in 2014 for the red wine.  I made the crime "Horseplay in the Winner's Circle with Red Wine."  The white wine was a photo from our Wii Love Bowling monthly dinner where we bowled on the Wii as teams for added fun.  The crime for this one was "Bowling Under the Influence of Chardonnay."

On the 19 Crimes website, they tell the 19 crimes and have one crime on each wine cork.  I used these images as my wine charms.

Menu: With each course, I tweaked a criminal charge in some way to reflect what I was serving.  We started with spinach artichoke dip and french bed.  Instead of Obstruction of Justice and Possession with Intent to Sell, I tweaked it to Obstruction of CRUSTice and Possession with Intent to DIP.

Next it was my family's favorite meatloaf -- a Grand Larceny Loaf.

As a side, I made mashed potatoes. The crime for these was Assault & Buttery (instead of Battery).

The green beans were drizzled with lemon and garlic.  Their crime was Resisting a Zest (Arrest).

To help me out, one of my close friends/guests made the dessert.  She made a delicious chocolate poke cake that was drizzled with caramel.  This crime?  Baking an Entering (instead of Breaking).

Favor: I don't think 19 Crimes makes mini bottles of their wines, so I decided to buy the only mini bottles the grocery store near me sells. I designed a mini wine label for each bottle with a different image from one of our 228 dinners throughout the 19 years. The labels were small, so I had to keep the crimes on these only a few words, so they could be easily read.  For example: "Defying Gravity in the News" for a photo from our Broadway Show theme where I am in a Newsies costume and another guest is in a Wicked costume.  For our B party where everyone had to come dressed as something that starts with B, the crime was "Boldly Being Boisterous."

It was been 19 amazing years of looking forward to seeing these ladies each month (plus the few that couldn't make it this time).  Can't wait to continue the tradition for even more years! 

It's Fall, Doll!

This month's dinner was a bit of an odd theme, but it ended up being pretty fun and nostalgic to plan.  I hosted this dinner with a paper doll theme, and since it is the beginning of fall, I called it "It's Fall, Doll!" I'm excited to share the details of this theme with you.

Invite: The invitation was simple and straightforward with fall colors and paper doll images/clothing pieces. I don't love the doll I initially chose, and would have switched her to one of the other dolls I used in the party, but at the time I designed this invite, I didn't have the rest of the decor prepared. I do like the paper doll-related wording for added fun.

Decorations: I covered the dinner table with a brown tablecloth and purchased some dried fall flowers for the center. Along the middle line of the table, I placed paper doll clothing pieces that I cut out from images I found online.

I also cut out paper doll chains in fall colors.

Each place setting had a paper doll for guest's to dress with items from the middle of the table. I used my Cricut to cut out mini hangers with small "blankets" hanging from them.  The "blankets" were the place cards with each guest's name and instructions to doll her up.

The fall colored napkins also had an item of paper doll clothing on the top.

I designed my wine labels to play off aspects of the theme. For the red wine, I designed the label to have a paper doll with a red dress on and holding a wine bottle like it was a paper doll accessory with tabs on it.  The wine bottle was "An Essential Accessory" and I included a tag line that stated, "Because no outfit is complete without Cabernet."  For the white wine, I played off the little black dress idea, but changed it to "Little White Dress Chardonnay" with an image of a paper doll white dress.  The tagline was, "A must-have cut-out in every doll's closet."

For wine charms, I just used small paper doll clothing items in various colors.

Menu: I always like my menu to go with theme, and this was a bit challenging with this theme because I had a specific idea in mind.  I wanted to have each menu item reflective of a specific article of clothing that would then be added to a paper doll throughout the meal to create a complete outfit by the end.  

We started with an Autumn Apple Salad with Maple Vinaigrette to represent a beret and titled it Greens Beret.  I mostly followed the recipe, but I did leave out the cranberries and the bacon.  I love bacon, but I just ran out of time to cook it.  The dressing and recipe were great without it, but I'm sure its amazing with.

Our menu doll's next article of clothing was a petticoat represented by Petticoat Potatoes.  I purchased boxed scalloped potatoes to save time.  They honestly tasted great and were so easy to make in the oven.

Next article of clothing was the skirt to cover the petticoat.  For this I served Skirt Steak with Lime that my husband grilled for us.  It was so tender and delicious.

For the doll's top, I served cooked carrots that I called Cardigan Carrots.

For dessert, we cut frosted cookies in half and put them together with frosting to make a purse.  For the handle, we used Mamba Magic Sticks candy.  The bead clasp on the front was just an edible candy ball.  I served these Clutch Cookies with a small bowl of ice cream.

And our doll at the end of the meal...

Favor: For the parting gift, I made Hello Dolly bars.  The tag read, "Because every doll deserves a little something sweet."  These bars were easy to make, but do take a lot of ingredients, so the price adds up.  They lived up to my tag though, as they are super sweet and tasty.

These are the details of this fun dinner!  If you planned more ahead than I did, you can probably order a book with paper doll cutouts to save time.  Thanks for reading!  Hope you enjoyed this dinner theme!

Palette to Palate Dinner

As a vibrant end of summer dinner party, I decided to theme August's monthly dinner around colors.  I decided on a Palette to Palate theme where the decor would center around painting palettes and bright colors while the food would play into a colorful palate with each course.

Invitation: I designed my invitation to be bright and colorful.  I found an image of plates and dishes with bold colors, and then added a paint swatch look on the right with colors that matched the dishes.  I asked each guest to chose a color to wear from head to toe for added fun.  I had them RSVP with the color they chose, so I could match the place setting details to those colors.  The guests RSVP'd on a group text thread, so others could see what colors were already taken.

Decorations: I cut brown butcher paper to fit my table and then painted splotches to look like a paint palette.  The colors matched the specific colors my guests were going to wear for the dinner.

As a centerpiece, I used a small paint can from Michaels as a vase and purchased bright flowers to place inside.  Around it, I placed snacks in various colors for guests to nibble on - pepperjack cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, cheddar cheese, black olives.  My intent with this was to pull in the "palate" part of the theme. I also add the invitation on a mini easel.

For the napkins, I went to the hardware store and picked up paint swatches in the colors my guests were wearing.  I folded a napkin of their color, made a small slice in the swatch, and slid the bottom of the napkin through.

The placecards were paint palettes and brushes to match the guest's color.  I cut these out of cardstock with my Cricut machine and used a paint pen to write the names.

The place setting when it was put together for each guest...

I like my wine labels to be themed to my dinners as well, so I designed these with the theme in mind.  For the red wine (merlot), I found an image for a red wine glass and paint brushes.  I added a paint swatch of the wine colors and labeled this wine "Merlot-dramatic Palette." For the white wine (chardonnay), I used the phrase "hard to resist," but switched it to "chard" to resist the golden hues.  Again I added a color palette and an image of white wine and grapes.

For the wine charms I used a second set of the same paint swatches from the hardware store I used for the napkins and cut out a circle a little smaller than my wine glass bottom.  I then cut an inner circle and a slice to wrap them around the stem before taping the slice closed. Free and easy.

Menu: I wanted each course to be monochromatic which surprisingly wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be.  We started with an appetizer of all ORANGE.  I hollowed out an orange pepper to hold a red pepper hummus.  As dippers, I had orange peppers, carrots, and sweet potato chips.

Next, I served a GREEN salad. This was romaine lettuce, spinach, peas, cucumber, avocado, and green pumpkin seeds. I served it with an avocado lime dressing.

The main dish was RED.  I made red pepper pasta with rotisserie chicken.  It was a new recipe, and very popular with my guests and my family.  I will definitely make it again. I chose this recipe because it was low carb, not time consuming, and it was bright red! It was used chicken (that I didn't have to take time cooking by the way), so I knew the red color wouldn't be diluted like it might if I used ground beef or turkey.

Dessert did not go initially as planned, but worked out great. I found a recipe for an easy purple cheesecake, but could not find blueberry jello anywhere.  The closest I found was berry blue.  So I followed the recipe, but with berry blue jello instead.  This changed my dessert color scheme to light blue which was fine since I topped it with blue berries.

Favor: For a parting gift for my guests, I bought boxes of candy in the colors that each guest wore to the party. I designed a tag that read "Thank HUE for adding color to our Night" and attached it with matching ribbon.  For display only, I added a small bottle of the matching paint color to the display.

This was a fun theme to put together (I know I say that every month!).  It was neat to have each of the girls dressed up in their color too.  Would totally recommend this party theme. Hope you liked it!