Slip N Slide into Summer Dinner Party

It's June which means...it's summer time!  For teachers like me, this is a much needed break and a chance to recharge for the next school year. With the start of summertime, I decided to host my June monthly dinner with a summer theme.  After driving past a group of children having fun on a slip n slide on my way home last week, I decided this would make a fun theme for a monthly dinner.  So continue reading to check out the details of my Slip N Slide into Summer dinner party!

Invite: I used some summer clipart images including a waterpark clipart image for my invitation. I used Photoshop to change the Slip N Slide logo to include "into Summer".  Although I didn't put it on the invitation, I did ask guests to dress up like they were attending a waterpark for added fun.

Decorations: I found a new Slip N Slide at a local thrift store to use as a large table runner. Since it was new, it was really crinkled, but I just went with it.  The thrift shop also had these smaller beach balls, so I purchased two of those to add to the table as well.

For the centerpiece, I wanted to make a waterpark slide somehow. I tried numerous items from cut water bottles, to Pringles tubes, but I ultimately decided to use the tube from our small Shop Vac. In order to make it curl and stay in that position, I put stiff Romex wire inside the tube that I could mold.  

I used giant Legos we still have from when my kids were little to build a staircase and platform.  For the water under the slide, I cut up the plastic wrapping from a case of water bottles since it was blue and shiny. The pieces were small as I had to cut to avoid the wording on the packaging, but I salvaged enough to cover the bottom of the tray.

For place cards, I made VIP waterpark passes.  I gave each guest a fun alliteration name (Mai Tai Maria, Jetstream Jennifer, etc) as well as an award-like slogan (Slide Selfie Star, Siren of the Swim Up Bar, etc).

I found some paper napkins that looked similar to a beach towel and folded them.  I already had these super cute Adirondack chair place card holders from a wedding shower I went to a long time ago, so I used them to place at the end of each napkin for added fun.

I designed the wine bottle labels to go with the theme.  For the red wine, I found a clipart image of a boy sliding on a Slip N Slide, but I couldn't find a girl, so I used Photoshop to add a girl's head, and colored in the torso to be a full bathing suit. I also edited the Slip N Slide logo to be SIP n Slide instead and added Cabernet to the bottom.  For the chardonnay, I called it a Lazy River Reserve Splash-o-nay.  A bit cheesy, but fun.

I had to get creative for my wine charms. I found some colorful bendy straws that had a long bend portion and could stretch out to 13" total.  I wrapped these around the stem of the glass and cut the excess to look like waterslides. I used the blue plastic wrapping from water bottles (same as I used on the centerpiece) to wrap around the base of the glass.

Menu: We started with an appetizer of chips and guacamole.  To make it fit with the theme, I called this the Big Guac Drop to Chipwreck Cove. I made a small waterslide out of a water bottle cut in half to put the guacamole on it.  I used a Lego pirate ship to add to the plate for the "chip-wreck".

For the main dish, each guest put together a Chicken Bowl with whatever fixings they wanted.  This became The Big Splash (Chicken) Bowl waterslide.  I cooked pollo asada, brown and white rice, black beans, fajita veggies, and roasted corn (all from Trader Joes). We also had sour cream, guacamole, cheese, and salsa.

The chicken bowls were filling, so I didn't serve much else.  Just watermelon flat on a a plate for Wave Pool Watermelon. If you are handy, you can carve the rind into waves, but I didn't make the time for that.

For dessert, I wanted to serve something you could get at a waterpark, but that I could also incorporate into a waterslide name.  I decided to make funnel cakes which I called Funnel of Fun.

Favor: I purchased small bottles of SPF chapstick to give as a parting gift.  I made a tag on Photoshop using an image of a sunscreen bottle that I added text to.  SPF became Slide, Play, Float to fit with the theme.

It was a small gathering, but we had a good time laughing and eating together.  Another great dinner party and theme!

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!