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!

A Wicked for Good Party

For our November monthly dinner, I decided to host a Wicked themed party.  Wicked for Good will be released later this month and Halloween just passed, so I was inspired.  My mind started generating ideas, and everything worked out great.

Invite: There are a lot of google images and backgrounds that go with this theme, so it was fairly easy to find one that I liked as I wanted to mix the green of Elphaba and the pink of Glinda.  I added an image of both characters to the middle of the oval.  Beyond that it was a straightforward invitation wording.  I asked guests to dress in green or pink for this, and it worked out great.

Decor: I thought it would be fun to separate my dining table and the decor to match the Elphaba/Glinda characters.  I used a green tablecloth and witch decor on one side and a pink tablecloth and Glinda decor on the other side.

For the centerpiece, I found a gold ball with twinkle lights inside at my local Target. I used this at the very center of the table to represent the Emerald City. 

For the Elphaba side, I borrowed a witch hat, green wig, spider lights, and a black lace shawl from friend of mine's Halloween stash. I also found a small broom in the gutter the night after Halloween that a trick or treater must have dropped.  It was perfect for the centerpiece.

For the Glinda side, I placed two pink vases with white flowers that I usually use to decorate for Easter on a silver glitter runner I found at the Dollar Tree. I borrowed a Glinda wand and tiara from a friend. I also set out some long white gloves (that I wore to Prom in high school!) to add to that side.

I used my white ceramic plates and added a black or pink paper plate to pull in more color.  On the Elphaba side of the table, I used lime green napkins and made witch's brooms by painting wooden candy sticks and adding brown yarn. I wrapped cardstock with each guest's name on it around the napkin and broom.  The names were of the guests that RSVP'd that they would wear black.

For the Glinda side, it was a pink napkin and a wand made with the same candy sticks painted pink and the star topper made with glitter cardstock.

The wine charms were images of various symbols from the Wicked movie - witch's hat, Glinda's bubble,  Shiz Academy, Emerald City, etc.  I printed them on cardstock and then attached them to the glass stem.

Designing the wine labels was fun.  I tried to pull in sayings or songs from the movie.  With the white wine, I designed the label to have Elphaba and Glinda facing each other with a glass of chardonnay in the middle.  I added text to say, "Drink This and You'll Be Changed for Good." The red wine was an image of a witch that I used PhotoShop to swap in Elphaba's head and her broom. The text read, "Defying Gravity - the Glass Gets Lighter with Each Sip."

I purchased two cereal boxes with Wicked designs which I used as added decor on my mantle along with a moon cycle light-up piece I borrowed from a friend.

Menu: Continuing with the green vs pink idea, I decided to theme my menu with that same idea in mind.  We started with an appetizer of guacamole and black tortilla chips. I called this "One Short Dip in the Emerald City" after the Wicked song, "One Short Day."

I served a green salad with mostly green toppings -- green bell pepper, cucumber, green pumpkin seeds, and goat cheese. I made a strawberry and Greek yogurt salad dressing to add add pink.  My menu tag called these Changed for Good Greens.

As a main dish, I served spaghetti with pink sauce and green pesto sauce. I called this "Wicked Green & Goodly Pink Pasta on my menu card. 

I made these super cute breadsticks shaped like witches brooms to go with the pasta.  I rolled out Pillsbury pizza dough, sliced it in 1" strips,  then sliced the middle of that strip 3/4 of the way down twisting those two strips around each other.  The bottom was sliced into 4 or 5 smaller pieces and separated to look like a broom. I baked them in the oven and then brushed them with garlic butter before serving.  These I called Elphaba's Broomstick Breadsticks.

I made two different ice cream cakes for dessert to represent both characters.  Elphaba's Dark Delight was an oreo cookie crust with mint chip ice cream, Cool Whip, and chocolate shavings on top.  A witch's hat made with melted chocolate was set atop each piece.  Glinda's Pink Perfection was a vanilla wafer crust with strawberry ice cream, Cool Whip, and edible pink glitter on top.  A tiara made with melted pink chocolate was on top.  I used an empty can to cut these 9x13 cakes into small circles for serving. Just for fun, I called these Defying Calories Cakes.

Favor: I kept my party favor simple and just found pink and green candy -- green watermelon Mike 'n Ikes and pink Starburst. I designed the tag to read, "Because I Knew You, I Have Been Changed for Good."

I pulled the planning for this dinner off in one day, so it is definitely one you can do for an upcoming party if you are a wicked fan or going to see the movie/play.  It was inexpensive and a fun evening together.