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! 

Seventeen Magazine Party

Hard to believe, but this past Monday, we celebrated 17 Years of Monthly Dinners!  Yes, I started hosting these parties seventeen years ago before some of us ladies were married or had kids! What a great 17 years it has been.  To honor 17 years, my theme was based around SEVENTEEN magazine.  The decor and meal were full of silly headlines & aspects of this magazine, so it was super fun to come up with what to do.

Invitation:  I found an image of the cover of Seventeen from October 2006 to use for my invitation since this is the month and year that I started hosting monthly dinners for my friends.  I then used Photoshop to change the taglines around Hilary Duff on the cover to represent things about my dinners as well as the party details.  For example, "204 Fun Theme Ideas" because this dinner was our 204th dinner, etc.

Decorations:  I used bright colors for my table because Seventeen magazine always uses bright pink or red as a focus color.  Kept the centerpiece simple with some beautiful and bright flowers in vases.

I wrapped each vase with two Seventeen magazine covers I printed out on my computer and then taped around the vase.  Simple.

For placecards, I asked each guest to tell me their celebrity crush.  I then printed out a photo of that celebrity as a magnet.  I created a Seventeen magazine style tag for each that read, "How to Be a Guy MAGNET & attract your Dream Man" for fun.  Hopefully you get the magnet play on words with this.

I used bright napkins and created a simple napkin ring with the Seventeen logo on it to wrap around them.

I found another issue of Seventeen Magazine to adapt for my menu.  Each item of the menu had a tagline around Jennifer Lawrence.  These took a bit of creativity to come up with and then to Photoshop onto the magazine image, but it was fun.

I used two more magazine covers to PhotoShop for my wine labels.  I found a Seventeen magazine cover that talked about a Massive SHOPPING Guide with style blogger's coolest pics and makeup deals, and changed it to a Massive WHITE WINE guide with wine blogger's coolest pics and wine deals.  

For the red wine, I used the Katy Perry cover that has The Best FALL CLOTHES for Your Body, and changed it to The Best RED WINE for Your Body.  The rest of the taglines on the cover stayed the same.

For wine charms, I printed out other Seventeen magazine covers.

Magazine Menu: As stated above, all menu item had a tagline on the Seventeen magazine cover I set on top of each plate at the table.  Our starter was a delicious cheese dip with crackers.  This went with the line, "Cheesy Pick-Up Lines - Don't Fall for that DIP."

For the main dish I served chicken legs that were really tasty.  They were easy to make and baked in the oven, so I didn't have to fuss with them too much.  The seasoning was so good, I made it again later in the week as well.  The tagline for this dish on the Seventeen menu magazine was "Get the Best LEGS ever! Look so tasty, he'll gobble you up!"  The original magazine, had "Best Jeans Ever."

The original Seventeen cover had 250+ easy hair ideas as a main tagline, so I had to think of a menu item that could somewhat go with that.  I decided on straight and curly French fries since hair can be curly or straight.  I purchased curly and regular fries and just popped them in the oven.  I didn't make them from scratch.

Taking some sort of beauty or health related quiz was always popular in Seventeen magazines, so I decided to incorporate a quiz into my menu as well.  My quiz tagline was, "Would you rather VEG out or go out?"  For vegetables, I served red, orange, and yellow peppers, zucchini, mushrooms that I grilled on the stove.

For dessert, I made Orange Crush Cupcakes.  The cupcake is only two ingredients -- a can of Crush soda and a box of vanilla cake mix.  The buttercream frosting had a few more ingredients, but was tasty too. I added a piece of orange slice candy to the top for added fun.  The tagline on my menu for these was, "Guy's Crush Confessions."

Favor: For the party favor, I had various skin and hair projects found in the travel section of Target.  I found a Seventeen magazine cover that had a bold tagline about hair and skin and simply printed up that part of the cover to use as a tag.

I am not sure if teens know anything about Seventeen magazine since it is only online nowadays, but this was a fun theme to play with.  It could easily be adapted for a teenager's birthday party and just change the magazine title if the teen is not seventeen.

Celebrating 14 Years Shakespeare-Style

Hard to believe, but I have been hosting monthly dinners for 14 years!  That is 168 themed dinners that my girlfriends and I have had over the 14 years.  A lot has changed over those years of course -- many of us have gotten married, had children, bought homes, changed careers, and so much more.  What hasn't changed is our joy in getting together, even if it is only once a month. Unfortunately, our celebration this year was on Zoom due to COVID-19, but we still had a good time.

For our "anniversary" dinner, I typically try to come up with a theme that reflects the number of years. I must say for 14, I was completely stumped.  Sometimes a number will go with a movie (13 Going on 30 was last year or Seven Dwarfs was year seven), but 14 was a challenge.  I brainstormed with a friend, and decided on Sonnets - they are 14 lines!  It is a very "English-teachery" theme, but a few of us are English teachers, so what the heck; I went with it!

Invite:  Being the over-achiever that I am, I decided to write my own sonnet to put on the invitation.  For those of you that don't know, a Shakespearian sonnet has 14 lines, 10 syllables in each line, and a rhyme scheme of ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG.  Piece of cake, right? Nope. It was bit of a challenge and I only had the weekend to pull this whole dinner together, so it's a good thing my friends aren't grading me!  It was fun to create, and I added Shakespeare wearing a party hat to the invitation for added fun.  I downloaded a free font called Shakespeare First Folio for the text.  Just FYI if you use this font, the "u" looks like a "v"  and the "j" looks like an "i" in this font.  I had to switch to a different font just for certain letters.

Party Details:  Shakespeare wrote with a quill and parchment, so I wanted to incorporate this into my dinner details.  I rolled my napkin like a scroll and added a homemade quill.  I couldn't find large parchment colored napkins without spending a fortune, so I just used grey which I already had at home.  You do need dinner-size napkins which are larger.  To make the quills, I bought feathers from Michaels Craft Store and black pens from the dollar store.  I cut the tip of the feather, took apart the casing on the pen, and then slid the pen inside the feather.  I did have to cut the plastic tube that holds the ink so that it wasn't as long (which means the quills won't last very long), but it worked.  I used a bit of black electrical tape to secure the pen to the feather.  Quick and easy. 

With COVID, not being together at one table for these dinners to share a bottle (or two or three) of wine really bums me out, but we've adapted.  For my mini wine bottle labels this month, I decided to alter a popular Shakespeare quote.  Switching the "thine" or "wine," I made a label that read "This above all / To WINE own self be true."

Menu:  I typically try to be creative and make each food item somehow match the theme for these dinners, but a sonnet theme made this more challenging than usual.   I decided instead to make popular foods from England, as Shakespeare was a Londoner.  I wrote another sonnet about the food itself instead of naming each menu item separately.

The main course was bangers and mash.  I followed this recipe.  I bought sausages from the grocery, not true bangers.  The sauce and the onions were delicious (and I don't normally like onions).  The guests really liked this recipe.  Along with the bangers and mash, I served fresh carrots and peas.

For dessert, I made a caramel brownie chocolate trifle.  I bought plastic mason jars from Michaels to put the trifle in, so it was easy to transport.  The trifle was super easy to make.  I baked brownies and crumbled them up to layer with the other yummy ingredients.  Crumbled brownies, then a caramel drizzle, chocolate pudding, whipped cream, then cut up Heath bar.  I repeated these layers until the mason jar was filled and Heath bar was on top.  Helpful hint: Pipe the pudding and whipped cream in to avoid messing up the sides of your mason jar.  It gets a cleaner look.

Although the menu sonnet included a stanza on dessert, the lid of the mason jar was so plain, I decided to add a tag. I used Shakespeare's line "Something wicked this way comes" and added in a word to read "something wicked(ly) chocolate this way comes."

Favor:  I made Shakespeare "books" out of cardstock and a box of chocolates for a parting gift.  I found a box of chocolates at the dollar store and designed the dimensions  of the book to fit that box.  On the spine I had the title of our evening "Sonnet XIV - Ode to 14 Years" and I used a famous line from Romeo and Juliet on the cover.  "Good night, good night / Parting is such sweet sorrow/ That I shall say good night / til it be morrow."

So happy to have been able to host these dinners for the past 14 years and to have built such amazing friendships with these ladies over those years.  A final rhyming couplet to end this post and dinner: "To dine or not to dine -- no question here. / We loved to celebrate our fourteenth year!"

Sixth Anniversary Gift

As you may remember from my Fifth Anniversary gift post last year, I like to try to give my husband gifts that match up with traditional or sometimes modern wedding anniversary gift traditions.  For a sixth anniversary, the traditional gift is candy or iron and the modern is wood.  Here is what I came up with:

I bought an iron bucket from Michaels and filled it with various candy bars.  I attached cute sayings to each candy bar for a personalized touch.  It isn't a keepsake gift, but it was fun to put together and come up with special/funny phrases for the candy bars.  Here are just some of my favorites...

 

You could totally use this idea for Valentine's Day or as a birthday gift. When my hindsight kicked in, I was also thinking I could have given my husband a candy bar a week or every other week throughout our 6th year as a gift instead of a one-time basket.  This may have been a better idea to keep the silly romance going all year long as well as spread out the tooth decay!!

I made the tags on Microsoft Word.  If you would like the file, comment below with your email address and I'd be happy to send them.

Happy Anniversary Honey!