Thrillers & Chillers: A Summer of Suspense

As a teacher, one of the great things about summertime is having a lot more time to read. To add some reading fun to our July monthly dinner, I hosted a Thrillers & Chillers: Summer of Suspense dinner party with thrilling books filling all aspects of the theme.

Invite: I created the invitation on PhotoShop compiling knife, fingerprint, and crime scene tape images I found online.  I incorporated some popular novel titles into the wording.  The Guest List, Behind Closed Doors, and The Woman in the Window were all great novels.  I asked guests to bring a new or gently used mystery or thriller novel (wrapped for even more mystery) to exchange to add more fun to the evening.

Decorations: I set the dining table like a crime scene - a  black plastic tablecloth that I drew the outline of a body with a wide-tipped paint pen. I set out some suspenseful books around the body and made yellow evidence number signs to place next to them.

I made mini evidence bags to hold the napkin.  I purchased mini ziplock bags from Michaels Craft Store and created a label on PhotoShop. The label had each guest's name as the detective and then the item collected was listed as Subject A's napkin, or Victim A's napkin, or Witness A's napkin, etc.  The date collected was the party date and the case number was 226.  Why? Because this monthly dinner is the 226th one I have hosted for these ladies!

For place cards, I made small evidence folders. I took large manilla folders and cut smaller versions out of them.  I wrote each guest's name on the top of the folder and created a Top Secret label to place in the middle. 

Inside the folder, I had funny things about each guest.  An alias, motive, and last scene phrase that matched their personality or something about them.  It was fun to read these aloud while we ate our dinner. Some of the write-ups shown here are a guest who had her last chemo treatment the day of the party, an avid wine drinker, and a junior high English teacher.

When I designed my wine labels, I searched for mystery/suspense book titles with white or red in the name.  I found Little White Lies by Philippa East and used that cover for the white wine.  I changed the author to Sharda Nay (chardonnay) for added fun, and created a new tagline - "Deceptively Crisp. Deliciously Good."   

For the cabernet, I decided to use the cover of James Patterson's novel Confessions of the Dead.  I liked the alliteration of Cabernet Confessions, so I added Cabernet to the title.  Again, I swapped the true author to a fake one -- C.A. Bernet (cabernet) and the tagline to be "Spill it All -- Just Not the Wine" to go with the idea of spilling confessions.

For wine charms, I printed out mini book covers for other suspenseful books.

Menu:  Since books were the focus on this theme, I also created my menu to be summertime related, but also related to mystery books. I served grilled hamburgers with all the fixings for guests to add on - bacon, grilled onions, cheese, lettuce, tomato.  I swapped out the word dragon for burger in the novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Along with the burgers, I served grilled vegetable kabobs with zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms, and red, yellow, and orange peppers. I swapped out the word woman for kabob in the book The Woman in Cabin 10.

As one side, I made coleslaw changing the manslaughter to manSLAWter in the novel Murder, Manslaughter, and Mayhem.

The final side was watermelon.  For this, I swapped out the word woman for watermelon for the novel The Woman in the Window and added a evil looking watermelon face into the cover.

For dessert, I made chocolate mousse. We topped the plate and the whipped cream of each serving with an edible fake blood mixture made with mainly cornstarch and dye. I used my Cricut cutting machine to make mini cleavers with blood splatter to use like cupcake toppers.  The book title I used for this was Murder on the Orient Express and just swapped murder for chocolate.

Favor:  Since we were having a mystery book exchange during the party, I decided to make a bookmark as my parting gift.  I used PhotoShop to create a crime scene body outline and added some blood splatter to it.  I added the phrase "For my partners in crime (fiction). Always love our killer nights."  I used my Cricut to cut the image out as well as blob of red cardstock behind to add to the murder scene idea.  Added a string with a bead at the end.  I slid some of the favors into or on top of suspenseful books for added decor.

We really had a great time at this dinner party, and I cannot wait to read the novel I got in the book exchange. I have only a couple weeks left of my summer, so I better get reading!

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Although I hadn't seen the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas in years, I always knew it would make a fun monthly dinner theme.  I was definitely right as I had so much fun putting together the decorations, menu, party favors, and everything! Can't wait for you to read and see how it turned out...

Invite:  I designed an invite on PhotoShop with black, white, purple and a hint of yellow.  I kept these colors throughout the remainder of the decor as well.  The font is a Nightmare Before Christmas font I downloaded.

Entry Decor:  A few weeks before Halloween a friend of mine posted a photo of her front door on social media and the photo had this giant Jack Skellington.  A week or so later when I decided this would be my theme, I called her up and asked to borrow Jack.  So here he is (thanks Ember)! He is awesome!  He moves and talks when he senses movement.  

My friend also had the Zero that we tied from Jack's arm.  

I made this super easy clothespin wreath for the door.  I bought a pizza pan and clothespins from the dollar store.  I spray-painted the pan and half the clothespins white, and the other half of the clothespins black.  I would use a mat finish for this.  I had a can a glossy black so that is what I used, but the white was mat and it was much less sticky.  I cut out the yellow circle and the black mountain with my Cricut, and just glued them on.  You could paint them, but I thought I could easily switch out the center and black clothespins for other colors/center to use this for Christmas or Valentines.  The centerpiece was easy and cost me only a few dollars since I already had the spray-paint.

Table Decor:  Absolutely loved my table for this dinner.  The purple tablecloth gave a pop of color, and some small touches added fun to this theme.  The smallest touches were not difficult or expensive to do.

One of my friends is a huge Nightmare Before Christmas fan, so I asked her if she had any items I could borrow.  She sure did (Thanks Colleen)!  I borrowed her plush characters and these amazing Jack and Sally goblets to use in my centerpiece.  The Zero urn is also from her.  I placed these on top of black and white patterned cardstock.

I used simple yellow paper plates, but added the iconic mountain from Nightmare Before Christmas with cardstock. 

For placecards, I bought mini pumpkins from the grocery store and painted them to be either Jack's face or Sally's dress.  For those pumpkins that had a really short stem, I broke a toothpick to insert into the stem and then propped the card with my guest's name on it.

With the Sally pumpkins, I painted all the colors first.  Then I used a Sharpie to do the outlines and details.

Don't you love these Zero napkins?  They weren't too difficult to create either. I bought large white napkins, opened them up, and pinched the middle a few inches down to create the head. I secured it with a red ribbon as a collar.  Using another napkin, I cut out the two ears and glued them onto the head.  I couldn't find orange pompoms, so I used red.  A hole-punched black cardstock was the eye.

A fun and inexpensive place setting.

I used more of my friend's characters and her giant poster for my side table.

I created simple wine labels with Sally's potions.

For wine charms, I used my friend's Nightmare Before Christmas mini buttons.  She had 6 of them, so I just found other characters/images online and made them into circles the same size as the buttons.  All are tied on with black ribbon.

Menu: Coming up with a dinner menu centered around a theme rather than just snacks is sometimes difficult to do, but I had a lot of fun creating this menu.  I tried to theme each piece of the meal around one of the characters from the movie.  For a starter, I made a french onion dip to pair with black chips.  I used a piece of cabbage to make the Nightmare Before Christmas mountain.  I called this Graveyard Dip, but I served it in a Zero dog bowl.

For the main dish, I initially was planning to make Oogie Boogie turnovers.  I had an Oogie Boogie cookie cutter made custom from a local cake shop.  I just sent them a jpeg silhouette of what I wanted, and they made it as large as they could.  When I got the cookie cutter back, it was just too small for turnovers, not much would have fit inside.  I made Chicken Pot Pies without the crust on the top instead.  I made Oogie Boogie out of pie crust to place on the top. 

Along with the pot pies, I made Jack Skellington mashed potatoes.  These were so easy to make.  I cut olives in half for the eyes and then just used cardstock for the mouth.  The original plan was to do the mouth out of olives as well, but it was just too time consuming and cardstock worked just as well.  We dipped a half cup measuring cup in the potatoes to get the faces the same size and amount.

Instead of mixing a fruit salad together, I served it in jagged sections on a plate.  I then cut jagged stitch lines out of black cardstock to set between the sections of fruit.  This gave the plate the look of Sally's dress.  You could do this with black licorice or even melted chocolate if you wanted it to look professional and actually be edible.  

For dessert, I made peppermint chocolate pudding.  I made chocolate pudding and then added a bit of peppermint extract.  I filled my decorative wine glasses with a little pudding and a dollop of whipped cream.  I made the cornflake cookie Monster Wreath to place on top of the glass.  I shaped the mixture into wreaths, added eyes I cut from dried mangos, teeth I cut from dried coconut, and a few red hots for holly.  The eyeballs are just dots from an edible black marker.  I did the marker last minute as it does bleed a little bit on the mango.

Favor:  I absolutely love these favors I painted with the help of one of my English students.  I bought the black tree at Joann's Fabrics after Halloween, so it was super cheap.  I bought glass ornaments and then painted two/three of each character - Sally, Jack, Oogie Boogie, and Zero.

 

Should have made an extra of each one for me to keep as these are so fun.  They were a big hit with the guests as well.

I hope you loved this party as much as my friends and I did.  Definitely saved me a ton of money knowing friend's with Nightmare Before Christmas decor, but chances are you know someone too.  Add this theme to your next party as it is "frighteningly fun"!

Dia de los Muertos Party

With our monthly dinner falling on the Day of the Dead holiday, I chose Dia de los Muertos as my November theme. I love this holiday because of the bright colors, the focus on culture and tradition, and the idea of honoring the spirits of the dead. Oh...and I love Mexican food.

Invite: I designed the invite around an image I found online.  Since most of my guests were coming straight from work, I didn't mention dressing up or wearing makeup.  I did pull in the traditional aspect a bit asking guests to bring a photo or decoration in memory of a lost loved one to place on the alter.

Entry Decor:  I made this sign for my entryway.  I drew the skull (with a little help from my overhead projector) and colored it in with marker.  I made the tissue paper flowers and cut the lettering on my Cricut.  The font is Matador, and it can be downloaded for free online.

For the "alter, " I borrowed skulls, candles, and some of the other items from friends of mine.  These items really added to the cultural aspect of the party and saved me money in attempting to purchase decorations.  I also made candle favors for each guest which I placed on the "alter."

Table Decor:  I set my table with a black tablecloth and placed colorful serapes to add a festive flare.  The amazing centerpiece of the skeleton with a top hat I borrowed from a friend.  It was perfect!  The brightly colored candles were also borrowed. I bought colorful vases from the dollar store and made tissue paper flowers to add to the table.

In front of the flowers, I painted sugar skulls.  I found these orange Halloween skulls at Michaels at 75% off and just painted them to look like sugar skulls.

For a place card, I bought mini blue and green margarita glasses from Party City and mini bottles of tequila from BevMo.  I carved the guest's initial out of a lime, cut the slice out, and placed it on the rim of the glass.   Carving was a bit difficult in that I couldn't find a good tool to help me do it. I ended up using a small flat-head screwdriver, so they didn't come out as perfectly as I'd hoped, but they were still cute.  I also did these last minute to avoid the limes drying out.

I bought these napkins at Target and then made the skull rings around them.  The pink and blue skulls I found at Michaels in the bead section.  The skulls were expensive, but luckily they were on sale and I had a coupon.

I made labels for my wines that went with the theme. They were made from images I found online and just created a label around them.

For wine charms, I used these colorful mini rubber skeletons I found at Target.  There were 8 in a package for only $1!!  I picked them up originally not sure what I would use them for, but decided they were perfect for wine charms.

Behind the table, I added a collage of tissue paper flowers.

Menu: We started off with chips, salsa, and guacamole as an appetizer.  For the main meal, I created a Taco Bar.

I made this banner with scrapbook paper and real tacos.  Don't you just love it?

I decorated the Taco Bar with candles and more of the items I had borrowed from my friend. I just love how these additions bring out the festive nature of this party.

For the Taco Bar, I had both hard and soft shell tacos as well as mini tortilla bowls I made.  For the meat, I made shredded chicken in the crock pot and cooked carne asada on the grill.  The chicken is only 3 ingredients - one jar of salsa, one packet of taco seasoning, and your chicken.  Cook it on low for 6-8 hours and enjoy!  All the fixings made for a super yummy meal.

We also had Mexican corn, rice, and beans.

For dessert, we had "fried" ice cream and churros.  The churros I bought already made from Costco on my way home for work.  I warmed them in the oven and cut them in half.  The "fried" ice cream is not really fried at all, but was very tasty.  I started by making round balls of vanilla ice cream.  While these were hardening, I made the mix.  It is just corn flakes, butter, cinnamon, and sugar.  I baked it for a bit in the oven.  An hour before the party, I rolled the ice cream balls in the mixture and placed them back in the freezer until serving time.  I chose to garnish them with a dollop and whip cream and a cherry.

Favor:  I made these super easy candles for my favor.  I bought the candles at the dollar store.  The sugar skulls I cut out of my Cricut and then used Mod Podge to adhere them to the glass.  I used leftover beads from my napkin rings to string on the end of ribbon and tied this around the top. Cheap and easy!

We had so much fun at our Dia de los Muertos dinner.  Thank you ladies for coming!