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!

Red, White, & You - A Tasty Tribute to Rhyming Words

With fourth of July in a few days, I decided to theme my monthly dinner around this holiday, but with a twist.  I hosted a Red, White, and ________ Party where everything from decor to food to attire was supposed to rhyme with blue.  It was so much fun to put together, all the food was delicious, and the girls really had some fun with their rhyming "blue" attire.

Invite: I chose a simple patriotic bunting to top the invitation and then used red, white, and blue throughout.  I wanted guests to understand the idea of this party and that the "blue" would be replaced with another rhyming word.  I tried a spinner wheel, but that didn't look right on the invite.  I ultimately decided on a drop-down menu to show guests that it could be red, white, and "BLUE" or "YOU" or "CREW," etc.  I used this drop-down menu throughout many of the party details.  On the invitation, I also tried to incorporate some more words that rhymed with blue such as "rendezVOUS," "VENUE," and "VIEW."

I thought it might be fun to ask guests to dress in attire for the party that rhymed with blue.  I gave them some examples on the invite, but also let them know that they could just wear blue if they couldn't think of anything.  Pictured above you see a boy named SUE, myself dressed with a patriotic TUTU and a HAIKU on my shirt, and Thing 2 from Dr. Seuss.

We also had two guests who wore items from their recent trips to OAHU, a guest with a BLUE dress and fun HAIRDO, and a BARBECUE chef among other rhymes.

Decorations: I used a red tablecloth and white plates and created a centerpiece with items that rhymed with blue.

I started with the board from a game of CLUE.  I bought red, white, and blue fake flowers and placed them in "vases" of RAGU pasta sauce,  a bottle of SHAMPOO, and a bottle of Mountain DEW.  Yes, I wasted the pasta sauce in that I just threw it out after the party, but I thought the jar looked better full of sauce than empty.  On the table, I also had a box of TISSUE and a bottle of GLUE that I made labels for.

For place cards, I came up with a CLUE that described each guest with a rhyme rather than just listing names.  Each guest had to figure out which rhyme matched with them to figure out where to sit.  It was fun to come up with fun or funny short phrases for them.

With the napkin, I made a napkin ring with Red, White, and the face of PIKACHU.  Kinda silly, but it rhymes with blue!

For the wine labels, I tried to think of even more blue rhymes.  I designed the label for the white wine with the same drop-down menu idea from the invitations inviting guests to "chase the red, white, and BLUES away with some chardonnay."  For the red wine, I came up with a simple rhyme "A rich bold HUE to bid woes ADIEU."

For wine charms, but printed off various brand logos or things that I could think of that rhymed with blue.  For my dinner, these included: igloo, Shamu, Hulu, Subaru, Pooh, Yahoo, Taboo, Clue, Peru, and zoo.

Menu: The menu (notice even menu rhymes) I chose for this dinner was delicious!  For these dinners I more often than not, try new recipes.  I don't get to do that very much with my own picky family, so monthly dinners give me that opportunity!  This dinner was no exception as all the menu items were recipes I had not tried before.  I started with a blue cheese dip for Red, White, & FONDUE. If you like blue cheese, this dip was amazing.  If you don't like it, then this recipe is not for you.  I found the recipe at Dash of Sanity.  The only change I made to the recipe was that I used smoked blue cheese instead of regular (as I love smoky flavor) and because it was a fondue, I served it with French bread cubes.

For the main dish I served Red, White & BARBECUE Chicken.  I wanted to make my own bbq sauce and tried the recipe from All Recipes for Best BBQ chicken.  The marinade paste and the sauce were easy to make and could be made ahead of time.  The only changes I made to this recipe was that I served chicken breasts instead of drumsticks, and I used apple cider vinegar instead of white wine vinegar because that is what I had in my cupboard.  My husband volunteered to grill the chicken and baste it as it was grilling.  It was so good.

As a side dish, I made Red, White, & BREW (beer) potatoes.  I found the recipe for these Beer Potatoes at Cookist.  These potatoes were easy to make and tasted great.  

Another side was a pasta salad I titled Red, White, & CORKSCREW Pasta Salad.  I found the recipe for this Tri Color Pasta Salad on Food, Folks, & Fun.  Having a pasta salad I could make the night before allowed me to have more time with my friends rather being stuck in the kitchen doing prep. I followed this recipe, but also added garbanzo beans.  

I titled my dessert Red, White, & TIRAMISU.  I went the easy route and just purchased an already made tiramisu from Costco instead of making it myself.  Only challenge was getting it out of the package and having it look nice on the plate!  It was really tasty though and not something I usually serve at my monthly dinners, so it was a nice change.

Party Activity/Game:  Before we had dessert, we played a couple rounds of TABOO which was really fun.  We didn't have teams or anything, we just sat at the table and everyone guessed.  Then we took turns with who was the clue giver.  

Favor: With the 4th of July later in the week, I decided my party favor would be patriotic TATTOOs.  I found really inexpensive ones on Amazon.  

The first ones I bought arrived and they were very dark colors, so I returned those and purchased a couple of this set of 8 sheets.  The were bright and festive, and since the party was prior to July 4th, the guests could easily use them to celebrate the holiday. I used the same drop-down idea and was able to include a thank YOU and tribute to this Monthly Dinner CREW.

We had a great time at this dinner and it was really fun to put together. I got most of my ideas after looking up rhyming words on the internet and then figuring out how I could incorporate those words.  The challenge was fun.  Happy 4th Everyone!

Home Alone Christmas

It's the holiday season, and one of my kids' favorite holiday movies is Home Alone.  It is part of our family traditions to watch this movie together each year.  It made for a fun theme for my monthly dinner this December as well.

Invite: I found some Home Alone images online that I incorporated into the invitation.  These included the stack of Little Nero's Pizza boxes, the movie logo, and the pizza can.

Decorations: There are so many fun ideas for decorations that go with this movie.  You could boobytrap your home with obstacles for guests to weave through!  For my decorations, I kept it simple with just table and some other decor.  I set the table with a red tablecloth & a centerpiece with some of the Battle Plan hazards from the movie.

I covered a small paint can with black construction paper and added the word tar on the front.  I set this on top of piece of black sandpaper with the largest nail I could find sticking out the top for the part of the movie where Marv walks up the tar stairs and brings his foot down on the huge nail.

I purchased large paint cans and used my Cricut cutter to cut out paint drips in a few colors.  Even empty, these were a bit too heavy to hang from the ceiling, but I did attach them to the ceiling above the dining table.  These represented when Harry and Marv are clocked by the swinging paint cans in the movie.

Next on the table was a VHS movie of "Angels with Filthy Souls."  I printed out the labels from images online, and attached them to an old VHS of a different movie.  In front of the VHS, I had a crowbar and a BB gun like Kevin and Marv use in the film as wells hot wheels cars.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Harry walks through the door into saran wrap covered in glue and then Kevin turns on a fan which covers him in white feathers! To incorporate this scene into my table, I added a box of saran wrap, a mini fan, and put some white feathers in the fan.

Another favorite scene is when Marv goes to turn on the light in the basement and an iron comes down the laundry shoot to smack him in the face. Hence...an iron as part of the centerpiece.

Lastly, I added a photo of Buzz's girlfriend with Kevin's famous line from the movie, "Buzz' girlfiend, Woof!"

For placecards, I printed out Kevin's mom's photo from when she realizes they forgot Kevin at home, and instead of her screaming out "Kevin!" I replaced it with each guest's name.

As a napkin ring/decoration, I put a box of Tic Tacs and created a ring with the line from the movie when the smoking Santa has run out of candycanes and gives Kevin two Tic Tacs instead saying, "There you go. Don't Spoil your dinner."

My daughter also drew out the Battle Plan from the movie on a piece of foam board that I used over the drink table.  I would traced it, but she's so talented she did it all by hand!

Just for fun, I also put a photo of Marv's face coming through the dog door on my wall.  I put some hot wheels in front it - another one of Kevin's hazards.

On my front door, I put a paper electric BBQ starter like Kevin uses in the movie to heat up his door handle.  I don't have a real one, so I just used scrapbook paper.

Coming up with sayings to put my wine bottles is always fun.  For my red wine, I decided to use the famous line from the movie during the battle when Kevin asks, "You guys give up or ya thirsty for more?"  I simply added "red wine" to the end of this phrase!  For the white wine, I played off the part in the movie where Kevin thinks he made his family disappear and then challenged the guests to make the white wine disappear.  I also served a rose wine.  For this label, I used the lines from when Kevin's mom calls the police station and talks to Rose, then gets transferred to another cop, then this cop sends the call back to Rose saying, "Rose, hyper on 2."

For wine charms, I cut out iconic people or items from the movie.  Some of my favorites were the Michael Jordan cutout used to fool the robbers, the "Kenosha Kickers" jacket that John Candy wore with is polka band, a bottle of Brut aftershave for the famous "AAAHHH scene," and a toothbrush "approved by the American Dental Association." 

Menu: I wanted to incorporate Buzz's tarantula from the movie into the evening somewhere, and I didn't think I could handle having even a fake one on my table while we ate, so I decided to incorporate it into my menu. I made mini tostada boats and cut olives to look like spiders.  The boats were simple with refried beans, taco seasoned meat, cheese, tomatoes, and lettuce, sour cream was piped on to look like a spider web, and then the spider olives went on top of that. 

For a main dish, we of course had pizza as Kevin orders "a lovely cheese pizza just for me" in the movie after he doesn't get any of the pizza when the whole family is there.  I went to my local pizza joint, and purchased a pizza box.  Then I covered the top with white posterboard and created a Little Nero's Pizza logo to put on the top.  I made a pizza, but cheated a bit by adding pepperoni and mushrooms after asking the guests their topping preferences.

I also served a caesar salad. I took the line from the movie when Kevin's sisters taunts him with, "You are what the French call les incompetents" and just replaced the last two words with la salad Cesar (cesar salad in French).

Right before the robbers invade the McCallister home in the movie, Kevin makes himself a microwavable Mac and Cheese dinner.  I incorporated this into my menu by making macaroni and cheese cups in muffin tins.

For dessert, we had Rubbish Ice Cream sundaes.  A small ice cream sundae bar with toppings.

Favor: I was pressed for time and needed an easy parting favor for guests.  I purchased cans of Pepsi and red striped straws.  My tag read, "Fuller! Go easy on the Pepsi!" to go with that line from the movie when Fuller's parents are trying to limit his soda intake.

This was a fun night with my girlfriends.  I did purchase or borrow a few things to make the decor happen, but most of it I had around my house (like Kevin did).  This kept my costs for decor low.  I would totally recommend this theme for a holiday movie night or dinner with friends.