49ers vs Swifties Super Bowl Party

I have been a 49er fan since I was little, and I am super excited about this Sunday's Super Bowl LVIII, but the achievements of these teams have been a bit overshadowed by the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce media frenzy (my opinion of course).  Instead of getting bothered by it, I decided to embrace it and celebrate my team with a fun and silly 49ers vs Swifties dinner party!

Invitation: I decided to have a bit of fun with my invitation by incorporating an image I found of Swift photoshopped onto Kelce's body.  I used this and an image of Brock Purdy to show the rivalry.  I switched out the KC in the middle of the Chief's arrowhead with a TS for Taylor Swift.  Then I added a few of Swift's song titles into my text.

Decorations:  Both teams have red in their uniforms, and Taylor's album was called "Red," so that color became a big focus of the party.  I purchased a red shimmery backdrop from Amazon to put up behind my table.  I added white butcher paper behind it to cover the photo collage of my family.  I also purchased the football field tablecloth from Amazon.

For a centerpiece, I purchased 3 pieces of red glitter cardstock from Michaels to use like a table runner.  On this, I had a gold vase filled with red artificial flowers and gold tissue paper.  I designed images to put on skewers inside the vase and to use as photos props for pictures.

Also in the centerpiece was a football with some red heart shaped glasses to represent Taylor Swift.  I found these in the dollar bin at Target.  I borrowed the mini 49er helmet and the black 49er hat from my neighbor.  The wooden heart is a Valentine's decoration, but I added it to give more of a Taylor Swift vibe to the centerpiece.

The red plastic plates and smaller gold paper plates I purchased at Dollar Tree.  I then printed out logos for the 49ers and the Swifties and alternated the teams around the table.

The gold napkins I also purchased at Dollar Tree.  I made mini Swiftie friendship bracelets to wrap around the napkins.  These also served as place cards, and I put letter beads with the guest's initials on the bracelet.  If I were to host this party again, I would probably keep the napkin less folded and include the guest's entire name, but for my small group, the initials were fine.

For my beverage table, I lucked out by having close friends that have great memorabilia they let me borrow for the night. One friend went to a Taylor Swift concert, and let me borrow the boxes (on the mantle) and the giant envelopes (on the table) which show Taylor's Eras Tour.  I borrowed a 49er jersey from other friend.

Another friend let me borrow his football from the 2020 Super Bowl that is signed by all the players!

I had fun creating and designing my wine labels with a Taylor Swift vibe, but words that promoted a 49er win!  Used Taylor Swift's song "Blank Space" to represent zero points on the scoreboard for Kansas City.  

For wine charms, I printed out small logos and images I found online.  Things like an Eras Tour poster with Kelse instead of Swift, a Chiefs jersey with Swift as the name on the back,  red lips, etc.

Menu: This is a dinner, rather than snacks, so I needed to create a menu that was filling, but still fit with the theme.  I decided to highlight various star players on both teams & of course Taylor Swift.  We started with an appetizer of veggies and dip.  I called this BROCK-oli with more than PURDY good dip after the 49ers quarterback, Brock Purdy.

For the main dish, I had burgers with all the fixings: cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, bacon, and avocado.  I named these burgers after Taylor Swift's song "Back to December" calling them Back to Decem-BURGERS.  Also brought Travis Kelce from the Chief's in with the TRAVIS-ty of toppings.

You've gotta have fries with cheeseburgers, right?  Named these after the 49ers star running back Christian McCaffrey calling them McCaf-fries.

Deebo Samuel is another amazing player for the 49ers.  We had boneless honey buffalo wings I renamed DEEBO-ned Chicken Wings.

I couldn't decide between two ideas for dessert, so I decided to do mini versions of both.  One was mini red velvet cupcakes with buttercream frosting & edible sugar.  My friend who works at Small Cakes bakery (yummy stuff) made these for me, and I just added pennants I designed.  These were named after Taylor Swift's song, "Red".

The second dessert I served was a mini strawberry shake to represent Taylor Swift's song, (milk)"Shake It Off"!

Activity/Game:  I had fun coming up with this fill-in-the-blank game for the party.  I looked up some of Taylor Swift's most popular songs, and tried to incorporate them into Super Bowl sentences. My favorite is, Mahomes will definitely say, "I Knew You Were Trouble" after playing against the 49er defense!  As a 49er fan, these sentences were definitely bias to my team, but the guests got a kick out of it.

Favor:  Aren't these cookies so cute?  One of my neighbors offered to make Super Bowl/Taylor Swift themed cookies for me, and she did an amazing job! From footballs, to circles with SF, to castles with "Love Story" on them, they were perfect.  Yummy too!

As guest's departed, I also gave them this Super Bowl Bingo sheet Swiftie Edition to play during the game this Sunday.  I had fun making this and coming up with some of the things that were funny with the Taylor Swift obsession.  This card is definitely more geared to both teams.  I tried to be fair (for the most part).  You may catch my one addition that isn't equally represented!

This was such a fun party, and one you can totally throw together for this weekend's game.  GO NINERS!

Three Cheers for Softball

We are in the midst of softball (and baseball) season in our house.  Love watching my kids play sports, but I can never get those gosh darn softball cheers out of my head!  If you've never been to a softball game, the girls are constantly chanting to pump up their team. They really are catchy, and I find myself using the chants in our daily lives throughout softball season because they are just stuck in my head!  Like "1-2-3-4 what do you think that fork is for? EATING. EATING" is how I've changed the words in one chant when my kids use their fingers instead of a fork at the dinner table.   Or "2-4-6-8 who do I appreciate...Cleaners. Cleaners" when the kids actually stop playing their devices long enough to help me clean the house.  Since I can't get them out of my head, I decided to make them my theme for the monthly dinner!  So here goes Three Cheers for Softball, and all I did to make a fun dinner party out of this theme.

Invite:  I made the invite with a softball field background and a giant clipart softball.  I used sporty fonts and incorporate a softball cheer as well as softball lingo into the text of the invite.

Party Details:  I always have fun creating wine labels for my monthly dinners.  For these labels, I wanted to come up with a softball cheer to fit my theme, but somehow tweak it to be about wine.

For the white wine, I used a cheer that the girls to for a batter from their team when she comes up to bat.  They chant, "Ella is a friend of mine (rip rip), she can RIP it anytime!"  I simply switched a few words up to apply to wine!  I also photoshopped a heart-shaped softball to be the white wine inside of the glass.

For the red wine, I used a team chant.  I made Wine Drinkers a team name and just changed the last line from "if you can't hear us, we'll shout a little louder " to "if you can't hear us, drinking'll sure make us louder."  I photoshopped a softball jersey with the new team name on it as well.

I made a simple softball napkin by folding a yellow napkin in half and adding softball laces I cut out with my Cricut machine.

Menu: I am hosting my monthly dinners virtually still because of COVID-19, so all parts of the meal have to be packed up to go.  I used a round container for this meal, so I cut the menu into a circle to fit on the lid.  If you don't know softball, you probably won't get the softball cheers I used, but I'll explain them a bit for those that aren't blessed with hearing these cheers over and over every game for not only one daughter and her games, but two!

The main dish was St. Louis Ribs that I smoked on my Traeger smoker.  I bought them already seasoned from Costco, so all I had to do was place them on the smoker.  Five hours later, they were delicious.  One of the cheers the girls chant often is "R-I-P  I-T Rip it for me baby, Rip it!"  I just swapped the P for a B to spell out R-I-B and make it RIB it!

I also served a bases "LOADED" baked potato with shredded cheese, bacon, chives, and a ramekin of sour cream on the side.  This went with the cheer, "Bases loaded. Pitcher's Nightmare. Bases loaded. Batter's Dream" which the girls chant when they have runners on every base and they want to encourage their next batter to knock them in.

Along with these, I also made a melon BALL salad with watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew.  I shaped them into balls to go with the chant, "1-2-3-4 What do you think our feet are for? WALKING. WALKING."  The girls chant this after their teammate is walked by the pitcher and gets a free base.

For dessert, I decided to make a pie that could go with the chant softball players use when a batter on their team doesn't swing at a bad pitch "G-double o-D  E-Y-E. Good eye. Good eye. Good eye."  I simply swapped the good "eye" for good "pie."  I served a Snickerdoodle Cream Cheese Apple Pie.  This was easy to make and delicious.  I will totally make it again as I got a lot of compliments on it. 

Favor:  For the party favor, I made softball sugar cookies.  I made them big like softballs, so they were about 3.5".  I frosted them in bright yellow and piped on the red stitches.

For the tag, I used the standard after game cheer, "2-4-6-8 Who do we appreciate?" The "team" for this dinner was of course, my Monthly Dinner Girls!  I made the tag to match the invite and the menu so everything looked similar.

This dinner was fun to put on, and it would be a fun one to have for a softball end-of-the-season party.  I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed coming up with these dinner cheers! Now, if I can just get them out of my head for a bit, I'd be set!

Sports Themed Birthday Bash

My daughter and son agreed to have a dual birthday party this year (thank goodness). I always let my kids pick the theme, so my son and daughter decided they wanted a sports party with all the sports that they play.  For them, that means baseball, softball, soccer, and basketball.  I stuck with those sports to carry throughout the party decor.

Invite:  I used simple geometric boxes and circular balls to design the invitation.  I am hoping to start an Etsy shop at some point to make the invites I make available to you, but it seems to be on the list of things that never take priority.

I asked all the guests to wear a jersey or sports attire to the party.  It was fun to see so many adults and kids dressed up! For my son and daughter, I asked my friend if she would make them some baseball tees.  She has an Etsy shop called Meraki Handmade + Kids, and she makes great stuff!  Check her out!

The front had their names and the back had our last name and then the number was how old they are turning this birthday.

My husband and I wore referring jerseys -- helped out when we were overseeing the party activities!

For the dessert/favor table, I made a scoreboard with the scores as each of my kid's age and their name.  The game time was the year, 2018.  I made this with poster board, cardstock, and my Cricut cutting machine.

My son wanted a soccer ball cake and my daughter wanted a softball cake.  I made two 8" round cakes and frosted them with the color of each ball.  Then I used a frosting tip to pipe on the details.  I created a stencil for the soccer ball with my Circut to help guide me for the solid black pentagons.  Then just piped on the lines to connect them.  Adding the green grass to bottom was easy and a good addition I think.

For the cupcakes, I made Funfetti cupcakes (my kids' request), and piped on white icing.  I didn't design my own cupcake wrappers this time.  I ended up purchasing some digital images from Etsy.  These were a basketball net, a baseball/softball diamond, and a soccer field with net.  I made cupcakes toppers with the same ball images I used on the invitation and made them 2" so I could easily cut them out with a circular punch.

I wanted to incorporate my kids photos from their years in sports so far, so I decided to use the photo buttons we get each year in the centerpieces of the tables.  I filled a pail with food items that went with each sport -- peanuts for baseball/softball, orange slices for soccer, and popcorn for basketball.  Then I taped the buttons to skewers to place inside.  I also printed out the same 4 balls that I used on my invitation to tape to skewers.  I used my Cricut to add embellishments to a 12x12 piece of cardstock to make a soccer ball pattern, basketball, baseball, and softball to place under each pail.

I decorated the food table with sports equipment and trophies from the kids sports adventures.

Menu:  We stayed simple with game day favorites -- hot dogs and chili nachos.  I also had a green salad and watermelon for guests as well as peanuts, popcorn, and cheese balls.

We had adult and kids drinks as well as a water station set up.

Party Activities:  My kids wanted a bounce house with a slide and basketball hoop.  I rented one that had that and was sports themed which worked out great.  We also borrowed this basketball game from a neighbor which was fun for both kids and adults.  The gladiator jousting set my husband picked up at Sams Club.  The boys had a blast with that.  We also had out some mini soccer nets for the kids to play with.  The original plan was to have a relay race with dribbling a soccer balls around some cones and shooting into the net, but we didn't end of up getting to that.

The one organized game we did have was water balloon batting cages!  This was so fun and perfect for a hot summer day.  Kids had the option of hitting off the tee or just regular pitch.  Each got three pitches each time they came up.

Favor: I bought white bags from Michaels and printed out basketballs, baseballs, softballs, and soccer balls to blue on the front with a colored background.  Simple and easy.

Inside the bag was either a soccer ball or a basketball stress ball (Party City), a box of Cracker Jacks to match with baseball, a basketball or soccer ball pencil (Party City), and some licorice that I put in a bag with a softball tag on top.

The kids had a great birthday celebrating with friends and family.  It wasn't very expensive for us to throw this party either which is always a plus.  Definitely some fun ideas if you are planning a sports birthday or team party!