We Love Pinterest!

I hosted a Pinterest party for our monthly dinner this month, and it was so much fun!  We had a menu created from Pinterest recipes, a Valentine craft inspired by Pinterest, and a gift exchange of Pinterest inspired items!  February was the perfect month for this theme because the red and white of the Pinterest logo fits with Valentine colors, and I could not be happier with how it turned out!

 

Invite:  I first told guests about this event 2 months ago, and I let them know that they would be asked to bring a Pinterest item they create for a gift exchange.  This could be a recipe they made, a scarf they knitted, a craft item they made, whatever they chose to create.  Giving them advance notice helped because my friends are some busy ladies and this gave them time to plan.  I also sent a PicCollage reminder 3 weeks before as another reminder, and then of course this invitation.  I made this invitation on PhotoShop and combined Pinterest with Valentine's Day images and colors.

Inside Decor:  Red, white, and black were my party colors - the Pinterest colors. I set my table with simple items I already owned, but added a bit of a Valentine/Pinterest touch.  

I found a red and white striped dry-erase board at a garage sale to place under my centerpiece (the red hearts are just scrapbook paper confetti).  I already owned the Valentine table runner. I bought some Valentine's ribbon and wrapped it around my cake platter, candle, and vase.  Created a mini heart banner for a white pitcher I borrowed from a friend, added a red heart to a chalkboard sign I made, and filled a heart dish I purchased for $2.50 at Target for red and white gumballs I stole out of our family's gumball machine!

I dressed up my dinner plates by topping them with these red heart-shaped paper plates I found at Michaels.  I cut the white Pinterest logo out with my Cricut machine to place in the center.  We used these plates for our first course of the dinner.

I also added the pinterest logo to the napkin.

I had fun creating these placecards.  At first, I looked up DIY place cards on Pinterest and thought I might create something inspired by Pinterest.  However, I decided instead to make my place card directly Pinterest themed.  I created a fake Pinterest board and called it Amazing Friends.  I just used random numbers for "pins".  I went through my photos from past monthly dinners, and I made the main photo a single photo of my guest, and the two side photos group photos with the featured guest in them.

To cover up the place card stand and add a little fun, my daughter and I quickly crafted these yarn puff balls in the party colors.

I already had mantle decor for Valentine's Day, so I put these up.  To add a bit more, I created this easy heart banner out of cardstock.  After cutting strips of red, white, and black, I stapled them together in a heart shape.  Super quick and easy.

I created simple wine labels that combined the Valentine and Pinterest theme.  I usually like to come up with something clever for my wine labels, but not this time.  Just stayed simple.

For wine charms, I found these metal circles etched with various words in the scrapbook section at Michael's.  I used my Cricut to create a slightly large red circle behind them and tied them to the stem of each glass.  I chose the etchings that were related to our theme (xoxo, love, create, heart, etc.) although some were other kinds of words (faith, happy, etc.)

I love using Pinterest for crafts, so I wanted to have a simple, quick craft that guests could create as they arrived and chatted.  This craft was perfect!  I set out all my wine corks for guests to use to create a wine cork heart as a Valentine display.  

All the supplies were set on the table - corks, glue guns, heart template, red paint, and a paint brush.  Guests used the heart template to line up the corks in a heart shape before hot gluing them together.  Then they painted the top of the corks red, and they were done!  You can make your heart template any size.  Just make sure you have enough corks for all your guests to be able to do it.  My template used 24 corks for each heart.

Menu:  It was easy to find a menu for this dinner because there are a TON of recipes I have pinned over the years and always wanted to try.  I paired some of these recipes with Valentine's related menu items.  We started with a simple spinach salad with strawberries cut into hearts.  It also had blueberries, toasted almonds, and feta cheese.  I served it with a strawberry vinaigrette dressing.

For the main dish I made a simple smoked Tri-Tip on our Traeger grill.  I always love the Traeger because I don't have to babysit the meat while it grills, and I can put it on a leave.  Plus, we love everything we cook on the Traeger! So yummy!  I made two of these tri-tips and just refilled the tray when this one was finished.

Lately I have been loving brussel sprouts and I haven't served them at a monthly dinner yet, so I made these roasted parmesan sprouts.  They were tasty.

I also made these cute heart-shaped potatoes.  To be honest, I didn't really follow the Pinterest recipe on this one as I make potato bites often for my family (just not in hearts).  These were simple to make, but it does take time to cut the heart shape out with a cookie cutter.  Make sure you place the cut potatoes in water so they don't brown while you get them all cut out.

For dessert, we had a simple chocolate caramel fondue that I found on Pinterest.  I used my centerpiece heart bowl to hold the chocolate and surrounded it with strawberries, bananas, angel food cake, and vanilla wafers. I had to incorporate chocolate into the menu as a chocolate dipped strawberries are a favorite Valentine treat!

Party Activity - My favorite part of the night was the Pinterest gift exchange!  I had the guests wrap their creations, and we drew numbers for choosing gifts.  Like at Christmas time gift exchanges, we decided each creation could be stolen one time before it was "frozen."  These girls came up with some super fun and crafty gifts.  These are just some of them.  Top left is a guide to writing cool fonts with a metal tin and the supplies/items to create as you learn those fonts.  Bottom left is a WIFI sign to put up in your home.  On the right is a cute Valentine decor sign made with buttons!

Here are some more from the gift exchange. Left is what I made - a giant wooden welcome sign I painted. Top right is individual sugar scrubs that are hearts!  Bottom right is chocolate dipped Oreos and pretzels made to look like cute little bees. Yumzzzzz!

Favor:  Speaking of chocolate dipped Oreos, I made these dipped Oreos to look like the Pinterest logo for guests as a parting gift.  I piped the "P" on the front in white chocolate.

Another great night with my closest friends.  If you have girlfriends like mine that love a good night out and a little Pinterest, this is a fun party. Mix up this party however works for you...leave out the gift exchange and ask guests to bring parts of the meal.  Or just do a craft with your meal.  So fun!

Vision for 2020

To usher in 2020, I decided to host my January monthly dinner with a 20/20 vision theme.  We raised our "glasses" to the new year and created "vision" boards of what we want in this upcoming year.  This was easy to decorate for and so much fun.  You might find what I did a bit "corne-a", but if you've been following my blog for a while, you know that corny is right up my alley!  Check out the details of the party & host one of your own!

Invite:  I found a background image that had lots of styles of glasses in various colors, so these colors became the colors of the party.  I created the invitation using the concept of an eye exam chart having the eye chart spell out "A Spectacular Vision for 2020 Dinner!" I tried to use words like spectacular (to go with specs) and vision to reference the theme.  Same thing with the "eye" hope to "see" you there.

I had fun decorating the table for this theme.  Lots of colorful eyeballs and glasses to create the centerpiece and place settings.

For the centerpiece, I had a sign that read "Raise your GLASSES to the new year!" with vision glasses being raised.  I also spray-painted some empty wine bottles and vases with the colors of the invite.  Then I added reading glasses to each.  To secure them on the back I used rubber bands that held them in place.  I was planning to cut a wine cork and glue it the bottle to look like a nose which would then help hold the glasses up too, but I ran out of time.  I also bought two pairs of giant glasses from Party City to add a bit of fun and use as photo props.

It was easy to make the plates look like eyeballs.  I simply printed various color irises the size to fit the inside of my white plates.

I had fun creating the place cards.  I made mini glasses out of glitter cardstock in three different styles of glasses.  These were placed in front of an eye exam chart with the guest's name and then something about them.  For me it was my name and then The Hostess. I used a eye chart creator I found online, so it had to be a specific number of letters or it would add random letters to the end.  I had to be creative with dashes or exclamation points or things to make it fit well.

Above my beverage table, I made a banner out of card stock.  I used my Cricut to cut out different styles of glasses in the same colors at the invitation.  I then attached them together with brads that were the same color as each of the glasses.

A fun sign for the wine table.

I found these cute rubber wine charms on Amazon and couldn't pass them up. They came with the black glasses wine stopper seen in the above photo as well.  The pack only came with 6, so I did use my Cricut to make a couple additional ones out of card stock for the remaining guests.

I always have fun coming up with what creative way I can represent my theme in my wine labels.  For this theme I went with an eye chart of the red wine and changed up the font color for  "SEEING RED".  The rest of the label used the same colors and images of the invitation.  The side of the label which can't be seen in the photo has an eyeball looking at a bottle of red wine.  For the white wine, I went with the saying "I love white wine" switching out the letter "I" for an eyeball.

Menu: Trying to figure out what to serve for this dinner that went with the theme was a challenge.  So many eye-related recipes I saw were geared toward Halloween or just appetizers. While some of my menu items looked like eyeballs, I went with more of a vision pun/new years vibe with my menu.  The appetizers was simple white chips and guacamole. I tried to arrange the chips to be the white of the eye, the guacamole the iris, and cut up black olives for the pupil.

As I mentioned, the menu cards gave a recommendation or wish for 2020 with some sort of silly pun.  "Don't rub avocados on your eyes; you could get Guacoma" was this one.

For the main dish, I made meatballs to look like eyeballs. After making a thumbprint divot in the meatball, I put a teaspoon of pasta sauce, then a bit of a mozzarella ball, and topped it with a slice of black olive.

After they were cooked, I put two meatballs on a bed of spaetzle (a German pasta).  The menu card for these read "Make a SPEC-tzle of yourself.  Be more than MEATS the eye".

A side dish was corn as I reminded guests to make their jokes the CORN-ea the better in 2020!

For dessert I made new years festive cupcakes in black and white with silver glitter sprinkles.  I added glasses cupcake toppers I made using my Cricut.  The cupcake menu card asked guests in 2020 to "See Cupcakes as pieces of EYE candy."

Favors:  How cute are these chocolate glasses?  I bought this chocolate mold forever ago for an 80s party, but it went perfect with this theme as well.  It took some time to make these because of the color changes, but I love how they turned out.  I created another eye chart for the tag that read "Eye see great things for you in 2020."

Activity:  Since this was a happy new year party paired with a 20/20 vision as a theme, I set up a station for guests to create vision boards for 2020.  Magazines, scissors, glue sticks, and 12x12 cardstock made for a simple activity.  This was an easy activity to do while chatting, and a fun way to "focus" on the year ahead.

Thanks for reading!  EYE hope you enVISION a 2020 that is PERFECT!

Elf Holiday Party

Christmas movies are so fun and get me into the holiday season.  Three years ago, I had a ton of fun planning A Christmas Story themed dinner (see post here), so this year, I decided to have an Elf movie dinner.  Can't wait to show you the details!

Invite:  The invitation was made on PhotoShop with the iconic pose of Will Farrell's character.  I used Christmas colors for the invite, but I also pulled in a bright blue for some added fun.  Two popular lines from the movie made it onto the invite -- "The best way to spread holiday cheer is by singing loud for all to hear" and "cotton-headed ninny-muggins!"

Decor:  I stayed fairly simple with my decor and didn't spend much money.  I started with a red tablecloth and red square paper plates.  I added a piece of bright green cardstock under each of the plates just to give it a pop of color.  One thing I didn't do, but you could do is make these square plates into Etch-a-Sketches as these make several appearances in the movie.

For the centerpiece, I designed some signs using quotes from the movie and added items that are Elf-related.  One of Buddy's famous lines in the movie talks about the 4 Main Food groups for elves: Candy, Candy Canes, Candy Corn, and Syrup.  Next to the DVD case for the movie I had candy corns and candy canes.  Next to this, I created a label for a bottle of syrup.  For candy, I had a vase with red and green M&Ms.

For laughs, I added a small vase of cotton balls next to the "I'm a cotton headed ninny muggins" sign.  Buddy also chugs a whole bottle of Coca-Cola, so I added that to the centerpiece.

How cute are these elf place cards?  Can't take credit for this idea as I found the template on Pinterest, but I just love them! It takes come time to cut them out but once they are cut, they are easy to assemble.  I made the faces larger just to make them more silly, but you could make them whatever size you want.

I folded the napkins to look like Buddy's elf hat.  The yellow stripe and red feather I used my Cricut to cut out of cardstock. I didn't glue them on.  I just set them on top.

I always have a lot of fun coming up with creative labels for my wine.  I wanted to incorporate the Etch-a-Sketch somewhere in my decor for the party, so I decided to put one on my white wine label.  I found a line-drawing image of a wine bottle and glass and used Photoshop to remove the background so that it was only the lines. I used a sketch font to make it look like it could have been done on an etch a sketch.  The label for the red wine, I just took a Buddy's quote about smiling and just switching it to wine.

For wine charms, I used these present tags and shrunk them down a bit.  They all have sayings from the movie.

Menu: I had a good time creating the menu for this dinner.  I basically tried to take quotes from the movie and pair them with something that was tasty.  I started with an appetizer that was SO EASY and SO AMAZING! The quote is when Buddy first meets the mall Santa Claus and chastises him for smelling like beef and cheese and not like Santa. The appetizer had very simple ingredients: sliced baguette, thinly sliced roast beef, Garlic & Herb Allouette Cheese spread, and cut chives. Yum!

Next we had a spinach salad.  This was a simple spinach salad with shaved Parmesan cheese and toasted pine nuts.  A homemade lemon/olive oil dressing topped it off.  I chose to make a salad with nuts to go along with Buddy's "Son of a Nut-cracker!" quote.

For the main dish, we had my grandmother's recipe for spaghetti. Serve it with a side of maple syrup to fit even more with the movie.

I loved these candy candy bread sticks.  They weren't too difficult to make, but they can't be made ahead so only plan to do them if you don't mind being in the kitchen for a small part of your party.  You can find the recipe here.  I did not use Asiago cheese, but chose to use Parmesan cheese instead.  They were tasty and so festive.

One of my favorite lines in the movie Elf is when Buddy sees the sign on the coffee shop that says "World's Best Cup of Coffee" and proceeds to go inside to congratulate them.  I had to find a way to incorporate that line, so I decided to have a coffee themed dessert.  And why not serve it in a coffee cup for added fun!  The dessert was a no bake coffee cheesecake.  They take almost no time to make and have a lot of flavor.  I found the recipe here.

Added Decor:  Just for fun, I made other signs with quotes from the movie. "So Good News.  I saw a Dog today" went next to the window my dogs always look through during dinner parties.  The "Have you seen these toilets?  They're Ginormous!" went in the guest bathroom!

I also made a hat out of felt for our Elf on the Shelf.  The kids look for him every morning, so I left him a hat so he could fit into the decor!

This isn't a very good photo, but my daughter cut out a ton of snowflakes and a paper chain to decorate just like Buddy does to the house in the movie.  These snowflakes were over the dinner table.  Others, along with the paper chain, were at the entry door.

Favor:  I wanted to purchase Etch-a-Sketch key chains for my guests, but they were a bit out of my price range, so went with something simple.  I bought cute glass jars with lids at Michaels and filled them with maple syrup.  I added a candy cane and a simple tag.  The guests got two of the 4 food groups!  For the tag, I used another quote from the movie.

All in all, another fun monthly dinner with friends! 

Happy Holidays!