License to Drive - Sweet 16

Every month for sixteen years, the girls and I have been getting together for Monthly Dinners.  It is hard to believe that much time as passed by and that many dinner party themes have been created!  We've created some amazing friendships over the years.  To celebrate this 16 year milestone, I decided to theme my last monthly dinner License to Drive with decor and menu focused on getting that coveted driver's license.

Invite: For the invitation, I designed a large driver's license.  Although I was hoping to design it like the old school license we all received at age 16, I couldn't find a free background of it, so I just made a license that looked similar.  For the headshot, I photoshopped photos from our 16 years of monthly dinners making sure each guest who could attend was in at least two photos.  I shaped them into the outline of a headshot.  This took a bit of time, but it was really fun to look and remember the themed dinners they were from.  The rest of the invite had the party details, but was modeled after the order and look of a true license.

Decor: I used a plain black tablecloth and make two yellow road lines down the center with card stock.  I bought a small black tire to use as a centerpiece.  I printed the invitation out to set on top and made some car related signs to place on skewers stuck into the holes in the tire center. 

Along the table, I also printed out various road signs you need to know during the driver's test.

For each place card, I designed a driver's license to match each guest.  Some of the girls I have known since sophomore year, so I was able to use their yearbook photos from that year.  For others, I messaged their parents, husbands, anyone that I could think of that might have access to a 16 year old photo of them.  

For those guests that I could remember where they lived when they were 16, I used that address on the license.  For those I had no idea, I just invited a fun/silly address that matched their interests or something about them.  It was super fun to see these old photos of all of us.

For the place setting, I used the colors of a stoplight.  Red plate, yellow bowl, and a green napkin.  For each napkin, I printed out a question on the driver's license exam as a kind of napkin ring.

The place setting also included a DMV Road Sign bingo card.  In between the meal and dessert, we played a few rounds of bingo using M&Ms as our markers.

Coming up with creative wine labels was a bit of a challenge for me with this theme, but I settled on playing up more road sign and driver related items.  For the white wine, I created a label with a side mirror. In the mirror I had glasses of white wine, and the text read "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear" with a "thank goodness" underneath.  For the red wine, I used a stop sign with "red wine ahead" added.  Above the stop sign, it reminded guests to "obey all traffic signs."

For wine charms, I printed out the same road signs used on the bingo cards to place on each glass.

Menu:  Coming up with a menu that went with a driver's license theme was challenging as well. I decided to go with a car theme of cars that a young driver might be driving.  I had a Toyota Corolla as my first car, so that was my inspiration and what started me on this thinking.  We started with a delicious salad I called the Ford "Fiesta" Salad after the Fiesta model of car.  This was a bed of greens with roasted corn, sliced red peppers, queso fresco, and Ford "Pinto" beans.  I made a dressing with Corona beer calling it Toyota "Corona" Dressing.  My menu card included these 3 cars.

Along with the salad, I made a chicken tortilla soup.  I called this Toyota "Supra": Creamy Chicken "Tesla"-tilla.  Tesla cars were definitely not around when I was a teen, but I am sure there are some spoiled teens out there driving one!

For dessert, I wanted to make something that went with the Volkswagen Bug as that was a really popular car when I was 16.  I decided to make mug cakes.  My daughter has been making them lately for herself, so I decided to try it for the dinner.  This recipe was a chocolate chip mug cake that you microwave for a few minutes and then serve.  I whipped them up while the ladies played bingo and talked.  I added a dollop of whip cream and a Volkswagen bug cupcake topper I made before serving.

Favor: What 16 year old, doesn't love getting handed keys to a new or used car when they get their driver's license?  I remember driving my parents huge Buick when I got my license, and even though it wasn't my car, it was nice to have keys to a car to drive when I needed to.  Making chocolate keys seems like a perfect favor for this theme.  I made two giant keys for each guest tying them together like a key ring at the top.  I made a tag I was originally going to attach to the keys like a keyring, but it covered too much of the key, that I decided to just attach it to the top of the bag.  The tag was a license plate with SWEET16 as the number.  The month and tag year matched those of the party.

This is such a great group of friends and although all 11 of us couldn't make it to tonight's dinner, it was wonderful that so many could.  Although my last minute planning on these dinners and details is always last minute and stressful, I do really enjoy this creative outlet and the time with these ladies once a month.  I am blessed.

The Beatles Tribute

 
"All You Need is Love"...and friends, and wine, and a yummy dinner to make a great evening.  That's what we had at our last Monthly Dinner as I chose a theme centered around The Beatles.  They have have so many great songs, that it was fun to use them to come up with the party menu and other aspects.

Invite: I tried to incorporate a ton of songs from The Beatles into the text of my invite.  I used many of their most iconic and well-known songs.

Decor: I set my table with a red tablecloth and created a centerpiece out of borrowed records & handmade items.

For the Abbey Road figures, I just found an image online and cut them out the size I wanted using my Cricut machine. I created a wedge to make them stand up.  The sign I purchased from Amazon and propped it up on the center.  The large records I borrowed from my dad and just created The Beatles album centers using PhotoShop.

For each place setting, I borrowed my dad's 45 records and designed a label for the middle.  The labels had various Beatles songs, but I also used these as place cards.  Each label had the last name of one of my guest as the production company.

For the napkin, I played with the "All You Need is Love" song title and added..."and a Napkin" just for fun.

Making the wine labels was fun as I love to be creative.  For the white wine, I took a photo of The Beatles cover for "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and added white wine glasses in their hands using PhotoShop.  I then changed the text of the album cover to read "I Want to Hold Your Wine."  The background to the label that wraps around the bottle was the British flag.  For the red wine, I  used the song "A Hard Day's Night" and added "...I need Red Wine" after it. I added iconic photos of The Beatles on the part of the label that wrapped around the bottle.

For wine charms, I printed mini album covers to attach to each stem of the wine glass.

Menu:  Luckily The Beatles have gillions of songs, so I played with different ones to come up with my menu for the evening.  For the first appetizer, we started with Veggies and "Dip-La-Di, Dip-La, Da." I designed the menu labels to match the invitation with the British flag in the background and the Abbey Road walk on the front.

For a second appetizer, I served brie cheese with crackers.  I titled this "Let It Brie" after The Beatles song "Let it Be."

For the main dish, I served "Penne (Penny) Lane" pasta, and I made a spaghetti sauce with Dr. Pepper soda in it. This was to represent the "Sergeant Pepper" song.  The sauce was easy to make and tasty.  I found the recipe here.

Along with the pasta I served breadsticks that I twisted before baking to go with the song "Twist and Shout."  I used already prepared pizza dough, added Italian seasoning, and sliced and twisted each before baking.  Super simple.

The green salad I served represented "Strawberry Fields (and Spinach) Forever."  It was a spinach salad with Feta cheese, sliced pecans, sliced strawberries, and a homemade balsamic vinegar/maple syrup/dijon mustard dressing.

For dessert, I had an ice cream sundae bar with various toppings.  This went with the song "Here Comes the Sun"(dae.)

Favor: I decided to make "Yellow Submarines" as my favor.  I found eyeglass cases at the Dollar Tree and spray painted them yellow.  I also spray painted straws black and cut them to be the periscope.  I added mints to the side.  Inside each submarine, I put some starburst and some lemonheads.  These represented Ringo Starr and John Lemmon(Lennon)head.

We were a small, but fun group at this monthly dinner.  Always a good time to chat up with my friends while listening to fun music in the background.

Friends & Floaties

Summer has officially ended, and I am back to work/kids are back to school.  I know I am spoiled as a teacher, but I am always sad to see the summer end.  I decided to have one last hurrah of summer with a Friends & Floaties themed monthly dinner.  Ended up to be a cute summer party.

Invite: For the invite, I used a beachy/pool background image and added the text in bright, bold colors. I kept it simple and easy to read.  When I sent it, I also asked guests to bring a fun floatie with them to the our dinner party.

Decor: There are a ton of floaties and other summer items in stores (and in my house) right now, so it was simple to put together the decorations for the party.  For the table, I used a bright pink tablecloth and used one of our big bright beach towels to place on top of it. I bought drink floaties to place on each plate.

For the centerpiece, I bought a bright teal tray, purple goggles, and a green pool noodle from the dollar store.  I cut the pool noodle into small pieces about 4 inches tall and set them up on the tray as vases.  The goggles wrapped around 6 of the noodles.  I then bought a small bouquet of bright colored flowers from Trader Joes and cut them up to place inside each noodle. I kept the flowers in water until right before the party so they wouldn't wilt, and then transferred them to the pool noodles (without water) a few minutes before guests arrived.

I bought small drink floaties to place at each place setting.  I found them on Amazon here.  Since I serve wine at these monthly dinners, I used a clear plastic glass and placed it inside the floatie with the guest's name on it in vinyl letters I cut out with my Cricut cutting machine.  These cups served as both place cards & wine charms.

I cut up different color pool noodles to use as napkin rings and added bright colored napkins.

For my side table, I also used a bright colored towel I already owned as the tablecloth and then created a banner with cut up pool noodle rings to hang above it. The HOME sign I already had with the flip flops up for summer.

I created my wine labels to match the summer floatie theme as well.  For the white wine, I used the same image as my invitation, but added more floaties to it.  I also added wine glasses inside some of the floaties.  The text read, "Wine.  Pairs well with Floaties."  For the red wine, I found a floatie of a red wine bottle you can purchase online and used that.  It read "Let's Go Wine Tasting In The Pool."  I added an image of a wine glass floatie to the sides of the label as well.

Menu:  There are ton of food-related floaties in stores to purchase, so you could easily do pizza or pretzels or popsicles as these are great snacks at birthday parties, etc.  Instead, I tried to base some of my menu more on the floatie idea rather than matching it to a specific floatie I would need to purchase.  We started with homemade pasta and a recipe that my grandmother use to make. I served this on Italian Ziti noodles because they look like pool noodles.

Alongside the pool noodle pasta, I served Inner Tube Garlic Bread.  I purchased rolls of pizza dough, spread them out, spread butter, garlic, and Italian seasoning on the dough, and then rolled the dough up.  I wrapped the dough along the sides of a springform pan with an empty can I had used for the spaghetti sauce in the middle so I could make sure it was shaped like an inner tube. It took 3 rolls of pizza dough to make it around pan and all the way to the center to reach the empty sauce can.  However, this was the perfect amount of bread for our party of 10.

As another side, I cut up watermelon. I used a small watermelon floatie and placed the bowl of watermelon inside when serving.

For dessert, I made root beer "floats" to keep with the float theme.  Yummy and a perfect summertime treat.

Favor: Guests took home the beverage floatie on their plate, but I also sent them home with these flamingos filled with gumballs.  I bought the pattern for these on Etsy, printed them out, and then folded them.  They took time to cut/fold, but they were cute.

I'm sad to see summer "float" away, but excited to end summer with this fun party theme.