Eggless Easter Party

The price of eggs is super high right now, so I decided to have a little fun with that idea for my April monthly dinner. I decided to host an Eggless Easter party theme.  It was a lot of fun to put together the decor, menu, and all the details.  Check it out...

Invite: I typically design my invitation from scratch using Photoshop, but this time, I decided to use Canva as I found a sweet Easter party invitation already created.  This required very little effort on my part which was nice.  I added a no symbol around the Easter egg and an empty egg carton to have the invite match my theme.  I also tried to incorporate some egg-related words.

Decor: Instead of just using my typical Easter decorations, I tried to stick with egg-related decor, but still in the pastel colors of Easter. I set my table with a green tablecloth and white and pink plates.

For the centerpiece, I had a few different ideas displayed.  At the center was a pink Easter basket fill with I.O.U. eggs made out of paper instead of real eggs.  The sign in front read, "Eggs to be provided when prices drop" for an added giggle.

On one side, I borrow decorative chickens from a neighbor. I made picket signs and taped these to each chicken.  The signs said things like, "Stop the Egg-Cessive Prices" and "Will Lay for Fair Wages" among others.

On the other side, I set out an empty egg carton with ceramic and decorative eggs on top. The sign with these said "Egg-comy Crisis!"

For place cards, I bought mini egg cartons with egg-shaped chewing gum inside.  I ordered these online from Walmart. I swapped out the advertisement on the inside for a card with the guest's name on it that I made with Photoshop.

With each napkin, I printed out a funny meme about egg prices.  These were all different and hilarious from a guy proposing to this girlfriend with a carton of eggs rather than a ring, to eggs being compared to drugs to peddle them to make you rich, etc.  I just found memes online that I thought were funny and printed them out until I had one for every guest.

Creating and designing the wine labels for this party was fun, but challenging.  For the chardonnay, I used the phrase "No Yolk, Just Oak" and for the red wine, it was "Crack Open the Cabernet." You can't see it in the photo, but the bottom of the red wine read "Un-Hatched Reserve."

The wine charms were clipart images of various egg cartons with price tags attached that I resized and printed out.  Each had a different color background to distinguish them.

Menu:  I didn't just want to serve foods that did not involve eggs, but I wanted menu items to either look like eggs or have some sort of egg reference. I started with a green salad with CHICKpeas and other toppings.  I used an oval shaped plate and filled the bottom with romaine lettuce.  Then I layered the toppings to look like a painted Easter egg.  The toppings I used besides chickpeas were shredded carrots, olives, tomatoes, shredded cheese, and corn. 

For a main dish, I served CHICKen with HATCH Chili Salsa on top.  This was a complete experiment as I did not have a recipe.  My husband grilled the chicken, and when it was cooked, I spread some store bought hatch chili salsa on top.  Easy and really tasty.

I also made twice-baked potatoes, but used mini potatoes and made them look like Deviled Eggs.  I didn't use a recipe for this either as the recipes I found were for true deviled potatoes (served cold with relish and everything).  I wanted these hot, so after using a melon baller to carve out a pit in one side of the potato half, the carved out potato was whipped with butter, salt, pepper, and chives before piping it back into the hole of the potato half.  I baked these for 10 minutes to heat them up and cut a few more chives for the top before serving.  Aren't they cute?

For a vegetable, I served Easter Bunny's Carrots.  Nothing to do with eggs for this one, but carrots are Easter related, so I went with that.  Plus they were easy to make as I just seasoned baby carrots and then roasted them.

For dessert, I made a delicious bird's nest out of chocolate and butterscotch chips, peanut butter, and chow mein noodles.  I followed this recipe, which makes cookies, but I added more chow mein noodles as I wanted big nests rather than just a cookie size. I used an egg cookie cutter to shape vanilla ice cream into eggs before the party, and then put them in the freeze to keep their shape.  I pulled them out right before serving to place in the center of the nest.  I called this dessert "Egg-celent Nests with an Affordable Egg."

Favor: I had a bit of fun with my party favor.  I purchased plastic 6-count egg cartons from Amazon. I filled the carton with CHICK-shaped Peeps in a variety of colors. Once closed, I used a pastel ribbon to wrap around the carton and affixed a tag.  The tag read "Eggs to too expensive, but you CHICKS are my favorite Peeps anyway!"

Definitely used my creativity with this party, as it is not your typical theme, but it was really fun to plan and execute. I'd say the most popular aspects of the party were the memes, the salad, the mini deviled potatoes, and the party favors.  Hope you enjoyed this party and my post!

Beats & Bites: A Drums & Dinner Party

In the 18+ years I have hosted these monthly dinners, I have had some random themes.  This month I was trying to come up with something and thinking about March and what might go with that month.  The phrase "march to the beat of your own drum" popped into my head, and I decided to run (or "march") ahead with it.  I don't really know much about drums...but it ended up being fun to plan and a neat theme.

Invite: I found a neat drum set image online to build my invitation around.  The MDG image on the bass drum represented Monthly Dinner Girls for this party.  I used some drum phrases for added fun and asked guests to wear a band tee shirt to keep in theme.

Decorations: I borrowed a toddler drum set from a neighbor to use as a centerpiece.  She apologized that her son had covered it with stickers, but they were a perfect addition to the theme! I borrowed drumsticks from another friend to use as well. I added some yellow pieces of card stock under the set to add a bit of color.

For place cards, I used my Cricut to cut out an image of a drum set in black and in light blue.  I then cut out portions of the blue to glue and make the image two-toned.  The bass drum had each guest's name and the MDG image from the invitation.

For the napkins I created a sleeve with music note scrapbook paper and added am image of various drums to the center of each.  

I used the same images on the napkins as the images for the wine charms - timpani drum, snare drum, drum sticks, bongos, cymbals, and others.

For themed wine labels, I designed a white wine label with the phrase "Snare & Sip - Chardonnay that Hits All the Right Notes." For the red wine, it was "Rhythmic Red - A Beat of Bold." I added an image of a glass of red wine to the bass drum for this label.

Menu: Continuing with the theme, I tried to chose a menu with foods related to drums.  We started with a beet salad with arugula and balsamic vinaigrette.  I called this a "Keep the 'Beet" Salad" to play off the "beat" of a drum.  I followed the recipe, except I used the Trader Joe's balsamic vinaigrette dressing instead of making my own.  Wasn't sure I liked cooked beets, but it was tasty.

For the main dish, I served bbq chicken drumsticks that I made in the crock-pot and then put in the boiler to crisp before serving. The recipe was easy and only 4 ingredients.

One side dish was potato bites, a family favorite recipe I make often.  Just potatoes, butter, and seasonings make these easy to make.  I called them "Snare Drum Spuds."

I also made "Kick Drum Kabobs" with peppers, zucchini, mushrooms, onion, and yellow squash.  Grilled these outside on the grill as I love the grill flavor.

Along with this, we had dinner rolls.  I called these "DrumROLL Please" baked rolls.

For dessert, I made mini fruit tarts with vanilla pudding.  I didn't really follow a recipe on these.  I bought mini crusts, a box of vanilla pudding mix, and cool whip, along with the fruit.  I mixed the vanilla pudding with the cool whip and spooned it into the shells.  Then added cut kiwi, strawberries, and blueberries to the top. I called theme "Timpani Tarts" for some alliteration.

Favor: I decided to make mini snare drums as a parting gift for guests.  I bought metal favor jars from Michael's Craft Store that I found in the wedding section.  I filled them with M&M's and then crafted a snare drum to fit around the jar. I designed the snare drum in the size I needed on PhotoShop, and then used my Cricut machine to cut out the black part and glue it to the red. I found chocolate Pocky sticks to place on top as drumsticks.

This was a fun theme to plan even though I didn't really know much about drums.  It would be a fun theme for a birthday party or band party if you do have a drum lover in your life.

A Flu Season Soiree

It is never fun to have the flu, but it sure was fun to throw a flu themed dinner party! This flu season was no joke, and it went around our house and made us miserable.  When it was monthly dinner time, and we were finally all healthy, I decided it would make a fun theme, and it did not disappoint.  It was a great evening of laughter and fun with with my girlfriends.  

Invite: I found this cute image of a girl with the flu and designed my invitation around that.  Tried to pull in some flu-related terms like "sick" of winter, "coughing up" fun, and "spreading" great company. I asked guests to come in pajamas or comfy clothes like they would if they had the flu.  The girls loved this idea.

Decor:  This was a super easy theme to decorate for because I already had so many flu-related items in the house.  For the centerpiece, I used tissue boxes in matching colors and added fun sayings to the front of them.

I also set out Theraflu medicine boxes and Halls cough drop bags.

Along the table, I also spread cough drops like confetti.

For placecards, I made thermometers out of cardstock using my Cricut.  Instead of a temperature, I put the guest's name and used a font that mimicked the typical font on a thermometer.

Next to each thermometer, I crafted a card to match the designs on the invitation.  Each one had a different saying that pulled in flu-related terms.

As usual, I designed wine labels to match my theme. For the cabernet, I found a Flu Fighters logo that had two syringes meeting at the top, and used Photoshop to replace the syringes with wine glasses and the company logo with the sick girl image from my invitation.  I changed the wording to say "flu fighters favorite."  For the chardonnay, I created a symptom checklist with white wine filled glasses instead of check marks. I went with the saying "Sippin' Through the Symptoms" to pull in some alliteration.

Just for fun, I filled some fake syringes with wine. I already had these from my Fake an Injury theme monthly dinner back in 2012.

For wine charms, I found various images related to the flu and fighting the flu.

Menu:  Home sick often means a bowl of chicken noodle soup, so I decided to have fun with this idea with my appetizer.  I served a "dose" of chicken noodle soup using the mini plastic measuring cups that come with cough syrup.  

I heated a single can of soup and poured it into these for a fun shot or "dose" for each guest.

Have you heard of the BRAT diet?  The BRAT diet is a bland diet that is easy to digest, and it is recommended for during the stomach flu.  The letters stand for Banana, Rice, Apple, and Toast. I incorporate each of these as a menu item although I didn't go in order of the acronym.

T = Toast, so I made Toasted Bruschetta as an appetizer.  I cheated a purchased a jar of pre-made bruschetta from Trader Joes.  I sliced a loaf of french bread, broiled it briefly to toast it, and spooned the bruschetta on top.  I added some Italian seasoning on the top of each. Easy and delicious!

A = Apple.  We had an apple, walnut, and goat cheese salad with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing from Trader Joes.

R = Rice.  For the main dish, we had rotisserie chicken and wild rice.

B = Banana.  I made a Banana Cream Pie for dessert.  I used this recipe from Cincy Shopper.  For how easy it was to make, I was surprised how tasty it was.  We all really enjoyed it.

Favor: As a take home gift for guests, I had three items.  I had gift bags for guests to put them in with a tag on top that I designed to match my invitation.  It read "It's Flu Season.  Friendship is the Best Medicine."

A neighbor gave me empty pills bottles that I designed a label for using PhotoShop.  I added the warning labels to the label design like you see on some pill bottles.  My warnings were a glass of wine icon with "Should be Taken After Girls Night" and a smiley face icon with "Known Side Effects Happiness." I filled each bottle with Mike n Ike candies.

A second part of the favor was a mini packet of tissues.

The final part was a mini bottle of hand sanitizer. I designed a label for it with the sick girl graphic from my invitation and a saying that read "Sanitize to Be Flu Free and Fabulous."

Although a bit of a random theme, it was all in all a fun and funny night.  Hope you all stay healthy this flu season!