The Magical World of Epcot

My family just returned from a month-long vacation where we drove from California to Florida and back stopping along the way to visit so many places.  Of the many highlights of the trip, visiting Disney World as well as Epcot was a favorite of my kids. For this reason, I decided to theme our July monthly dinner based on Epcot Center.

Invite:  There are a ton of Mickey Mouse invitations on the internet, but very few for Epcot.  I wanted my invitation to include the Epcot ball, but I also wanted to include landmarks from around the world.  For this reason, I decided to use a "traveling around the world" clipart I found online and just replace the world of the image with the Epcot ball.  I downloaded a free Minnie font and Mickey font to use as well.

Decor:  I went with the standard Mickey and Minnie Mouse colors of black, white, red, and yellow for the party colors. I had a red tablecloth with white dishes.  I borrowed a Mickey and a Minnie Mouse stuffed toy from a friend to set on the center.

I made this Epcot ball using a $2.99 playground ball I picked up at GoodWill.  Any ball would work, but I liked this one because the lines on it seemed to match the mirrors of the true Epcot ball.  I spray painted it with metallic silver paint, and then hand cut grey cardstock to make the "legs" that stand the ball up.  I used the spray paint can lid under it, as the legs were just card stock so they could not have truly carried the weight.

Since Epcot is all about the World Showcase, I decided to make each guest a Minnie ears headband representing the countries in the showcase.  I set these on the plates and let guests choose which country they wanted to wear.  I purchased the Mickey ears on Amazon.  I then used PhotoShop to design each bow with the country's flag centered in the middle.  This was challenging for sure, but I think they came out cute.

Instead of traditional napkin rings, I incorporated one of the 11 countries of the World Showcase into my table, and wove each yellow napkin through a pretzel to represent Germany.

For wine charms, I created Mickey heads with a flag for each country.  Guests matched their headband to the wine charm, so they could easily remember which glass was theirs.  Guests used these wine glasses for either wine or a margarita.

To represent Italy, I served Italian wines and designed labels to play up the theme. For the white wine, I found an image of Mickey rowing a gondola.  I add a wine glass to the image and "Once Upon a Wine."  I also added "I love white wine" in Italian.  For the red wine I designed a Minnie Mouse glass with red wine inside.  I then added "Enjoy Some Red Wine from the Minnie Bar" purposely spelling mini as "Minnie."

To represent Mexico, I served margaritas with salt.

Menu:  The other 8 countries of the World Showcase were covered throughout the meal.  I tried to choose some of the more popular menu dishes from Epcot, but had to pick and choose so as not to have all desserts, etc. For one appetizer, we had a sushi to represent Japan.  I only got a couple of rolls since it was just an appetizer.  The second appetizer was one of my kids' favorite -- mini corndogs!  This was to represent the United States and "The American Experience" at Epcot.

As part of the main meal at the table, we had Chinese Spring Rolls.  These spring rolls were from Trader Joes, and they are tasty.  I cooked them in the air fryer because my double oven was being used for other things.

I also made a Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup using the recipe that Disney released for this soup from Epcot.  It was good, but also very filling.  I only gave guests a small amount, but all that cheese definitely fills your stomach!

Alongside the soup and the spring rolls, I served Fish and Chips to represent Great Britain.

All of this food so far, and I still had 3 countries to account for!  I covered two with my desserts.  I purchased baklava from a local bakery to represent Morocco which was delicious.

I also made the Frozen Bundt Cakes that they make in Epcot to represent Norway. Instead of toy rings at the top, we had edible Frozen themed toppers.

Favor:  The final country in the World Showcase was covered in the party favor.  I purchased French macaroons from Trader Joes. My guests picked a few flavors they liked and put them in a favor bag to go.  We were all too stuffed from our meal to add another bite!

We had a great night sampling so many foods, and of course, the company was amazing.  Definitely recommend a true trip to Epcot to taste and experience the real thing if you can swing it someday.  I would love to go back.

Hamilton Themed Dinner

I have always wanted to see Hamilton in person, but never had the pocketbook to be able to afford tickets.  When Disney+ released the show this past week, I was super excited to finally watch it.  My socials were exploding with eager fans, so I knew it would be good.  I decided to host my monthly dinner with a Hamilton theme after watching the first part of the production and loving it.

With COVID-19 still threatening our communities unfortunately, "the room where it happens" had to be a zoom chat room instead of in person. It was still fun to put together and as usual, the girls and I had a great time catching up and chatting no matter where we were.

Invite:  I used various popular lines from the production in the wording of my invite, but kept the overall look of the invitation simple with just the Hamilton logo and poster as the background.  There are so many great lines in the production that it was fairly easy to include "Awesome. Wow." and others in the invite.  I used Tragan Pro as my font which is close to the Hamilton font on the logo.

Dinner Details: You could definitely serve Samuel Adams beer for this theme, but the girls and I are more of wine drinkers.  I bought individual bottles of wine and created a label to attach to them.  I used the popular line from the production "Raise a Glass to Freedom" on top of the Hamilton logo.  Hard to see, but I used PhotoShop to add a wine glass into the raised hand on the logo.

I bought gold napkins from the dollar store and used my Cricut to cut out the Hamilton logo on cardstock to glue to it. Simple.

I always have fun coming up with a menu to match the themes of my dinners.  The only challenge during COVID with this is trying to find something that I can make that will still taste good by the time the ladies eat it since we are not all sitting at a dinner table together as we normally would.  For some monthly dinners during this time I have delivered the meals and goodies to porch steps of my guests, but for this one, the ladies came and picked it up from my porch.  This helped with timing in that all meals were picked up about the same time, and could be eaten during the zoom call before they could get cold.

Menu:  With Hamilton as the theme, it was the obvious choice to serve ham.  I found this easy recipe for Ham & Swiss sandwiches on Hawaiian rolls.  They were delicious!  Even my kids liked them which is saying something!  I gave each guest two sandwiches.  Along with the ham & cheese sandwiches, I served oven-roasted baby peppers with balsamic.  I called these the Schuyler Sisters Trio as the peppers were in three colors.  These were tasty.  I would definitely make them again.

I served a side salad as well.  Just romaine, shredded cheese, tomatoes, bacon bits, walnuts, and sliced cucumber along with a side of ranch.  Those of us on Keto couldn't enjoy the sandwiches, so the salad was our meal with ham rolls on the side.  I also included the hot veggies in a separate foil packet for the Keto ladies.

For dessert, I made Aaron BURR-itos.  These dessert burritos were easy to make with a cinnamon cream cheese filling and sliced strawberries rolled inside and then lightly fried.  I found the recipe here.  The girls said these were tasty, but the recipe only made 7 instead of 8 for me, so I didn't personally get to try them.

The dessert burrito recipe said they could be served hot or at room temperature.  I made them around 3:00, so they were room temperature for my dinner.  I w"rapped" each burritos in parchment paper and tied a ribbon to secure the parchment.  Since Hamilton has so much rap in it's musical numbers, this was perfect.

Favor: It was fun making the favor for this dinner.  I made star-shaped cookies with yellow/gold frosting, and placed them in a bag with Hamilton shot glasses.  The plain shot glasses I got 3 for $1 at the dollar store.  I used my Cricut to put the vinyl decal on the glass before wrapping it and the cookie.

I created the tag that read "I'm not going to miss my shot...to thank you for your friendship."  Of course the "my shot" reference is a huge one in the Hamilton production.

I didn't snap any photos during the Zoom, but we had a great time as usual catching up.  This theme is super easy to do and a great one even if your guests have not seen the production.  Hope you enjoy reading this post!

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Although I hadn't seen the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas in years, I always knew it would make a fun monthly dinner theme.  I was definitely right as I had so much fun putting together the decorations, menu, party favors, and everything! Can't wait for you to read and see how it turned out...

Invite:  I designed an invite on PhotoShop with black, white, purple and a hint of yellow.  I kept these colors throughout the remainder of the decor as well.  The font is a Nightmare Before Christmas font I downloaded.

Entry Decor:  A few weeks before Halloween a friend of mine posted a photo of her front door on social media and the photo had this giant Jack Skellington.  A week or so later when I decided this would be my theme, I called her up and asked to borrow Jack.  So here he is (thanks Ember)! He is awesome!  He moves and talks when he senses movement.  

My friend also had the Zero that we tied from Jack's arm.  

I made this super easy clothespin wreath for the door.  I bought a pizza pan and clothespins from the dollar store.  I spray-painted the pan and half the clothespins white, and the other half of the clothespins black.  I would use a mat finish for this.  I had a can a glossy black so that is what I used, but the white was mat and it was much less sticky.  I cut out the yellow circle and the black mountain with my Cricut, and just glued them on.  You could paint them, but I thought I could easily switch out the center and black clothespins for other colors/center to use this for Christmas or Valentines.  The centerpiece was easy and cost me only a few dollars since I already had the spray-paint.

Table Decor:  Absolutely loved my table for this dinner.  The purple tablecloth gave a pop of color, and some small touches added fun to this theme.  The smallest touches were not difficult or expensive to do.

One of my friends is a huge Nightmare Before Christmas fan, so I asked her if she had any items I could borrow.  She sure did (Thanks Colleen)!  I borrowed her plush characters and these amazing Jack and Sally goblets to use in my centerpiece.  The Zero urn is also from her.  I placed these on top of black and white patterned cardstock.

I used simple yellow paper plates, but added the iconic mountain from Nightmare Before Christmas with cardstock. 

For placecards, I bought mini pumpkins from the grocery store and painted them to be either Jack's face or Sally's dress.  For those pumpkins that had a really short stem, I broke a toothpick to insert into the stem and then propped the card with my guest's name on it.

With the Sally pumpkins, I painted all the colors first.  Then I used a Sharpie to do the outlines and details.

Don't you love these Zero napkins?  They weren't too difficult to create either. I bought large white napkins, opened them up, and pinched the middle a few inches down to create the head. I secured it with a red ribbon as a collar.  Using another napkin, I cut out the two ears and glued them onto the head.  I couldn't find orange pompoms, so I used red.  A hole-punched black cardstock was the eye.

A fun and inexpensive place setting.

I used more of my friend's characters and her giant poster for my side table.

I created simple wine labels with Sally's potions.

For wine charms, I used my friend's Nightmare Before Christmas mini buttons.  She had 6 of them, so I just found other characters/images online and made them into circles the same size as the buttons.  All are tied on with black ribbon.

Menu: Coming up with a dinner menu centered around a theme rather than just snacks is sometimes difficult to do, but I had a lot of fun creating this menu.  I tried to theme each piece of the meal around one of the characters from the movie.  For a starter, I made a french onion dip to pair with black chips.  I used a piece of cabbage to make the Nightmare Before Christmas mountain.  I called this Graveyard Dip, but I served it in a Zero dog bowl.

For the main dish, I initially was planning to make Oogie Boogie turnovers.  I had an Oogie Boogie cookie cutter made custom from a local cake shop.  I just sent them a jpeg silhouette of what I wanted, and they made it as large as they could.  When I got the cookie cutter back, it was just too small for turnovers, not much would have fit inside.  I made Chicken Pot Pies without the crust on the top instead.  I made Oogie Boogie out of pie crust to place on the top. 

Along with the pot pies, I made Jack Skellington mashed potatoes.  These were so easy to make.  I cut olives in half for the eyes and then just used cardstock for the mouth.  The original plan was to do the mouth out of olives as well, but it was just too time consuming and cardstock worked just as well.  We dipped a half cup measuring cup in the potatoes to get the faces the same size and amount.

Instead of mixing a fruit salad together, I served it in jagged sections on a plate.  I then cut jagged stitch lines out of black cardstock to set between the sections of fruit.  This gave the plate the look of Sally's dress.  You could do this with black licorice or even melted chocolate if you wanted it to look professional and actually be edible.  

For dessert, I made peppermint chocolate pudding.  I made chocolate pudding and then added a bit of peppermint extract.  I filled my decorative wine glasses with a little pudding and a dollop of whipped cream.  I made the cornflake cookie Monster Wreath to place on top of the glass.  I shaped the mixture into wreaths, added eyes I cut from dried mangos, teeth I cut from dried coconut, and a few red hots for holly.  The eyeballs are just dots from an edible black marker.  I did the marker last minute as it does bleed a little bit on the mango.

Favor:  I absolutely love these favors I painted with the help of one of my English students.  I bought the black tree at Joann's Fabrics after Halloween, so it was super cheap.  I bought glass ornaments and then painted two/three of each character - Sally, Jack, Oogie Boogie, and Zero.

 

Should have made an extra of each one for me to keep as these are so fun.  They were a big hit with the guests as well.

I hope you loved this party as much as my friends and I did.  Definitely saved me a ton of money knowing friend's with Nightmare Before Christmas decor, but chances are you know someone too.  Add this theme to your next party as it is "frighteningly fun"!