Friendsgiving 2

This past weekend Jason and I hosted our 2nd Annual Friendsgiving.  If you remember from last year, we hosted the inaugural Friendsgiving outside, and I had every intention of doing so again this year.  Mother Nature, however, had very different plans.  It was cold in Texas this past weekend, very very cold, especially for Texas.  So Jason and I had no choice but to move Friendsgiving inside.  We are fortunate enough that by clearing every. last. piece of furniture out of our living room and dining room that we had just enough room to fit the 26 people who had RSVP'd for the event.  We were fairly concerned about space, and although it may have been a little snug, it was a perfectly cozy way to spend a very dreary and frigid night.

So without further ado, the details from Friendsgiving 2.

I was adamant about using real plates and silverware this year.  I picked up the plates from the Dollar Tree (for a $1 a piece, which is crazy because I actually like them more than my actual plates) and the silverware was leftover from my sister's graduation party.

Jason rented tables and chairs from our trusty rental place and I decorated each table with strands of bittersweet and white candles.

Each table setting had a mini-pumpkin pie thank you gift that I made (completely from scratch, crust and all, which is kind of big deal because I am certainly no baker).  Friendsgiving is a party that requires you to bring food, so I wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to make and attend the party and to thank all of the great friends we have in our life.  Thanksgiving so often gets overlooked and I particularly love this event, because it's simply a chance to say thank you to everyone who helps enrich our lives.

I downloaded the "thank you" calligraphy from here and sized it down in Photoshop to about 3"x2".

For beverages I made spiked apple cider and unsweet tea.  And everyone brought beer and wine to share.

Jason and I were fairly concerned about squeezing 26 people into our 1200 square foot apartment.  We knew in advance that the tables and chairs would fit, because we did the same thing for my graduation party, but that party maxed out around 20 people and we had a solid 6 more coming to Friendsgiving.

My idea to help work with traffic flow was to create a "photo booth" in this weird area that connects every room in our house, but isn't really a room itself.  It's kind of like a foyer, but smack dab in the middle.  I decided to set my camera up on a tripod and let people take pictures in front of a backdrop of streamers that I saved from my mother's fiesta party.  The lighting wasn't great in that room, and I'm working on fixing the white balance.

I spatchedcocked the turkey again, using Kenji's method.  This is my second year doing this and I firmly maintain it is the easiest, fastest, and most full proof method of cooking a turkey.

Me shaking "Bertha's" wing.  Yes, I named the turkey.

And this is what you get.  A house full of good food and better friends.  A pretty enjoyable way to spend an evening.

And me the next morning...thinking about how much clean up I had to do.

*Thanks to Tiffany and Keith for the awesome mug.*

I hope everyone has a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!  And a huge thanks to everyone who helped make Friendsgiving a success!

Painting Party

Two posts in a row! What what!

Last weekend we celebrated by friend's birthday with a night at Painting with a Twist, which is an instructor led painting session and you can bring in snacks and wine.  So basically it's most of my favorite things rolled into a 2 hour party.

I call myself the traveling party, because more often than not my trunk is filled with a variety of party essentials: platters, decorations, you name it.  But this party takes the cake in the traveling department.  I knew I wouldn't be able to get home and back to the painting place before the class started and have time to set up so I left home with a cooler filled with cheeses, snacks, and wine and trunk full of platters and plates...and carried it into work.  It's days like those I'm thankful that I have my own office to hide random things in.

Snacks included Marcona almonds, brie, the most delicious blue cheese ever, and a sharp white cheddar, some fruit, and various crackers.

A huge shout out to this Whole Foods for carrying a gluten free chocolate cake!  Jennifer can't eat gluten and this is the first time I found a gluten free cake.  ...my baking skills are not quite ready to tackle that feat.

 The beginning on our painting adventure.

The end.

Also, unrelated to the painting party, but I made this as a gift to one of my coworkers for her 10th anniversary with my firm.  I call it crafting: attorney style.

If I finally upload some pictures from my real camera, I may make it three days in a row!

State Fair Themed 18th Birthday Party

Well I'm back.  My apologies for the delay; I've been finding it rather difficult to find a time to blog with working full time.

A couple weekends ago, I threw my cousin a State Fair Themed 18th Birthday.  The State Fair is her favorite thing and it seemed only logical to kick off fair season (her birthday was the week before) with a little State Fair inspiration.  The Texas State Fair is deemed the Fried Food Capital of Texas so I knew a majority of the food needed to be fried.  We picked up most of the food pre-made, but I was determined to homemake the corn dogs. (They're her favorite food).

Frying 24 corn dogs wasn't very difficult, although it was slightly time consuming.  My advice for any sort of frying is to be diligent with the temperature of the oil.  Too hot and your oil will burn and your house will smell like a McDonald's.  Too cold and your food will come out greasy and oily.

We kept the decorations fairly simple and went for a country, Texas theme.

*Sorry for all of the terrible quality photos.  I left my real camera at home and had to rely on my iPhone for photos.

The party itself was a complete surprise and I really have to commend her friends on keeping the entire thing under wraps.

I made the banners by cutting bandanas in half and hot gluing them to jute.  And yes, I burned the devil out of my fingers, twice.

Food included: fried corn dogs, "gas station" sandwiches (it's a family tradition), buffalo wings, fried jalapeño bottle caps, mac and cheese cakes, mozzarella sticks, and assorted popcorns.

Jason hand squeezed 20 lemons to make the lemonade (he's a keeper that one) and we enlisted one of Sarah's friends to make cake balls, in lieu of cake.

We had a made to order funnel cake station.  I fried individual portions of funnel cakes for the kids and we had a variety of sweets to top them with.  The empty bowl eventually had powdered sugar in it...after my Gram saved the day and made a last minute hail mary trip to the grocery store.  

 Little Dolce enjoying the party, by staying far away from everyone.  (He's actually sitting on an outside table.)

Happy Birthday SK! Love you.

Make Something: Law School *Graduation* Invitations

This was probably the most exciting invitation I've ever designed.  MY law school graduation invitations.  I'm actually a little bit in shock to believe that I really am going to graduate.  That this time next year or heck next month I will not ever have to sit in the uncomfortable wooden chairs and listen to some professor lecture about something only mildly (or not at all) interesting.

Pinterest was not very helpful with searching for ideas, but I did come across a couple decent ideas.  I didn't want the invitations overly formal and thought the idea of a summons was hilarious and the perfect amount of cheesy.  I created a tri-fold design on Photoshop, and printed the invittation on cardstock from Paper Source.  Each invitation was tied with a red string.

***Etsy Listing for the Invitations is Available HERE.***

Pretty happy with these little guys and even happier to be graduating...assuming I don't fail my finals.

Plan Something: At Home Picnic

I've been a little busy lately.  Apparently finishing up law school is way more complicated/time consuming/scary than you'd ever think.  And now finals are here so all I have is one more push and I will officially be done.

To compensate for my stress level these days, I planned a backyard picnic for Jason and myself one Friday.  I strung up a makeshift tent (it's actually a white sheet) in our backyard.  I laid a rug down and covered it up with a duvet.

For food I kept things fairly simple.  I had a fruit and cheese plate that included strawberries, pears, brie, comte, blue cheese, and a baguette.  Drinks included water, freshly made lemonade, and rose.  I stored these in a galvanized bucket.

 Heavier food include spring vegetables that were blanched and tossed in a light vinaigrette, duck pate and cornichons, and a delicious tomato tart.  The recipe is here, and believe me when I say it is delicious.

I decorated with things I already had around my house: a lantern, caper candles, wooden boxes. Although very simple they helped to set the tone.

We finished up the evening with a fire in the chiminea eating fresh chocolate palmiers that I'd made earlier.

It was a great and fairly simple way to unwind a little and just enjoy being together.

Beer Tasting Party

Jason's birthday was last Friday.  And before you read any further you should know 2 things: (1) he turned 29 and (2) he's not big on birthdays.  When I say "not big," I cannot remember a single birthday party.  I'm sure we did something for his 21st birthday, but I'm not sure what.  This year I decided he needed a birthday party.  It is, after all, the last year of his 20's.  *We upgraded a little for Jason's 30th Birthday - lots of other fun ideas.

I've decided that planning any party/gathering for a guy is difficult.  They just don't seem to appreciate matching plates and napkins and frilly drinks as much as girls seem to.  But I still wanted to do something nice.  So after some awkward Pinterest searches, I do not recommend searching "adult male birthday parties," I randomly stumbled across a beer tasting birthday party.  Eureka.  I looked at several ideas to get a good feel about what I did and did not want to include and the fantastic party below came into existence.

Not only was I thrilled with how everything turned out, the boy was very happy too. 

The biggest problem I ran into was planning the actual beer tasting itself.  Several of the parties I looked at simply had different types of beer placed in different ice buckets depending on type (ales, pales, etc).  But I wanted this to be an actual tasting, where everyone was drinking the same thing at relatively the same time.  Initially I planned on just buying enough six packs for everyone.  But, after some serious googling, I discovered that a Whole Foods near me has 18 beers on tap (which are conveniently listed online)  that you can buy in a growler.  I tentatively picked 5 from the online list, but had to make some last minute changes when I actually purchased the beers.  Fortunately the beer guy at Whole Food was super nice and helped make sure that I had a good balance of beer types and flavors.

I wanted to keep the food and decor fairly simple.  I resisted the urge to buy actual glass tasting glasses (but will inevitably do so when I have a house), and instead found the smallest plastic cups I could find.    I made the chalkboard table runner by spray painting (with chalkboard spray paint) a roll of white contact paper.  This was super cheap and super customizable.  The tablecloth is a linen/canvas blend piece of fabric that I picked up at Wal-Mart for $2.50 a yard.  I bought the golf pencils for the tastings, which I think added a fantastic little element.  I stored extra pencils and chalk in shot glasses around the table.  I used my always handy jars to display leaves I ripped of a tree in my backyard, which was enough flowery-like things for Jason.  I also placed a "dump bucket," which was actually a vase, on the table in case anyone really hated a beer.

For food I served pub type food, but kept it fairly light because we planned to have dinner at a BBQ place.   Food included chili lime pistachios, beer chips, cocktail sausages, soft pretzels and various mustards, and sopapilla cheesecake for the birthday boy.

I downloaded the beer bottle printable and changed the "cheers to you" part to "Happy Birthday Jason" using photoshop.  I designed an invitation, which I texted to everyone and gave to Jason in a sealed envelope with strict orders that he couldn't open the envelope until he was in our driveway.  The actual tasting party was a complete surprise for him.  

I also designed tasting cards and hanging tags for the growlers on photoshop.  The tasting cards listed each beer and had a place for notes and scores.  One of my favorite parts of the party was listening to everyone read their scores and notes.  Some of the responses were pretty hilarious.  The hanging tags contained the brewery (or the beer)'s logo and information about the beer.  We read these at the beginning so that everyone had an idea of what each beer would taste like.  

Below is what the tasting sheets actually looked like and because I love you all so much, I uploaded blank ones (sized to fit 4 on a regular sheet of paper) for you! (I think, if it doesn't work let me know.)  And if you use the tasting cards, please link back to me.  Those things took quite a while to design.  Thanks.  Due to some unscrupulous copying and attempted sales of my beer tasting cards, I've taken the link down.  If you'd like a blank copy of them, just shoot me an email and I'll gladly send them your way.

And that's the beer tasting party in all its glory!  Thanks to everyone who came; I hope everyone had as much fun as we did!

For more beer related party ideas check out Jason's 30th Birthday!

Plan Something: BBQ Baby Shower

 I hosted a couple's baby shower a few weeks ago.  We went with a BBQ theme so I keep all of the decorations simple with checkerboard and plaid accents.  I think it turned out pretty cute.  And in case you're wondering, I do not have any intentions on throwing any other parties for quite some time.  But I'm sure that'll change.  I'm a sucker for a good fete.

I designed all of the paper products on Photoshop.  We handed out "Temper Tantrum Hot Sauce" as favors.  We had guests sign a copy of Dr. Seuss's Oh the Places You'll Go instead of a traditional sign-in book.  I gussied up mini water-bottles with personalized labels.  We had a onesie decorating station where everyone could create something for the baby.  I didn't get any pictures of the finished onesies, but they were surprisingly good, especially the ones the baby's mother designed,

For food we kept it fairly simple.  We served hamburger sliders, sausage and fixings for the mains.  Sides included mac and cheese, chipotle deviled eggs, and fruit salad.  Jason's mom made her famous chocolate chip and butterscotch pecan cookies.  We also had triple chocolate and Meyer lemon baby cupcakes.  Beverages included pink lemonade with strawberries and peaches in a preggo friendly and not preggo friendly (champagne) version.

I also made the "Oh Baby" banner that hung above the entry table and a not pictured banner that said "Welcome Baby Scarlet" using this awesome download from Shanty to Chic.  Download, cut, and tape.  Super easy.

And lastly it pains me that you can't see this, but I used little kraft bag to hold plasticware and napkins, and I stamped each one with a fork and spoon stamp.  I am slightly devastated that I don't have any pictures of those, but trust me they were adorable.

*Quick Poll: Clearly I changed my photo layout today.  Any preference between the group collage or individual pictures?*

Grad Party 101

The last month has been an absolute blur.  I am generally always busy, but this fall I experienced an entirely new level of frantically busy.  Here's a breakdown of what's been going on around here:

November 10: Margarita Ball

November 17: Friendsgiving (hosted)

November 22 - 25: Thanksgiving and family time (hosted)

December 1: Jason's sister's 30th birthday party (prepared all the food)

December 3-7: FINALS

December 8: Sister's Graduation (100% responsible for party)

Finals are always difficult, but this is the first semester that I really didn't know if I was going to make it.  I cannot remember being so tired.  How tired?  I dumped a cup of water into the ice maker and turned off the kitchen light while in the kitchen, tired.

So after an 8:30 Friday final (which should not be allowed), all I wanted to do was sleep for the entire weekend.  But, instead I drank the strongest glass of coffee available and ran a billion errands for my sister.

Because you see, she graduated from The University of Texas with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing on Saturday and I was responsible for throwing her graduation party.  I've been planning this party for months, and I'm happy to say it turned out exactly how I envisioned and hoped.  I'm so proud of her.  

And now a crash course in throwing a graduation party.

Sweets and Beverages Table

I ordered the cookies from Sugar Mama a baked goods business run by a high school friend's mom.  She made the adorable UT themed cookies for us.  If you're in need of baked goods in the Central Texas area, I cannot recommend her enough.

My sister made her own cake.  I made "Bevo Bellinis" which consisted of champage and a peach thyme puree.  The table was decorated with a picture of my sister, taper candles, and gerber daisies in khombucha bottles that I've been saving vases.

The appetizers consisted of caprese bites, cuccumber hummus bites, goat cheese stuffed bacon wrapped dates, and spicy sausage balls (thanks Kristen for the recipe!).  The meat appetizers were still in the oven so I didn't get a picture of them...and then they disappeared within minutes.

I served a full seated dinner, which meant I needed to rent plates and goblets.  I ended up purchasing silverware and champagne flutes from Ikea, because you'll never know when you'll need service for 20, and it was cheaper than renting them.

You can't read then menus, but dinner included rolls, Caesar salad, Chicken Marbella (recipe sounds super weird, but it was delicious) on fettucini, and roasted asparagus spears.

The tables were decorated with the same gerber daisies and taper candles.  Each place setting included a burnt orange napkin, menu, dinner and salad plates, and a water goblet.

I served water in prosecco bottles that I've been collecting for a while. #partyplanningturnsmeintoapackrat.  Each bottle was labeled with a longhorn tag.

Can you tell how exhausted I am in this picture?

And lastly, I hung a giant photo wall in the dining room.  I traced the Texas onto the paper using a projector and a transparency and then drew a large banner and some other UT appropriate decorations.

That's pretty much everything!

Congrats Hyacinth.  Love you.