Parties

I am NOT a party expert.  In fact, my spiritual gifts inventory ranked me at the lowest for hospitality. However, I am a pastor's wife, so that means my door has to be open.  Once you are here, I usually don't know what to do with you, so I feed you with elegant food and use elaborate decorating as a topic of conversation.  I will only open the door to my house for the people I love.  So we have a Christmas deacon social every year because I love my husband.  The first year, Jason and I hung outside while everyone else stayed inside and visited.  Because neither of us really know what to do with people in our house.  Don't get offended.  I think it's funny that we are so socially awkward.  So... I use Pinterest to make my parties worth being a good conversation piece.  I'm still new to actually putting my pins into action.  I mean, really, most pins are done by professionals that have no kids running around their foot and a lot of time.  I have to cut corners to make things work.  First up: Santa Hat Brownies:



These are store-bought brownie bites with banana, strawberry, and marshmallow
held in place by a cut toothpick.  As cute as these look, the banana made the brownie
soggy, it didn't taste all that great, and they had sharp toothpicks in the middle.  These would be
a Pinterest flop.  Stick with just the brownies and leave the fruit off.
Okay, so those are not complicated, but here are some even easier cute trays of food:

This turned out cute and was very popular.
It's nothing but grapes,
cheddar cheese, marbled cheese, and
 sliced white cheese of your choice.
This one went over great!  Cherry (or grape) tomatoes,
broccoli, carrots,
celery for the trunk, and cauliflower snow.
 Cute, huh?  It can't be any
easier than arranging veggies.  No cooking needed.






















Christmas is always a very fun and colorful time of year.  There are so many lovely things you can do to survive hosting a Christmas party.  Have a hot chocolate bar, games (we played drop the small marshmallows into a coffee mug while standing straight over it.  You hold your arm straight out in front of you and drop.  It rocked!), plenty of chocolate, PLENTY of chocolate, healthy choices, and hot food.  I love making the cheesy fries, and I make them as-written. My guests are always excited about these coming out of the oven.  I also love the buffalo chicken ring.  It went over big, too, and I will be making it again and again.  My husband loves both the fries and the buffalo ring any time of year, but they are truly awesome foods for a Christmas party, too.





Tea Party How-to's

I have hosted one tea party in my house, and it has officially made me a professional.  I can now dole out advice like a wizened sitcom character.  Oh, yeah.  I am the George Feeny of tea parties.  There's a little sarcasm there for you.  I did learn a lot from my tea party experience.  I have been a customer at tea rooms for years now, and I love the tea room experience.  I have my favorite go-to teas and foods, but if a tea room offers unlimited tea to try...oh, yeah!  I usually walk out with $100 in loose-leaf tea if they will sell it to me.  So tips for a good homemade tea party for adults:

Tip 1: Have plenty of tea choices.

I know this is common sense, but have a generous choice of teas.  At the bare minimum, 5.  If you are hosting a tea party, I am assuming you like tea.  What you don't serve at the party, consider it part of your private stash.  Don't be cheap.  DON'T BUY GROCERY STORE TEA!!!  Seriously.  Buy it from a tea place like Teavana, Urbana tea spa (if you live in the Charlotte area), Tea Monger, or the Roswell Teahouse if you live in the Atlanta area.  I get all my tea from the latter  choice.  I have never been disappointed.  For my tea party, I had a two-page menu of all my favorite teas.  I live in South Carolina.  I have tea from Atlanta.  Put two and two together...the Roswell Teahouse ships their tea!!! Oh, it is SO worth it!


















                                                                               

       
So above is the first page of my tea menu.  I love Hobby Lobby for their multiple choices on crafting, but they had NO TEA STICKERS!  NONE!  AGH!  So, since the party was a shabby chic theme, I just stuck with that.  There were plenty of cool shabby chic stickers to choose from.  I got textured card stock for $.88 a sheet, twine to tie them together, and some stickers to deck it out.  In the end, I had around 30 teas to choose from because I am a tea fanatic.  It gave the party a true tea-room feel.  So, if you are hosting a tea party, have lots of teas to choose from!

Tip 2: Have lace. Lots of lace.

You are hosting a tea party, right?  Then that means girly and feminine to the extreme.  Even though my tea party was shabby chic, I still found plenty of room for lace with that burlap.  Most of my items were collected from Goodwill, antique stores, and Hobby Lobby.  Each table had a unique theme while sticking with shabby chic, but they all had lace.
The main table.  I have antique furniture.  Of course, that
makes a tea party even cooler!  Add some shabby chic decor,
and you have a lovely lacy setting.  I put burlap flowers
inside the lantern and let the door hang open.

This was an old, dirty card table. Can't tell? It's amazing what
pretty settings will do.  This table had a mini-garden.  It is a cut slab of
decorative moss from Hobby Lobby, as well as small garden furniture,
also from Hobby Lobby.  And the sign? Well, it's from, can you guess?

Our kitchen table.  It's got a natural wood look.
Don't cover natural wood.  It gives that 'Princess in
a fairy tale wood' vibe.  Pink was the theme here.

Table number 4.  Also a dirty old card table.  I covered
it with an oversized tablecloth (vintage) and gathered it to
disguise the ugly card-tablesque legs.  The ribbon is a lacy
burlap ribbon from Hobby Lobby.  I tied it like a shoe lace tie
except I folded the remaining ribbon in half and pinned it
to give it that 'bow' look.  Then, I stuck a pin through a pretty
burlap flower from...Hobby Lobby... and added it to the center
to hide the pins.  I did that on all four sides.  Perfect.

Tip 3: Have great food!

Not just good food.  Oh, anyone can have mediocre food.  Have excellent food.  Even if that means you buy it.  I have two babies.  I don't have time to make food to serve 20 people.  So, I bought most of my food.  And it all got rave reviews.  Here's what I had:
Chicken salad crescent rolls from Sam's Club.  It is the cranberry pecan
chicken salad that they sell in 2-pound amounts and the box of 20 mini-crescent
rolls.  I made the other sandwiches.  Recipes are at the recipes tab.

Desserts.  Mmm.  I divided the recipes among willing cooks.  I made the
chocolate mousse on the left.  Oh, it is as good as it all looks.  Key lime pies, lime cookies,
sugar cookies, and unpictured cheesecake from Publix bakery.  Of course, you need
strawberries for a tea party.  Any kind of sweet fruit will do, but strawberries are
just so pretty.  Other berries go great with sweet cream for another dessert choice.

Lemon curd from Publix (yummy!) for the Publix bakery
blueberry and cranberry orange scones.  Peach sweet tea,
raspberry sweet tea, and green tea with
pineapple and mango were the cold drink choices.  All from
the amazing Publix.  I think Publix and Hobby Lobby
should pay me for all the business I gave them. Ha!

I was dessert-heavy because hot tea is really good with desserts, and the party was at 2:00 in the afternoon.  Plus, it was a ladies-only bridal shower.  Who doesn't want sugar!?

Tip 4: Do something unique

Yeah, I know I am blogging about doing something unique, but whether it be a baby shower, a bridal shower, or just a tea party with friends, you should consider likes and dislikes and go from there.  My friend, Sarah, loves shabby chic.  It's not so much my taste.  I like Victorian and antique looks.  Boy did I ever have fun searching for a new look for my house!  It was refreshing and therapeutic in a way.  A little change is good for the soul.  Anyway, I decided to do themed tables for Sarah.  I got a burlap banner (let's just have a disclaimer right now.  All crafting items and most decorative items came from Hobby Lobby unless otherwise noted.  End of disclaimer), and I got some stencils and black spray paint.  My sister-in-law was a great sport. She did most of the spray painting with minor help from me, but we both ended up with black hands. Wear disposable gloves unless you want to wash off a layer of skin along with the paint.  Anyway, the final result was so worth it!




Medium-sized stencils, burlap banner, and black $.99 spray
paint.  20 minutes, and you have awesome signs.

Here is the bride (right) and her sister in two of the vintage hats
and wearing some vintage gloves.  So fun!


The "Old" table had baby pictures of the future bride and groom as well as around 30 pair of vintage gloves and a lot of floppy hats.  Some of the hats were vintage, as well, dating from the 1920's.  I found all the gloves and vintage hats on Ebay.  It was fun hunting them down.  I was very picky about  what I used.  I needed floppy hats and intricate gloves.  I found what looked like a bridal bouquet and wrapped burlap ribbon around it and tied that with twine to give it a shabby chic look.  Every detail counts.  Women notice detail.  Be detailed.






The borrowed table had a burlap book with empty pages and a pen tray.  I had the guests give their marriage advice.  Sarah 'borrowed' marriage advice from her guests.  I wish I had a longer place to hang this banner.  It got a little bunched, but it still looked nice.  And, look!  More lace!













The "New" table had a basket for gift cards and a really cool burlap mannequin that I found at The Shoppes at River's Edge in Rock Hill.  I took pictures of Sarah searching for her wedding gown. (Yep.  I'm the creepy stalker-friend who followed her around video taping and taking pictures AT THE SAME TIME!)  The actual gown I featured in a teaser picture.  You can't really see it on through the curtain. Bahahaha!  The others are of Sarah in street clothes just shopping for a gown.  Hey, it is not up to me to spoil her surprise.  And, look, more lace on the table.  Along with glass flowers.  I had teapot placeholders from my wedding that worked great as directives. 'Cards for Sarah', 'Prize table', 'Pay no attention to that dress behind the curtain'...just kidding on that last one.  A little pre-wedding humor, if you will.






The blue table featured a game (Guess what blue item is inside the treasure box) and a few blue decorations that I found at Goodwill.  I know you are shocked.  I found that lovely hat and the blue scarf at a Goodwill.  Perfect.  Oh, and there was a blue garter inside the box.  Have fun and get creative but make sure it is blue.

Tip 5: Play games

Don't assume everyone knows each other.  I had games that I found on Pinterest.  We played a 'what's inside your purse' game broken up into groups by table, and we played a 'Guess what the Bride is thinking' game as individuals.  They were clean and fun.  Sarah, nor I, for that matter, do not appreciate dirty games.  This event is elegant and lady-like.  Don't ruin your tea party with games that make some guests feel uncomfortable.  Clean games are the way to go.  And they are just as much fun.  I had prizes for the winners.  Everything from cute little boxes of dishcloths to teacup jewelry to an actual teacup with chocolate in it.  It made it a lot of fun.  I also had take-aways for everyone.  I had a bucket of tea samples that I can't believe there are no pictures of.  The tea was put in a small jewelry bag with a label telling how long to steep and a brown tag hanging from it that said, Chris + Sarah= perfect 'Tea'm".  Yeah.  It's corny, but it turned out super-cute.  I can't believe I have no pictures!  I got really caught up in details.  Apparently pictures weren't part of that detail.  I also hand-wrote recipes for everyone to take home of some of the featured items like the Tomato Basil Soup that I make.  Yes, I did actually make some of the stuff.





Recipes from featured items in this nifty $.59 hat-thing that I found at Goodwill.  It's called luck.
Just keep checking back until you find what you need.  It WILL be there.  Just give yourself plenty of time
to find it.  I had five months to collect things.  Awesome.

Tip 6: Pay attention to detail

All the small things do matter.  There were a lot of small things that happened to get the bigger result.  I used plastic silverware and dressed it up with a beautiful tea spoon, and a little decorative twine.  I set each set of silverware on top of the individual teacups.  It turned out elegant even though it was plastic.  Really, who wants 18 people worth of dishes at the end of the day.  Not to mention that I don't even own enough silverware.

I also made a 'cake' centerpiece using various ribbon and flowers.  You can do this with any ribbon.  Don't waste your time searching for ribbon that will stack just right.  You will probably have to unwind and re-pin some of it to make it the right size.  I stuffed the middle with flowers that I just set in there.  They fit nicely.  This was inexpensive and beautiful and got a lot of attention.  Also pictured are my mason jars that I tied string around to dress them up.  I went around them 7 times, then tied them off.  Easy, yet dressy.  Just another detail.

The outside was even decked out with a tea set on my patio
set up by my lovely sister-in-law

This chalkboard easel came from Kohls.  I'm sorry.  It is not
available online right now, so I have no link.
















Tip 7: Get a second job
Because paying for a tea party that is truly Pinterest worthy will cost you an arm and a leg.  I'm just being serious.  That's all.  Luckily, most items can be resold and you won't have to take a huge hit, but the food has no resale value, so consider that an investment into your loved one.  I'm a stay-at-home mom.  I found things to sell around the house so I could turn around and buy the teacups, teapots, and all the other things for the party.  It gets expensive fast, even with the 50% off sales that Hobby Lobby has.  However, it is worth the end result.  A lot of my guests had never been to a tea room, so my party was a first experience.  If you are going to do something for a friend, do it with all you have.  Do your best.  Make it a magical experience.  And have help.  Lots and lots of help.  My mom drove up from Atlanta and my sister-in-law drove an hour to help me prepare the food, decorate, and then serve the food and drinks.  Without them, the party would have been a flop.  We literally waited tables like actual waitresses.  That wasn't what I originally intended, but that is what ended up happening.  I couldn't have pulled off a flawless party without them.  Not to mention that my sister-in-law made a fabulous take-home wreath for the bride.
She does take orders if you are interested in a wreath
and are local.  She will ship, too, but local is easier.  Facebook
message me if you want a wreath.

I have no more tips, but I will say that hosting a party for a friend is a wonderful, stretching experience.  I learned that I am better at decorating than I thought.  I also learned that I can't do anything alone.  Sarah hosts most of the parties I attend.  She is truly gifted in that area.  I don't know how she does it.  It's fun to host, but I think I'll leave that to those who are gifted in hospitality.  I am personally gifted in eating, so I will stick with my gift.  Good luck with your party!  And feel free to ask any questions or make comments!
What?  How did Judah get here!?  







And Lizzie, too?  They must have snuck on this page. :-)































1 comment:

  1. You did a fabulous job with the party, and you are better at it than you give yourself credit for. I am so proud of you!!

    ReplyDelete