Spring Dinner with Friends

So Spring seems to have come early this year and its time for another potluck dinner party with friends.  This time we happen to be getting together for a non- St. Patrick's Day dinner so we are doing any food NOT Irish.  I am making one of my favorites- Martha Stewart's Macaroni and Cheese and a twist on Strawberry Shortcake called Eton Mess (thank you Ina Garten).  I have one friend bringing stuffed mushrooms, another salad, and two others bringing sauteed spinach and kale and another vegetarian dish. So I was thinking what i would like to do for a table design and this is what I have so far....green and white checkered linen napkins, a beige tablecloth (almost a taupe), rose glass dishes and green glasses. For centerpieces, I am thinking Ball jars with fresh garden flowers and herbs. Casual yet spring-y!!!  What do you think?

Daylight Savings Time Dinner

So here's a cute idea for a daylight savings time dinner idea  for something different....

How about different clocks for centerpieces and a black and white motif,  Happy hour would be a must and do it for two hours!!!! Then for dinner a spring salad with green goddess dressing ('we are close to St.Patrick's Day after all). For dinner, a roasted vegetable frittata (breakfast food- why not? Barefoot Contessa has a great recipe), multigrain roll, red potatoes with parsley and steamed asparagus. For dessert, black and white cookies. For party place cards- little hour glasses (avail. online).  Fun evening and you'll be surprised how time flies!! :)

Party favors....

I was thinking about party favors for your French Barbie party and here are some of my thoughts...
mini Eiffel towers key rings
pink poodle accessories
pink t shirts and black fabric paint
pink and black hair clips
little black berets (you could make them out of felt)
little pink and black scarves
little pink change purse with a kiddie lip gloss inside
little pink tutus  (easy to make with pink tulle and some ribbon) you could also glue sequin on them
also- a modeling show would be a fun activity with french music playing in the background

I hope it helps!!!

The French Barbie Birthday Party

Okay Anne,

What a fun idea!!!So let's begin with food....
little pastries would be cute.  How about buying the pastry horns from the Publix bakery and making a whip cream filling and letting each child have their own baggie filled with the filling to squeeze into the pastry horn.  You could also let them drizzle chocolate on top of it and sprinkles too.  It is a fresher idea than cupcakes, which in my opinion are starting to be overdone.

Quiche and salads for the moms would be nice as well as a pink sparkling punch (or how about champagne and cranberry juice or creme de cassis and make Kir Royales- that's my kind of birthday party!!!). Fruit salad is nice. I have a lovely recipe for a spinach an strawberry salad as well if you want it.

Finger sandwiches for the girls but use cookie cutter and cut the sandwiches outwith Eiffel towers or princess crowns shapes. The type of sandwich won't matter because they'll be too caught up in the shapes (however strawberry cream cheese on the bread would probably go over big.) You could also go safe and serve 'french fries'.  :)  Next....party favors and decor.  Does that help????

More on the Academy Awards

How about for background music during dinner- themes from previous Oscar winning soundtracks.
Further you could also do a dessert in a jelly roll pan (black cake with a vanilla filling) that when sliced looked like a movie reel.
How about accordion-folding your napkins with black napkins with black ribbon to make them bow ties?You could plan a preshow trivia game but at my house we make 1- 10 cards and we rate how the stars are dressed.  Its our own Joan Rivers show.

Next week helping out my friend Anne- the french themed Barbie birthday party- OOO LA LA!!

Academy Awards Party

So with the Academy Awards this Sun. I thought this seemed like an appropriate theme for the week.   Here goes...
Black and gold color theme ofcourse- black tableclothes, gold votives and confetti with metallic streamers scattered
Movie clapboards to label food items
black pencils with gold curling ribbon on them  to use as score cards for the awards
Popcorn in treat bags or movie popcorn tubs
Boxes of movie candy to snack on
Pinwheel sandwiches ( to double as movie reels)
Pins in a sandwich (mini 'oscars' like oscar meyer)
Mini oscar statues as a party favor
Pics of guests on the chairs in lieu of placecards

More to come....

Menu for Tu B' Shevat

Today's post is the menu for our Tu B'Shevet:

Moroccan  roasted chicken with dried fruit
Glazed sweet potatoes
Whole green beans
7 grain bread
Dessert: fruit salad drizzled with honey
(OOO- and how about pomegranate cosmopolitans)

what do you think?

Tu B'Shevat Dinner Party

Ok- this week's topic is in honor of Tu B'Shevat, New Years for Trees.  If I were going to throw a dinner party for this holiday, here are some of my ideas...Use green moss (avail. at Michael's) for a table runner, mason jars with candles in them for centerpieces. Napkins wrapped in raffia bows.  White lights in the ferns outdoors is a nice touch and ball jars hung in the trees with wire with candles in them is pretty as well. On my next post - I'll put together some menu ideas.  :)

Baby Shower for a boy

So my friend is having a baby boy.  Her other girlfriends are throwing a shower for her and I thought I would think of some ideas they might use.  Feel free to jump in with your own ideas. Her nursery theme is jungle animals. So first off you gotta do animal crackers as your take home party favor I think. Color scheme would be green and chocolate brown but since its a jungle theme and it is for adults a cheetah print theme might work as well. What about a ribbon garland with discs of animal cutouts strung on it?  The discs could be in a bowl upon entry and each person could write a wish for the baby on the discs.  You could string it anywhere in the nursery you'd like. Hmmm that's a start....

Welcome

So I got tired of waiting for my friends to start this endeavor with me so I am going it alone. I love entertaining, party planning and decorating. I love looking through cookbooks, magazines, event websites for great ideas and making them even better. I will post several times a week on one topic and may throw in a stray comment here or there on life as well. Hopefully you'll enjoy it and throw out ideas of events you need help with.  Here goes...