Favorite Things Party

This was laid out in my kitchen. The drinks and punch were to the right of this.

Favorite Things Party!!

I held this at the end of February, which I felt was a good time because I was able to get some Valentine's Day themed supplies that worked for "favorite things" since it was covered in hearts. Unfortunately a lot of my friends weren't able to attend, so this is a party that I'd like to throw again, just in a different month. It was fun though, so here is what I did!!

I got some roll up sandwiches at the grocery store for the main meal. Just something easy and light, and the guests that did come seemed to enjoy them.

I got these cute sugar cookies at the store and laid some out on a plate. Since it was close to March, they had St. Patrick's Day colors. They were still good, regardless!

I got these snack cups at target and filled some with white cheddar popcorn and others with Valentine's Day colored Hershey kisses.

I don't do flowers a lot, but we thought something cute and girly would be appropriate. I put a plate upside down and placed the flowers on top so it was higher than the items around it.

I placed some fruit salad and dip in separate pink bowls. I believe they are Zak! designs. Very cute.

Here are a couple shots of my kitchen table with the food lying out!

Here's a picture of me before the party. I wore my pink dress for the occasion!

That's the food...but for the main event of the night, we swapped our favorite things. If you've never heard of a Favorites Things party, the idea is to have each guest bring one of their favorite items to share. You state how many of each item and what they can spend beforehand. I chose for people to bring four of the SAME item and the item they pick can't cost more than $5 each. So you could bring a $5 item and four of those would be $20. Or you could bring a $1 item and you only spend $4. It should be one of your favorite things though!

This is what I brought. I got the popcorn containers, popcorn packets and buncha crunch from the dollar store. Each item was $1 each, so my favorite thing cost $3. I just got four of them!

A friend of mine brought a few things, such as Whoppers, Cookies n Creme Hershey bars, modeling clay, mini candles.

The same friend brought those giant bubble wands as well! My sister brought the dove chocolate (in the bottom left hand corner) and the Bistex chapstick (upper left hand corner).

A better shot of what my sister brought!

My sister also brought pints of Mocha Chocolate Chip ice cream from her favorite ice cream place Graeter's (a local place).

Because so few people could come, everyone got one of each item brought, which was fun! Normally, if there were more than four people, everyone would get four items because they brought four but they wouldn't get something from every attendant.

Before we could swap gifts though, I had a fun activity! People on pinterest often made their own bags for people to bring their goodies home in. I decided to buy some yellow bags at the dollar store and lay out a box of fun markers, stickers, and other scrapbooking supplies so my guests could decorate their own bags! They had fun with this, so I'd suggest it as a cute activity if you throw this party in the future.

Here is a look at the bag my sister made! Cute huh?

I also wanted to have a game so I used an idea I saw on pinterest where you write out a list of questions that ask people about their favorites. "Favorite thing to buy..." "Favorite Color..." etc. The idea is to have everyone go around and read their answers. If someone says the same answer you wrote, you cross out your answer in terms of points. At the end, whoever has the most unique answers wins. I figured if there was a tie (and there was), I would ask them to choose what they thought my favorite number was and the closest answer won. It was 16 and my sister won (I swear she didn't know before; she just guessed closest). I gave her a bag with a couple other items that are on my favorites list like Sheila G's brownie crisps and a mini pack of the Yes To Cucumber face wipes. Each item is under $5 individually, so they could have been items I chose to swap too.

And there you have it, my first ever Favorite Things party! I hope to do it again with more guests in the future, since it would make the swapping more fun!

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I link up at http://www.somedaycrafts.blogspot.com/, http://www.raegunramblings.com/, and http://tatertotsandjello.com/

Nightmare Before Christmas Party

Nightmare Before Christmas Party! A friend of mine and I held this around Christmas time, but you can do it whenever. This is the tree at her house...she put fake cobwebs around it to add a Halloween flair, though I'm afraid you can't tell too much in the photo! It was a nice touch though. The party was at her house, but I brought a lot of the food and prizes. It's tradition to do Christmas at her place.

Around Halloween I found various Nightmare Before Christmas and Jack Skellington items at Walgreens. This Jack figure was bought by my sister and we used it as decoration on the food table. I added four mini bottles of sparkling cider for people to share with a simple sign that reads "Christmas Town Cider."

I found Red and Green tortilla chips at Target and grabbed a couple bags and some salsa for "Sandy Claws Salsa". This went over quite well actually! Yum!

I wanted something a little healthy to off set all the sweets so I laid out some cucumber slices and mini carrots with ranch for dipping. I titled this "Reindeer Food" to go with the theme.

My sister made these cake pops with white chocolate for the head. She drew on the faces and voila, you get "Jack Skellington Pops."

I placed these mini tubs of cotton candy on the coffee table that everyone sat around. The sign reads "Sally's Stuffing."

This isn't Jack, but my dad bought me this around Halloween so I put it next to my friend's TV. It can dance as "Moves like Jagger" starts to play. I figured it works since it's a skeleton!

This is some of my friend's decorations. It's obviously a very cute mix of Christmas and Halloween decorations. She even set out her book The Nightmare Before Christmas! Love it.

You can't forget Zero! I got a plastic dog bowl from the dollar store and put whoppers in it, labeling it "Zero's Kibble." I saw a version of this on another blog, though I'm not sure the exact link.

I found this idea on pinterest!! You take a brown lunch bag and fill it with gummies. The example I saw was a bit more elaborate. I just ripped back the top of the bag so it looked like a tear into the stomach and put regular and sour gummy worms in it. And there you have it..."Oogie Boogie's Insides." This was definitely a hit!

And here's a shot of the food table with most of the items out! I love the mix of Halloween decorations and Christmas lights. It looked cute!

And finally, a look at the prizes! I got the marshmallow lollipop, Jelly Beans, Pen, and pen/paper at Walgreens around Halloween and held on to them. My friend offered two free tickets to the Aquarium where she worked as well. The "This is Halloween" nail polish is from etsy. You can get your own from Lyn B Designs!

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That's the food and prizes. As for the games, I was pretty busy around this time and therefore I couldn't come up with too many great games, but I had to do something!

Stocking Questions: I filled a Christmas stocking with various Christmas and Halloween related questions and we passed the stocking around the room having people answer a question at a time. It was meant to be a fun "getting to know you" type of exercise. Plus, the game aspect was because I chose a question ahead of time out of the stocking and that became the "winner." Therefore, whoever chose that question during the game was told to be the winner at the end.

Fear Elimination: I filled note cards for everyone with statements such as "I am not afraid of heights." If this was true; you are NOT afraid of heights, then you would circle it. Whoever had the most circled (the least fears) was the winner. Three people won this...all boys, so they could have been lying (haha). We picked one winner by choosing a number and then at the end of the games, the other two got to choose from the remaining prizes.

I can't remember if we did any other games or not. I think these were the main ones though! It was fun and the theme was something I'd wanted to do for awhile. I think it turned out well. This would be great for Christmas, Halloween, or even someone's birthday!

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I link up at http://www.somedaycrafts.blogspot.com/, http://www.raegunramblings.com/, and http://tatertotsandjello.com/

Winnie-the-Pooh Themed Picnic

I've been a huge fan of Winnie-the-Pooh since I was little. Even when I got older, if I was home sick from school, I loved watching the cartoon. I suppose I get this from my mom whose a big fan as well, so it's no surprise that I thought a Winnie-the-Pooh themed picnic for Mother's Day was the way to go this year. Yeah, I know, Mother's Day is in the past, but you can use this idea for any holiday or event. Just change things to fit the theme/setting.

First off, I made the cute note above with one of my favorite quotes, by Pooh himself, that says:

Some People Care Too Much...I Think It's Called Love

I love the idea of having a picnic in the park, so I knew I wanted to find some food (and a drink) that I could give fun little names to fitting the Pooh theme. I packed everything up in a box and laid it out with my collection of Pooh stories, as well as the soundtrack for the latest Pooh film (which I actually saw in theaters with my mom!)

We listened to the soundtrack on the way to and from the park and I even pointed out a story about a party in the Pooh collection (I believe my mom read it later in the day).

As for the food, I went with-

Cucumbers and carrots with a dip my family loves - Rabbit's Garden

Cow Tail candy - Eeyore's Tail

Fruit punch - Piglet's Punch

Gummi-Bears - Gummi Winnie-the-Pooh

Cheetos- Tigger Tails

Peanut Butter Crunch - Owl Crunch

This is everything laid out at the park...the soundtrack is obviously still in the car and I didn't bring the veggies, because as you can see from the photo before this, they are in some large containers and we figured we didn't want to lug those with us. It was a bit windy the day we went, but nothing too bad. It was me, my mom, and my sister...and the park was fairly empty, which worked out nice! Overall, my mom loved the gift and we all had a fun time!

If you have any thoughts about this, ideas of your own, or questions, please leave them in the comments or shoot me an email!

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I hope to link up at the following parties-

http://www.houseofhepworths.com/, http://tidymom.net/, http://tatertotsandjello.com/, http://www.iheartnaptime.net/, http://www.skiptomylou.org/, http://www.tipjunkie.com/category/handmade-projects/, and http://somedaycrafts.blogspot.com/

The Hunger Games Party - Games and Prizes

The above photo is myself as Primrose Everdeen and my sister, Kari, as Foxface. I put my hair in braided pigtails and wore a white shirt that I felt was Prim appropriate. I didn't have a skirt, so gray pants was it! My sister has the red hair for Foxface, so she put on a black shirt we figured was "games" worthy and then put a Five patch on her should for the District she is from.

Moving on to the games we played!

I had a Hungry for Trivia Game, where I asked questions that were somehow related to The Hunger Games (either the author, the actors in the film, etc.) but weren't book-related for the few people at my party who hadn't read the books. A couple examples-

Q. Liam Hemsworth plays Katniss’ friend Gale. Liam’s older brother is also an actor. What superhero does he play?

A. Thor

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Q. Lenny Kravitz plays Cinna and Jennifer Lawrence plays Katniss. What movie did Jennifer Lawrence star in alongside Lenny Kravitz’ daughter?

A. X-Men: First Class

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If you want to hold your own Hunger Games party, feel free to email me or leave a comment below with your email and I'll send the entire list of Trivia for your use!

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The other game we played was Real or Not Real? If you've read Mockingjay, then you understand the meaning of this. I wrote down a bunch of "facts" on notecards and I read them aloud, as we went along the circle. If the card said "You like boys" and you do, you say "Real" and you get the card. If you don't like boys, you say "Not Real" and the next person has to say Real or Not Real until the card is given to someone or nobody gets it. If nobody gets it, I set the card out of the pile and read the next card. If you get the card, I read the next "fact" to the person right after you and off we go! I tried to mix up the "facts" so it fit various people. I put things like "you'd live outside of the country" and even "you like pizza." Easy and fun! It's a fun "getting to know you" game, so I suggest you use it for any party or gathering! Of course, the person with the most cards in their hand at the end is the winner!

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The Real or Not Real photo above is NOT mine, but you can get these free printables courtesy of Tattered and Inked. I wish I had them when I did my party, but unfortunately, I just found them!

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The Prizes!

I'm sorry to say that I did not get a photo of the prizes, which I'm pretty bummed about as I thought they were fun. I picked up a sucker at Michael's that had an icing type of bumblebee on it and called it a Tracker Jacker pop with a little tag around the stick.

I had a couple bottles of self-tanning lotion, so I wrapped some red poster board around it and called it Capitol Color (for the kooky styles of the Capitol).

I even had a copy of the book The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher because it said it was good for fans of The Hunger Games!

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Voila! That was my Hunger Games party. The decorations, the food, the games, the prizes, and even the "costumes" for a couple of us!

Keep following the blog...I have more parties and crafts coming up!

The Hunger Games Party - Food

The Hunger Games Party - The Food

all photos are by my family

The above photo are what I called Capitol Pills. I got them from the dollar store and they are simple white mints that came in money wrappers. I figured the money works for the Capitol, and also in Catching Fire, the Capitol folks eat and eat and eat, then take a pill and throw up, and eat and eat and eat some more.

These are bugles, which I called Mini Cornucopias. I got the regular and the cheddar and seperated them into two bowls and they made a fun little snack before dinner/dessert.

I got mini cans of Sprite and some cotton candy tubs (again from the dollar store) and called it Trinket Toppers. You put some cotton candy on top of your sprite for a kooky hair look a ala Effie Trinket. Unfortunately, our cotton candy melted into the sprite right away, but people seemed to enjoy just eating the cotton candy too!

My sister really wanted a cheese ball for the party, so she made this and I titled it Prim's Goat Cheese Ball. No, it's not really goat cheese, but I figured that wouldn't be as appetizing! If you aren't aware, the character Prim (Katniss' sister) has a goat and sells cheese from her.

Finnick's Garlic Knots. I actually came up with this idea on my own, which I was pretty proud of myself. A local pizza place makes garlic knots and I LOVE them, so that started the thought process and I found a recipe online and had my sister make some. The character of Finnick knots and unknots a rope over and over again as a means of coping, hence the garlic knots for Finnick!

This is Haymitch's Drunk Punch. I don't drink alcohol so there is none in it, but I wanted something to fit Haymitch and a "Drunk" Punch seemed nice since he drinks all the time in the books. Plus, this is a punch I've made for other parties with friends and it goes over well. It went SUPER fast this time!

I wanted to include Rue somehow, as I love her character so we went with District 11 Fruit Salad (Hand-picked by Rue). It was a light addition to my meal plan...especially with dinner!

Speaking of dinner, I went with cheeseburgers and hotdogs and called it Gale's Game since he hunts in District 12 with Katniss. Normally, when I have parties for friends, we just do snacks and dessert items, but I planned out a whole meal around the Gale's Game idea.

Peeta is the "Boy with the Bread" so we had to have a bread item for him. Instead of making homemade bread or getting roles, we went with Peeta's Pretzel Bread, which is really good. My sister (again) wanted the Spinach Dip to go with it, so I made it Caesar's Spinach Dip...mainly because spinach is green and I thought that fit Caesar's eclectic blue/green style.

This was a last minute idea. My sister and I went to a graduation party a week before, I believe, and they had these cookies (but with kiwi). We made them (sugar cookies, cream cheese frosting, and blackberries/rasberries for the top) and called it Nightlock Cookies, in honor of the infamous berries that kill you with one bite. Don't worry, these are non-toxic and oh so yummy!

We had to have an item in honor of Katniss Everdeen, so we went with Girl on Fire Cupcakes. Simple vanilla cupcakes with yellow and orange icing on top to look like fire. We then added crushed up oreos around it to be the coal!

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Most of these ideas were created by me, but you're obviously more than welcome to use them for your own Hunger Games party. If you have any food-related questions, just shoot me an email or leave a comment below. I'd love to hear what you think about this food and maybe even what you did or would do for your own HG-related gathering!

The Hunger Games Party - Decorations!

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I love throwing parties for my friends and this past May, it was my birthday month, so I essentially threw my own b-day party...but with the awesome Hunger Games theme! I'm going to try and get all the HG posts up this week so you can see just how I set the whole thing up.

Today, I'm going to start with the decorations. It was very simple. I didn't feel the need to go all crazy. I essentially found funny Hunger Games-related pictures online, printed them off, and then taped them to red cardboard (red for the girl on fire of course). After that, I just spread them around my living room and voila! Simple decorations that can easily entertain the guests.

You Know You're Obessed with the Hunger Games... poster (found these online)

Voldemort approves of President Snow...

I have about six or seven more of these type of things, but I don't want to overcrowd the post with similar things. You get the idea. If you want the links to where I got these, I think I still have them, so just let me know!

Now, some other decoration ideas...I looked up songs that people felt fit the books (that weren't on the actual movie soundtrack) and made a list of two playlists that I taped to my stereo. One is songs that fit the series in general and the other is a fire-themed playlist.

Next, if you've read all the HG books then you know that Katniss and Peeta put together what I call a scrapbook, but it's a mix of information about friends and things they want to have on hand. So I got a small red scrapbook and put out some supplies for a Katniss and Peeta's Scrapbook Station. Nobody used it, but it was still kind of cute. If you have a party with just girls, I think it might go over better...have everyone work on pages and then add your party pics later. That was my plan but I guess I'll just do the scrapbook on my own! haha

Finally, I had a fire pit for when it got dark out so we could roast some s'mores. I went with the idea of a Girl on Fire (pit) just to be a bit quirky. I even had "Roast President Snow" for the s'more making, but I never got a picture of that sign. My bad!

There you have it...my simple, yet fun, Hunger Games decorations. Keep watching the blog this week for the food (I went crazy on this!) and the games/prizes! I'll even share a picture of me as Primrose Everdeen!