Elaine the Party Planner!

PARTY #1--I volunteered to host my Bible Study group on Valentine's Day. It was fun going all out with hearts, red and pink!

I made heart shaped ice with raspberries in them.

Here's how they looked once they came out of the molds.

 I used the same molds to make pink heart-shaped sugar cubes.

And why not heart-shaped butter, too?

 Since I have a heart cake pan, I made sour cream pound cake and made mini cakes for the dessert, which was strawberry shortcake.

I don't have a picture of the completed dessert. I ran out of time and didn't have time to cut the strawberries into hearts. (o:

To mark everyone's place I made these mini nine-patch wall quilts.

I just put the names on with stickers, since they weren't meant to be permanent.

 I used my white with red poppies dishes on red chargers.

 I bought red heart-shaped glasses and bead necklaces at the dollar store for accessories.

  I forgot to put "roasted red pepper and crab soup" on the menus for the first course, which was served in the heart-shaped bowls. The soup was probably the most popular food.

 I hung pretty glass hearts that I bought in Germany from the chandelier.

 I used heart-shaped pasta for the alfredo and put glittery foam hearts on the red napkin rings and the tea pot. We had a very nice time!

Becky gave me these delicate little heart lights that looked so pretty!

PARTY #2--In March I was in charge of the invitations, decorations, cakes, and activity for the Relief Society Birthday Dinner. I decided on aqua and gray/silver for the colors and made the invitations accordingly.

I wasn't in charge of the food, but printed the menus to put by each place.

 I recycled the silver paint stick stars I used at the ward Christmas dinner and had Kent shape them into window frames. This was one side of the cultural hall. I made the buntings with fabric and paper napkins.

I made the flower boxes from cardboard, covered in paper and filled them with silk ivy and tissue paper flowers. I made the large pinwheels from wrapping paper.

The other side of the cultural hall had the cake table, plus displays of the three areas of focus for the Relief Society, which are Faith, Family and Relief.

 Each table had items on them that went along with the theme.

This time I remembered to have Kent take a picture of me with my decorations!

 I made four different four-layer cakes. Below are the lemon and vanilla cakes.

 These are the carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and the chocolate with peanut butter frosting cakes. They were all very yummy, if I do say so myself.

I didn't have time to put string across the ceiling of the cultural hall to hang my paper lanterns, so I used a hula hoop and hung them and the pom poms over the cake table.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture of the centerpieces. I used milk bottles wrapped in gray fabric and tied with aqua twine. They were placed on a piece of aqua card stock with lace scalloped edges.

 I made pinwheels from aqua wrapping paper and used my silhouette to cut out the words, "faith", "family" and "relief". The aqua and gray napkins are also shown below (which I also cut up to use on the buntings.) We set up six tables and only needed four and a half, so that was disappointing.

After the meal we did projects that centered around each area of focus. 

For "faith" I designed this tile using a pass along card picture of the Savior and used my silhouette to cut out the vinyl words. They turned out pretty well, though the photo below is blurry.

PARTY #3-- The very next day after my labor intensive RS activity, we had our annual Green Party. Fortunately Kent had the day off so we worked together to get set up for the party. Here are this year's invitation.

The porch decked out in green and shamrocks. This year we had the party actually on St. Patrick's day, which was fun.

 This sign was a new addition this year.

 For the past few years Kent has bought these cute little narcissus flowers that look like mini-daffodils to put in the kitchen window. They look so spring-y!

I don't vary too much from the way I decorate from year to year. I've collected quite a few serving green dishes from Goodwill over the years.

Our green party outfits.

 I bought shamrocks from Giant to use as decorations and as prizes for the most unusual green food item and the person wearing the most green.

 Every year I have the green avocado chips and green m & m's, but I tried something new this year. I made spinach crepes and filled them with laughing cow cheese, green onions and raw spinach. They were tasty and came out a lovely green color without adding any food coloring. I was pleased with them and think I'll make them again!

It was a crazy couple of days, but now that it's behind me I can say it was fun in an extremely stressful kind of way! I like entertaining and being creative in my decorating, but I wish I was better at having people help me and not trying to do so much by myself.