Posts Tagged ‘party planning’

Chipotle Popcorn + Easy Paper Cones

June 25th, 2013
8 Comments

Last week I bought a popcorn popper! I’ve been doing it on the stovetop until now. It’s not terrible, but it is nice to avoid standing over the stove for 10 minutes at a time.

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Our neighborhood has this little tradition called “Street of Treats”. Each street is assigned a Sunday through out the summer and early fall months, and neighbors get together to provide and eat treats. Our street was up first for the summer! I wanted to do something fun, but I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time preparing for it.

I also wanted to do something besides brownies and cookies as I knew mine would certainly not be the best nor the only ones out. So I did a popcorn bar!

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About an hour beforehand I realized I didn’t have enough paper cups for neighbors, so I had to get inventive. I certainly have enough paper on-hand, so I made cones:

Cut the 12×12 inch paper into fourths. Find some cute, but strong tape (this is masking tape from OHF).

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Lightly crease the corner.

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Overlap opposing corners.

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But don’t overlap too much.

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Secure with tape.

I believe I made about 50+ cones and about 10+ batches of popcorn last night. Neighbors and friends topped their own popcorn with cinnamon and sugar, butter, parmesan, Mrs. Dash Chipotle powder, Salt, Pepper and/or dill. The little kids loved dousing their popcorn in lots of butter.

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My personal favorite combination? Butter, Mrs. Dash chipotle seasoning, lots of parmesan and kosher salt.

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I’m pretty sure I need to host a movie night and do this kind of thing again. It was fun, easy, cheap and cute.

Does your neighborhood do any fun get-togethers like this during the summer months?

Penelope’s Birthday Party Part II

May 5th, 2010
17 Comments

The party was organized chaos. I didn’t take very many photos of the festivities, but I did manage to document the food table. We had Bee’s lemon water (a delicious homemade beverage that’s clear – perfect for living room dining), pulled pork sandwiches, clementines, bananas, cut veggies, chips and cake. The food was all pretty low-key except for the cake, which took a few hours to make entirely from scratch. I made a white cake with lemon curd and lemon frosting. It was deliciously moist and dense. MMM! I’ll make it again and share the recipe with you, if you’d like.

I used the Silhouette to cut a P out of paper to use as a stencil for the decorative sugar. It kind of looks gritty as if I spray painted the P on there. I like that.

I kept the decorations simple by using balloons and a handmade garland using the same paper I used for the envelopes. It was really easy to make. If you’d like a tutorial for the garland, comment! I was going to make the vellum mobiles as seen on Oh Happy Day, but I didn’t have enough time to run to the store for more paper, so I opted to make the strips into a garland instead. The vellum mobiles would’ve looked really rad, had time been on my side. I also made Penelope’s party favors using the envelope paper and a variation on the petal box template (cut with the Silhouette). I filled the boxes with hard lemon candies and candy orange slices.

The festivities were really simple: eating and dancing. It was great to keep things simple, otherwise it would’ve been like hearding cats. Plus, after spending so much time on the invitations, I wasn’t about to plan a creative party curriculum. I’m much too lazy for that. The kidlets enjoyed dancing, screaming, fighting over balloons and playing hide and seek in the ikea garbage cans that we use for storing Penelope’s toys. I say it was a great success! Also, the kids were so entertained, us parents had a great time catching up.


Click here to read part I: The Invitation

Click here to read part III: The Thank Yous

{no} Labor Day

September 11th, 2009
8 Comments

I LOVE Monday holidays. They’re such a great way to start out the week. Since I’ve been working partly full-time it was so great for a little R&R. I’m soin love with wedding blogs and party planning blogs I’ve been DYING to have a few festivities of my own. Monday provided the perfect opportunity to par-tay.

the spread

Our decorations were simple and cheap. Cheap as in practically zero dollars. Here’s how I decorated:

  • I refinished the green table (more on that later)
  • drilled some holes in the fence
  • draped some old curtains over the fence
  • hung some old cabinets
  • put up the bunting (in reverse) from Penelope’s birthday
  • draped a yellow table cloth over my craft desk

the food

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All these things I had just lying around. I think what made it all unique was that I brought the inside, out. I think it worked really well. Dinner was really simple, too. We don’t have a grill (yet), so we did buffet-style burritos. I took care of the black beans (recipe courtesy of Cafe Johnsonia–Thank you!!), meat, drinks and dessert while everyone else chipped in with the rest. I cooked the black beans overnight and the chicken cooked all day in the crockpot. Basically, my work was all done for me. I also made Fraiche frozen yogurt with fresh peaches and Blackberry Lemon water (recipe to come). All of the fresh food was delicious and very easy to make.

the metal trays

In addition to dying to throw a party, I’d been wanting to use my new stainless steel vintage lunch trays. They were perfect for eating outside and on the ground. Did I mention each tray weighs as much as a toddler? They’re only for serious eaters.

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We had a lot of fun. It was so great to socialize with my new friends Alma & Allison and their families. Blog stalking is the new way to make friends these days. Serious.

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