30th Birthday Party - Leaving the Roaring 20s Behind Theme - Invitations

My family is really big into throwing everyone in our family a surprise 30th birthday.  Well I'm the last of 4 girls, so I knew the surprise would be coming and asked if I could crash the party planning.  We came up with the theme "Leaving the Roaring 20s Behind", which I am so excited to dress up for! My family LOVES to party plan and I think we do a pretty damn good job! You can be the judge ;-)

Here are some of my beginning thoughts once you come up with your theme.

Pick a date and location
Finding a location can be super tricky..How much work do you want to put into planning? Do you want a caterer/wait staff available or do you want a hall and you do the work/provide the food/drinks/etc?  Do you want to rent a mansion?

I went back and forth with this. Yes, having a place that caters and takes care of linens, plates, silverware, and everything is AWESOME! So much less work, but there are some things you have to consider: does the place fit your theme? Are you willing to sacrifice some decorating that you wanted if you can't decorate the walls, don't have the space, or both? As much as I wanted a mansion, there is no way I was justifying that cost to my husband!

I really wanted to make my own photobooth for this party (which I did last year for my husband's 30th, so I think I worked out the kinks!) and knew that I was going to be limited with decorating based on the places I found.  I also am having a party in the heart of holiday party season, which makes it way more difficult to find a place.

Soo...that's why we went with a blank slate! A rectangle hall with a bar.  All food and drinks will have to be provided by us, but I can decorate however I WANT!!! Woohoo!!! To get an idea of how crazy I am, I want to decorate the entire room..... I mean covering wall to wall. Think Great Gatsby!

You can essentially turn any space in a theme-oriented space, it just takes some planning.  

Good thing my family loves me!! :-D


Invitations
Now I went through pinterest and etsy to find something I was interested in and found this:

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/435090013975007291/ 

I wanted to make my own invitations.  I used Microsoft Publisher because it is easier for me to drag the text boxes around, but you can also use Word or some other word processor.

The following site was a fabulous resource for different paid and free fonts you can use:
http://www.blogher.com/throwing-1920s-great-gatsby-party-menu-book 

Using the different fonts, I created this invite:

I printed it on ivory paper. On the bottom is a qr code that I created; when scanned, it brought them to a google doc for responses that would automatically be uploaded to my computer.  If you scan the code on my invite, you will see that it brings you to the site that I used to create the code.

Many more 20s themed posts will be coming soon as decorations are created and ordered as well as how to put together your own photo booth!

Thanks for looking!

Crocheted projects!

Sorry guys!! I've been in hiding the past few weeks!  There were many birthdays and projects happening that needed to get accomplished, making me slack off! Some of the projects this week include an evil minion crocheted hat and bunny lovey! Both were used with combinations of patterns from others as well as my interpretation.

Next up, a crocheted Elsa doll & party planning for a Roaring 20's Party!! :)

Thanksgiving Turkey Burgers with Cranberry Sauce on Pretzel Rolls

Tastefully Simple came out with this Pretzel Roll Mix that I had to try.  Whenever we go out to eat, I always look for the burger or grilled chicken on a pretzel roll.  So instead of making these as just rolls, I wanted them to be big enough to be a bun for a delicious "Thanksgiving" turkey burger with a cranberry sauce!! Yumm!

The pretzel buns were easy to make with only two ingredients needed and easy-to-follow instructions on the box.

Cranberry "Aioli" Sauce

Next, I made my cranberry "aioli" sauce. You need: 

1/2 cup canned cranberry sauce (whole or jellied)

1/2 cup plain greek yogurt

1/2 tsp. apple cider or orange juice

Add all ingredients to food processor and blend.

Chill for 20 minutes or more.  Taste to see if you need to add any more cranberry sauce.  Once chilled, I tasted the greek yogurt more than when I first blended.  

Turkey Burger Recipe

You need (serves 4): 

1 lb. ground turkey

1/4 cup chopped onion

1 1/2 tsp. poultry seasoning

Mix together and separate into 4- 1/4 lb. patties.  Grill or steam, ensuring to cook all the way through. 

Layer your turkey burger and add your fixings.  Unfortunately we had no lettuce, otherwise that would have made it perfect!!! Add some sides, such as sweet potato fries (my favorite!!!) and broccoli (to add some veggies) and enjoy! 

Thoughts of the meal: LOVED the pretzel rolls! They were a huge hit. I made 5 buns out of the package, but I definitely made them too big. I should have flattened them more, making probably 8 buns instead...   The seasoned turkey burgers with the cranberry sauce were the perfect "Thanksgiving" combo.  Cranberry sauce on its own was a bit much, so it has to be a nice balance with other flavors.  Hubby enjoyed the dinner as well, which is an A in my book! :) 

Machine Embroidering on Crocheted Item: Success!

I bought a new sewing/embroidery machine two months ago and I haven't had too much time to play around with it.  My main thoughts behind getting the machine was to monogram towels.  In that process, I haven't found lettering that I really like for "S".  I think they all look like scribbles!

During the search for monogramming, my husband had this great idea to embroider on an ear warmer one of the races that we have completed.  So I ventured into crocheting an ear warmer for him that I was going to embroider "Gulf Beach 13.1" on, except, I made the headband too small.  It just fit me so perfectly though!! Perfect "mistake" right?! ;-)  That's when I decided to embroider "Roxbury 26.2" on it.  This marathon I completed last December in 15 degree, snowy weather.  It was such an awesome race that I signed up again!!! I want to make sure that I am nice and warm for this race and what better way than to show off the race name??

I've never embroidered on crochet and couldn't find much information about it so I treated it like it was a towel.  With towels, there is the concern that the needle will get caught on the material and pull, making it difficult to embroider.  That is when I found wonderful information on the web to use a water soluble stabilizer on top of the towel and a tear-away, or cut-away, stabilizer underneath.

I did the same thing with the crochet and it worked! Be careful not to pull your crochet too tight when putting it in the hoop, otherwise it will stretch and could pucker your work.

Happy crocheting and embroidering!! :)