trophy husband party pics

Rule#5: This is my last suggestion, I promise. My husband was a good sport in the end and said it was my best party yet. But if you're going to throw a trophy husband party for your significant other, save yourself 500 awkward conversations about weird invitations, sexy cake toppers, raw food chefs, custom t-shirts and extra lucky fortunes and just make it a surprise party!

All of these fab photo were taken by the adorable Quinn Curtis of Limelight Food Photography.

cute handwriting, or why i love marta

If you can't tell from my last giveaway, I love the extra specialness of hand written addresses. But really it's just plain old jealousy. My handwriting is well, meh, you know. I "perfected" it in highschool (the only time when cute handwriting really matters, right?) while writing wasteful amounts of notes to friends. Now my penmanship looks dated and high schoolish, go figure. That's why I swoon when I see fun handwriting. Enter the lovely & talented Marta. You might know her from her adorable blog martawrites. I loved her instantly once I found out we were from the same hometown. And viola! I needed a less traditional font for the upcoming Trophy Husband party. What better time to try it out. Isn't it so cute?

Rule #4 Don't EVER tell your husband that you paid someone to address his birthday invites. He'll never understand. Oh, and if you want you can check out Marta's shop.

imported soda pop

Okay, I hate high fructose corn syrup. My secret is out. I do. I don’t feed it to my kids. I don’t feed it to myself. We don’t drink it. I’m a total label reader. This is all fine and good except that adults are used to having their favorite sodas on hand at a party. Weighing this fact with trying to please my husband at his birthday party and still being true to my own feelings on the subject, I decided to import some of our party drinks. I bought some of the Mexican Coke from Costco since it contains sugar instead of corn syrup and I had some Dr. Pepper shipped from Dublin, TX where they still make Dr. P from sugar. Buying soda with out high fructose corn syrup can be more easily done thanks to the new throwback Pepsi & Mountain Dews. And there is always Jones Soda. My local Wal-Mart even stocks the Mexican sodas that are made with sugar, not corn syrup. Now if only I didn't care about artificial coloring, but that's a topic for another day. If you have any other soda ideas made without high fructose corn syrup, I'd love to hear them.

Rule #3: Keep husband happy and make sure he has some Pelligrino to drink. Oh, and you can get your Dublin Dr. Pepper at Old Doc's Soda Shop.

go for it, hire a chef

I think it’s a genius idea to hire a chef for a party. There’s always the potluck option for a get together, but it’s not my style. Too many weird Jello salads show up. I like my food to make sense (i.e. to compliment my theme) and I shy away from assigning guests to bring specific entrees complete with a recipe and picture. Although I’ve thought about it. My husband also likes to have awesome food at our parties, but awesome food usually has some part of it that has to be prepared at the last minute to make it good. This means that you are cooking or chopping or busy when your guests arrive. So, to avoid this I hired a chef for The Trophy Husband party. She gave me the ingredients list. I bought the hard to find stuff (like agave, nama shoyu, young coconuts, etc.) and I assigned everyone else one food item. A head of purple cabbage. One bunch of cilantro. 12 limes. You know, sort of potluck style. Our beautiful and talented chef made up a task list and once the party started we divided into groups, each group preparing part of the meal, like opening the coconuts, chopping the veggies, or making the dressing for the salad.

Rule #2: Don’t tell your husband about your plan, he’ll just say that his friends hate to cook. P.S. His friends loved the food. And they all helped make it. My chef was Raw Melissa.

the cake topper

I love my husband. No, this isn’t going to be one of those cheesy, gushy posts about how wonderful he is. In fact those kinds of tributes make my heart hurt. My husband’s not perfect. I’m not perfect. Our marriage has never been perfect. If yours is, then I envy you that. We have had our share of trials: four unplanned pregnancies that resulted in our four amazing children, a few unexpected job changes (his), one life threatening medical emergency (mine), plus a bunch of other things sprinkled in to challenge two very stubborn people. I’ve been thinking a lot about all of this lately and I’m so grateful that we have stuck it out. To show him my undying devotion, every year I usually host a fabulous birthday party in his honor and invite some of his highschool buddies and their wives. The Freudian explanation (or Dr. Phil, you pick) is that my mom always threw us kids the most incredible birthday parties as a way to show us that she loved us. The only problem is that my husband doesn’t see it as love—he sees it as work, since he always has to help me. He likes simple parties with good food and friends. Poor guy, he’s married to me--simple isn’t an option. But this year I was determined to make the party as stress free and I could and to top it all off, it was going to be, in a very subtle way, all about him. I came up with what I thought was a no-fail, for sure party theme, The Trophy Husband.

 Rule #1: Don’t show your husband the cake topper before the actual party or he’ll veto it. And then you’ll have to use other tactics to sneak it onto the cake.  You can get this awesome cake topper at Hey Yo Yo on etsy.

giveaway winner

I appreciate everyone's patience these past few weeks with my light posting. I'm excited for my new blog but there have been a few delays in getting it launched and it has thrown me off schedule. And distracted me a bit. But the new website will be here soon and I think you'll like it.

Okay, the winner of the hand addressed envelopes is #9: Muranda said, "oooh, i would love this! 50 less that i have to write myself!" She has been notified by email.

Thanks everyone for your support and have a great weekend!

Love ya,

B

giveaway: 50 christmas cards hand addressed by michele

I love using my event contacts to show you how cool this stuff is and how it can be used for things other than parties. Have you ever thought about having your Christmas cards professionally addressed? This isn't just for wedding invites, baby. Or how about getting real holiday return address stickers (not just the freebies from the animal shelter)? Let me introduce you to one of my oh so talented calligraphers, Michele. She will be hand addressing 50 envelopes for you. She is booked 6 months ahead for wedding invites, but I contacted her several months ago and secured a week on her schedule for this giveaway. And as an added bonus you are getting 72 return address stickers from the darling collection of Sarah + Abraham, one of my favorite invitation designers. All of this is my treat, a little present for you to kick off the holidays.

Here's what you need to do:

1. Make sure that you are really sending out cards this holiday season. This is a one time shot; I have only the week of November 22, 2009 booked.

2. If you win, have 50 envelopes and your address list ready to go by mid-November to be mailed to NYC by November 22 (not your pictures or cards--she only needs the envelopes and list).

3. Leave me a comment with your email address in the form so that I can contact you when you win.

Sound good? Now you have no excuse to not send out Christmas/holiday cards because the hard part will be done for you. Confused? Leave a question with your comment or send me an email and I'll answer them. I'll pick a random winner on Friday morning, November 13.

guest post

I'm having so much fun here at the Art Weekend learning all sorts of useful skillz. And I'm looking forward to attending Spark later today for a total crafting overload. I've been really busy but I still managed to squeeze in a guest post over at 30 Days yesterday. You can check it out and see all of the invitations that have been inspiring me.

the art weekend & spark the event

I have such a fun weekend planned--all starting tomorrow! It's packed full of so much craftiness. The amazing & super sweet photographer Nicole Hill Gerulat and her awesome crew are putting on The Art Weekend. I'm signed up for 5 classes: Floral Arranging, Photo 101, and Tabletop Photography on Thursday. And on Friday I'm taking Screenprinting and Bookbinding. Nicole has rounded up so many fabulous teachers that I wish I could take MORE classes.

Unfortunately Spark the Event is also this weekend. (Our fair state never has cool stuff like this. Why oh why did they both have to be the same weekend?) Anyway, I am overlapping classes a little bit on Friday so I'll be hurrying back and forth between the two (luckily both events are in downtown Salt Lake City). Hosted by the darling and talented Rhonna Farrer, Margie Romney-Aslett, Jefra Linn, and Elizabeth Kartchner, Spark is going to be a once in a lifetime experience. They have rented out the historic monument site This Is The Place that is full of cool old buildings. It is Utah history to a tee. They are offering a bunch of mini classes on Friday. And on Saturday, there is a fabrics class, jewelry class, photography class, and a paper crafting/journaling class. I'm even making a weekend of it and staying in a hotel in the city to save on driving time. Anyone else going to one or both events? 

i'm moving

For over two months I have been working with a fabulous web designer: Sarah Bray at s. joy studios. I love what she has done with my new site and I'm really excited to show all of you. I'll be all moved over to my new home at onecharmingparty.com hopefully by next Monday. This blog will no longer be around and I know that this might mess up some of your bookmarks or blog readers, but I hope that you will make the move with me. My new site will be more user friendly and I will be adding some new stuff on there over the next few weeks too. Here is my new logo that Sarah designed:

Also, I have a fun giveaway planned for next week that you won't want to miss. So stay tuned.

halloween drinks

Here are the two other drinks from Martha Stewart that I was considering using for the Teen Halloween Party. This one would be super easy and you could do the inside chocolate painting the day before.

I liked this one because of the rim dipped in green stuff. Very gross looking.

I didn't find this idea until last night, but I think this would be pretty easy to do too. And you could also carve the apple heads the day before. Anyone else remember making shrunken heads in school with an apple and a glass soda pop bottle?

Find the recipes and instructions here.

cooking class: halloween cookies at viking

Maybe I should name this post: A trend that I don't think will last. I took the designer cookie class workshop over the weekend at my local Viking Cooking School. It was fun. Chef Bryan from a local TV station was our chef. I hung out with my amazing design assistant Kara while we decorated Halloween cookies and learned some cool techniques using sugar cookies, fondant and royal icing. But even without eating any of the cookies, I'm pretty sure fondant on a cookie is a bad idea. Sure, it can look pretty (don't look at my cookies for an example of that) but everyone knows that fondant doesn't taste good. And cookies are supposed to taste good. Honestly, I don't know where this trend is going. Let's rank frosting by taste: 1. fondant (not so yummy) 2. royal icing (better, but really not yummy) 3. buttercream (yummiest). My prediction: I don't see much of a future for cookies covered in yucky frosting. Proof: even my somewhat-sugar-starved kids wouldn't eat them.

teen halloween party: day #10 the menu key

I hope that I've shown you how easy it can be to throw a fun teen party. A little imagination can go a long way.

At last, the key to the Halloween Mixed-up Mystery Menu.

1. Fork: Witches’ Broom

2. Knife: Devilish Dagger

3. Spoon: Skeleton Shovel

4. Sauce: Bat’s Blood

5. Garlic Bread: Vampire Venom

6. Parmesan Cheese: Moldy Bones

7. Spaghetti:  Mummy Brains

8. Green Salad: Goblin Guts

9. Drink: Wormy Juice

10. Fruit w/ Spider Toothpick: Spider Slime

11. Cupcake: Head of Hedwig

12. Vanilla Ice Cream w/Fly: Ghostly Goo

teen halloween party: day #9 put your helpers to work

I'm not sure if I've explained the whole concept of this party fully. This was a three course meal where each guest filled out a menu themselves, picking what they would eat for each course. No two dinner were served up the same. The fun part is that the drink, utensils, and food, all have different names--scary, spooky names. So no one really knows what they are ordering. Then each course is brought out separately and they might get all utensils and no food, or a cupcake and spaghetti sauce. It's a fun, wacky way to celebrate Halloween.

This is my party suggestion: have a few friends on hand to help. Also, set up food stations where you can find each menu item. I had silverware in one spot, the drinks in another, the pasta and sauce on the stove, etc. And I had a decoding menu "key" in a central location so that we could figure out what to serve up. Each of my helpers and myself were assigned to different kids. For the person we were assigned to, we filled their order for that course, we took their food out to them, and we cleared their plates. This kept everything running smoothly and we could make sure that every teen got their food and wasn't waiting.

teen halloween party: day #8 decorate

I totally cheated on this one. The party was held at the home of a woman who decorates her house insanely cute for every holiday, including Halloween. I wish you could see all of the cool stuff she had.

teen halloween party: day #7 find a game to play

The kids actually ate the whole dinner really quickly, in about an hour. After they were done we played The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow. I really like this game for a crowd. Everyone is given a card--some are townspeople and some are werewolves. The townspeople have to figure out who the werewolves are without getting themselves eliminated from the game. And it's a good ice breaker for awkward teens who don't always know how to interact with the opposite sex, know what I mean?

teen halloween party: day #6 get your dishes ready

For this party I used several different dishes to lessen the confusion when we were serving up the food. It was all part of my mastermind scheme: orange for the salad, white for the pasta, glass bowls for the fruit, etc. For your party please, please don't give in and use paper plates. Remember to keep your Halloween Green. I know what you're thinking, "But Brittany you have a lot more dishes than I do." No, I have a lot more pink and blue dishes than you do. It was hard for me to come up with Halloween colored dishes too. But you can make it work, just use a little creativity.

teen halloween party: day #5 make your mixed-up menu

Now comes the fun part. Take your menu and rename the food with spooky or silly names. Include the utensils and the drink with the menu items for extra fun. The party guests will fill out their dinner "order" for three courses. Who knows what they will get served up and in what order. For example, you could order spaghetti noodles for one course and spaghetti sauce for a different course, but you won't know since the food has all been renamed somethng different. It's all part of the mystery. I used 12 items including the utensils and drink. I'll post the menu "key" later.

teen halloween party: day #4 the drink

I made a very simple and inexpensive drink. First, I made gummy worm ice cubes. You don't need to use a heart shaped ice cube tray, it's just what I had on hand.

Fill the tray with gummy worms then add water.

All frozen.

I filled each cup with gummy worm ice cubes and Sprite. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

teen halloween party: day #3 pick the food

Make a list of the food that you want to serve at your mixed-up mystery dinner. Here is my menu: spaghetti noodles, spaghetti sauce, Parmesan cheese, french bread, green salad, fruit salad, cupcakes, ice cream, and a drink. This is a dinner party where the guests will choose their food for three courses, only the food will be named different names so that they can't recogize what they are ordering. But more about that later. For now just start pulling an easy menu together and aim for 9 items. Oh, and a little tip: 12 year old girls don't eat very much when seated with 12 year old boys. Don't plan on a ton of food.