How to Throw a Winter Party | Decorations!

This week I've been sharing how I put together a "Cozy Winter Social". It was a perfectly fun way to distract myself while my husband was out of town. If you want to see the other stages of putting the party together, check out my posts from the rest of this week!

This week I've been sharing how I put together a "Cozy Winter Social". It was a perfectly fun way to distract myself while my husband was out of town. If you want to see the other stages of putting the party together, check out my posts from the rest of this week!

I saved this post for the end of the week because decorating was ABSOLUTELY my favorite part of this whole party. It managed to occupy the better part of two weeks (which was perfect to keep me busy without My Main Man around).

I was holding the party at night, so I thought it would be perfect to play off of that. I wanted to create the illusion of spending a wintery night out under the stars (let's be honest, the stars look so pretty and bright through a clear winter sky). I draped Christmas lights across the downstairs ceiling and only turned on the light at the top of our stairs (I'll explain why in a moment) and, if necessary, the light in the laundry room (since it's around the corner and only provides indirect light). Anywhere else I needed light, I sprinkled tea lights across the various tables. Again, keeping budget in mind, I needed to be creative to find easy candle-holding solutions, so I scoured my house for glass jars. I used a combination of jelly jars, baby food jars, the lids to those jars (painted white), and a metal tin to create a grouping of candle-light.

Flowers get expensive, and this party was winter-themed anyway, so I grouped some funky-shaped sticks as my "arrangements" at each table. Again, the sticks were free and the glass jars came from food I had already eaten, so they were basically free decorations. Remember when I showed you my super cheap candlesticks a few weeks ago? Well they were originally creme-colored, so I painted a few of them white to match the decor and hot-glued glass gars to a couple of them.

While I was putting together my Valentine banner using cheap felt, I also put together two triangular banners with my party colors. One was draped across the living room, and the smaller one was hung in a "U" shape over the food table to create a central focus.

The final piece to my party decorating was a photo booth at the top of the stairs. I tend to be lame at taking pictures during parties, so I thought a fun photo booth would help me document all of my lovely guests. For the backdrop, I draped a grey sheet across the wall and pinned various twine and long jewelry over the sheet. To make it fun, I set up a table with props including winter accessories and a dry-erase sign to write messages.

Check out yesterday's post to find out more about these super cool women. (Cousin-in-Law, Winter, The Rocker, Share-and-Tell, Half-Rich, and more!)

To tie everything together, I used ribbons, twine, and some grey strips as decoration. By keeping to a simple color and material palette, everything tied together well and I was so happy with how my decorations turned out!

This finishes up my week on throwing a winter party. I'm still vacationing, so I may not get right back into the swing of things next week, but I promise I'll be back ASAP!

How to Throw a Winter Party | Fun Activities

This week I've been sharing how I put together a "Cozy Winter Social". It was a perfectly fun way to distract myself while my husband was out of town. If you want to see the other stages of putting the party together, check out my posts from the rest of this week!

***All of the photos in this post were generously donated by the lovely Winter of The Redd Party. You should totally check her out.***

I already mentioned the awesome raffle I had for my guests on Tuesday. I wanted to party to be a fun social where people just chatted and snacked, but I knew that might be hard with women that don't all know each other. So to prepare, I planned some Minute-to-Win-It games (do any of you watch that show and repeatedly say "I can totally do that!"?). We split up into four teams and played marathon-style until an ultimate winning team was chosen! (I may be fibbing on the names of some games I couldn't remember.)

ROUND 1: CD DROP
Essentially you try to drop cds onto a cup and get three to land withing a minute. All four teams gave it a go and no one could do it, so everyone moved on!

The O.G., Beautiful Brunette, and Cousin-in-Law give round 1 a go

ROUND 2: UP IN THE AIR
The object is to keep three balloons in the air using your hands, feet, or head for a minute straight. We had a hard time with this one, too, so we decided the three teams who lasted the longest would each move on.

Share-and-Tell, The Rocker, Half-Rich, and My Colorado Home Girl may have flailed around in pretty funny ways.

ROUND 3: ALL WRAPPED UP
One teammate would hold a roll of toilet paper on a wooden spoon or dowel, while another member had a minute to spin in circles, holding the toilet paper, and wrap their body with all of the paper from the roll. Every team managed to do this, so the two fastest teams moved on.

Nurse-in-Training (top) and I (bottom) did pretty well, but Winter's Asian eyes made her aerodynamic! (Her husband made up that joke, so I can't take credit, but really, she was speedy fast.)

ROUND 4: HEAD BANGER
This one was pretty simple. We tied a pedometer to each contestant's head, and she had to bang 125 times in a minute. This was particularly suited to The Rocker, who is a serious rocker/concert-lover. I loved her comment after her frenzied minute, "That's not even the most head bangs I've done in one night!"

The Rocker and SuperNurse were so in the zone and ready to head bang their way to fame and fortune.

ROUND 5: BRUSH WITH DANGER
I know that is the correct name for this game, so go look it up if you're interested. It was confusing, and basically impossible, so we had to make up an alternative round 6.

I really failed at this, but at least I have my serious concentration face on!

ROUND 6: GROUP HUG!
Like I said, we made this one up. All three members of each group had to hug a balloon between their three bodies while running a full lap across my living room, and the fastest team won. I hate to brag, but my team totally won! My other group members with my Colorado Home-Girl and SuperNurse; we're just awesome, what can I say?

For all the time I spent on decorating and baking, playing games was totally the most fun part of this extravaganza, and I was so happy to hang out with all my girlfriends!

Coming up with all these nicknames was hard, but here goes:
Top Row (L to R): SuperNurse, Beautiful Brunette, Share-and-Tell, My Colorado Home-Girl, Cousin-in-Law,
Nurse-in-Training
Bottom Row (L to R):Winter (her real name is too cool to warrant a nickname), Half-Rich, Me, The Saint (she teaches 8-11 year olds each Sunday, she deserves this nickname), The O.G., The Rocker
Whew! 

How to Throw a Winter Party | Yummy Bites

This week I've been sharing how I put together a "Cozy Winter Social". It was a perfectly fun way to distract myself while my husband was out of town. If you want to see the other stages of putting the party together, check out my posts from the rest of this week!

For my awesome winter party, I wanted to keep the food nice and white without going overboard on sweets (which is surprisingly hard to do with parties). Even more than the food itself, I wanted to presentation to be simple and sweet.

To set up the h'orderves, I pushed the long side of my kitchen table against a wall and draped it with a white lacy tablecloth. (I'll talk about the non-food-related decorations in another post, so you'll have to wait for those!) I used only glass or white ceramics to hold my food, and I used round dishes to give a cohesive feel to the various dishes. My Main Man thought it would be funny to buy me a can of spray snow for one of my stocking stuffers this Christmas. Well I showed him and used it to frost the edges of my glass dishes! I also layered my dishes to give the whole set-up lots of dimension. I wanted to present all of the food in small portions, so I created simple paper cones to hold the popcorn with my favorite masking paper cut into 7"x7" squares. 

My really awesome friends, Beautiful Brunette and my Colorado Home-Girl (yes, you two just got nicknames) were sweet enough to bring dishes to share. Beautiful Brunette brought potato chips with dip and my Colorado Home-Girl brought chocolately marshmallows. They even both brought perfectly matching dishes to boot! The dishes I prepared were kettlecorn popcorn, egg salad sandwiches (quartered), veggies with ranch dressing, and some pretty awesome cupcakes. Here's time for a little confession: my cupcake batter was out-of-the-box funfetti with pre-made cream cheese frosting and store-bought silver sprinkles. But you know what? With a little artistic frosting application and some cute toothpick flags, they were still awesome! 

To keep my ladies hydrated, I filled two carafes. One had water spiced up with cucumber and lemon slices. The other carafe had lemonade (yep, it was the powdered kind that you simply add water to) that I accentuated with lemon slices and some muddled mint leaves. To my happy surprise, the lovely Winter, a fellow blogger over at The Redd Party, brought some sparkling grape juice to give a little excitement to our drinks (she is also responsible for a number of pictures in this week's posts, so give her lots of love)! 

(Above) Daytime vs. (Below) During the party with candlelight

I love food and I think it is a great social lubricant, so I was so excited to plan the menu for this shindig. What other bites do you find particularly awesome for parties? 

How to Throw a Winter Party | Welcoming the Gals

This week I've been sharing how I put together a "Cozy Winter Social". It was a perfectly fun way to distract myself while my husband was out of town. If you want to see the other stages of putting the party together, check out my posts from the rest of this week!

I mentioned yesterday that this party was a bit of a social experiment since I invited lots of women that only had friendship with me in common. I knew I would need to be proactive from the start of the party, so I created a welcome table. First, I created the kind of cute whiteboard I've seen floating around the internet. Using a dollar store picture frame I painted white and some wrapping paper I also bought at the dollar store, I created a simple place to write a welcome message with directions for my party-goers.

First, I had my guests fill out a name tag with a conversation-starting questions. There were six different name tags so that hopefully my guests would have a few things to talk about.They said:
"I went on an awful date once. It went like this:____"
"When I was a kid I wanted to be a ____ when I grew up."
"I have a super awesome battle wound:____"
"My most awesome hidden talent is:____"
"My guilty pleasure TV show is:____"
"If I had a gangster name, it would be:____"

Second, I had the guests fill out raffle tickets for some cheesy prizes. (I didn't think about this ahead of time, but it was probably great incentive for my guests to stay around for a bit and not leave early.) To keep the suspense going, I packaged each raffle gift in a brown paper bag with a simple label that matched the invitations. Get ready for how awesome these gifts were (remember, I was going for white and/or wintery): tapioca pudding, breath mints, toothpaste with mouthwash, tea lights, an ice pack, and Hoot the Owl (who I blogged about a couple weeks ago). I think it was fun for everyone to see what goofy gifts I had in store.

(L) How part of the table looked with the candles lit
(R) The Beautiful Brunette won tapioca pudding!

How to Throw a Winter Party | Invitations and a Peek

This week I will be sharing how I put together a "Cozy Winter Social". It was a perfectly fun way to distract myself while my husband was out of town. If you want to see the other stages of putting the party together, check out my posts from the rest of this week!

If you follow my Instagram at all, you've noticed that I've been mourning the absence of My Main Man. He's been in Thailand enjoying some awesome time with his classmates for the past four weeks, and I've been singing sad songs as I peer out from our widow's walk awaiting his return. Just kidding :). I have been pretty lonely, but I've had some really awesome friends and family step up and invite me to plenty of social and food-centered functions. I also planned ahead and decided to throw a social for my gal pals. I don't really have a lot of friends that know each other, so I was interested to see how this social experiment might turn out. (Spoiler: It turned out pretty darn well!)

To start things out, I put together an invitation that really set the mood for my party. I wanted the invitation to express that it was:

WINTERY: I used a frosty blue, soft grey, and white color combination

ELEGANT: By adding some flourishes to the wording, I set the tone for a more-than-casual social. 

NOSTALGIC but TRENDY: I used a combination of clean, fresh fonts (like Rockwell and Courier New) juxtaposed with a circus-inspired font (Rockwell). I arranged the wording in a crisp, well-defined rectangular block.  

As much as I would have loved to have each invitation letter-pressed and delivered by courier pigeon, I needed to keep this party budget-friendly, so I sent out invites electronically. I'm going to tell you all about the rest of my party throughout the week, so here are a few sneak peeks to get your creative mouth watering!