Happy Monday! It's Baseball Season again! Little Leaguer's everywhere are beginning their practice games and getting ready for Opening Day while pro teams are reporting to Spring Training. An easy and fun party theme for your baseball crazy birthday guy or girl is what we are presenting today! I'm a New York Yankees fan, and yes, I have had a baseball themed birthday party, so today I'm using that team for inspiration but there is every team in the League out there in the party stores and online so you can get themed party supplies and have a party that reflects your favorite team! 

 These invitations from Zazzle.com are just $1.60 each and definitely get the theme across for your guests!

The party I was at yesterday had these cute photo invitations, also from Zazzle.com and also for only $1.60 each! The mom had one of these framed up and ready to go on the cake table!

This time of year half of the US is covered in snow, part is still having rainy days and only some has sunshine every day. So if you are part of the world that is stuck inside this time of year then making or buying banners can really help dress up your inside space. It is amazing how big of a difference it makes to not just dress up the tables but also the walls or area above your guests heads.

 One thing Tory does for all of our events is make water bottle labels. She designs each one to reflect the event, the colors and adds a bit of personalization that you may not be able to find inexpensively online.

What you can find easily at online stores such as Oriental Trading Company and Birthday Party Express, are themed paper goods. Now here is a money saving tip. While it's fun to have everything blasting the theme you can cut corners to make your budget stretch farther. Pick one piece, the dinner or dessert plates, or the napkins and get those in the themed goods. Then use solid colored paper pieces from the grocery store or dollar store to coordinate at much less cost.

But if your budget isn't a big deal then splurge for the works. I totally fell in love with these "jersey" napkins!

 The whole set, at Oriental Trading Company, for 18 place settings is only $30! A very inexpensive way to outfit your party and set your theme up big. Of course I would find Yankees stickers to put on those plain white cups but, that's me...gotta take it one more step! LOL!

 One year we had our son's party at a bowling alley. They gave him a bowling pin and we had all of his friends/family sign it with a sharpie. It's still in his room. How about giving your baseball fan a similar momento by getting a wooden bat, about $15, and letting the guests sign it with different colored sharpies? What a very cool momento for your fan.

And how about a pinata for your slugger? Yup, even the grown ups would love to take a swing at this baseball and hear the crack of the bat.

Setting up a "Snack Bar" is super easy. Colored paper bags and plastic buckets as well as the banner help to sell this look.

 Add in some typical ball park snacks like peanuts, crackerjacks and Big League Chew and it helps the theme along.

 And these food cards are super easy to make. Just buy the striped scrapbook paper, print it out on the computer and then fold and set up in front of your food! Keep the food simple, hot dogs, hamburgers and nachos will make your crowd happy.

Time for favors! If your budget allows $3 per guest then get some baseballs to hand out as your guests leave your party.

 Before you hand them out, use them as decor for the food table! Pile them up in a bucket, a vase or a basket and they will add one more detail for your theme.

 Need a less expensive favor? How about caramel corn? Just use zip lock bags and staple on printed out tags after filling with the caramel corn. These are about 50 cents each and a fun personalized favor for your guests!

 Cupcakes are an easy way to continue your theme and these picks are super easy to make. Just print the designs out onto scrapbook paper and then use a circle punch to cut them out. Cut out extra circles for the backs and just use double stick tape to secure the toothpicks in between the two circles of paper. Then just stick them into the top of the cupcakes!

If you make baseball themed cupcakes like these from Cat's Cakes, you can just use a few picks to help dress up the cupcake display. Learn how to make these over at the Cake Blog so you can dress up your cake table with the dessert too!

Right now we are giving tips and tricks for St. Patrick's Day on our Facebook Fan Site so we hope you stop on by and take a look for some new ideas for your upcoming holiday!

Cat

 Happy Monday! I don't know if you watched The Oscars but in our house it's a pretty big thing! For the past 14 years we have been having parties, big and small, with our family and friends.

Every year they start the show a bit earlier than the one before and this year they started the "Red Carpet" at 4pm our time (PST). The actual show began at 5:30. We always invite people to arrive for the Red Carpet and have the food hit the table very soon after that point.  

 For the past 6 years this wonderful Gold Guy has been our centerpiece. A gift from a good friend, the Gold Guy is perched on a film reel and threaded with real celluloid film. We also created the "Star Studded" backdrop using a black plastic tablecloth and tinsel stars in gold, white and silver. 

 We always print out our ballots from Oscar.com and put one with a pen on a clipboard for each guest so it's easy to fill out. After everyone fills out their ballots, before the actual awards are given out, we trade them around so no one is checking their own ballots. The person who guesses the most categories right wins a prize. This year Nate won by guessing 15 of the 24 categories right and is getting a Blu-ray edition of ARGO! (Btw...in case you are wondering, this movie freak has only won twice in 14 years. Dismal, I know. To add insult to injury, the person who won this year did NO research at all...and, yes, still won. I don't know if that says more about my research or how unpredictable the Academy can be! LOL!)

 During commercial breaks I ask multiple choice trivia questions. Every single person, even the kids, gets to take home at least two prizes. Now, these are not big prizes. In fact, some of them come from the Dollar Store. We love finding the out-of-the-ordinary at Cost Plus World Market. The guys get oddly named beer, the girls something fun to cook or decorate with, the kids some sort of candy or toy. Each item is $5 or under. I then put them into paper bags with their names on them so I can hand them out when they get the trivia answer right. And everyone gets two answers right...guaranteed! LOL! (yes, we give out BIG hints if needed!)

 As always, it's the details that make the difference. I made up these little food pics out of some folded card stock and toothpics using double stick tape to hold it all together. Each Best Picture Nominee got a pic. 

 Tory makes great water bottle labels for all of our events. These little Oscar beauties fit right in! It is always a great idea to have bottled water around for everyone and not just soda or beer.

 While home cooking is always a great idea, this party isn't supposed to be a hard party to do, so make use of some great pre-made items....like these Girl Scout Lemonades! Oh, excuse me...these "Life of Pi" Lemonades! 

 Or our grandson, Parker's, favorite the Girl Scout Peanut Butter Patty! This is a great way to make that little Girl Scout happy at the supermarket AND get to have one or two while making sure there are no leftovers hanging out at your house. 

 But I do make a lot of homemade goodies. And I'm here to share the recipes with all of you! These chicken terregon sandwhiches are a house favorite, especially since they are SO easy to make. Take two chicken breasts and sprinkle with salt, pepper, garlic powder and dried terregon. Bake till done at 400 degrees and then let them cool completely. Chop up into very small cubes and mix with ranch dressing and two green onions chopped up. Done!

 My BBq Pulled Pork recipe is about as easy. Take a small pork roast, about the size of a 4x6 photo, a half bottle of your favorite BBq sauce, 2 small onions diced up and 1 TBS garlic. Cook in a crockpot for 5 hours on high. The meat will just shred. These are SO good!

 Here is how homemade becomes Semi-homemade and works! I bought the crispy sundried tomato bread rounds, used canned stewed tomatoes that have been cooked with basil and shredded mozzarella cheese. I chopped up the tomatoes and put a little on each crispy round, topped each with the cheese and baked them till the cheese was melted. Yummy!

 Just about as easy were these Creme Cheese Puffs. I use canned biscuits that I flatten out a bit and then use to line a muffin tin. The filling is 8oz of creme cheese, 1 cup chopped spinach, 1tsp garlic powder, salt and pepper that is mixed together well. I spoon a bit of the filling into each biscuit line muffin cup and then pinch the edge of the biscuit together in or or two places. Then bake till golden at 375 degrees. Very creamy and good. Great for any vegetarians that may be at your party.

 The most complicated of the recipes was these "taquitos". Ok, let's be real, they are more like burritos. I used 2 chicken breasts, 4 oz salsa, 2 Tbs hot pepper sauce and 1 large onion diced. I put all of that into a crock pot and cooked it for 4 hours on high. The chicken shreds easily at this point. Let this cool completely and then add in 8oz of creme cheese, 4oz grated cheddar cheese and 2 green onions chopped up. Mix really well and then divide the mix up over 10 tortillas that have been warmed in the microwave. Put a big in the first third of the tortilla, fold over once and then fold in the ends and fold over again. Place onto a cookie sheet and bake till they are crispy and golden brown.

 We all LOVE mac n cheese. I can not express how much. But since it has about a bazillion calories we save events like this one to make some up. So use whatever is your favorite recipe for this part of your party. I, personally, make a quick "roux" from butter and flour with milk and then add in grated cheese, salt and pepper. Put that into a cassarole dish and sprinkle with a mixture of breadcrumbs and grated cheese and back until it's golden brown.

Now if this all seems like a LOT of cooking here is another secret. ALL of the food can be made DAYS ahead of time. Make up the fillings and either freeze or refrigerate.  Then all you have to do is assemble the day of the party and throw that into the oven for a quick bake or heat up the filling, like the bbq pork, and put onto rolls or buns. So instead of hours of cooking on the day of the event, it's really just a little cooking here or there in the days before the event.

We finished up our night with some Silver Linings Lemon Cake. This is actually referred to as "Aunt Patty's Lemon Sunshine Cake" in our family and is just some kind of serious wonderful. I now only make it for crowds because I could, literally, eat the entire thing myself without any help at all. You can find out all about how to make this incredible goodie over at the Cake Blog. 

So the night was a success. By and large, those we wanted to win, won. Seth was a pretty good host. He went too far at times, of course, but then, don't they all. It went a bit long, of course, but then, don't they all? Next year we'll be taking a year off but coming back in 2015 with a HUGE themed Oscar Party. 

Join us over at our Facebook Fan Site for daily tips and tricks for the next holiday in our American holiday line up...St. Patrick's Day!! See you there!

Cat

 Happy Monday! This weekend we had a very special celebration for one our own! We celebrated up Tory's 29th Birthday! In our family, birthday's last a long time, sometimes up to 2 weeks. We have lunch with friends here, dinner with family there, drive to see others here, have others drop in at our homes...so we celebrate up birthday's in a big way. This year Tory wanted one of those to be a girls-only party based on a party she had attended earlier in the year called a "Favorite Things" party. She wanted to tailor that idea into Birthday Party form. 

 We decided to work along the Sound of Music song "These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things" and started with the invites. Brown paper packages tied up with string is one of the lines of the song so one side of the invite was brown paper while the other gave out the party details and how to play. It was tied up with Baker's Twine and a tag that looked like a "warm woolen mitten" was added that says "These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things". Finally it was placed inside a fun paper lined brown paper envelope! Click on the photo to see a larger image and the details of the invite!

Basically, as a guest, you buy 4 items that are exactly the same and that you love that cost under $10. Such as 4 bottles of your favorite color of nail polish or 4 pounds of your favorite coffee. Then you wrap each one up in a brown paper package, tie it up with string. One of these packages is for the Birthday Girl. She gets one of everything that everyone brings and so is properly spoiled! The other three will go to the three people whose name you draw out of a basket. So you go with four items and you come home with three!

 She even set up a framed set of the lyrics so that people who didn't remember the words would be able to see it again...and, yes, get the song stuck in their heads. We were singing it all day!

 We made up mini brown paper packages filled with her favorite candy, York Peppermint Patties, and tied them up with more Baker's Twine.

 They were set out with the lyrics, her Alice in Wonderland mini snow globes, her Mickey and Minnie figurines and her Mickey Mouse bowl filled with the fortune cookies for people to take home along with an Alice in Wonderland themed sign "Eat Me". Lots of her favorite things on the table.

 A simple flower arrangement was all that was needed to dress up a corner of the food table. The table was filled with food so it really didn't need a lot more decoration.

 On the "Packages Table" she set out a basket so that when people arrived with their packages they set them on the table and then wrote their name on three slips of paper and folded them and put them into the basket for the package swap later in the evening.

 There were LOTS of Brown Paper Packages. Most of them were bags that were filled with fun stuff, had tufts of pretty tissue popping out of the top of tied up with pretty ribbon.

But some of them were actually flat packages wrapped in brown paper and, yup, tied up with string! 

When the time came to do the swap Tory had everyone pick out 3 names from the basket. Then she opened up one of the packages, this one marked especially for her, and had the person who brought the "Favorite Thing" explain why it was one of her favorite things. Then they handed out the other three they had brought to the people whose name they had picked out of the basket.

 But first there was FOOD! We started out with two types of punch including this Ginger-ale, white grape juice and orange sherbet Birthday Punch. It was SO good!

 There were little spots of decoration that matched Tory's Favorite Things such as polka dot lanterns set up like Mickey Ears and a dark purple backed Rainbow Happy Birthday Sign.

 We both fell in love with banners this year so she made this one to hang over the window of the room where we opened our packages. 

 The table was full of Chinese food since that is also Tory's favorite. We were aiming for lots of color so even the sauces were part of our color scheme!

 These brightly colored square Happy Birthday plates and napkins just fit right in with the multi-colored chopsticks, food and drinks. It's the little details that complete the look.

The food was a hit. Lot's of Tory's favorites like Orange Chicken, Egg Rolls, Fried Rice, Walnut Shrimp and Mushroom Chicken as well as the Chow Mien. All of it came from Panda Express. Her Alice In Wonderland signs urged everyone to eat up all of the good food. We certainly tried!

 Even the bottles of water encouraged the Alice theme with their Drink Me labels! The red Mickey themed tray is one Tory made herself and it was a perfect way to serve up the paper straws for the water and the punches.

 The Cake Table ended up being in the same room that we opened the packages so that it was part of the decor in that room. So we set up it up on a low table with a "Let Them Eat Cake" sign that even has a cherry on it...definitely one of her favorite things! We used a plastic tablecloth for bunting tied up with tulle and curly ribbon. When you walked into the room you definitely knew that was a special area!

Even the cake was filled with Tory's Favorite Things. Each side of the cake displayed more of the things she loves in life. You can see all four sides over at the Cat's Cakes Blog! 

It was a Lemon Chiffon Cake filled with Lemon Curd Buttercream and her very favorite cake. This was Tory's piece!


The party was tons of fun, filled with lots of Tory's Favorite Things and a great way to celebrate in the last year of her 20's. We hope you got some great ideas for a "Favorite Things" party of your own. This upcoming week is Oscars! And, as a movie family we do it up BIG! I'll share next Monday!

Cat