Party Guest – Frog Prince Party

One of the things I look forward to doing here on Your Homebased Party is welcoming and introducing to you my Party Guests!

To be a Party Guest all you need to do is share one of your homebased parties!  Just email me the information/details about your party along with some photos and you and your homebased party can be featured right here on the blog! 

Today I am excited to introduce my very first Party Guest – Mary Beth and the Frog Prince Party she did for her son’s first birthday!

Mary Beth’s party was  a special time to celebrate her son’s first year with family, old friends and new friends after a year of trials with moving and job changes.  I agree with Mary Beth that there is nothing better than a homebased party to bring family and friends together and to celebrate!

Party Theme: Frog Prince

So like any good party planner Mary Beth started with a theme for her party. Since Mary Beth has three son’s her party themes usually include bugs, cowboys or construction.  Since her son was only one, and couldn’t object,  this was Mary Beth’s chance to do what she wanted and something a little “cuter.”  She chose a Frog Prince theme for the party.

Mary Beth purchased a frog prince image over at ClipArtOf.com.  She used the image to order invites, thank you notes and business cards (all free with a promo!)   The business cards were used to identify food on the table.  The color scheme for her party was also taken from the image -  green, orange and blue.

The theme was also carried through with a darling little  jumper made by grandma and embroidered with the same frog prince design that was used on the invite and other party items.

 

Party Decor:

Mary Beth made no-sew fabric banners with clearance sale fabric, ribbon, pinking shears and double sided stitch witchery tape.  They were hung one on the front door and throughout the house.  Fun and they can be used again!

  

Using tissue paper from the Dollar Store she created green, orange and blue tissue paper poofs!

 

Mary Beth also repurposed glass jars and made votives and lanterns for outside.  They used wire to suspend some lanterns from the fence in the yard and lined the front yard with others.  This project was simple as can be by using blue Staz-On stamp ink and a stamp that  just “rolled” on the jars.  Ribbon in the theme colors was the finishing touch 

 Party Activities:

Pin the Crown on the Crown Prince:  Her father painted a quick frog on a stretched canvas (she’ll use it in the kids room later!) and cut out crowns from foam.  The kids loved this!

 

 

Limbo:  She purchased a large dowel at the home improvement store, spray painted it and then did a little hand painting.  Mary Beth also painted wooden spools, put ribbon in them for streamers and then glued them on the ends.  Super fun and it can be used again for school parties, etc

 

 Coloring and Crafts:  Two kiddie tables were set  up with Frog coloring pages (one of her kid’s favorite  party activities and cheap favors!), crayons, glue and foam crowns from the dollar store kept the kids who didn’t want to play outside very happy and busy

Glow Sticks:  Great for relay races and just running once the sun set.  Again, the dollar store made it budget friendly.  The night ended with a fire in their fire pit and marshmallows thanks to the dads at the last minute.

Party Food:

I am proud to say that several Homebased Mom recipes were used at the party!

Mary Beth served:

Cranberry Brie Pizza, hummus, olives and pita bread

Penne Rustica, bread and salad. 

There was also a kiddie table complete with Chick Fil A nuggets, grapes and pretzels so they could do their own thing – great idea!

Dessert was my personal favorite – cupcakes!

There was a selection of cupcakes -  lemon cupcakes, double chocolate, pumpkin spice and a simple cake mix with jimmies that the kids loved.  (Cake boxes from the craft store make storing the cupcakes so easy!)

 

 

 
Party Favors:

Favors were white chocolate popcorn with Halloween peanut M&Ms tied up in cellophane bags with the frog business card tags.  It was called ”Frog Munch”.

Here is what Mary Beth had to say about the party:

  “Tons of fun with a little effort, not much money and lots of things we can use again.  It was a time of fun and fellowship that, judging by the faces and smiles, was great for the little ones and the big guys too!”

Thank Mary Beth for sharing your wonderful Frog Prince Party.  I look forward to introducing you to many more Party Guests!!

Thanksgiving Table Decor

Do you have your Thanksgiving menu planned?  How about your table decor?

Sometimes we spend so much time planning the menu, shopping and cooking that we end up with little or no time to think about table decor.  Setting a pretty table helps to create a mood for your special celebration just as much as the menu does.  Many times we already have items around the house we can use to add those extra touches to our holiday table.

Here’s one that I enjoy using that is easy to do. 

 

You can use any of your fancier stemware – I used a martini glass here but you can use whatever you have.  If you don’t have any fancy stemware check out the dollar store.  This martini glass came from there and of course was only a dollar!  Just fill your glass with water and then float a candle.  Floating candles can usually be found at your local craft store.  You can use one at each individual place setting or if you don’t have enough glasses use them in between place settings and then you will only need half as many.

Nothing sets a mood better than candlelight!

 

Another way to add that special touch to your holiday table is by creating place cards for each of your guests.  Who doesn’t like to see their name in print?! 

 

You can create your own or if you want a quicker and easier option check out the cute ones over at Pixel Perfect Boutique.  You just download them to your computer, print them and then add your guest’s names!

Little Princess Tea Party} Party Favors

This is part three in a series of three.

One of my favorite things to do for party favors is to allow the party guests to create them for themselves!  This helps to keep the party guests busy!

The Marketing student in charge of the party had purchased some cute foam crowns from Oriental Trading.  They came complete with stickers and  other decorating material and they kept the little guests busy while everyone arrived.

 

 

All the little girls and some of the big girls looked darling in their princess crowns.

Since a princess isn’t a princess with out a scepter I created edible scepters for all of the little princesses!

 

I just placed a large marshmallow on the end of a sucker stick and then dipped half the marshmallow into melted chocolate.  I just added some pink food coloring into white chocolate melts but you can also purchase pink ones.  I added some white sprinkles and a pink M & M on the top (thank goodness for Breast Cancer Awareness M & M’s)

I placed the sceptors into a small plastic bag, tied it with ribbon and added a cute little card.

My favorite line in the show Little Princess is at the end – “Every girl is a princess”.  Using my digital scrapbooking program I made these cute little pink cards.

 

They made a nice little memento too. 

As a fundraiser they had also created darling little autograph books for each of the party guests.  The books had photos of the characters in the show and they could collect autographs during the Meet & Greet after the performance.

A highlight of the tea party was when some of the performers made a special guest appearance!  The evil Miss Minchin put them through a lesson in posture for all to enjoy!
 

A party fit for a princess!

Little Princess Tea Party} Food

This post is part two in a series of three.

As I mentioned in the first post , we were on a limited budget for this tea party.  

We also ended up feeding about 50 people although that is not how many I had planned on. There was a little communication glitch and I had actually planned on half that many!!

Thanks to the fact that I always err on the side of excess and  a last minute call to my sweet husband to fix some more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we did o.k!

Our tea party menu included:

Heart shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Since we knew our tea party audience would be young we went for kid friendly food. I found this great heart shaped sandwich cutter at a Harry & David’s outlet store but you can also order one here. 

 

It is the perfect shape to take advantage of the entire peace of bread with very little waste!

White chocolate dipped strawberries with pink sugar sprinkles

Grapes

 

Cupcakes, of course!  I took the easy route with this one and used a cake mix but did make the frosting from scratch!  I did up one batch of white cupcakes with pink frosting and another of chocolate with white frosting and pink sprinkles. I found some cute pink and white polka dot cupcake liners that worked perfect.

 

We served lemonade to the little ones but the grown ups enjoyed some tea – a nice selection of regular and herbal!

 

Several of the “maids” from the show came down to help us serve – they were so cute!

Fairly simple and easy tea party food!

Nest Post:  Little Princess Tea Party} Favors

Little Princess Tea Party} Decorations

I think one of my favorite types of parties to do is a tea party.  I think it must be all that English blood flowing through my veins.

I love everything that goes along with a tea party – usually pink and frilly!  And then those scones aren’t so bad either.

Last month my daughter Tessa had the role of the evil Miss Minchin in Little Princess at her high school.  As part of the performance they offered a tea party with a special visit from some of the characters in the show.

The tea party was a project for one of the Marketing students and I volunteered to help.

I couldn’t resist – I offered to help with the food and decorations.

Since it was a fund raiser the budget we had to work with was rather limited but we made it work!

We decided to go with a pink and purple color scheme.

The party was being held in a bare, ugly teacher’s lounge so we tried to add a little softness and color to the room.

I was able to use the tissue paper pom poms from Tessa’s Pink Birthday Party.

I added in some pink chinese lanterns that I bought online – very reasonably priced – from Luna Bazaar.  I hung the pom poms and the lanterns using clear fishing line and thumbtacks from the ceiling.

For the tables we used plastic tablecloths from the dollar store (small budget) and pink and purple paper goods from there also. One of the teacher’s brought her china teacup set so the grownups could drink their tea from real teacups.

For the table decorations I took about a yard of pink tulle per table and created a little pink cloud in the middle of each table.  I placed a cake stand in the center of each cloud (ones I had at home).  I went to Goodwill and found some inexpensive teacups, they don’t have to match.  I stacked them one inside another and glued them together and placed the teacup stack on top of the cake stand to create a whimsical, cute and inexpensive centerpiece.

 

A piece of ribbon tied to one of fhe teacups was the finishing touch.

We also created a little vignette just outside the teacher’s lounge so people would know where the party was.

 

Next post:  Little Princess Tea Party} Food

Welcome!

Welcome to Your Homebased Parties – party planning from my home to yours!

I love parties!

I love to go to parties and I love to put on parties.

Over at Your Homebased Mom I have had fun sharing with you some of the parties I have done over the last few years.  The response to those posts has always been so wonderful .  I have also gotten lots of emails from people asking for help and ideas for various events and parties they are putting on so I thought – why not a blog just about parties!?

Sounded like a good idea to me and I hope you think so too!

I want Your Homebased Parties to be a place you can come to have fun and be inspired.  You will find tips and ideas for putting on your own homebased parties. If you need some extra help and direction from me with your party planning or if you just want me to plan it all for you, I can do that too!!

Would you like me to be your personal party planner?  Well, now I can!

I’d love for you to check out the Shop and Service pages in the menu bar to read more about what I have to offer.

I’d also love to hear about your parties too – if you have pictures to share from parties you’ve put on please contact me and we can feature you here on Your Homebased Parties!

I’ve been planning parties for a long time.  In fact, I put on my first dinner party at the age of 13!

My best friend Jenny and I hosted a holiday dinner for some of our friends.  Check us out!

Don’t we look so cute in our stylish matching hostess outfits!? (Ok, it wasn’t a good decade for hair!!)

The only memory I have of the menu was that we served manicotti.  We got the recipe off the side of the box.  My menu planning has gotten a little bit more sophisticated since then.  We also served a festive, holiday lime punch!

Check out the table – we even had little Santa party favors we made!!

I have put on lots of parties, big and small since this holiday dinner party.  I look forward to sharing with you and working with you to create your own special party.

So welcome to Your Homebased Parties, please take some time to look around and see what is here.  Don’t forget to visit the Party Portfolio page for lots of fun pictures.  Please take a minute to let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

If you have an event coming up you’d like help with be sure and click on the
Party Form at the top of the page to let me know what you are looking for and how I can help you!

I look forward to hearing from you!!

Party planning – from my home to yours!