#REDBOOKparty

Earlier this year I signed up with a website called House Party, http://www.houseparty.com/. According to their website: "House Party makes it easy to have a party in your own home and get exclusive access to awesome products for you and your friends. We provide the fun, you provide food, your friends and feedback and promise to have an amazing time.

Our parties are sponsored by the brands you love. By hosting, you and your guests get to try their products and receive an incredible Party Pack chock full of goodies! You don’t pay anything or sell anything. It’s a no-pressure party. Just tell us what you and your guests think. Check out current parties »

But it’s more than just you and your friends who are having a blast. Thousands of other hosts and guests from across the US are also having an amazing time, on the same day. Your party just went from event to epic!"

I was lucky enough to be selected to host a #REDBOOKparty. What is a #REDBOOKparty? It is a fun Happy Hour (our hours in our case) sponsored by L'Oreal Paris and Redbook Magazine through House Party. Although the party is sponsored by these great companies (and yes, I received free products to share), the thoughts presented here are my own.

After being selected, the website invites through HouseParty.com went out. Luckily friends were available. So the party planning began. The conversation taking place by those that were also hosting included some confusion about what might be arriving in our party packages. Party packages were scheduled to arrive 5 days before the party would take place. Um have you read my blog? 5 days before friends arrive. Yeah I cannot plan one of MY PARTIES with only 5 days to plan. So I needed to put something in place before the party pack arrived. The brainstorming began. Hmmm a party hosted by L'Oreal Paris and Redbook... red, beauty, beautiful, French, Paris, happy hour, wine, Got it! We'll have a french picnic theme for our #REDBOOKparty. 

This made party planning pretty easy. Labor Day and summer clearance sales provided some great inspiration. I found dollar store red gingham table cloths. Perfect. I grabbed green cloths also. Covered my tables with the green cloths and folded the gingham over them as if they were picnic blankets on the green grass. Summer Sales at The Christmas Tree Shop brought me mini wooden baskets. They looked perfect. I also found red and white check paper lines. I had a stack of white doilies. So each of my friends got a basket to fill with picnic selections.

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For a few years now I have had a wonderful picnic blanket. It folds up and velcros closed. I spread it out on our living room floor. I grabbed every red pillow I could find (a former color scheme in our apartment). And a few brown ones and covered them with red clothing, blankets, etc. The pillow on the left is covered with a red dress that doesn't fit me. But it fit my pillow lol. 

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I planned a buffet table with cheeses galore, mortadella, salame, cappy, hummus, tazhiki, and more. A friend was kind enough to hook me up with some great fresh bread solutions. I had to be at a family event in the morning in another state. So it was amazing to have someone help with this. Thanks, Chris! 

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Luckily my House Party - Party Package did arrive in time though. I found red gift bags at the dollar store and organized all the wonderful goodies from L'Oreal and Redbook. What great free goodies for my friends to try! Thank you, House Party!

I gathered every basket I could find.

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Setup a beauty bar area for friends to come try the new Revitalift Miracle Blur creams. There is both an instant eye smoother and a skin smoother. Must say both are great! We had fun trying them out for the first time. One friend shrieked, "Is this available in stored yet?" after trying it. Love that! Another was excited that there were coupons to go buy bigger versions. Another friend tried the cream and did a double take as she saw results quickly.

It always amazes me how much fun my friends and I have when we gather in a relaxed atmosphere. Next thing I knew it was after midnight. For my neighbors sake, we had to wind things down. We can sit and gab together for hours without any party perks. Add party perks like those included from House Party and well time flies...

A few more photos:

(Before and afters are only cropped not digitally enhanced)

Have you tried the Revitalift Miracle Blur Smoothers? What did you think? I'd love to hear your impressions of either the products we previewed or my party planning.

Geek Pride Day 2014 - Party for Two

See today, May 25^th, is deemed “Geek Pride Day”. Now there is a holiday we can get behind.

What is Geek Pride Day you ask? It seems:

“So many reasons for nerds and geeks to celebrate this Friday! It was originally chosen to celebrate the anniversary of the first Star Wars film’s release, but it’s also a day for Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy enthusiasts to commemorate the passing of author Douglas Adams by carrying around towels, and it’s the day of the Glorious Revolution in Terry Pratchett’sDiscworld series, for which fans wear lilac and raise money to give to Alzheimer’s charities (Pratchett was diagnosed with the disease in 2008). The day was officially conceived of by nerds in Spain, who celebrated in Madrid by creating a giant human Pac-Man game. Since then it’s become a worldwide phenomenon for all things nerdy.” - http://flavorwire.com/292968/9-weird-subcultural-holidays-you-didnt-know-existed

The husband loves Star Trek. He enjoys Dr. Who. Both of these have now been imposed upon me so long living together in happily married geekdom. Does it surprise anyone that I score a lot better on Trivia Quizzes after marriage then I would have before? I have a fondness for Big Bang Theory, HGTV, PacMan, shoes, teapots, and anything 80's. Together we encompass many GeekGenres. So this sounds like a perfect day for a party for two. You know, those evenings at home curled up on the couch eating pizza and watching a movie. The epitome of Geek married bliss. So here is a little from our Geek Pride Day celebration.

TV viewing – We read an article online that there is a movie, “Unicorn City” that sounds too funny for words. It was suppose to be available on Netfilx. Insert sad Geek Disillusionment here. Oh well we do own the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And recently we had discussed that perhaps we should re-watch the Star Wars movies. For the most part, when someone mentions Star Wars – to us - “Wrong franchise!” But I do have fond memories of watching these movies on TV at my neighbor's house when we were children. He adored these movies. And he had all the cool toys. I admit I use to want to borrow the Ewok Village the most. Followed by the Playdough Star Wars set. So we have started ordering the Star Wars DVDs for rental from Netflix, (http://netflix.com). Luckily the second original movie has arrived in time.

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Food - So here I sit, in my Star Trek pajamas. Eating pizza that we cut with a Starship Enterprise pizza cutter (given to us by my brother-in-law). Drinking my Pepsi from a Uhura glass. For dessert I will be having chocolate sandwich cookies (like Oreo's but the $1 Stop and Shop kind) that are kept in a Tardis shaped cookie jar. And I will have Pacman candies, R2D2 candies, and drink a Pacman energy drink. That should be enough sugar to keep the fatchick inside me quiet long enough to enjoy the Star Wars movie.

Fete Avec Moi

Decorations - I gathered a bunch of the Geeky items we have from around the house: my Rubix cube tissue holder, my shoe wine opener (mental note to use THAT later this evening), our Star Trek glasses, our Star Trek pizza cutter, and the Dr. Who Tardis cookie jar. I purchased Pacman candies (in miniarcade game looking tins) from our local Five Below (http://www.fivebelow.com/). They also had Pacman Energy drinks. I've had these before. I was rather happy to find them. And they had R2D2 shaped candy holders. I pulled all of these items onto a side table with a framed picture I created. The picture frame now reads, “Wow, you say geek like it's a bad thing” inside a pair of glasses. You'd think I found enough cr-p, I mean stuff. But apparently my husband felt that I had forgotten the Star Trek tissue box from the bathroom. Yes, we have a Star Trek themed bathroom. ;) I guess I have taught him well with decorating. It did bring some balance to the table.

Did you show your Geek Pride Today? The twitter hashtag is #GeekPrideDay.

A collection of photos:

There's No Place Like Home...

My sister has worked enough years and reached that point in her life where she can hang up her typewriter and retire. I knew the transition from working to not working would take some adjusting to. So to make her feel better I visited on her last day of work and decorated. My theme? "There's No Place Like Home" aka a Wizard of Oz/Dorothy inspired event. I ran to our local Target. Did you know that the movie version of The Wizard of Oz is celebrating it's 75th Anniversary this year? Target has the movie on DVD available for just $12.99. If it isn't already in your family's collection that is a great price point to acquire this wonderful classic.

For the decorations I wanted something simple yet cute to welcome her home that evening after work. So from a dollar store table cloth I created a yellow brick road. I taped a yellow table cloth down from the front door to the landing by the stairs. With a permanent black marker I drew a brick pattern. My mother couldn't get over how quickly I put that together. I think she may have enjoyed it even more than my sister did.

Did I mention that the idea for this party and the idea to have a small family party only struck me at 8pm the evening BEFORE her retirement?! So here is what I managed to put together in a few hours. I was finished decorating by 2pm the next afternoon. Perfectly ahead of her finishing work around 5pm.

So the thoughts began to swirl like the Kansas hurricane...
I own some brown and white gingham tablecloths from my country Christmas party. I had considered using them. After all the scenes at home in the Wizard of Oz are in black and white. So I post this as an idea in case someone wanted to replicate this and use that color scheme. But I decided to embrace the technicolor side and go with blue and white gingham. So the thoughts began to switch. The house to pitch and suddenly the party was pulled off without a hitch.

I had white Styrofoam cups. I went online and found a picture of Dorothy with the caption "There's No Place Like Home". I always try to give credit where credit is due: http://nolaridge.com/sites/all/files/XL1729_1.jpg?1329408757
I printed these on labels. Placed the labels on the cups to fancy them up. And I taped a strip of white paper around water bottles that I had left over from the Shoe Shindig. Then added the same graphic on top.

I flew faster than the Wicked Witch on her broom to our local Party City. In the Halloween costume area, they had Dorothy's ruby red slippers, Glinda's wand and a Toto in the basket. Snatched and added to my cart. Flew to the Christmas Tree Shops for tablecloths. Found round ones and rectangle ones. Perfect. I had also headed to the Christmas Tree Shop for I had seen a puzzle rollaway there the other day. Earlier that morning at Target I had found a Wizard of Oz puzzle. What a great gift! Snatched all and added to cart then back out to my sister's to go decorate.

The night before I had printed a copy of this adorable graphic that I found online at http://mlblogssfdiamondgirl.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/no-place-like-home.jpg. This was used on the Kitchen table as the perfect theme accent. On the way to my sister's I grabbed Munchins (of course) from Dunkin Donuts. I had Hershey Kisses (labeled Tinman Hats) and Green Rolos (labeled Emerald City Rolos). We had hot dogs (Toto Dogs). My family loves marinated artichoke hearts. I happened to have had a jar. so they received a label that read, "The tinsmith forgot to give me a heart".

Credit must go out to: http://getsboredeasily.blogspot.com/2013/01/wizard-of-oz-retirement-party-tables.html for the theme idea. At 8pm the night before her retirement I had the idea that maybe I should surprise her and decorate while she's at work. I took to the net for ideas on what theme. Surf, sailing, luggage, etc but nothing felt right. Then I saw a horse of a different color on this lovely blog. I had been teasing my sister earlier in the week that "There's No Place Like Home" as she retired so it seemed perfect.

Here are a few photos of the decorations that welcomed my sister home:

"Eggcellent" Easter

I suppose friends and family appreciate the decorating that I do. My neighbor commented, "Aren't you going to decorate our hallway for Easter? When I opened the door the other morning I thought for sure you would have made it look pretty". Hehehe hadn't really planned on decorating the hallway. But okay why not. So I got creative with some Crayola Construction Paper. I made Easter Bunny ears for the hallway window. Simple, easy and yet adorable. And best of all a decoration for in the hall and out the window.

I still had the pretty blue garland from the Shoe Shindig so I left that up. And tied a bunny headband to the railing. And on our apartment door, I rehung last year's green basket with the little white stuffed bunny rabbit.

I spent more time on decorating the outside. I found two inexpensive large sets of plastic Easter Eggs at our local CVS pharmacy.  As I had ExtraCare Bucks this made the eggs not just inexpensive, but free. Free is always Fabulous! I always have ribbon. I love that our local dollar store sells huge rolls for just a dollar. Purchase once and decorate forever. I wove the ribbon (you need to fold it in half - rather a pain by the way) through the small holes in the plastic Easter Eggs. I created two garlands of Easter Eggs. One was used to decorate each side of the front steps.  

Last year I found a blow up Easter Bunny in the clearance bin after the holiday. I thankfully found it again in time for this Easter. I admit I love those blowup Easter Bunnies. They remind me of one that my Aunt Joanne gave me when I was a small child. The thing was bigger than me at the time. But I paraded around the house carrying that thing forever. We had it for years and years. It was pulled out of my mother's Magic Closet this time of year. (Hehehe guess the decorating bug is hereditary. Yes, my mother had what she called her "Magic Closet" as we got older it was the off limit closet where presents were stored and decorations were kept)

Hope you had a very Happy Easter!

Big Bang Party Gone Bust!

So my birthday was January 6th. I had to work that Monday. We were off the week before hand. So I decided to have some friends over for my birthday. So the email to see if friends would be free went out. Luckily a few friends said yes they would be free. Then Mother Nature decided to wear a pointy hat.
Snow. Snow. And more Snow. Roads iced over. It just wasn't safe to ask my friends to come out. So in the end there was no party.  But as I searched online for ideas I didn't find all that much (some but not that much). So to pay it forward I post for the next person looking for ideas.

My Big idea - a Big Bang Theory Party. Let's get together. Let's order pizza and Chinese and watch Big Bang. We have several episodes DVRed. So I thought: This would be cute. This would be easy. This would be fun. This would be low-key. Sadly, this wasn't meant to be. But hopefully these ideas help the next person.

I thought okay, how can I decorate a bit to make the apartment say "Happy Birthday". At the dollar store I found a silver Happy Birthday banner. A great start. I lined the apartment dining area with it.

The food plan was easily covered- ordered Chinese and Pizza.  And at Walmart (of all places) I found cupcakes in their bakery section decorated with red and white sixlets. If I had thought about what type of cupcakes to have I couldn't have designed better ones. What a great find!

At the dollar store I found yellow plates. I had red napkins. I had yellow cups left over from Halloween. I left over red utensils from Christmas. Great! I love a party that only needs a small budget to pull off. I found multipack of red Chinese Take Out containers. I printed Big Bang Theory logos and taped them to each person's.

I printed a couple of pictures from scenes from the show The Big Bang Theory. I printed the "Friendship Algorithm scene" and wrote "Thanks for being part of my friendship algorithm". I made a label for my spot on the couch. (I usually give it up at parties. But hello this party was for my birthday.) Had to have a note about Sheldon's spot there. One summer I had a party that was palm tree themed. I had bough favor boxes that were suppose to look like palmtrees (clearance). They were horrible they looked like pyramids not palmtrees. So I put them away - until now.

For those of you familiar with the show you may remember the opening lyrics -
"The autotrophs began to drool,
Neanderthals developed tools,
We built a wall (we built the pyramids),
Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries,
That all started with the big bang!"

So I placed a few on a silver charger. With a Sheldon birthday card that I found at Walmart.

Of course the TV show is based on the cast of characters being nerds. So Post-its were part of my decor. I a labeled a few items with lines from the show, "Roses - the most beautiful and surprisingly the most expensive of all the flowers", "There's tears in the frosting", etc.

I continued to think, how else can I make this birthday party-like. Oh party hats! I thought about getting a pack of yellow and red ones from the dollar store. But then I remembered that hysterical scene where Sheldon gives Amy a tiara. Done! So I purchased one big Birthday crown tiara for me. And little barrette ones from my girlfriends. Not familiar with the scene? It is too funny not to share: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duiKAT-33Ss

I always label the food options so my friends know what they have to chose from on the buffet.

I thought about "Bazinga" explosions but I wanted something a bit more clever. I remembered that I had a pack of construction paper. I hand cut out beaker shapes and labeled them for the food choices.

My friends and I enjoy candy buffets. At Walmart, I found several boxes of "Nerds" candies. I had left over caramel kisses from Christmas. I had left over Airheads. I found Red Vines at CVS (Sheldon's favorite). So I made a nerdy and not-so nerdy candy buffet.  

Next I consider what to do for fun/decoration/game time things. I had a few glow sticks left over from Halloween. I labeled a glass bottle "chemiluminescence" and had planned to have a few glowing it. Have to "nerdify" the display. I found online that if you use a waterbottle you can separate the yellow from an egg. I remembered a Bernadette line where she yells, "You suck so hard!" so I called the game "You Suck so Hard - A Nod to Bernadette". I had a few packs of Poprocks left over. So I setup to do the old urban legend of mixing PopRocks and Coke and you will explode. NOT! So I called it "The NOT So big Bang theory". And my last idea was to soak some dirty copper pennies in a vinegar solution. A nod to Penny - "Copper Oxide Removal". Had to make it sound nerdy.

Okay so now for the photo gallery. Hope this helps someone else if they are looking for ideas.

Nerdy and Not So Nerdy Candy Buffet - a nod to the cast
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Chemiluminescence
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Copper Oxide Removal (nod to Penny)

Not So Big of a Bang Theory
(PopRocks and Pepsi)

You Suck So Hard (Nod to Bernadette)

Red Chinese Takeout Containers with Big Bang Theory Logo

Food Labels

Dessert Labels

My Spot!

"Roses, the most beautiful and suprisingly expensive of all flowers." - Penny

Images I found on Google Images

 And yes, we had Bill's Tardis cookie jar on the table. If you are Big Bang Theory fan, you may recognize the scene above. Sheldon tells Raj if he doesn't have a Tardis at his party then his party stinks and he stinks.

"There's tears in the frosting" - Amy

"Oh, it's a tiara!" - Amy

Chinese chopsticks of course

Saddened that Mother Nature decided that I didn't need to have a birthday party. We kept rescheduling till it be came a fruitless experience and I gave up. But I hope the planning I did can help the next person.  Maybe plan your Big Bang Theory party for the spring or summer when snow won't keep falling outside. Of if your friends live across the hall this might be easier to pull off. Hehehe ;)