TWILIGHT party!

and the winners are....

Tara's Twilight Party

Laura's Tractor Shower

Debbi's Baptism Celebration

& Brittany's Circus Party

congratulations to our weekend party bash winners!

the twilight party is being featured today, the tractor shower is going to be featured tomorrow, the baptism celebration will be featured on sunday, & the circus party on monday. so it's a whole weekend {plus a day} of excellent parties! be sure and check back each day!

i'll tell you, choosing a winner this week was SO hard. all of you sent in EXCELLENT party submissions {there were 20 submissions in all}! you all worked very hard on your parties! thank you!! keep submitting them!

on to tara's twilight party...

this gal went ALL OUT! she even has a blog set up that is dedicated entirely to her twilight party {http://www.tarastwilightparty.blogspot.com/}! be sure and look closely at all her pictures, there is so much detail! i love the apple candles. and the place settings, awesome! i just love it all!

congratulations, tara!

So here's tara's twilight party {narrated by tara}...

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The invitations...

I wanted an invitation that was slightly elegant and not too frilly. I think I chose the perfect one. I love that it has the vellem wrap enclosed around it as well as the square sparkly jewel perfectly placed to keep it closed.
I found these invitations in the wedding section at my local Wal-Mart. They are a Wilton product. The stock number is 1010-107. Wilton provides you with a website so you can easily personalize and print your own invitations. The directions were easy to follow and I had the invitations printed and assembled in less than 10 minutes!!!
Invitation wording...
Tara is turning 30!
Please be her guest at a
Dinner Party Celebration
Saturday, May 30th
at half past six in the evening
ADDRESS
ADDRESS
RSVP by May 20th
Dress: Goth Casual
(red, black and white only!)

The Save The Date's...

here's what she wrote about her save the dates: I sent out my save-the-dates! I am only having 10 guests (12 total when you count myself and my husband). It's a very small affair which allows me to be able to go all out for it! I decided to use the picture from my Polyvore creation as a little hint as to what my guests (most of whom have not read the books) will be experiencing at the party next month. I LOVE it!

Books, Candles & Apples...OH MY! The decor... On Thursday, my husband's job was to move out most of our living/dining room furniture to make room for the rentals that were arriving on Friday. Obviously, some of the big pieces like our buffet weren't going to be moved. I decided to use it to add a bit of decor. You'll notice each of the Twilight Saga books with an apple lying on top. I used a candle carver to cut a perfect hole in each apple to fit a tealight...the effect was awesome! My best friend, Kelly, got married in July of 2005 and the candelabra in the picture is from her wedding. Thankfully, her mom already had the greenery and flowers on it so all I had to do was add some black and red feathers (I figured the Cullens are "vegetarians" so this would work well for that "animal-like" decor), red ribbons (think Eclipse) and of course, what Twilight/Vampiresk dinner party would be complete without blood dripping candles?!? The candles were EASY to make. Basically use an old candlestick holder or a bucket filled with sand and place white taper candles inside. Light a RED pillar candle and let the wax drip down the top of the taper candles. In the coming days, I'll post some pictures of the table design where I used more of those "blood" dripping candles.

Welcome sign...

I found the verbiage for this sign from another Twilight fan who hosted a party a few months back. As soon as I saw it I knew I needed to recreate it for my party. All of our guests definitely had a good chuckle when they walked up to our front door!

The food buffet station... I think one of my favorite parts of the party was definitely the food buffet station. It was very simple to put together, but really added to the ambiance I was trying to achieve. I used a 6 foot banquet table and covered it in a black linen. I had a collage frame that I used in shows back when I was a wedding planner so I decided to print some pictures from the movie and a few of my favorite quotes and pop them in the frames. Down the center of the collage frame I printed pictures of the book covers and put them in according to their release dates. I was very happy with how it turned out and it really gave a lot of height and interest to the table. Total cost for that project was $6 for the printing of the pictures!I wanted to stick with an Italiano theme for party food since Bella ate mushroom ravioli in the movie and the Cullens attempted to make her an Italian meal when she came to visit them. Rather than actually have mushroom ravioli (a lot of our guests don't eat mushrooms!) I decided to make my original recipe called Tara's Stuffed Shells (check back a little later and I'll post the recipe). My recipe calls for green pepper and onion and the same crowd that didn't like mushrooms didn't like those things as well so I made a plain version without any type of vegetables that went over really well. You'll notice from the pictures below that I came up with fun names for all of our food for the evening. This particular dish became Blood & Guts Stuffed Organs. There were a lot of laughs over that one!In addition to the stuffed shells I also made Cullen Salad which consisted of ONLY "vegetarian" ingredients and what Italian feast would be complete without Vampire Repellent Breadsticks to round out the meal. Total cost for making the signs was $0 since I already owned all of the paper, ink and the frames.

The drink station...

I had a lot of fun putting together the drink station. I used a 3 foot round table that we normally have on our patio and covered it with a red linen. I used a water pitcher that belonged to my grandmother so those that didn't like soft drinks could have another option. The 3-tier silver stand is actually one of six that I own and used to rent out for weddings. I had thought about selling them at one point, but just couldn't part with them!!! I took 3 wine buckets that I had from once again doing weddings and filled them with ice and popped in some bottled sodas. We had Jones' Blood, Root-of-all-Evil Beer and Vampire Cola. Around the base of the wine buckets I added some clear dazzlers (like I did on just about every surface!!!) to give that vampire shimmer effect and then a few apples with red glitter that are actually part of my Christmas decor.

The cake...I didn't want to do a cake that screamed Twilight so I opted for something a little more suttle. I ended up getting this peanut butter ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery. It was SENSATIONAL!!! You'll notice that a vampire decided to try a piece of it before we picked it up..hmmmmm! ; )

Tablescape & Place Settings... As I mentioned in my last post, the tablescape was pretty much my main focus for the party. It had to be creative and really set the mood for the entire party! I started with an 8 foot banquet table and covered it in a black floor length linen. I paired the linen with black chairs and red linen napkins. You'll also notice a little $2 feathered boa I purchased at Michael's to make my chair stand out from the others. I had close to thirty candles in glass and silver candlesticks in varying heights that I borrowed from my best friend's mom lining the center of the long table with red doilies underneath. Originally the doilies were there to catch any candle wax that dripped, but I made an executive design about an hour before the party and decided not to actually light the candles on the table due to everything being so tight in our living/dining room and that last thing I wanted to do was to start a fire. Several weeks ago I found a cheap chess game at Wal-Mart for $3. I decided to take the black pieces and spray paint them red and leave the white pieces as they were. I incorporated them into the table design. I also found inexpensive white tulips for $2 at Wal-Mart and spray painted them to look like blood was dripping off of them. My overall goal was to bring the covers of the books in the Twilight Saga to life. I had planned for the candelabra to go on the dining table, but it became apparent pretty early on that it was going to be to big so it was on my buffet instead. You'll notice the ribbon hanging down on it which was suppose to stand for Eclipse. Like with every other surface I used tons of little shiny pieces throughout to make everything sparkle like the Twilight vampires! Check back tomorrow for closeups of the place settings! The Menu...

It took me a while to come up with the place settings. I needed a way to incorporate the apple from the book Twilight, but also needed to find a way to incorporate Forks, Washington as well. As I was creating the menus it hit me that I could use the same card stock for the place cards and just have a fork stick right through it into an apple. It was kind of one of those things you do a double take just to make sure you're seeing what you're actually seeing. I really liked how it turned out. I purchased the forks at Wal-Mart for $3. You'll also notice the red stuff all over the menu and place cards. I actually used the same red candle wax I used to make the candles to pour over the card stock to make it look like blood. I LOVED how it turned out!What Twilight/Vamperisk-themed party would be complete without vampire teeth?!? I purchased these from Oriental Trading. I used them in a group photo later in the evening and also as my guest's take-home favors.

The Trivia Game...

One of the things I stressed to each of my guests was the fact that if they didn't have at least a knowledge of the Twilight movie, they probably wouldn't understand my party at all. While I would have loved it if everyone that came had read all 4 books, I settled on at least the Twilight movie!With that said, I planned on doing Twilight Trivia as part of the evening. Without the book knowledge I decided to base the trivia game on the movie instead. There were 20 questions worth 1 point each and one bonus question worth 5 points. Everyone broke up into teams. The winners pictured below were Bethany and her mom Pamela. As you can tell from the smile on Bethany's face that the prize was hilarious...a golden onion!!! It took me 4 coats of spray paint, but I finally got that darn onion covered in gold. Her reaction was classic. I loved every minute of it. In addition to the golden onion I also popped in a $10 gift card to Cold Stone Creamery.

Here are the questions and answers...

1. What is the mascot for Forks High School? SPARTANS

2. How old was Bella when she spent her last Christmas in Forks, Washington?4

3. TRUE or FALSE: Author of Twilight, Stephanie Meyer, makes an appearance in the movie Twilight. TRUE

4. Before living in Forks, where do the Cullens say they lived? ALASKA

5. The Cullens do not consume human blood. Because of this, what do they call themselves? VEGETARIANS

6. Who does Bella borrow her prom dress from? ALICE

7. What is Bella's dad, Charlie's occupation? CHIEF OF POLICE

8. What instrument does Edward play? PIANO

9. TRUE or FALSE: Rosalie and Jasper are a couple. FALSE

10. What beach are the Cullens not allowed to set foot on? La Push

11. Who is Esme? MOTHER TO THE CULLEN CHILDREN

12. What is the color of Bella's bedding?

13. TRUE or FALSE: Edward was the first vampire that Carlisle made a part of his family. TRUE

14. What do vampires do when they are in the sun? SPARKLE/SHIMMER

15. What grade are Edward and Bella in? 11th

16. What is the Forks High School prom theme? MONTE CARLO

17. What is Bella's stepdad's name? PHIL

18. What dessert does Charlie order every Thursday? BERRY COBLER

19. Name the three nomadic vampires the Cullens and Bella encounter while playing baseball. LAURENT, VICTORIA AND JAMES

20. What city and state did Bella live in before moving to Forks, Washington? PHOENIX, ARIZONA

***What brand of beer does Charlie drink in the movie Twilight? RAINIER

Twilight Embellishments...

My friend, Bethany, created the cutest little Twilight embellishments to go on top of the birthday gift that she gave me. She used Shrinkies. Until I had received some, I had never even heard of these things. I have to tell you guys...they ROCK!

Twilight Headpiece...

As the birthday girl, it was important that I look and feel special for my party! I knew exactly where to turn...Joanne Miranda Designs. Joanne is a friend who creates vintage-inspired headpieces and jewelry. I enlisted her help to create the perfect Twilight-inspired headpiece for my party. She created this chic black piece with feathers and jewels. I LOVED it! I can't wait to find an excuse to wear it again!!!

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thank you, Tara for submitting your awesome twilight party!