By now, y’all have probably figured out I rant a lot. Well today my rant is about me posting a week after the party. I so wish I was better at posting in a more timely manner. aka, my newly married friend, Ashlee, posts regularly, and makes me feel guilty about not posting the day after. 🙂 But, we have been so busy at work and I really have to be in the mood to blog and I just haven’t been in the mood.
I also need to preface this by saying I KNOW that I am terrible at taking pictures. I’m not good at making sure there isn’t stuff in the background, or even the angles. And I just use my cell phone. Maybe starting by taking pictures with an actual camera would help me have better pictures.
Back to the story now. Being one of the few, and very potentially the ONLY, times I’ll be a maid of hotness, there isn’t ONE possible party that will not happen. Therefore, the first is the engagement party. Well, timing worked out perfect and we doubled it as an engagement/Super Bowl watching party. I had exactly one month to plan. And anyone who knows me knows that I’ll have great ideas and then procrastinate so much that I just can’t execute all of them.
So, I started planning early, well a month early. My sisters’ friend, Regan, offered to help so I definitely took her up on that offer! I thought a taco/nacho bar would be a really good idea. Easy, people can make what they want, and it can stay out and not worry about food getting nasty when it got cold. Done, know what food we’re having. I knew I wanted to make the chalk board frames with their love story on it. We’re very lucky because we get to use a lot of supplies from the flower shop. I also wanted to do a banner that said “She Said Yes” but I never got around to that. I started making painting the frames about 3 weeks in advance. I also had every intention of completing them well in advance of the party but didn’t. I’m actually glad I didn’t because when I put them into the trash bags so glitter didn’t get all over Marilyn (my new car), it totally smeared the chalk…
Next came invitations. Since we were so close to the party already, I decided to do online invitations. I use a website called Paperless Post. They have so many cute invitations there and include an envelope and everything customized to each guest. They are sent via email so all of the guests need to have an email. You can also do printed invitations through them, which reminds me I need to print this one for my sister to keep. And, ok, I am kind of a control freak/want everyone to respond immediately, so I watched the RSVP list CONSTANTLY.
I had already decided to make the rice krispie treat cake that I’m sure you have seen on Pinterest. Then, our friend, Kasie, asked if she could bring anything and she makes amazing cupcakes! She ended up making cookies and creme and cake batter mini cupcakes. They were a total hit and there wasn’t a single one left!
I ended up buying most of the groceries from Costco because it is significantly cheaper, but still had some things to buy once I got home. Friday night before the party consisted of me dropping everything off at my sister and Blake’s house so I didn’t have to lug it around twice. Saturday, my mom and I ran the final errands to Target, TJ Maxx for some serving dishes, Hobby Lobby (which has NO cute plates and napkins), and the grocery store. It feels like we went 50 other places but I don’t think we did. My mom and I spent Saturday evening cutting and chopping vegetables.
Super Bowl Sunday gets here and I will admit that I am not good at planning out time to cook things. I always fear that it’ll be cold so I try to cook it to as late as possible. Well, some things never change haha. I got to Brittney’s an hour later than I planned. Once I got going I did pretty good. Regan came over and we started making queso. Well, I got a recipe from a friend and decided to make the recipe times 8. We were expecting about 50 people, and one of my biggest fears is running out of food.
Once everyone got back from looking at the reception hall, Regan and I had just started making the taco meat and still needed to get dressed. Whoops! 🙂 Luckily, my mom and sister stepped in to finish the taco meat so Regan and I could get dressed. Oh, and I’ll mention that I was totally unprepared. I brought summer clothes and it was FREEZING AND RAINING. I rocked those wedges though!
Now to the part where I tell you how I made everything. I’m going to start with the chalk board frames.
I really didn’t know how to make it. My aunt gave me the idea and had most of the supplies. I think we used 16×20 inch frames. I really wouldn’t use anything smaller. When I got them from her they were already painted silver. I tried to just paint over it with antique gold spray paint and then brush it with a paint brush to give it the not perfect look. Well that didn’t work and the silver kept showing through. So, then we tried to paint it with flat black spray paint underneath and then gold on top. Still didn’t work. Finally, my aunt gave me the idea to paint it gold and then put gold glitter on top. Success. Going back, I probably should have sanded them down first. I used the Martha Stewart gold glitter. It’s very fine and sparkles A LOT. 🙂 I did put a clear coat on top of the glitter but it really didn’t work. For the adhesive, I used 3M Super 77.
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| Crafting the only way I know how – with wine 🙂 |
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| Saw I used to cut the foam board |
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| After coat #1 – you can see the white streaks on the board still. |
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| After round 2 of glitter. I did quite a few. You can see it’s still splotchy. |
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| Finished Product! 🙂 |
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| Not a great picture, but I’m pretty proud of myself! Also pictured is the rice krispie cake 🙂 |
For the chalk board part, I used white foam board and the Martha Stewart chalk board paint. I only needed one can of paint to get 2 layers on both boards. Definitely follow the instructions and let it dry all the way in between coats. Another thing to note, you must watch the direction you paint. You want to make sure you have full strokes in the same direction covering the board. It does have to sit overnight before you can write on it so make sure you allow time for that. I used regular white chalk to write on mine and it worked just fine. Oh, and I only had a huge piece of foam board so yes, I really sawed the foam board to get it to the pieces I needed, and I should never use a saw.
Next is the rice krispie cake. This took waaaay more ingredients than I ever expected. My momma makes the BEST rice krispies, but she uses the marshmallow cream. Part of the deliciousness is that crumbles and doesn’t stay together. Well, for this project that was going to be an issue so I knew that I had to use marshmallows and butter. My mom has quite an assortment of cake pans and she just happened to have one that fit the cake stand perfectly and then also the size smaller. I originally wanted to do 3 tiers but we didn’t have a smaller cake pan and I didn’t want to try to cut it. AKA I’m a perfectionist and couldn’t stand for the top layer to be different. Since I didn’t have any idea on how much rice krispie it would take, I just started with one stick of butter and one bag of marshmallows. Once I got that melted down, I just poured the cereal until I thought I had enough. Oh Lord, I am becoming my mother’s daughter…guessing, not measuring. (My mom is queen of a little of this, a can of that, just a little bit..) I will say it took way more. I was kind of concerned that putting the finish product in there in multiple layers, that it would come apart or not appear seamless but it did. And they were delicious.
Next was tequila punch. I actually had this at the Christmas brunch I went to. I was the ONLY person to drink this at the party. Yes, I did ask once if it was getting hot in the house, and no I did not finish the whole thing 🙂 The recipe is very easy.
Tequila Punch
Equal parts tequila, pineapple juice, and ginger ale. Half part of frozen lemonade.
Now, for the finale…dun dun dunnnn! QUESO! I got this recipe from a friend who made it for a baby shower we hosted together. It was delicious and super easy to make. Her mother in law came up with this recipe from a restaurant. Usually in restaurants the bell peppers and onions are in large pieces. I chose to use my mom’s food processor and so it was more finely diced. Still tasted delicious.
Galileo’s Queso
3/4 stick of butter
1/2 onion
1/2 bell pepper
1/2 block of velvet
1/2 pint of whipping cream
Melt the butter. Add the onion and bell pepper and let soften. Add velveeta and whipping cream. Once melted and blended, queso is ready to eat!
Maid of Hotness Fail #2: I had 2 crockpots full of queso. When one got low, I switched them out with the intention to add the rest of the first to the second when there was room. Done. I would hold the first pot and Mom would scoop out the queso. Except that I dropped the first pot in the second and made a total mess on my sister’s counter. Whoops! 🙂
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| Queso Fail – Also, you never realize how blonde your hair is until it blends in with your sister’s white cabinets. |
All in all, I think the party went well. We had so many leftovers and I hope everyone enjoyed their lunch and dinner the next days! 🙂
Happy Olympic Partying! GO TEAM USA!
xoxo,
jenn
Fancy Pants 