{gift guide: for the hostess}

With Thanksgiving next week and Christmas coming up in 36 days, it's about time for some gift guides around here!  Let's start out with some unique hostess gifts to bring to along to all those parties and gatherings crowding your social calendar.  Links to all products below or see the round up of all the gift guides and gifts this season by following this pinterest board.

1.  Gold Playing Card Set

2.  French Lavender Hand Cream 

3.  Voluspa Candles

4.  Fresh flowers:  you can never go wrong with a simple bouquet of fresh flowers- I love to buy flowers from the super market, take them out of their tacky plastic wrap and re-wrap them in kraft paper tied with some fun ribbon. 

5. Champagne: any time. any reason. always a good idea.

  

6. West Elm custom monogram cocktail napkins

7. Gold rimmed agate trays

8.  Letterpress cocktail recipe cards

{our holiday cards}

You might remember the holiday cards I reviewed for Minted back in this post.  While I did end up using Minted to print our holiday cards, we actually ended up using their "Big Picture" design with allows you to upload you own full bleed photos to both sides.  As with many people around the holidays, we had the best intentions to take a real photo for the card with the Chicago skyline in the background or something festive, but time got the best of us.  We decided to simply use one of our favorite wedding photos and then get a little more creative with the back of the card...

{amaryllis & paperwhite bulbs for the holidays}

Growing up I always remember my mother putting together amaryllis and paper white bulbs around late October/early November to display around our house for the holiday season.   When I moved out into my first place in San Francisco, my mother sent me care package filled with bulbs and all the supplies needed to plant some for my new home.  Every year since then, she sends along all the supplies for what has grown to become a long time holiday tradition.  Today I wanted to share with you the very simple yet rewarding process of planting these bulbs for the upcoming holidays.  The cost of these bulbs is low and you should be able to find them at your local garden supply or Home Depot- I have also spotted them in "kits" at Target or Trader Joes.  The ease of putting these together makes them a great hostess gift throughout the holiday season as well!

The process for planting either paper white or amaryllis bulbs is basically the same.  You can use practically any ceramic pot or glass vase you might have around so long as the bulb/bulbs can fit their width in it.  The key with bulb success is making sure not to completely submerge the bulb in water or dirt, but to plant it so that the majority of the bulb is visible above the moss in your container.  If need be place rocks or pebbles in the bottom of your container to get the bulb as high as you would like.  Use moss to anchor the bulb in your container.  Fill the entire container with water, let it sit for a few minutes and then drain all the water out by holding the bulb/moss/pebbles while tipping the container to its side.  This should be the extent of watering your bulb will require.  These potted bulbs can be placed anywhere in your home- they do not require a specific amount of sunlight!  You may want to add water and drain it once more in a few weeks if your home is very dry from air conditioning or weather.

Paperwhites and amaryllis make for great hostess gifts since they are pretty and require little effort on the part of the person you are gifting them to!  Simply plant the bulb into a nice ceramic container following the directions above and attach a cute tag like this sticker tag from Rifle Paper I recently picked up on a trip to Paper Source:

While normally I would show you the end result of planting these bulbs, if I waited that long to share it with you then you wouldn't have time to plant some for yourself!  So here are some photos of what you can hope to achieve.  While the amaryllis is my favorite because it is so dramatically beautiful, I also thoroughly enjoy the strong scent that paperwhites will fill your rooms with:

 {amaryllis}

{paperwhites}

{gift wrapping with Rue La La}

 {image via Rue La La}

The lovely bloggers over on the Rue La La blog asked me if I would like to contribute a creative gift wrapping idea for their readers who are getting all their holiday shopping wrapped up in the final moments before Christmas!  You can see my gift wrap along with a quirky wrap idea from Elsie of A Beautiful Mess over on the Rue La LA blog right here.


Here is the full tutorial on the wrap idea I created:

{gift tag downloads}

 {my gift wrap with Hey Look's tags!}

 
This past weekend, I finished all my Christmas shopping AND wrapped everything- this is something I am incredibly proud since in the past I generally like to leave the shopping and wrapping right up until the last minute!  I picked up the candy cane wrapping paper from Target and used a free printable gift tag download from Hey Look Events.  I particularly like this gift tag download since the design lends itself to many different colors of paper so you can tailor it to match your wrapping paper theme.  I printed them onto simple white cardstock, but I think they could look especially fun on kraft paper!  Here is a round up of some other wonderful and free gift tag downloads to jump start your holiday gift wrapping!

 {the full set of gift tags that I used, download here}

 {another gift tag set from Hey Look! I really wanted to use these, but they 

clashed with my gift wrap, two different colors available for download here}

{modern gift tags from Jones Design Company, download by giving your email here}

{red & blue tag set from Gifted Magazine, download here}

{another fun set from Gifted magazine, download here}

{plaid party: the drinks}

Out of all the plaid party posts, this one has got to be the most important one right!?!?  No holiday party is complete without some festive drinks.  Besides having the usual beer, wine and champagne available to our guests, we also whipped up a big patch of whiskey punch and hot spiked cider.  You have seen the whiskey punch on this blog before, but we did change up the recipe a little bit for this party.  Here are the ingredients and measurements for a party sized serving:

Plaid Party Whiskey Punch

• 1 handle of bourbon (Jim Beam, Maker's Mark, etc)
• 12 oz real grenadine
• 1 1/2 cups fresh orange juice
• 1 1/2 cups fresh lemon juice
• 3/4 cup of simple syrup
• 8 heavy dashes angostura bitters
• lemon peels from 5 to 6 lemons

1. Add all the ingredients into a drink dispenser or extra large pitcher, give it a good stir and you are ready to go.  We had about 40 people at our party and this entire recipe of punch disappeared in about an hour.  We ended up making another batch, so if you plan on having a big party I recommend that you double the recipe above.

The hot spiked cider is a great holiday recipe that we have made for our pumpkin carving party in the past.  Normally, we keep it hot by letting guests serve themselves from a pot on the stove which we keep on a low heat setting.  Our friends generously allowed us to use their unopened slowcooker for the plaid party.  I highly recommend using a crock pot or slow cooker if you plan on serving this so that you are able to keep the drink in a central place rather than on your stove! Here is a party sized recipe:

Party Sized Spiked Cider

• 2 containers of spiced cider- the ones we used are from Trader Joe's
• 2 fifths of Mount Gay Dark Rum (or 1 handle if you can find it)-also available at Trader Joe's
• 2 to 3 table spoons of mulling spices (this is optional since the cider is already spiced, but it does add a little extra flavor)
• optional garnish: caramel squares cut in half and speared on to a drink stirrer

1. warm the spiced cider and mulling spices in a slow cooker or a large pot on the stove
2. once the cider is to the desired drinking temperature, add all of the rum
3. garnish with a piece of caramel on a stir stick

The plaid party was incredible, I had so much fun and it is definitely one my favorite parties we have thrown.  We may even make it an annual thing...

{plaid party: the sweets}

The sweets for our plaid party were similar to the savory snacks since they were a mix of home-made and store bought items.   I have actually never done a dessert spread with so many different choices before and I realized after the fact that most of the choices had some sort of chocolate in them- not that anyone was complaining, but I think next time it would be better to have more of a mix.  Here is what we served for the sweets at our holiday party:

• assortment of cookies from Trader Joes: Salted Caramel Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate Sprinkle Rounds & Cranberry Pistachio Cookie Wreaths. 

• mint chocolate pirouette sticks

• home-made chocolate dipped marshmallows, instructions here

• chocolate dipped pretzels, you can see my very first blog post about these here.

• snickerdoodle cupcakes, recipe here

• chocolate bark with bacon, cayenne pepper and toasted slivered almonds- another amazing find like the bratwurst bites that will surely become a party staple. Instructions for this are below.

Originally, I had planned on doing a sweet themed chocolate bark, but we ended up having a little bit of bacon left over from the bacon wrapped dates so we decided to take the bark in a more savory direction.  First we cooked up a few strips of bacon, let them cool and cut them into tiny pieces.  I melted full pound of milk chocolate from Trader Joes and spread it about 1/4 inch thick onto a piece of parchment paper on top of a sheet pan.  Immediately, we topped it with the bacon pieces, some toasted slivered almonds and a healthy sprinkle of cayenne pepper.  After sitting in the fridge overnight, you can break the bark up into pieces.  This would make an awesome Christmas gift paired with a nice bottle whiskey.

 Up next tomorrow- the last plaid party post: the drinks!

{plaid party: the photobooth}

{our past photobooths}

There is nothing I love more at a party (other than a nice glass of champagne) than a photobooth.  It is a great way to capture photos of all your guests and I love seeing how the photos progress as the night goes on.  The above image are some of the photobooths we have set up for past parties.

{chris setting up for the plaid party}

Setting up a photobooth is really simple as long as you have a few key items:

• camera: clearly this is sort of obvious, but I wanted to mention it because although I have a pretty advanced camera, it is possible to set up a photobooth even with a simple point & shoot camera so long as it can be mounted on a tripod. 

• camera remote: I highly recommend this one for Canon users, but for other camera models you should be able to find a good wireless remote for around $20 to $30 at your local camera supply or on Amazon

• a camera tripod: this is the one we use, but less intense versions like this one will work just fine

• a fabric backdrop: about 6 yards of fabric works well if you want to have a big enough backdrop to fit 5 or 6 people in the "booth."  You can also use a 2 full or queen sized sheets.

• some sort of additional decoration such as garland or a hanging word sign to add interest to the backdrop.  

• props!

For all of our past photobooths, I have simply used a staple gun to gather and affix the fabric onto the wall.  Simply cut the 6 yards of fabric in half and place one panel next to the other with a couple inches of overlap in the middle. When choosing a spot for the photobooth, I recommend trying to place it in a central area of your party close to the drinks or food that way the booth isn't very out of the way.  You also want to make sure to place the camera and tripod in a spot where it wont get accidentally moved.  All of the props I used were custom made by my friend Kay, who just launched her Etsy shop where you can purchase her hand-made photobooth props (this one is my all time personal favorite).

{holiday props, available here}

Some of my favorite shots from the Plaid Party:

 

Be sure to check back tomorrow, I'll be posting about the some of the food we served at the party!