Valentine’s Party 2013

This year we decided to throw a Valentine’s party for the ladies. Candice was inspired by her sister, Stephanie’s annual shindig. The basic idea is sort of like a favorite things party with a Valentine’s twist. Instead of everyone bringing their favorite thing, everyone prepared a valentine for all the guests. We decided to keep the party small so that everyone would get everything. You  could do this with a bigger group and have everyone bring a few things and then draw names, but with a smaller group, no one feels like they’re missing out.

We narrowed the guest list to ten people (not an easy job!)that we thought would really enjoy making the valentines. We ended up with an amazing group of ladies, and I think it’s safe to say that the evening was a success!

Candice hosted the party at her house, and she was in charge of decor. She also made the Shirley Temples and the fruit skewers. I don’t know how I didn’t get a picture of the heart shaped strawberry skewers, but they were so simple, yet perfect.

[caption id="attachment_5294" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Valentine’s Gift Baskets[/caption]

As for me, I made the rest of the food. We had tomato soup with grilled cheese croutons, sugar cookies, and mini black forest cheesecakes. Since it wasn’t a huge group, and since the party started at 8:00pm, we didn’t need a ton of food. This was more of a late night nibble. Also, is this just me, but when it’s a ladies party, do you find that you go through less food than when it’s a couple’s party? For whatever reason, women don’t seem to want to pile their plates high when other women are watching!

One of my favorite discoveries for this party was paperless post. Candice used this site to send out the invitations. It’s the same idea as evite, but they have some amazing designs.

If you want to see the way everything looked on the day of, check out Candice’s posts. I can’t do the streamer backdrop justice!

Later this week I’ll write about what I made for my Valentine.