Murder at Mardi Gras- Food Table and Door Wreath

Happy Friday and welcome back! Today is the last day in the Halloween Murder Mystery mini series that I have been sharing. After today we will be all caught up on my previous parties.

Last year the party was called Murder at Mardi Gras and as you can probably guess the theme was under the sea...just kidding, we all know it was Mardi Gras. (That was my lame attempt at being funny but I am sure it failed once again...oh well). Click HERE for the link on Amazon.

I had a blast planning last years party. It was so colorful and fun!

Now, let's get to talking about the real reason we are all here...the FOOD!! Once again, like every year, we had a salad with several dressing options. I do this every year because it is easy and inexpensive to prepare and everyone for the most part likes salad and it fits with any theme. Moving on down the line (of the photo below) we had two different types of sandwich rolls. The small ones (in a line on the top) were a potato roll and the bottom, larger rolls, were a Ciabatta (I think) roll that is hollow on the inside. My aim was to have the fixings for mini muffuletta sandwiches. A friend of mine went to New Orleans several years ago and when she came back she talked for WEEKS about these sandwiches so, I wanted to try to mimic the style but in an affordable way that my guests would enjoy. I thought that the best way to do the sandwiches was to set out all of the ingredients and have each person make there own with the ingredients that they like.

On the deli platter there was mozzarella and provolone cheeses along with roast beef, ham, turkey and salami deli meats. There was also a cup full of green olives since a muffuletta sandwich is typically made with an olive spread. Several of my guests don't care for olives (myself included) so this was the easiest way to offer an option. (Fun fact: My youngest niece LOVED the olives and after everyone sat down with their plates of food she went back to the table, grabbed the cup, then sat in the floor and preceded to eat nearly the entire thing.) ☺ For side dishes, I decided to go extremely SIMPLE this year (since I have been criticized for doing too much in the past) and I purchased pre-made potato salad and macaroni salad (which I happen to LOVE)

I kept the dessert more on the simple side this year as well. We had the standard black cauldron full of Halloween candy and I also bought some cute little glass jars that have gold painted on the bottom that I filled about 3/4 of the way with green, purple and gold Sixlets candies. I made two Mardi Gra themed desserts (that were both delicious!!) The bottom dessert was a mock version of a traditional King Cake made out of cinnamon rolls, cream cheese icing and colored sugars. The cups on the top of the stand were a bananas foster banana pudding that was absolutely AMAZING and everyone wanted to take extras home! But, for the first time in the history of my Murder Mystery Parties, I didn't HAVE any dessert extras. See I told you I was improving. ☺ (Oh, and another fun fact: less than a minute after the photo was taken, someone bumped the table and that top pudding when crashing to the floor and spilled all over the carpet. That was such a pleasure to clean up, let me tell you). 

Since this is the final post for the Halloween Murder Mystery mini series I also wanted to share with you the door wreath that I made to hang on my front door. In all honesty the first three ideas that I tried resulted in EPIC FAILURES so, I had to dig deep for an idea and in the end this is what came about. In hindsight I would probably go back and add a mask or something to the center to really drive home the Mardi Gra theme and make it look a little less light a random Christmas decoration. 

If you have been following along with all of the posts of this mini series you will notice that I haven't posted a layout yet from the Murder at Mardi Gras party and that is because I haven't had a chance to physically make the layout yet. I have it all planned out but haven't yet had time to sit down and put it together. Also, the party this year is still up in the air...I have a few guests that have RSVPed but others refuse to get back. So....we will see what happens. I am trying not to dwell on it or let others actions bother me. (I am failing at both)

I will see you again on Monday with a SUPER card. 

EDIT: Just after writing this post I finally heard back from one of the people that I was waiting on a reply from and they WILL be able to make it so the party is officially a go...oh man I have so much to do in such a short amount of time!! 

Loopy Tree

♫Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree how would you like a new loopy brother♫

Good morning guys and happy Friday. As you can probably tell from the title and my little song, today's project is a little table top Christmas tree made from styrofoam and cardstock. I started by cutting a bunch of cardstock scraps into strips and hot gluing the two ends together to form a loop. Here is what they looked like at the beginning:

After I made a huge pile of loops (more than enough for at least two trees), I began hot gluing them around a styrofoam cone that I got at the Dollar Tree. I started gluing from the bottom and with each new row I changed the color of the cardstock loop and over-lapped them slightly with the row below. To finish off the tree I decided to add a loopy bow by adhering the loops in a stacked pattern until I got the desired look. I added the tree onto a glass candlestick holder that I also bought at Dollar Tree.

Today's question: What is your favorite and/or least favorite Christmas Carol?

- My favorite Carol is probably 'Mary Did You Know'

- My least favorite is definitely 'Carol of the Bells'

Paper Tree Ornaments

The countdown is on and it is T minus 24 days until CHRISTMAS!! Are you feeling the Christmas spirit yet? No? Me neither. So I have a question for you. When does YOUR Christmas season begin? I have told my family for many years now, that I absolutely refuse to admit that Christmas has begun until December first, because otherwise I get overloaded. Now, I love Christmas movies, music, food, etc. But, having a steady dose of it for 3 solid months gets a bit much. Around here most stores start putting up their Christmas displays around Halloween if not earlier and at about that same time there are several TV channels (Hallmark I'm looking at you) that become completely oversaturated with non-stop Christmas movies. By limiting myself to only one month to celebrate, I tend to 'schedule' out what is most important for me to do that season and it helps me to appreciate each Christmasy thing that I do do, if that makes sense.

Now that my mini rant is done, let's talk Christmas crafts. I decided that I would make a couple of new ornaments for my tree this year. I haven't made any for several years now and I would like to be able to put something new up ever couple of years.

The first ornament that I want to share is a snowflake ball. I bought a small styrofoam circle and then punched out several snowflakes (you could use a flower punch as well for a little bit different look that I might have to try later). Then I used straight pins to adhere the center of the snowflake to the styrofoam. To cover the head of the straight pins I added a bright red, sticky-backed pearl to the center of each snowflake.

It was difficult to get a good picture of the ornament because shadows kept getting in the way (and I am to lazy to put my tree up right now in order to get a good hanging photo) but I hope that you can get an idea of how they look. Also, in hindsight, I should have used a dab of hot glue or some other strong glue to adhere the pearls because they are now popping off of the snowflakes. You live and you learn.

The other ornament that I made came straight from the Youtube channel Maymay made it. She did a tutorial on the beautiful angels and I just HAD to make a couple. I love them!! I also love that you can get completely different looks, depending on what punches you use for your angels wings and the bottom of her dress. 

(By the way, the second photo is actually the BACK of the ornament.)

I decided this year to end each post with a Christmas themed question, so for today its going to be:

What is your favorite Christmas Ornament that you own and why is it your favorite?

- Mine is actually a cupcake ornament that I made a few years back for several members of my family as well as myself and my mom. If you are interested I could probably be persuaded to show it to you. 

Candy Corn Trees

Do you like candy corn? It seems that everyone I know either loves it or hates it, there is often no middle ground. I personally hate it, eating it that is. I love the look of them though, and I can't really explain why.

When I was at my local Dollar Tree recently I came across some styrofoam cones in the floral section and for some strange reason (probably the overabundance of fall decor) my brain instantly thought, 'this looks like a giant candy corn.' So needless to say, I left the store with a couple of cones, a package of glass tea light holders and a bag of sickeningly sweet candy corn (which I later gave to my dad who loves them).

Now it is time to turn it into a project! Shown below are some of the pieces that I used to create these ADORABLE trees. I also used a scalloped circle punch from my stash (from EK Success, I think) the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder, a hot glue gun, the glass tea light holders and some real candy corn.

It looks good enough to eat, that is if you actually LIKE candy corn.

Pumpkin Door Wreath

Today I am feeling lazy. It is a cold and dreary day. All I want to do is curl up in my bed with a good book or a movie and not move. I don't know if it was all the excitement from Saturday's party (which was a blast by the way) or the sullen mood from Sunday (I had to go to a memorial service for a family member who passed away) but the last couple of days I have found it hard to motivate myself. The weather hasn't helped the situation any either, but since it is fall in the midwest it is not likely to improve that much for a while.

Every couple of months I try to change out the wreath that hangs on my front door so that it reflects the mood and tone of the season or holiday. But, since so much has been going on in my life lately I haven't had a chance to sit down and make a new door wreath until now, and I would say that it is BEYOND past due, since the wreath currently on my front door is from JULY.

When I think of fall, one of the first things that comes to mind is PUMPKINS. These orange little gourds are simply everywhere. So, why not on my front door? I had an idea of what I wanted it to look like in my head, (a piece of cardstock cut out in the shape of a pumpkin with orange rosettes glued onto it) so all I had to do was create it. Sounds simple, right? Well it would have been if my mom hadn't burst out laughing at my attempt to draw a pumpkin template. That plus the fact that simply cutting it out of a 12 x 12 piece of cardstock would have made the overall wreath rather small on the door. I was truly stumped. What do I do now? Luckily, my mom came through and saved the project with the perfect solution, to use a placemat or something that is already shaped like a pumpkin instead. So, off to the Dollar Tree I went and as luck would have it within 10 seconds of walking in the door I found EXACTLY what I was looking for.

I used some scrap cardstock to fill in the eyes, nose and mouth of the pumpkin and set to gluing on the rosettes. I have to say the final result looks exactly like the one that I had created in my head. I love when things work out!