Prepare your appetizers & drinks with an element of spooky. We know the key to any party is good food that looks and tastes great. When it comes to your Halloween party you can make it a hit with a slight touch of spooky touch to make your appetizer spread pop. When putting together your appetizer tray for a Halloween party you’ll want to make your theme known with these eyes, some spiders and if you can, make bat and pumpkin shaped food items. Now that you have your appetizers all set, you will can start on mixing up something for your guests to drink. Something we like to do is add dry ice to chill the party drinks but also get that classic spooky look. Dry ice in any halloween party drink will cause some to pause while others will want to drink up. Just remember to handle the ice with care, purchase it close to time of use and cut into small cubes before serving in a drink and do not allow your guests to ingest the ice. If so, it will really be a horror night. Yes we know there will be lots of treats given out on Halloween, but at your party add a special treat made just for your guests. These chocolate dipped pretzel sticks have a bit of sweet and salty and when you add halloween party decorations to cause your eye buds and taste buds to wanna dip baby dip. Remember to monitor the temperature of your chocolate when warming it, use a spoon and large bowl to to coat the sticks, decorate generously then let them harden in the refrigerator or in a cool place. Now let’s sit down to a table setting fitting fitting for an Adams Family Halloween party. A great table setting will give your home the ambiance you are seeking for this occasion. Your Halloween party will scream “Yesss” with these lighted pumpkins, spider place mats on the table. Just a little spooky added to the glitz and glams will have your guests oohhing and ahhhing and giving cheers to the hostess.
Author: webdeveloperswj
IT’S A DEAD MAN’S PARTY – GUIDE TO A DIA DE LOS MUERTOS DRIVE-BY BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION
Dia de los Muertos is one of those iconic LA holidays where the coolest kids get to show off their elaborately painted faces and layers and layers of blingy accessories to get that perfect look. But what’s even cooler is what Dia de los Muertos actually stands for – a way of honoring those who have passed by celebrating everything about life that they loved most. Why not celebrate the living in the same way? For this Festively styled shoot, we wanted to showcase how to celebrate an October or November birthday with a Dia de los Muertos Birthday Drive By. And in true 2020 style, we wanted to make it safe and stylish. We celebrate Dia de los Muertos on November 1st, for All Saints Day with “el Dia de los innnocentes” or the day of the children, and November 2nd, for All Souls Day or the “Day of the Dead.” We caught up with Anais Catalina of Anais Catalina Designs, who was the event planner for our Dia de los Muertos drive-by birthday party styled scene, part of Festively’s Holiday Events and Gift Guide. As an event planner, Anais specializes in weddings, day of coordination and stylist. She also owns Galagals curious where she makes custom headpieces. These crowns are so popular, they are all sold out on Etsy, but they will soon be featured on Festively! And she also runs a Photo Booth where she features lots of fun and unique props. Anais was excited to plan Festively’s Dia de los Muertos scene because she knew exactly what she wanted to do. She was also thrilled to work with amazing vendors to bring the scene to life. To set the scene: Anais explained that traditionally, you display certain foods like pan de muerto, sugar skulls, along with the dearly departed’s favorite foods. Also add trinkets that remind you of them. The most important part of the Dia de los Muertos decor is the Ofrenda. Anais says that for Christmas, you have a Christmas tree for a month. For Day of the Dead, she puts out her offenda for the entire month. To create an offenda, she recommends putting out vintage photos of loved ones who have passed, adding marigolds (real or fake) with tea lights all around. You can put this all on a single shelf or several layers of shelves. Along with vintage photos, flowers, and candles, you will need an arch. You can either go big with balloons or use something smaller that bends, such as paper flowers or paper picado. Be sure to add any mementos from your loved ones, such as their favorite hat, or their favorite foods like enchiladas, and drinks like a glass of wine, bottle of gin, or tequila,. You can also get festive and create a community ofrenda at an event or at work. You can invite guests or co-workers to bring photos of their family members to share as well. In many communities in Mexico, offends are set up at churches, schools and in the community for everyone to celebrate together. At the Festively styled shoot for the Holiday Guide, we had amazing music from Chasity Ashley, who brought Coachella to the streets! It was an honor for her to be there and her skull bone body suit was perfect. For a traditional Dia de los Muertos, Anais says a nice remembrance of your loved ones is what matters most. It is a great way to honor those who have passed on. Anais is now offering rentals and mini set design as part of her services. Check out her eclectic pieces on Festively soon!
BONE APPÉTIT! ☠️🧀 – HOW TO MAKE A SPOOKY CHARCUTERIE BOARD
A good friend recently asked for some ingredients to make a charcuterie board. We went back to our blog to share a link because of course, we’ve shared our favorite ingredients for a charcuterie board, right? Gasp! We hadn’t! So in the spirit of sharing, we created this really fun Halloween charcuterie board with our favorite ingredients found at Trader Joe’s. Make this for a scary movie night, family game night, or any spooky gathering and have them saying “Oh my gourd!” Step 1: Gather the Supplies You will first need a few items from around the house Head over to the craft store and pick up: Then do your Trader Joe’s haul. These ingredients can be swapped out for your favorite Trader Joe’s finds. We went with a Fall theme and found cheeses, crackers and other treats that were in dark colors and bold flavors. Here’s what we used for this spooky charcuterie board: Decor: Cheeses: Meats: Crackers: Fruit/Veggies: Extras: Wine: Step 2: Arrange the Items on the Tray I like to sketch out the placement of any charcuterie table or board on paper first. In this case, I drew a circle and the general placement of the skeleton. Then I added the big cheeses and thought about the overall look. This was helpful since I had so many ingredients and wanted to space them out around the entire board. Then I started to place the items according to my drawing. I put the big cheeses on the tray without taking off the wrappers, in case need to make a change. I put smaller items like the olives and pickles in little bowls. Then fill in the gaps with all the extras. An extra spooky touch was to fill the skeleton’s ribs with salami and the sliced bread. I also had the gummy worms coming out of the eyes. Step 3: Set the Mood with Candles & Wine You have to compliment this spooky setup with a haunted wine right? We chose Dearly Beloved, I Thee Red for a cool Dia de los Muertos look. We added a few candles, some fun decor we already had from around the house, and added the rest of the scarlet flowers from Trader Joe’s. Choosing purple and black fruits, nuts, crackers, etc. makes it look extra spooky This is the perfect addition to your next scary movie night, family game night, or any spooky gathering!
HOLIDAY WINE PAIRING FOR YOUR FAVORITE HOLIDAY MEALS
Go ahead and give yourself a hug. You’ve finalized your holiday meal menu! Now you are looking for the perfect wine to pair those delicious dishes with. Read on and discover tips and recommendations from wine experts for the perfect wine pairings for your holiday meals. Plus, we’ve added *bonus* at the end – a DIY printable for our fun holiday wine tags to make your holiday table extra special! What are you serving for Thanksgiving dinner? We are not all sure what the holidays will look like this year. Maybe smaller with fewer people, but you can still go big. One thing we know we’re going to do is to eat all our favorite holiday meals. Whether you cook up a storm or have it all catered, we want to show you some fabulous wines that will bring out all the delicious flavors. We discovered some great tips during our most recent Instagram live. We had so much fun hanging out with wineries Daou and Honey Bubbles at our new favorite place in the whole wide world, Burbank Pavilions! Fun is actually an understatement because good food and wine is the ultimate satisfaction for us. Our time with Daou and Honey Bubbles was extra special because we learned about fabulous wine pairing for any holiday meal, most of which were super affordable. These wines will be great with traditional dishes as well as cultural dishes and more. If your family dinner is like ours, it has a variety of traditional dishes. We have turkey and prime rib along with several cultural flavors. Some are sweet, others are spicy but all are delicious. Great wines for appetizers We began our tasting with a charcuterie dish as our appetizer. Scott from Honey Bubbles paired it with their famous Honey Bubbles sparkling Moscato. A unique thing about this moscato is that it has half the sugar of a normal Moscato, but with twice the alcohol. It has an intriguing balance of sweetness and acidity providing structure and making it perfect for a charcuterie platter or light appetizer course. As Scott says, pairing Honey Bubbles and Humbolt fog cheese is like heaven. Next, we tasted some delicious empanadas from Portos. Lindsey brought out the DAOU Pessimist. It’s a red blend that showcases blueberry, boysenberry, plum, and strawberry. It also has smoky notes of truffle and roasted coffee accompanied by accents of floral consisting of lavender and lilac. This goes great with dried apricots and cured meats. Great wines for the main course A holiday meal main course usually has a variety of flavors and we have several options for you to pair with it. For your turkey, Scott recommends Daniele Conterno’s Langhe Nebbiolo 2017. It has notes of black tea, dried flowers, citrus rind and earthy notes. Linsey suggested the DAOU Chardonnay whose palate is lush and silky, with mouth-filling flavors of sweet honeydew melon, mango and more. If you are serving red meat like prime rib, you will want a big bold show-stopping wine, like DAOU Soul of a Lion. It has a deep, complex bouquet that reveals notes of cassis, black currant, licorice, incense, ripe plum, and vanilla. Level up your cultural dishes with the perfect wine pairing. Many Los Angelinos are making tamales for the holidays and other cultural dishes with many spices and flavors. For any meal that is spicy, you’re going to want to go with a lighter wine. The DAOU Chardonnay is a great choice because it has nice tropical notes and is going to balance out the spicy heat of the tamales and elevate the flavor profile of the tamales and the wine. If you have a not so spicy tamale, maybe a sweet tamale, you will want to drink a wine that enhances the flavor and not compete with it. To do that, you will want to pull out the DAOU Paso Cabernet Sauvignon because of its currant, black cherry, cedar, and eucalyptus. Just pop open and enjoy! Great wine for dessert Now, after you’ve stuffed yourself on appetizers and main courses, there is always room for dessert. Most desserts are going to be sweet and we were looking for a wine that compliments desserts like a sweet potato pie or pecan pie. Look no further than the CARE Garnacha Nativa, an explosion of dark cherry and raspberry on the palate with hints of mocha and a smooth and luscious body. Holiday Wine Pairing Cheat Sheet Course Dish Wine Selection Appetizers Charcuterie Honey Bubbles – Sparkling MoscatoDAOU Sauv Blanc and Rose Appetizers Empanadas DAOU Pessimist Main Course Turkey Daniele Conterno’s Langhe Nebbiolo 2017 Main Course Prime Rib DAOU Soul of a Lion Main Course Spicy Tamales DAOU ChardonnayDAOU Paso Cabernet Main Course Sweet Tamales DAOU Paso Cabernet Sides Stuffing DAOU Reserve Chardonnay Dessert Sweet potato pie, Pumpkin pie, Pecan pie CARE Garnacha Nativa 2017 As you can tell, we really enjoyed hanging out with Lindsey, Paula and Scotty. We recorded our affordable wine pairing for holiday meals in the wine section of the Burbank Pavilions. You can see it all on the Festively YouTube channel. We want to give a special thanks to Paula, the concierge at Pavilions who brought us all together and hosted us at the Burbank Pavilions Be sure to check out more wine options from our great partners Daou and Honey Bubble. You can shop for them all at Pavilions in Burbank. Add a special touch – DIY holiday wine tags Click here to get a downloadable sheet with our fun Holiday wine tags! You can print these, cut them out, paste them on to a store-bought brown paper tag that has a hole for ribbon, then add a ribbon. If you want to customize your own wine tags, click here to get our template in Canva where you can create your own fun sayings for your wine pairings.
PLAN A GIRLS UNICORN SLEEPOVER PARTY LIKE A PRO
Festively helps you plan a perfect sleepover party for girls andincludes tips on a unicorn them party from professionals. Start with a theme to planthe perfect sleepover. When @Verosweethobby contacted us to help her plan her daughter Noa’s 9th birthday, we knew we could create the perfect alignment for a beautiful bday party with fabulous photos, and all with an influencer who can provide lots of exposure. 🎂 The inspiration was rainbows, unicorns, and her favorite color blue…such a fun combo! A party planner can add creativityto your party and manage all the details. We brought on Tina as the event planner. Hiring an event planner adds creativity and a customized touch that takes it from being a good party to a great party. That is exactly what Tina did for the Festively Styled Shoot and Noa’s 9th birthday party. Tina is the owner of @inthecloudsevents owned by Tina. One tip before hiring an event planner, think abut your budget, your vision and theme before you get started. Tina had the idea to incorporate a spa party into the sleepover and curated a deliciously fabulous like a spa treatment area, complete with organic items to pamper their adorable little faces. Find a vendor and rent the tee pees for your sleepover or slumber party. We worked with Brenda from @sleepieteepee and customized the tee pees in blue and white. She said the first thing to consider if you want to have tents for a sleepover is the amount of space you will use to set up. On average, the footprint for each teepee is approximately 4 feet wide. Noa’s tee pees were accented with lights, unicorns and pretty garland. Some things are included with the rental and add-ons are also available. The party was decorated with amazing balloons. For the Festively Styled Shoot we worked with Valarie from @blissfulhearts who created the beautiful balloon arches. Her inspiration was rainbows and unicorns and lots of colors. She bundled them by color with inspiration from Noa’s the unicorn theme. Hire a photographer that specializes in the type of photos you want captured. For the Styled Shoot we worked with the talented @l.a.momma to capture every aspect of the party from the vendors, the details, all the way to the final product. She did an amazing job. Her advice to someone looking to hire a photographer is have in mind the kind of photos you are looking for. This is important because you want to hire the photographer that specializes in the type of images you want captured. We did in real life what you will do on the Festively site. We wanted to bring to life what Festively will do online, connect party hosts with unique, local party vendors. And we know that one of the best things a small business can do is have professional photos taken to showcase their work and talents. So we set out to achieve both! Huge thank you to our amazing partners Brenda @sleepieteepee for the gorgeous tents, Valarie @Blissfulhearts for the fabulous balloons. Vero @verosweethobby for the beautiful cakes, awesome event planner Tina @inthecloudsevents, and amazing photographer Rachel @l.a.momma to capture all the action. This was the crew, a.k.a #dreamteam. More Styled Shoots are planned for the future. DM us @sofestively if you are interested in being a partnering vendor.
HOW TO HOST A CROWD-PLEASING FOOD & DRINK TASTING AT HOME
Hosting a food and drink “tasting” can be so much fun! We’re sharing some delish food and drink pairings that we absolutely love. 4. Set the mood – Music and a lively atmosphere is super important; if you have a theme, make it festive with decorative accents. You may want to rent extra glasses from a local rental company to make sure you have enough. 5. Get some help – ask friends to be pourers or fill up empty plates…you’ve got guests to entertain! You may also need a lot of nice glasses. You can rent glasses from a local rental shop for exactly the drink you’ll be trying. To pair, we highly recommend creating a grazing table. 🍑🥦🥕These lovely tables include everything from your favorite cheese, crackers, nuts, and dried fruit, along with splashes of chocolates, veggies, and fresh fruit. Go fancy and stop by @eatly 👈🏽for everything you need and more, or head over to @traderjoes 👈🏽for so many fun finds. 🎉 Mezcal and Chocolates If you’re planning on taking a trip soon✈️, a tasting is great way to get excited about the region you’re visiting! A trip we’d love to take is to visit Oaxaca, MX to try all of their yummy Mezcals. Hosting a Mezcal tasting will get everyone dreaming about exploring and planning all the fun details. *Giveaway alert!* 🍾What’s your favorite food and drink pairing? Share in the comments below and you’ll be entered to win a fun prize. Winner announced on Sunday!💃🏾 To host a proper Mezcal tasing, you’ll want to Then visit Oaxaca and be blown away by the beautiful people and culture, and bring us back a bottle of your favorite Mezcal!❤️ Cognac and Seafood 🥃Cognac may be an acquired taste, but pairing it with seafood 🍤like lobster claws, shrimp, and oysters makes the pairing well worth trying! Perhaps grab a bottle of each and serve it youngest to oldest to observe the flavors. Some cognacs we like or want to try are 👉🏽 Ron Zacapa Remy Martin, Hennessy, Delamain, Tesseron, Dusse, Martell, Camus cognac, and Bache Gabrielsen cognac In between sips, be sure to enjoy some amazing seafood! The salinity compliments the rich flavor profiles of the cognac. 👍🏽 Visit a market with fresh fish options and look for lobster claws, shrimp, oysters, and other chilled shellfish. Be sure to add accents like 🍋 , cocktail sauce, and salt. Place the shellfish on a beautiful platter that guests can enjoy as much as they love ❤️ their cognac. Beer and Jerky Beer me! 🍺When it comes to a home beer tasting, there are so many awesome ways to go…you can go to your favorite brewery and buy growlers of a few of your favorites and a few eclectic options. 💯Or you can visit a few breweries around town and get the most popular from each one. That’s what Patty and her fellow bridesmaids did for her friend Claudia’s wedding shower. 💃🏾The couple loved visiting breweries, so they brought the breweries to the party by getting several growlers of the couples favorites, and even renamed the beer options to match the wedding theme. Just remember that you’ll need extra room in the fridge to keep the beer cold.🎊 Beer can be a tricky one to pair with just one type of food. 🍺🍕Research shows that beer goes with just about anything! Tequila and Tacos Why wait to splurge on top shelf tequila when you’re at a fancy dinner spot or on vacay? 🏝 🎩 A tequila tasting at home means you get to dip into some of your absolute faves without having to pay the heavy up charge. 💸 So tell your friends to Uber or Lyft over, we’re having tacos and tequila tonight! 🌮🥃 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ As with other spirits, you’ll want to start with the youngest 👶🏽 and work your way up to the oldest 👴🏽(blanco or silver, a reposado, añejo, and extra añejo). Our recommendation is to stick to the anjeos for your fabulous home tasting 🥃🥃🥃, and once the tasting is done, serve up margaritas with the cheap stuff! 🍹 Some tequilas we love are Casa Mexico, Tequila Alquimia, Aldez tequila, Casa Dragones, Clase Azul Tequila, Deleon Tequila, Casamigos, & Don Julio 1942 💓 We know there are so many more to try! Which tequila should we add to our next tasting experience❓ 🌮Tacos are a great compliment to tequila because they are a little heartier and the spicy salsa pairs well with smooth tequilas. 🌶We recommend setting a taco bar so folks can add the fixings they like best. An easy way to get great tacos is to order ahead from your favorite taco truck 🚚 or Mexican market.🇲🇽 Bring your tupperware and they’ll fill up your containers with meat, chicken, and al pastor, plus give you all the fixings. 🍅🥑