{ Settlers of Catan Party }

In 6th grade, Bean's teacher had "Gamer Lunches" as rewards for good behavior, good grades, etc. If you were invited to Gamer Lunch, you got to have lunch with her and play games instead of eating in the cafeteria with everyone else. These were tabletop games, not video games. His favorite game he played there was Settlers of Catan. He talked about that game for years. Finally, 5 years later, Christmas 2014 I purchased it for him. Hey, it is an expensive board game! Now he has all the major expansions and player extensions. His friends will come over and they will gather around the table and play Catan for hours.

This year for his 19th birthday party, he decided to go with the Catan theme.While I've only played it a couple times, I know several things about it. He helped fill in some of the gaps and we ended up with an awesome party.

I will give you a cost breakdown for the party at the end of the post.

Here's what I did.

I set the tablescape up with these decorations. Sandcastle molds painted in a gray primer, black iron candleholders with candles, decorative rocks, and LED lanterns.


For the food:

Wood- Pretzel rods

Gold- Rolos

Sheep- White Cheddar popcorn

Rocks- Meatballs

Brick- Fun size candy bars

Wheat- Sliced french bread

Sea- Blue Hawaiian Punch, 7-Up, vanilla ice cream

And Settlers of Pizza.

This is made with a 3" hexagon cookie cutter.

The Catan toppings are:

Wheat- cheddar and mozzarella cheeses
Forest- Green peppers
Sheep- Green peppers and onion
Rock- Italian sausage
Brick- pepperoni

I made etched steins for everyone to take home. They pulled resource cards to see which stein they got. If they pulled wheat, they got one with the wheat design.

I made these with my Silhouette cutter, etching cream, and clipart from free clipart sites.

Finally, the cake. Now, I'm no professional cake decorator, but he liked it!

And of course, this party wouldn't be complete without the playing of The Settlers of Catan.


Party Cost Breakdown- Party of 8:

All of the decorations and the steins came from the Dollar Tree, whoop whoop! Thank you $1 store!

Decorations:
Rocks (2 packs)
Candleholders (2)
Candles (2)
Sandcastle molds (3)
Plastic Table cloths (2)
LED lanterns (2)
Total: $13

Steins (8), take home gifts:
Total: $8

Food:
Meatballs -3.99 (on sale, normally $7.99)
Spaghetti sauce for meatballs- $1.79
French Bread- .99
Popcorn- $1
Rolos- $3.50
Funsize Candy Bars- $1.50 x 3= $4.50
Hawaiian Punch- $1.99
7-Up- $1 (store brand)
Pizza Crust (2- I also made a plain pizza)- $.59 x2= $1.18
Green Pepper & Onion- $1.00
Pepperoni- $3
Sausage- $2
Cheeses- $4
Pizza Sauce- 1.29
Cake- $10
Total: $39.23

Items on hand- spray paint, etching cream, Silhouette cutter, cardstock for food name tags, printer

Total party cost: $62.23

Heyyyyyyy... not bad for an epic night in Catan, eh?

Happy Birthday to my Bean Boy once again!



See all my party plans here.

{ Beauty & the Beast Party }

Today is the Girl's birthday!  You can see her former birthday parties here: Mary Poppins Party & Budget Friendly Disney Party.

I present to you, the third is this series- another Disney party- this time, Beauty and the Beast! And guess what... it's a budget friendly party too! I will have a break down of the budget a little further down in this post.

Setting the scene here with the table:

As you can see, I went with glassware vs paper plates, books, candles, and of course, roses to decorate.

For the tablecloth, I used a lace that my mother in law made (it's our special occasion tablecloth) which I festooned with yellow plastic tablecloth swags. I decorated the swag portion with a red rose.

I created the pennant banner with my Silhouette, but you could easily cut it out by hand and add sticker letters.

For the Enchanted Rose, I used a tall cylindrical vase, glass pebbles, & a submersible LED light,

Here is what it looked like with the lights off:

Behind the rose, you can see I bought some cheap 4x6 frames and printed some photos I found on the internet to go in them.

For favors, I made Chip mugs. I know that Chip should be a tea cup, but these came from the Dollar Tree, so, score! I simply painted the handles with metallic gold craft paint. For his face, I found a photo of chip and recreated his face as best I could in Photoshop. From there, I used my Silhouette Machine to cut out vinyl which I then applied. If you are very crafty, you could just as easily paint his face on. I have one, and only one, a vinyl 'chip'. That one went to the birthday girl. :)

For food I did nice and easy. I made a cheesy potato soup that everyone loves (Soup D'jour!), made croissant sandwiches, and had a basket of French breads.

Bean had the great idea to make LeFou's Brew and have the drink station be Gaston's Tavern.

Labels made in Photoshop

LeFou's Brew at Gaston's Tavern in Magic Kingdom is a slushy apple juice with hints of marshmallow, and topped with a mango passion fruit foam. Bean really liked it when we went. I didn't care for it at all. I actually quite liked my own version, however. (Recipe below).

For desserts we had, of course, cupcakes.

These are my Snickerdoodle cupcake recipe.

I tinted the icing Belle's dress yellow and topped with Haribo red raspberry candies.

There was also Grey Stuff- of course!!

I have a recipe for a very accurate Grey Stuff, an actually cookies n cream panna cotta. This, however, is even easier than that (recipe below)!

I also served tea, Mrs. Potts would hope so, for heaven's sake! Bean created a playlist of the Beauty and the Beast Soundtrack on Spotify and I had that playing, and of course.. we watched the movie.

That's it! It was a great night and she loved it.


Here is a price break down of the party:
Dollar Tree; $19

6 mugs, 3 tableclothes,  rose bunches, candles,  2 candlesticks, 2 mirrors (candles sat on), 2 frames, vase, 2 packs of silver plasticware.

Fresh Rose: $2

Food:

Bread & croissants- $9
Soup ingredients - $10
Lunch meats & cheese- $10
Drinks (2 liters were on sale)- $5
LeFou's Brew- $5
Grey Stuff- $5
Cupcakes- $4

Items on hand:

Lace tablecloth, submersible light, glass pebbles, books, ribbons, glassware.

Total Cost of party for 6 guests: $69

plus the cost of paper and ink for printing


Not bad, eh?


Happy 18th to the girl!


Tina



Recipes:


LeFou's Brew
recipe by Tina @ Sugar Bean Bakers
1 bottle apple juice
1 liter lemon lime soda
1/2 container of vanilla ice cream

Chill juice & soda, when ready to serve, pour into a pretty bowl and top with ice cream allowing ice cream to melt slightly before ladling into glasses.


The Grey Stuff (simplified)
recipe by Tina @ Sugar Bean Bakers

1 package French Vanilla Pudding mix
1 container whipped topping- thawed
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 of a package of cream filled chocolate sandwich cookies

Prepare pudding with 1 1/2 cups milk. Fold in whipped topping.

Crush cookies super finely- using 1/2 of the package. Stir into mix.

Chill for a few hours before serving.

The Grey Stuff Original recipe

{ Magic The Gathering Party }

This year Bean's party was a bit of a challenge for me. I've played exactly 1 game of Magic The Gathering ever, so I didn't have a lot to go on here. I've picked up a fair bit just by him talking to me about it. Only child has no one else to tell about these things, lol. The internet has precious little ideas for a MTG party.

So, between what I've soaked in from Bean's chatter and his suggestions, I present to you, a Magic The Gathering party.

Everyone who came to the party was a player, for one thing. They all have their own decks. Each person has a favorite deck, of course. I told them to dress in the colors of their deck. Bean's favorite deck, which he named The Good Church (it's full of clerics and angels), is made up of green and white cards.

So, everyone came dressed in their deck colors.

I had the idea to make custom cards. Bean knew of a generator that did just that, so it was super easy!
You can find it at MTGCardsmith. 

You can see them here, in the goblets I decorated. He designed the cards, I printed and cut them out, and he sleeved them.

I have a Silhouette Portrait cutter, so I was able to cut the symbols with it. You will see I used it for many things for this party, but most things you could do without one. You wouldn't want to invest in one for JUST a party. For these I used goblets that I purchased in a 4 pack at Walmart for $5. I cut the logo in contact paper, then used a product called Etchall etching cream to etch the designs on the goblets. The symbols on each glass coordinated with that person's deck. Above, you can see Alex, who requested a poison counter card as his personalized card. His deck is green and black, so I etched his glass with the green and black symbols.

These were the glasses everyone drank from at the party. They got to take them (and their personalized cards) home as party favors.

With my Silhouette, I also cut out a pennant banner and this sign below. I covered a canvas that always hangs in my dining room with white wrapping paper, then I added the words I'd cut with my Silhouette.

While this pennant banner obviously has the symbols cut out with my cutter, the banner would be just as nice with solid pennants.

Bean named all of the rooms in Plane names, which I made signs for.

For the eats/drinks, we started, of course, with Mana.

You can't tell in the photo, except for the green, but I also etched these vases with the symbols. The vases were purchased at the Dollar Tree for $1 each. They seemed to fit the theme much better than a bunch of pitchers. For the mana, I used Kool Aid. These vases fit only 1 quart at a time, so I mixed up 1/2 a pouch with 1/2 the sugar. For the colors we have: Green- Lemon Lime, Red- Cherry, Black- 1/2 Black Cherry- 1/2 Grape, Blue- Mixed Berry. The White is actually Glacier Cherry Gatorade. You could also use milk for the white.

They really isn't mention of much food in Magic The Gathering, so Bean just came up with some terms for most of it.

Elven Fare for the veggies, because elves, as we all know, are vegetarian.

Faerie Flakes & Faerie Butter for chips and dip

Dragon Scales & Dragon's Breath for Chips and Salsa

Being just a few days after Eater, I picked up these marshmallow eggs for 50 cents a dozen to be Dragon Eggs.

Sloppy Joe Sliders were Gobin Gook

Colorless Mana in MTG is gray. Bean had the idea to use my Grey Stuff for this. Instead of making it all with heavy cream though, I used french vanilla pudding mix and crushed Oreos instead. It was a lot of fun to see the guests faces go from "EW" upon looking at it to "OOH!!" when they found out it was pudding and Oreos.

In MTG, Multicolor Mana is also known as Gold Mana. I did a display of this

Marshmallows dipped in candy melts, pretzel rods drizzled with candy melts, and cupcakes were done in this style- Dr. Seuss Cupcakes.

I made all the food signs in photoshop, easy peasy.

For the rest of the party, they just did a Magic The Gathering Tournament bracket. The winner won a stein I etched (again, forgot photo) that had all the MTG symbols and ARCHMAGE on it, along with some packs of cards.

It was a good night, and Bean had a great 18th birthday party!

I hope this inspires someone to throw their own Magic The Gathering party.

What party ideas would you like to see? Let me know in comments.

Tina