Pinterest Inspired Party!

At the beginning of February I held a lunch at my place for a couple of friends I've met in the few months since we've moved here. Between all our mini trips out of town and our two trips to NJ, I hadn't had a chance to invite anyone over and I took this as an opportunity to put to work some of the great party ideas I had been pinning on Pinterest. Also, since the Superbowl and Valentine's Day are February's two major occasions I figured I'd try to incorporate them in some way. 

My party was on Saturday before the Superbowl, but none of us girls really care much at all about football so the only way I chose to incorporate the Superbowl was in the menu. Superbowl parties are known to have some great appetizers and snacks that no one can resist, not even someone as apathetic towards football as myself! My two tributes to the Superbowl were cheeseburger sliders and buffalo chicken dip with pita chips. My friend Neda (who has a great makeup blog Here) made this AH-MAZING buffalo chicken dip for us a few times that I couldn't wait to try myself. It was really so simple to make and it's one of those snacks everyone keeps eating throughout the party. 

The rest of my party menu was: Cajun Shrimp Pasta (SO GOOD, I had none left!), Kale Quinoa Salad (which turned out amazing yet again. You know a salad is good when people willingly take it home with them!!), and bruschetta

Didn't have a chance to take a better picture of these

Now to include Valentine's Day into my party I tried my best not to go crazy on pink, red and hearts but its nearly impossible for me to not go overboard with anything. I tried to find sweet yet subtle items. For example, I made German chocolate cupcakes with a coconut vanilla frosting which I dyed pink using food coloring and I baked them in a silicon heart shaped cupcake pan I got from Target a few years ago, seen in this post. I also found some adorable items in the $1 section of Target which I couldn't resist. Like a small felt hearts banner, which was used as the backdrop to our photo booth. Instead of doing the usual sodas for drinks, I had (store bought) pink lemonade and put frozen berries to keep the drinks chilled. It was hard to keep away from all the overload of Valentine's day since I love themed parties SO much, but I realize just using a few themed ideas was a good way to go about it without seeming like cupid threw up all over everything.

'Pinspired' Ideas:

Mason Jars! I've been seeing these on Pinterest for a long while now, and I did my best to not fall into the trap of liking something just because it's popular, but seriously they are SO cute looking! They really added a chic feel to the party. By serving pink lemonade in them with a striped paper straw it caught everyone's attention since as something out of the normal soda in a glass way to serve drinks.  I got mine at Walmart 12 for $9 and the paper straws were from Target's party decor section, I think 20 for $2. 

Photobooth ideas are all over Pinterest. Originally I thought to make my own props, but when Target had a whole bag full of them for just $5, how could I turn it down? ;) I kept it simple with just a banner against our white wall and since we had a bunch of kids at the party, it kept them busy for a solid 15 minutes while we were able to take a gazillion adorable pictures of which maybe 3 came out nice. I liked this idea because it gave us something different to do than the usual munching and chatter without being too involved like playing organized games. 

Fruit Cones are such a simple yet fun way to make dessert look classy! Since I had some pretty heavy items on my lunch menu for the healthy eater I thought these fruit cones were a nice dessert alternative, plus the kids even liked how pretty they made the fruit look and were happy to snack on them.

Okay so I only partly tried to keep dessert healthy. Because when I saw these S'mores Brownies on Pinterest, all self control was lost. They were definitely a gluttonous addition to my dessert menu but one I do not regret. Ok maybe a little. Just imagine sweet gooey melted marshmallows sandwiched between a decadent chocolate brownie with a layer of crunchy graham cracker thrown in! I swear I have no self control. But they're SO worth trying!

bubbly, ooey, gooey marshmallow goodness!

Also, my husband is a Valentine's baby and as you may remember from my post last year I tend to get super cheesy with my ideas to celebrate his big day. So this year was no different. I turned to my beloved Pinterest for ways to surprise him. He grew up outside of America and is a HUGE fan of international chocolate bars. I'd seen some adorable cards using candy bars but I knew they wouldn't work for him since he's not really into Snickers, Mr Goodbar etc. I started leaving him little messages all week with chocolate bars attached, next to his keys or in his laptop bag and then on his actual birthday I gave him the card with a whole bunch added on. I forgot to take pictures of the ones from earlier in the week but it was something like 'Thanks for not being a FLAKE, you're an awesome husband and a great dad. We love you' and 'Hey Handsome, the AERO of my heart points to you!'

Now that Ali is old enough to understand birthdays, I had him make a present for his Baba too. Of course the idea was Pinterest inspired and it worked out pretty nicely. I bought poster paper and paintbrushes from the dollar store and Crayola washable paint from Target for $4, which we had LOADS of fun painting with in the bathtub afterwards. My advice is to practice the hand and footprint first on regular paper so you get the hang of it, before you attempt it on the actual poster. It was a fairly cheap craft with a result that looks so stinkin' adorable; we're planning to get a nice frame for it to put up in Ali's room.

Lastly, I tried to make these adorable strawberry roses and here is where the phrase "Pinterest Fail" comes to mind. They weren't as easy as they looked and definitely very time consuming. I was only able to get 3 done before I realized my husband wouldn't wait more than 3 seconds to devour them and he couldn't care less how his strawberries look, but he does love them dipped in chocolate! Lesson learned. I thought my plate looked cute and the hubster was certainly impressed with all of my creative attempts. 

Hope you guys enjoyed reading all these crazy Pinspired ideas I put to work and they've inspired you to try out some of your own! 

Happy 35th Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Mirza Clan 2013, 2 parents 5 daughters 4 son in laws and 10 grand kids. Mash' Allah

My sisters and I threw our parents a surprise 35^th anniversary party earlier this month. The thing with surprises in our family is that all five of us sisters majorly suck at them! We are very close to our mom and speak with her almost daily, which made hiding the whole planning/prep of this party a huge task. We also rely on her immensely to advise us whenever we’re doing a big event, so the lack of her guidance was definitely felt. “How many paper cups do we need? Are two trays of biryani plenty? Should we buy back up naan in case the caterers don’t provide enough? Where is soda on sale?” These are all questions Mama Mirza would have a simple answer to. So, we struggled without her a bit, but in the end we pulled it off and they were both surprised and very proud. Goal Accomplished.

Planning an anniversary party for your parents:

Set a budget and begin brainstorming early

It makes it easy to know what you can and cannot do if you know how much you plan to spend. We had a decent size budget since all 5 of us were pitching in, but still we began planning for the party about 6 months beforehand, simply because four of us are working moms and living in different states so it was a lot of late night group IChat’s where we’d hash out details. Once we were all on the same page about how much each person can contribute we were able to figure out quickly how the costs would be divided up.

 

Book the hall

The most important task to get out of the way for a big event is to set a date and book the hall. We shopped around in our area for nice places. We spoke with fancy banquet halls and also local VFW halls. In the end we decided it was best for our budget to stick with a local VFW hall where we could spend more on décor, cake, food, and entertainment. Make sure to start calling places at least a month in advance, especially if your event is around a holiday because most halls, especially nice ones, are booked up quickly.

Book the Caterer

Again this was tough without mom since she’s always the one to know which caterer makes the best nihari and which now charges too high a rate. It took a few phone calls, but we got a good deal at Nawab Grill and ended up having a great amount of food that our guests really loved too.

Our menu was: Chicken Biryani, beef Nihari, Baghare Bangan, Chicken 65, Naan, Salad, Raita, Ras Malai all for $750 which was more than plenty to feed 100 guests. 

Invite your guests

I’ve used Paperless Post in the past for my son’s birthday party. Read here how I feel about the website. I really love their designs and again, we found one that was elegant yet simple and it went nicely with our theme! 

There was supposed to be another tier of pom poms at the top, I got lazy.

Party Décor 

This is where your budget can go out of hand since it’s all about how extravagant or simplistic you want to be. Nothing a few trips to the dollar store, amazing savings and Costco along with a creative mind can’t solve though. My little sister was in charge of this area for our party and she did a wonderful job. We had an elegant theme of Grey & Coral Pink for the party. We made the centerpieces at home along with the banner found via free download here.  Mariam created these great programs to place at each table with a love quote on the cover. I loved the Mr. & Mrs. sign for their chairs but we just didn't have time to put together the ribbon, so we stuck it on the door where they entered from and it ended up being a cute addition!

 Order the Cake

This was my first time working with Piece of Cake by Saba Mendha. She did a great job bringing my ideas to life. I wanted a simple white cake with a thin grey ribbon on each tier and a big coral colored flower on top with some stylish yet simple piping work one each tier. She did just that. We had one layer vanilla with fresh strawberries and another with chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. Both cakes tasted great! My only critique would be that I imagined the flower being larger than it turned out, since it was the only ‘pop’ part of the cake I wish it was a bit bigger. Also, the piping work wasn’t totally clean, but I understand that she’s still a new cake artist and it wasn’t a big deal to me. Taste and look overall were great. She was on time with delivery and very open to my ideas for the cake design. I loved her professionalism and great taste of the cake! 

Write a Speech

This was tough because I’m a sap. Also, I never have a spare moment to collect my thoughts. I would start thinking of things on my drives to work but usually I’d be a mess of tears by the time I got to my desk. So it took some time, and some Googling of wedding speeches, which I found were all quite useless. So here, use mine and put your own creative liberties on it, I’m glad to help since Google, for once, was inept:

Sab se pehle mein kehna chahoungi ke aap saab humare ammi aur abu ke aziz dost aur rishtedaron mein se hain, aur humme bahaut khushi hai ke aap unki zindagi ke iss ehem din ko celebrate karne mein humare saath shamil hosake. Humari dua hai ke Allah tala ammi abu ko 35 aur khushiyon bhaare saal ata farmein. 

 “Firstly, I would like to say thank you to all our guests. You all are mom and dad’s most dear friends and relatives and we are very happy that you are able to join us in celebrating this special day in their lives where we honor their marriage. We wish that God grants our mom and dad with 35 more years filled with happiness.” 

Abu and Ammi, your marriage has always been an excellent example for us five, in every aspect of life. Every child thinks their parents are the best, but the real truth, sorry to tell the rest of you, is that my parents truly are the best. You two have taught us many lessons through our lives. But the most important one you taught us is that it is your ikhlaq, manner, generosity, your ability to be a good friend and a helpful neighbor that makes one a better person. And you both have shown us that a big part of being a better person means to be an ideal spouse. A spouse who shows respect in public and in private, who cares for not just one another but for each other’s families. Seeing the amount of patience you both have had in the past 35 years with all the situations that life put you through is what inspires me when I know I’m losing my patience! 

Mom, to us you are the ideal woman. We call you a Spartan because you are a warrior. You are the ideal standard by which we measure all our life goals. I cannot imagine the difficulties you went through coming into this new country without your family and very few familiar faces. But you did a great job at everything that came your way. you raised 5 children, worked full time, had numerous house guests and random visitors popping over all the time and never once did I see you struggle. I only saw you open your doors and your heart to others, you always told us that Allah puts barqat (blessing) in a home that has its door open for loved ones and that no situation is difficult if you keep in mind the blessing that come with it.  

Dad, you are our hero. It’s true that every girl’s first love is their father and I can speak for all five of us when I say you are definitely ours. You have an unending amount of patience and love to offer us. You have taught us what it means to be an excellent son, father and husband.  

I have learned from seeing you both that no human and no marriage is perfect, only Allah is perfect. But Allah (SWT) gives us a spouse to complete us so that their strengths make up for our shortcomings, and together we are whole. We pray to always see you two being whole together with a long and healthy life iA. 

we gift wrapped as shoebox and had paper/pens for guests to write down memories for our parents to read later on as a keepsake from the party.

Prepare a Slideshow

Everyone loves looking at old pictures of themselves in the '70s with crazy hairdos and stylish bell bottoms. Just don't go crazy, remember that people can just browse at a lot of these pics on a Facebook album too so keep it short sweet and add some sappy songs to pile on the nostalgia.

My happy child in front of the Slideshow area

Cake cutting

Global 25th-Anniversary Utility Knife, 4 1/2" (Google Affiliate Ad)