Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Life

Tag: party ideas

  • Have a Spooktacular Halloween

    The following recipes and spooky craft ideas will result in one hauntingly good Halloween.

    Hauntingly Good Recipes

    • Grab your witch’s cauldron and stir up this delicious pumpkin ginger soup.
    • This tombstone taco dip is to die for. Tortilla tombstones anyone?
    • These deadly good cupcakes are easy to whip up. Bake cupcake flavors of your choosing, and once they have cooled, top them off with chocolate icing. Crush a few Oreos or chocolate cookies and sprinkle the crumbles on top of the icing to look like dirt. Next, pipe R.I.P in black icing onto the top half of a Milano cookie and stick it into the cupcake so the top part sticking out resembles a gravestone. You can also place the cookies into a brownie.
    • Eight-legged cake pops anyone? First, make a batch of cake pops and cover the outside in fine chocolate sprinkles. Then, stick eight legs out the side and top it off with two candy eyes. Creepy, crawly, delicious.
    • Make a beautiful pumpkin cake out of two bunt cakes! Bake two bunt cakes and add orange food coloring into the batter so it’s nice and vibrant when you cut into it later. Once the cakes have cooled, flip one cake upside down and ice the bottom, which is now facing up. This icing layer will help keep the two bunt cakes together. Gently place the other bunt cake on top. If it’s wobbly, you might need to use a few dowels. Then cover the entire thing in orange icing, stick a pretzel stick out of the top center for the stem, and voila, you made a pumpkin cake!
    • Creep it real with the following frighteningly delicious Halloween recipes.
    • Spooky and healthy is always an option. All you need are green apples, strawberries, peanut butter, and sunflower seeds. First, cut the apple into slices. Take each slice and cut out a sliver in the middle that will serve as the mouth. Shmear peanut butter into the sliver (the mouth) and place a thin slice of a strawberry sticking out of the bottom to look like a tongue. Use sunflower seeds to make rows of teeth and top it off with two candy eyes.
    • Trust us, you knead these spiced pumpkin doughnuts in your life.
    • Create spooky and sweet Halloween drinks that will raise your guests’ spirits.
    • Top off your cocktails with a creepy eyeball. Place a blueberry inside of a lychee, and you have the perfect Halloween cocktail.

    Deadly Décor and Party Ideas

    • No smoke machine? No problem. Take a diffuser or humidifier and carefully place it into a fake cauldron and turn it on for a smokey effect.
    • Swap out your family photos for a night and create a gallery wall of your favorite monsters. For a cohesive look consider printing them in black and white.
    • Buy a few plastic cloches at a discount store to create a few hauntingly cool displays. Place a small skeleton head in one, a few fake spiders in another, and maybe some fake eyeballs in a third.
    • Bubble, bubble, spiders, and trouble. Fill a clear glass soap dispenser with a light-colored soap and put several small plastic spiders in it to create a spooky effect.
    • Upcycle your empty tissue boxes to create spooky creatures and mischievous monsters. Transform one into Frankenstein by painting the entire thing green and topping it off with stitches and a face. Paint one orange and draw a jack-o-lantern face on the side to make a pumpkin. The kids will love gluing on googley eyes, drawing silly faces, and creating their own original creatures.
    • Fill two or three clean, sterile gloves with water, tie them up, and place them in the freezer. Leave them in until they are solid ice. Right before your guests arrive, fill your punch bowl with a delicious drink and a little bit of ice, so the liquid cools down. Take your ice hands out of the freezer, remove the glove and place your frozen creepy hands in the punch bowl for spooky ice.
    • Halloween table ideas:
      • Place a black runner down the center of the table and top it off with red rose petals, skeleton hands, and a large skull in the center.
      • Fill vases with black branches, twigs, and red roses.
      • Lay a giant skeleton along the middle of the table and fill its torso and ribcage with candy.
      • Place purple fairy lights in a clear vase to create a glowing glass centerpiece.
    • Get crafty with the kids! Let your kids stick their thumbs in orange paint and make thumbprints all over a white pumpkin. Once the paint has dried, they can paint little jack-o-lantern faces and stems onto the prints to make them all into pumpkins. You can use white paint on an orange pumpkin and paint the thumbprints to look like spooky little ghosts.
    • Buy a variety of vases at your nearby thrift store and spray paint them black. After they dry, grab a paint pen and write different potion titles on them. “Spooky Juice” “Witches Brew” “Dragons Blood”

  • Festive Outdoor Fall Party Ideas

    As the temperatures start to dip, the time to begin searching for fall party ideas arrives. From sampling treats around a bonfire to hosting outdoor football parties or chili bars, you’ll love planning outdoor activities with your friends and family this autumn. We are here to help you find your inspiration. Read on as we reveal some of our favorite fall party ideas to keep the outdoor fun going through the holidays.   

    Plan a Football Party

    Fall weekends were made for football. Whether you are a die-hard fan of a college team or a new convert to the excitement of an NFL Sunday, you can join your fellow fans for a custom backyard tailgate party. If your driveway allows for you to open your car’s hatch or lower a truck’s tailgate near the rest of the festivities, that’s a great way to stage some of your buffet. If not, no problem! Southern Living loves the idea of setting up a grab-and-go buffet that is close to your outdoor television or the screen where you are projecting the game. The Magazine recommends that you keep it simple for your fall party “by offering fun, filling small-bites—sliders, dips, various snacks (sweet and salty) that can be grabbed by the handful—or hearty chili in sturdy mugs.” Beer and a pitcher of themed cocktails are always a hit, but be sure to include plenty of non-alcoholic options.

    Schedule a Game Night

    Among the most popular fall party ideas is a game night under the stars. Southern Living recommends choosing something easy to start, such as “[ordering] an oversized Jenga set” and then personalizing it by “[breaking] out the spray paint” to create a “game with custom colors.” All-weather games, like a weather-resistant cornhole set, allow you to keep hosting family-friendly competitions in the backyard even after the snow starts to fall.

    Organize a Pumpkin Scavenger Hunt

    Do you still have a collection of mini pumpkins from Halloween? Better Homes & Gardens suggests organizing a pumpkin hunting contest. Whether the pumpkins are in their natural state or painted, this easy-to-manage fall party game will keep the kids guessing. As the Magazine explains, “tuck the minis away in trees, under tables, and all throughout your party site,” and let the hunt begin. 

    Host a Stargazing Party

    Are you interested in learning more about the night sky? Are your kids avid stargazers? Allison Carter, entertaining expert for Allison Carter Celebrates, tells Martha Stewart Living that one of the best ideas for an outdoor family party blends an educational element with a sense of adventure. Carter suggests to the Magazine that families “‘download a stargazing app and point it to the sky so kids can identify the different constellations and stars’” as a way of connecting with “‘this big, beautiful world.’”  

    Light a Fall Bonfire

    Remember the harvest bonfires you enjoyed when you were a kid? It’s time to bring back the tradition by planning a fabulous fall party around your firepit. For small outdoor parties, you can easily set up Adirondack chairs around the fire and drape them with cozy blankets for extra warmth. For larger gatherings or themed-harvest parties, Midwest Living applauds the idea of adding “blanket-topped hay bales [that] surround the flames and provide easy seats,” as well as crafting “recycled-sweater koozies [to] protect fingers from cold drinks.” Naturally, you’ll want to be sure to have all the ingredients for some truly decadent hot chocolate, mulled wine, and s’mores, in addition to all of your other fall party nibbles.

    Throw a Fall Food-Themed Event

    If you can lay a grill down over your firepit, you’ll want to gather your favorite fall food ideas and pick your favorites. For example, Midwest Living adores the idea of “warming up outdoor parties with a bubbling pot of fondue,” including a thoroughly indulgent beer-cheese option. The Magazine is also a fan of offering small bites (like hamburger sliders kept warm on a pizza stone), as well as something heartier like a “zesty chicken chili cooked in an iron kettle over the fire.” And, of course, those pizza ovens that were so popular in the spring and summer will win even more fans as the temperatures fall.

    If you love doing all the cooking when you host, go for it. But one of the most popular fall party ideas this year is to throw a cook-off. For example, you can host a chili bar that features different slow cooker or instant pot chili batches courtesy of each of your guests. Then, you can provide a plethora of possible toppings to make the most of each dish.

    Delight with a DIY Caramel Apple Bar

    Casual fall party plans are made sweeter when you surprise your guests with a DIY caramel apple bar. From young kids to those young-at-heart, this fall treat will bring a smile. The editors of Better Homes & Gardens “recommend adding chocolate, white chocolate, and butterscotch as variations to the traditional caramel” for your base, but the delights don’t stop there.  From candied pecans with a splash of bourbon for the adults to granola, pretzels, M&Ms, and nuts, you can’t go wrong by offering a variety of salt and sweet toppings.

    Raise a Toast to a Beer Tasting

    Taking inspiration from Oktoberfest, a celebratory beer-tasting party for your friends who are connoisseurs could be a big hit. While everyone will have their own ideas of what makes the best fall beer, you can set up a tasting in your backyard (or patio) to crown the winner. Plan a menu of German specialties to continue with the Oktoberfest inspiration (even after October has long passed), or pick your favorite food pairings for each brew. If you don’t have a full flight of beers in mind, consider choosing something from a local brewhouse that is new to you. For special events, you can even get commemorative beer steins or glasses made as party favors. It is bound to be the fall party idea that gets applause for years to come!

  • Seven Casual Dinner Party Menu Ideas for Warm Summer Nights

    The classic summer dinner party is usually a barbecue, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. However, there are lots of other casual dinner party menu ideas for warm summer nights when you want to get together with friends but just can’t stand the idea of a formal meal.

    Main Course Salads

    A grilled chicken, melon, and feta salad with red onions and poppy seed dressing is a fantastic main course that ticks all the summer eating boxes: fresh produce, bright colors, and easy to prepare. You can grill the chicken breasts the night before and cut your cooking time down to next to nothing. Choose honeydew, cantaloupe, or even seedless watermelon. Arrange a bed of mixed greens on a large platter, add the grilled chicken in bite-sized pieces, then add melon, thinly sliced rings of red onions, and feta, and drizzle with the poppy seed dressing. For dessert, try a lemon pear crisp made the night before and served with or without ice cream.

    For vegetarians, a black bean and couscous salad with red, yellow, or orange peppers, corn, grape or cherry tomatoes, red onions, and feta served with a rice wine vinaigrette makes a substantial meal. You can make this salad up to two days ahead and refrigerate so that all you need to do is pull it out of the fridge and let it get to room temperature. Sprinkle freshly chopped coriander on top. Invest in a farmer’s market rhubarb pie if it’s too hot to bake and serve with custard, sherbet, or ice cream.

    A warm quinoa salad with an orange balsamic vinaigrette is another casual crowd pleaser. Cook the quinoa the same way you do rice: bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer, cover the pot and cook for 15 minutes. While it’s cooking, chop up some baby carrots, zucchini, cucumber, peppers, green onion, and tomatoes. Mix the quinoa and the veggies together, toss with the vinaigrette, and serve. This would go well with corn on the cob barbecued on the grill. Round off the meal with a fresh fruit salad and brownies.

    Pasta salads are also a good choice for vegetarians, and they too can be made ahead of time. Cook the pasta the night before and all you’ll have to do the night of your dinner party is chop the veggies, dress the salad, and bake some garlic bread. Pasta salad variations are as infinite as pasta sauces. They can be served hot or cold and take their flavor direction from any part of the world. Think Greek pasta salad, ratatouille-inspired pasta salad, even cold sesame noodles with broccoli and kale. Follow it up with a gorgeous red velvet or Black Forest cake for dessert. Lemon squares also make a wonderful finishing touch.

    Fondue

    Chances are good most American homes own at least one fondue set. While you’ll have to prepare the fondue itself on the stove, you can get it ready for half an hour before your guests arrive, keep it warm with a candle, and have time for a quick shower to cool off. While main course fondues are primarily cheese-based, you could try a beer and Italian sausage fondue served with crostini and fresh vegetables instead. Serve with a large green salad and follow it up with a homemade watermelon or lemon sherbet and some gingersnaps.

    Another option for a casual dinner party is a dessert fondue. If you’ve just served the traditional steak, hamburger, chicken, or fish main course, a chocolate fondue with fresh fruits and berries is the perfect end to a fantastic meal.

    Barbecue

    If you’re a traditionalist, carry on with burgers, hot dogs, sausages, corn grilled in its husks and, of course, potato salad. If you want to change things up a bit, try making some grilled fish tacos, grilled veggies, or even pork chops. The grilled veggies can be turned into lovely open-faced sandwich served on thick wedges of crusty bread and topped with a little grated cheese that will melt without going back on to the barbecue. A fudge chocolate pudding cake made the night before and served cold is the perfect way to finish off any barbecue.

    Remember when you’re planning your casual dinner party menu that our appetites tend to decline about 10 percent when the weather is hot, as our metabolism slows when the thermometer more closely matches our normal body temperature. Focus on serving foods that have a high water content, like lettuce, celery, cucumber, and melons to ensure everyone stays hydrated.