This week on the Shindigz Party Recipe site, Heather and Carbo share two summer time treats that you can serve year round!
These Cheese Steak Sliders will melt in your mouth!
Heather shared her recipe for these Cheese Steak Sliders and you can add Carbo’s Family Potato Salad to your menu too!
Carbo’s Family Potato Salad almost makes a meal in itself!
Hosting the 4th of July with Friends
When you begin planning this year’s 4th of July block party, start by doing some research—look at pictures from last year, chat with your friends, try to figure out just what you could do better this time. You could even see if your neighbors want to team up and host the block party together. By putting a few heads together, you may be able to come up with some ideas to plan the best block party ever!
As your neighbors and you begin the task of making this year’s 4th of July block party bigger and better than last year’s, try splitting up the workload. For example, if you and your neighbors are a team of three: put one person in charge of planning the food, one person in charge of decorations, and one person in charge of activities (whether just for the kids or for everyone at the party).
Fourth of July Party Ideas
There are a few great ideas that can quickly and easily help you and your neighbors plan the block party of the year. Here are seven suggestions to get started:
Make sure to create a few photo ops for your guests! Use a USA cake prop for families to gather around or a Lady Liberty and Uncle Sam couple stand-in to snap pictures with.By planning the event with your neighbors, you’ll be able to pull off a well-organized and perfectly planned 4th of July block party for everyone to enjoy! Use these ideas as a starting point—if you start now, you’ll be able to plan the best block this year.
While we’re all awaiting the next season of events from Downton, why not host a Masterpiece of a manor party yourself? With the right background materials and props you can set the stage for an entertaining wedding, formal dance or charity event this summer.
To start, let’s agree that for castle-like buildings our Flagstone pattern is where it’s at. In flagstone you have a choice of materials: poly vinyl, corrugated paper, flat paper, and gossamer. Let’s look at the relative merits of each:
Don’t hesitate to use more than one “flagstone” material if it works for you. A poly or paper could go on the walls – all the better for holding a cutout suit of armor every so often – and you could switch to gossamer for hanging in front of the windows.
In front of the window coverings, place the castle view panels shown at the top of this post. The panels are a magnificent 7-plus-feet tall, and free standing so you won’t have to worry about how to hang them.
Best of all, the panels are a takeoff on our highly-rated castle photo backdrop. Personalize the backdrop as a greeting banner, and select the same design in edible party favors such as mint tins and candy bars for a luxuriously customized experience.
Meanwhile, against all that gray stone you’ll need a strong secondary color to contrast with the gray. A true red is the natural choice for warming up the space, and gives you as many options in props and accents as you could hope for. Drape red, translucent gossamer from the ceiling in a tented pattern to maximize the impact of an exquisite chandelier at the center. Tack down red aisle runners as a rolled-out red carpet for guests.
Inexpensive medieval cutouts – crests, flags, pennant banners – bring a trio of bright colors to the walls, including red for continuity.
Take particular care with your tables, especially if this is a dinner party. Cover them in white satin and pull out the silver or gold plate chargers. Finish with large, sparkling glass vases of red flowers and candle arrangements using our new twisted-stem glass pillar holders, which are available in three heights for many decorating possibilities.
With this weekend being the unofficial but customary start of summer, there will be an increase in attention to our service men and women starting with Memorial Day followed by D-Day and Flag Day in June and Independence Day observances on July 4th. These holidays along with a full summer season of parades and festivals will be filled with times to remember and thank those who are serving our country.
As a reminder, we want to make sure you are aware that Shindigz, offers a discount to U.S. Military personnel as a way of thanking you for your service to America.
This token of appreciation is offered to our men and women serving unselfishly in our military. Shindigz salutes the sacrifices our military take including time spent away from family.
Shindigz thanks each of our women and men serving our country.
The Shindgiz military discount program saves military personnel and their families 20% their total purchase at Shindigz.com. Those wishing to participate must have a military ID to receive the discount.
We hope the savings will help military family make memories that will last a lifetime. Whether a birthday, wedding, welcome home party or anniversary, Shindigz wants to do all we can to help our service men, women, and veterans celebrate.
Elegant or Casual?
Everyone, at one point or another in their life, strives to host an amazing party. Those parties often fall on or around holidays. Once you’ve decided which holiday you want to create and amazing party for, you can decide whether you want it to be fun and casual or a bit more elegant. Mind you, occasions such as St. Patrick’s Day are not always the best holiday to throw an elegant party for. If you want a bit more elegance, try New Year’s Day (or Eve), Valentine’s Day, or Christmas, maybe even Halloween. Halloween could also be a holiday for which you throw an amazing casual party—other holidays in this category could include Cinco de Mayo, the Fourth of July, and Earth Day. You could even create an amazing party for lesser-known holidays, like National Dog Day, National Ice Cream Day, and Sweetest Day.
Now that you’ve chosen not only your holiday, but also whether you want to throw an amazing casual party or an amazing elegant party, you can start selecting your decorations. Many decorations can work for either an elegant holiday party or a more casual holiday party. Let’s tackle the elegant decorations first.
Amazingly Elegant Holiday Party
Hosting an elegant holiday party does not mean you have to procure fine china. “Elegant party” does not always equal “sit-down dinner”. You could provide snacks for your guests and supply beverage napkins and small dessert plates for them to use. Don’t make all the snacks sugary and sweet. Do add some healthy treats, too, especially if you offer bubbly, sweet beverages to your guests.
The beverages you serve can also reflect what type of party you’re hosting. For an elegant holiday party, choose sparkling water or sparkling juice, so guests can use champagne flutes—this will uphold the feeling of elegance and create a sense of sophistication among your guests. In order to add to not only the elegance, but also the decorations, look into personalized bottle labels. This way, you’ll have a clearly labeled bottle that will appear as though it was created for your amazing holiday party.
Moving on, just because you want your party to be elegant does not mean you should leave balloons or favors out. Whether you decide to have small standing tables for guests to gather around or larger tables for guests to sit at or even just your coffee table and end tables, every table needs a centerpiece. These centerpieces can be made up of small balloons at a lower height (for the larger tables or your coffee table) or simply a glass cylinder filled with colored stones.
When you start to think about favors for an elegant holiday party, remember that edible favors are always a great idea. This could be your chance to let the creative bug bite you. Whether you decide to create personalized candy bars or lollipops or bake a little something extra and go out of your way to find, say, small picture frames to fill with thank-you-for-coming cards, you can put together a small favor bag for each of your guests so they have a way to remember your amazing holiday party. The favors could also be holiday-appropriate, too. If you’re hosting an elegant Christmas party, get crafty with some paint and empty Christmas ornaments—make an ornament for each guest, write the date in small print around the top of the ornament, and you have a wonderful favor that your guests will see each year. For a more elegant Halloween party, create a larger treat bag with the classics: decorated sugar cookies, mini chocolates, and maybe homemade caramel apples (in their own bag inside the treat bag, of course). The possibilities here are endless; you just have to find the right fit to your amazingly elegant holiday party.
Casual and Fun Holiday Party
Certain holidays make for easy casual holiday parties. St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, and the Fourth of July are examples of holidays you’d be much more likely to create a casual party for—and understandably so! Many of the holidays that fall into the “casual party” mindset fall during the warm-weather months; many people hear “Fourth of July” and think, “Hey, why not have a barbecue with the family?”
Those same small dessert plates and beverage napkins that were suggested for your amazingly elegant holiday party would be perfect for a fun, casual holiday party, also—especially for a party at which there are more snacks than actual food. If you decide to host a backyard barbecue for your holiday party, full-sized plates are necessary. As far as snacks go for a casual holiday party, this is the time you can fill bowls with potato chips, pretzels, and other salty snacks. You can then balance out those salty snacks with cupcakes, cookies, and other classic desserts.
Because it’s a casual holiday party, you could make a fun, tropical punch for your guests. Also, fill a metal tub with ice and stock up on water bottles and maybe even bottles of root beer and other types of soda. This is another fun way to include those bottle labels and give your guests reason to think your holiday party is that much more amazing than others they’ve been to. These labeled bottles can also be used as favors or decorations. Decorations are a lot easier for a casual holiday party. It’s also easy to find decorations and favors that are specific to each holiday. By using those holiday-specific decorations and favors, a bit of stress is lifted off your shoulders so you can focus on the fun of the party.
Whatever holiday you choose, whether casual or elegant, throwing an amazing holiday party is easier than you think. All the details are at your fingertips! Once you’ve planned and hosted one holiday party, you’ll want to plan more—what better way to get your family and friends together than for an amazing holiday party? Let your creative juices flow and plan away!
