Dinner at Dusk

I'm a little behind, but I wanted to put up some pictures from my dinner party I had a few weeks ago. When I was growing up, I would imagine all sorts of things. I could play by myself for hours and people would see me out in the yard running around and talking to myself. What they couldn't see was the whole world that I had created. I never had "an imaginary friend", I had an imaginary friendly grocer from the imaginary grocery store down the imaginary street. Imaginary rangers at the imaginary wildlife reservation. A fully staffed imaginary hospital for any imaginary emergencies, and so forth. And on occasion I would throw an imaginary dinner party for my imaginary neighbors and business associates. All growing up, I thought dinner parties were something adults had. I couldn't wait until I was old enough to have them. A little while ago the thought hit me, why couldn't I have a dinner party? Because of the time I spent imagining as a child, it didn't take long to figure out how I wanted everything to look, but it did take plenty of time making the decorations to make my imagination come to life.

These are the boxes I made as favors for them to take home. When you take the lid off, the box folds out into a card. I wrote "Dinner at Dusk 2010. Treasure the Memories" in the card and added a few chocolate Treasure candies. I tried to stick to a color theme of these five bright, bold colors.

These are the invitations I gave people. This was a legitimate dinner and a facebook invite just wouldn't cut it.

Olivia helped me punch out all those little squares and arrange them so they looked nice.

When I was younger, before I really knew how much I liked making things, I would watch this craft show for kids. They made these candle holders once by gluing tissue paper onto an old jar. I always wanted to try it, but we never seemed to get around to it. I knew this was what I wanted as the center piece at the party and I figured I was old enough to do it. I decided baby food jars were just the right size and that twenty-four of them would be perfect. Not counting the time it took to cut out all the tissue paper squares, these little jars soon lost their appeal. As a kid, I never would have guessed that it would take so much time to glue each piece where you wanted it. But I still liked the way they looked so I pushed on.

After weeks of planning, gluing, painting, cutting, fraying, and sewing, it was finally time to set it all up. The family helped me figure out how to set up the white shade thing, which we somehow had no instructions for, and get the tables in place. It was time to make this dream a reality.

I think I was trying to be artistic with the camera...or I accidentally took a picture when I set it down.

Each guest had a rock with their name stamped on it. Ben was over an hour late so this is the only picture I took with him "in it." Mom helped me make those fun napkins. The frayed edge was perfect, but it sure took a lot of time and patience. Mom also helped me make the fun table cloth that tied in with my color scheme.

Mom and my friend, Mary, helped make the food, because what's a dinner party without a real dinner? We even had vegetables and fruit. In college that can be pretty rare.

When it was time, we lit the little candles and turned on the twinkle lights. Everything glowed just how I had pictured it. It was magical.

This lantern wasn't exactly how I had envisioned, but I kind of liked the way the butterflies looked as it got dark outside.

Most of the group was on time, which can be rare with this crowd. We enjoyed ourselves in the cool evening, talking and laughing, as we waited for the last few to arrive.

I bought that goblet from D. I. with James in mind. I think he liked it.

Everyone enjoyed the food and were happy to go back for seconds.

The dessert turned out quite well. It was a delicious cheesecake/white chocolate filling in a small graham cracker crust. Almost everyone saved the raspberry for last.

Like Ben, this is the only picture with "me in it." Hannah reprimanded me later for that, but I was having too much fun and just forgot to get enough pictures.

Another artistic shot, but I meant to do this one. I liked the way the lanterns turned out even if they made me want to rip my hair out while I was making them.

When it was time to leave everyone helped me take down the decorations. Some how Mary got stuck with my butterfly nets. James thought she looked like a statue so he took a picture of her all wrapped up.

When I was originally inviting people one of my friends couldn't come. He was going to be an efy counselor that week and was really sad he couldn't make it. His roommate did come and convinced me to have a "dinner party one and a half" so that Carter could come and see it. It ended up being much smaller and much shorter, but it was still fun.

We decided to swing, but Eric got stuck with the baby seat.

Here is a sneak peak at the napkins for my next, and possibly last, dinner party... at least for a while. This time it's an elegant black and white theme.

I haven't figured out all the details yet, but it should be interesting.