For Throw Backs, Thursday is.

So yes, I converted the phrase "throw back thursday" to Yoda speak. I may have found a Yoda-talk-converter online. Right now I am hungry and bored at work, forgot to eat lunch.

A little background: my boyfriend, Spike, is a huge Star Wars fan, before dating him I had never seen any of the movies. Not gonna lie... I never intended to either (sorry). Anyway, I had been giving Spike a lot of shit for making me watch the movies. I procrastinated as much as possible (which ultimately resulted in a 5 month stint of "no, I'm too tired for the force right now," and "okay finnnneeeeeee.") Okay, I started feeling guilty. I was kind of being a bitch about something Spike cared about. So I did what I do best, turned it into a theme.

In case you haven't realized by now, I fucking love themes. Anything I can turn into an elaborate project, I... do. I don't mean to, but I just have so many ideas and once I get started I don't know how to dial it back.

I googled the shit out of "Star Wars theme dinners" and while some stuff was inspirational, others were lame as shit. So for all you people out there (if there are even people out there reading this) who want to throw their significant other an awesome Star Wars themed dinner, or maybe just, you know, spice up a Tuesday evening, here's what I did:

The appetizer: Yoda Salad
I took a head of lettuce and balanced it on an open Tupperware. Got water chestnuts (pre-cut in a can), black olives and cucumbers. Then I took toothpicks and just put the eyes together (water chestnuts with black olives on top), nose (end of the cucumber), mouth (cut out slice of cucumber) and for the ears I just cut the insides of the cucumbers out in a triangular way to look like Yoda's ears. It looked pretty stupid just sitting there on an open Tupperware container, so I grabbed a tanish-brown dish towel I had and wrapped it around it to look like Yoda's cloak. AND IT WAS PERFECT! (I made a separate salad on the side we could actually eat because it seemed cruel to cut into Yoda).

The dinner: Tauntaun biscuit with spaghetti & sausage guts a la vodka
I saw this one online. I bought some Pillsbury biscuits and shaped them to look like the dead tauntaun from Star Wars episode V (not sure if I'm actually correct on the movie there). But remember that scene where Han cuts open the tauntaun to keep Luke warm? Its like that, yo. Put the biscuit in the oven to cook. Made some spaghetti a la vodka with some sausage to look like guts and set it up to look like it was spilling out. I was surprised it came out so good. I'm not really a baker.

The side dish: Light Saber Asparagus
I deff wanted to do light sabers for the dinner and was having a hard time coming up with a way. In the end I sautéed some asparagus and added some pit-less black olives to the ends. Another alternative I was thinking of (that would've been more appetizing) was mushroom stems, but I couldn't find the right shrooms so last minute. (We took off the olives before eating the asparagus... because like... ew.)

The dessert: Princess Leia Cupcakes
I also got this one off the internet. Made some cupcakes (vanilla) covered the top with white frosting (that bitch pasty) then used sprinkles to make eyes and mouth). The cool part was then you take frosting, put a slab of it on one side of an oreo and stick 2 on either side of the cupcake to look like her hair.

Of course then I went onto getting a couple cute party stuff from The City, For Partying is (am I playing it out? too much Yoda speak??). And of course, threw my hair in some buns, dressed up in a white outfit and instant Princess Leia.

Ultimately, Spike was really happy. And I think that was when he realized I was a complete dork... who I kidding? He's probably known that since day 1.

There you go. Star Wars Dinner.

Super Mariah Party: Mission Accomplished

Yesterday was Super Mariah Party. After several long nights and days getting everything ready I was very proud with how it came out. I mean, of course, there were a good amount of fights that broke out. We are a competitive family full of soar losers and winners.

Mariah and I spent our Saturday night getting the last minute things together. I went to Staples and had a giant mustache-less poster of Mario printed up. Then later on we made mustaches out of construction paper, threw some double sided tape on the back and played Pin the Mustache on the Mario.

Mariah and I had a great time decorating the balloons. Went to Party City and ordered 6 white, 6 black and a few gold star balloons. Ghosts, bombs, Chomp-chomps galore.

The dice block was a last minute add on and I was super happy I did it. Basically just got a cardboard box, wrapped it in red wrapping paper (left over from making the giant gameboy), added some yellow construction paper and drew the numbers onto it. It was a good time chucking it around the house.

For the spaces, ultimately I decided to use felt paper for the spaces. It was 33 cents a piece but stayed in place and looked a lot better than regular paper. Plus the prices they charge for a pack of colored card stock paper was like $20 a pop, so the price was about the same in the end, and the felt paper worked out much better than paper would have.

Despite the minor complications (e.g. my siblings and I predisposition to being hot messes) I think it was a success. And also, we looked super cute!

 (More specific details to come on the actual mini-games later on when I'm not so exhausted...)

Super MARIAH Party: The Hats

Okay so the characters will be Toad & Bowser as helpers/hosts and Yoshi (Me!), Birdo, Mario and Luigi as the contestants.

Instead of making elaborate costumes or buying some that would cost too much for a one day extravaganza, I decided just to make/buy everyone hats, then let them where what they think is appropriate for their character. Mario and Luigi were easy, just went to Party City and bought a red and green cap, printed out the logos and stapled them onto the hats. Yoshi I bought off ebay (which I'm still waiting to be delivered, so if it doesn't come in time there may be a last minute yoshi hat creation in my future). Toad I had to also buy, which I'm glad I did because the Toad hat is kind of awesome. It's big, fluffy and adorbs. The Birdo and Bowser hats were the real bitches. I thought about making a Birdo hat but wanted Mariah to have something cooler, and I couldn't really think of a great way of going about it in a timely/cost-efficient manner, so I googled the shit out of "Birdo hats" until I found one. I mean there was some weird shit out there...

like... no. just no.

But then I stumbled upon an awesome site where this lady actually sells knitted Birdo hats. I ordered it right after the holidays and wanted to make sure I would have it by 1/12/14, the day of SUPER MARIAH PARTY! So I emailed the site owner and she has very nice and able to help me out, sending me the hat ASAP. CHECK OUT HER AWESOME BIRDO HATS HERE

Then the only one left is Bowser... fucking bowser. Again weird ass complicated shit exists out there on the webisphere for Bowser hats/costumes. I had all but given up when I saw a picture of my boyfriend and I had taken in a photobooth in which he is wearing a Viking hat. So I went for it... I got a viking hat at party city, along with an orange mohawk wig. Then hopped over to Home Depot and got some glue, green spray paint and some blue painting tape. I currently have paint and glue all over my hands, so I suggest if you're going to try this, BUY SOME GLOVES! Unfortunately, while my ideas are admittedly solid, I don't always think through the logistics of it all, especially when it involves cleaning.

BAM! A mothafuckin Bowser Hat!!

Super MARIAH Party: The Idea

So yes, I am a loser and I spend way too much time where I should be working... ummm... doing crafty things that to most seem extremely dorky. Well, they are. And I don't care because its fun and I kick ass at it.

So for my little sister's "Chrismukkah" present I decided to do something a little different this year. She has so much crap. And by "so much" I mean she has everything. All the crap in the world my little sister has. What she doesn't have, however, is a lot of quality time with her 3 older siblings that are in their 20s while she is in middle school. I started thinking of something I could do that would involve all 4 of the siblings, something that would be fun and different. Then it came to me, like divine intervention, (wait do Jews believe in that??) SUPER MARIAH PARTY!

The back story: my siblings and I love Super Mario Party. Okay, not much of a "story." Basically what this would involve would be making a real-life Super Mario Party-like game set up around my mom's house. If you've ever played Mario Party (which if you haven't, you need to stop what you're doing and get to it) its involved. There are different kinds of spaces, mini-games, maps, stars, coins, yada yada yada.

ANYWAY... this is what I gave Mariah for Chrismukkah:

Basically just took a cardboard box (actually lucked out on this one because the guys at Staples were throwing out boxes that held a poster paper shipment so they just gave it to me, AND IT WAS THE PERFECT SIZE!) and then I wrapped it in red wrapping paper and drew in the buttons at the bottom. Then took the top of a clothes box (had like a 100 of them for holiday presents) taped it on and added the printed out graphic that I had already made. The graphic actually lifts up to reveal "Featuring" pages that display who will be what character in the game. Mariah likes birdo, so had to make sure that diva was in there.

Mariah is super excited. I am in the midst of getting all the shit together. Only 3 days away!!