Vintage Barware and Cocktails

I plan to use these two recent vintage finds for our Halloween party this year. The Bar Aid, which I picked up at a garage sale, is a metal box with a wheel that allows you to flip through over 50 recipes. The cocktails are interesting and retro - no Sex on the Beach with this recipe... book? wheel? scroll? You get the idea!

Here's the Bar Aid's version of my favorite cocktail, an Old Fashioned. That's way more whiskey than I use in my mix! 

The second item I'll have out with the bar is "a guide to pink elephants" which includes the 200 most requested mixed drinks (on alcohol resistant cards, that was nice of the publishers!). 

This little gem was published in 1952, which is well after the time period of our depression era murder mystery party. I don't think the guests will mind (or notice!). The party IS circus themed so how can I go wrong with a guide to pink elephants?

Here's the Old Fashioned according the pink elephants. I've never, ever had an Old Fashioned with Curacao.... may have to give that one a try =)

DIY Costume - Half Man Half Woman part 2

Here I am again working on the half man half woman costume for the our murder mystery party. In an earlier blog post, I showed a couple examples that I found online to use as inspiration along with a dress and man's shirt that I picked up. This post will show you how I've started to deconstruct these garments and begin the process of putting them together to make one awesome costume. Please bare with me as I've never done this before and there were some trials, errors and seam ripping!

Here are the three pieces that I'm working with.

I thought I'd start with the pants after looking at everything for about 20 minutes and second guessing myself.
Commence seam ripping!

Ten minutes later and I now have two halves.

I pinned the left leg to the dress at the waist.

I sat down at my sewing machine and took some deep breaths. Then stitched them together.

Voila!

Alright, now I'm on a roll! On to the shirt! I cut the shirt in half, leaving a little extra material on the left side for the seam allowance.

Here's where it gets dicey. I cut away the left top side of the dress so I can replace it with the left side of the man's shirt. Then, I realized that I should have done this step before attaching the pant leg. Commence seam ripping.

I pinned the backs of the shirt and dress together.

Then sewed them together and added the left leg of the pants back on.

I have quite a bit of finishing touches to do now. So, I'll be putting this on and figuring out what to do next.
Stay tuned.

Vintage Snack Trays

Our next murder mystery party is coming up soon and we're kicking the decor into high gear. I found these incredible vintage snack trays at an estate sale. I picked up six matching trays for one whole dollar! 

They're really beautiful and the gold and green with just hints of red will go perfect with our circus theme. They already look great with one of the elephants that I've picked up for the party.

The green birds will add just the right amount of animal-ness for the theme. They're so pretty that I'm not sure I actually want to cover them up with snacks! Haha. I may use them some of them to hold the menu placards we put out for our food display. So happy to find these. They're going to look great at the party!

Meat Candy - The Perfect Hors d'oeuvres

A couple of weeks ago, Jay gave you a three ingredient party punch. I thought I'd match her punchy post with a three ingredient hors d'oeuvres. Before we begin, I should warn you - this is in no way health food. In fact, there's not a single healthy ingredient. It is, however, delicious. It might be one of the most delicious hors d'oeuvres in my cocktail food repertoire.

The ingredients:

Bacon

Little Smokies

Brown Sugar

That's it! Three lovely, heavenly ingredients. As a note, I typically use thin sliced bacon as it is easier to wrap. Also, I use the pork Little Smokie sausages because it is super yummy with the bacon. Back to the action!

Step 1. Cut the bacon strips into halves or thirds, depending on how long your bacon is. Dredge the bacon in the brown sugar. Dust off any excess sugar, this should be a light coating.

Step 2. Wrap the dredged bacon around a Little Smokie sausage, spear the roll with a toothpick to keep everything in place.

Step 3. Place your bacon army on a sheet pan. Typically, I use a bit of parchment paper on the bottom of the pan for easy clean up. Foil would also be good. These do get messy. Pop in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 30-35 minutes until the bacon is cooked to the crispiness you desire.

The results are amazingly scrumptious. The perfect bite of salty, sweet and savory. I've been making these for years now for our parties (and many other parties) and they've never failed to be a huge hit. The only problem is making enough because they tend to disappear so quickly!

Enjoy!

Meat Candy Recipe

Ingredients:

Bacon - cut into halves or thirds

Little Smokie Sausages

Brown Sugar

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Dredge the bacon in brown sugar. Wrap the dredged bacon around a sausage and secure with a toothpick. Place on baking sheet. Repeat as many times as you need to. Once all sausages have been wrapped, place the baking sheet in the pre-heated oven for 30-35 minutes.

DIY Costume - Half Man Half Woman part 1

It's that time of year again for me to put together a costume for the murder mystery party. Usually I have something started by now, but this year I've had to do some research online to get some ideas. My character for our Carnivale Mystique murder mystery game is a half man half woman. So, I did what most of us do in the nowadays and I Googled images of half man half woman costumes. I figured since I own a sewing machine and I can sew a straight stitch, how hard could this be - right?

Here's what I found. I think this looks pretty great.

Here's another example I found. Now, I'm pumping myself up - If they can do it so can I. I hope...

After finding these examples, I was excited to get started. So, last week a hit no less that five thrift shops looking for the perfect dress and men's suit to piece together. This proved more difficult than I thought. Probably because 1. I've never done this before and 2. I've never done this before. Now, I'm starting to second guess myself.

But then, Flo and I were out on a mission to get something... anything that will work so that I can at least have something to post about today. Here's what we found.

The dress!

The shirt and pants!

Right now they're sloshing around in my washing machine. The upcoming posts with show my attempts to put this costume together. This will be a shining moment for me or an epic failure. Stay tuned and wish me luck!

Fondue Cathrineholm Style!

To be honest I'm not a big fan of fondue. Maybe I should be since I was born in the seventies. I'm sure my parents and their hip and trendy friends were gathering in their sunken living rooms and sharing a communal pot of a melted sauce simmering over a tea light. I just never saw anything appetizing about it. I mean you can never be too sure that they didn't double dip!

All this changed when I found a Cathrinholm fondue pot. All of the sudden my brain reoriented and started thinking that if something was served on such a wonderfully designed piece of crockery, then it can't be all that bad. Right!? Well, I'll just have to let you know after I try it.

Most of our menu for the murder mystery party this year will be "anything on a stick", so I figured the long, slender fondue forks are just the ticket. Now, all I need is to decide if I'm going to do a cheese sauce or a chocolate sauce. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Grete Prytz Kittelsen is known for her work with stainless steel and enamel for Cathrineholm. This wonderful lotus pattern is a big favorite among collectors.

 

I love this little inverted pyramid used as the knob on the pot lid. Absolutely adorable.

Easy Candy Display

Since our murder mystery party that we're hosting this year is set during a 1930's era carnival, we thought it would be a great idea to do a candy display. So, off I go to the dollar store to find colorful candy to put in some containers that I already have at home. I love to use items that I already have this way I can cut down on the cost and still have a fun and festive party atmosphere. This is a really simple and inexpensive way to get a big wow factor at your next party.

As you can see I've used different containers to hold everything. I like the idea of using things for a different purpose just to shake things up a little.

Here I put pixie stix in champagne glasses.

I tossed some smartees into a glass container that used to hold cotton balls.

For the lollipops, I stabbed them all into a round floral foam ball and stuck the whole thing in a ceramic bowl that is balanced really carefully on another bowl turned upside down. (you can see this better in the next picture)

I know you'd expect to see gumballs in a gumball machine, but why not candy corn. I love candy corn!

I put everything on a big tray because I had one and I thought it looked really cool! This display will be sitting proudly at our next party and if the candy doesn't get polished off, then I'll still have some left over for the trick-or-treaters.