Valentine’s Day Party

I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (If you want to know more you can go here).  In My Church we are given callings or positions of service to help the organizations function.  I have been given the calling of the facilitator which basically means I will be in charge of facilitating the Parties and activities for the group of people I go to church with on a regular basis. This is a calling I have been asked to do for the last year, but yesterday it was finally made official.  I am super excited to do this because now I can implement my ideas and make the activities great.

 I also feel really blessed I get to do what I love and serve others in the process.  When I was given the calling I was told that through these activities many lives will be blessed and changed for the good.  I am excited to see a positive change in my life and serve others through the Lords help.  I know I was given this talent for a reason and I am excited to share what I have to offer. 

For our opening social for the New Year we will be doing a Valentine’s Day dinner and dance.  Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite holidays because I can decorate everything in pink and make it super girly.  

I have a budget of about $250 dollars to feed 80 people and decorate.  When you do the math for that it is not a lot of money to feed a lot of poor married college students.  I did the math and if we set side $175 for food it would come out to be about $2.20 a person.  I am pretty sure you can’t even go to Taco Bell for that.  

And somehow with careful budgeting and planning I will be able to do it… I hope. 

Here is the meal plan: We will be serving pasta, salad, bread, and dessert.

For the pasta we will be buying pasta from the grocery store ( Sams )and passing it other for people to cook for the party.  You may ask… how do you determine how much pasta to make?  

That is a very good question.  I figured out through research the typical amount of pasta per serving is 4oz uncooked, or about 1 cup uncooked.  This will come out to be about 2 cups of cooked pasta a person. 

Pasta sauce will be purchased at a local pizza place called Pizza Pie Café.  We can get the pasta sauce by the gallon for very inexpensive.  We will also be getting the bread here. 

The Salad will be purchased at the grocery store ( Winco and Sams)

Dessert is what I am more excited for.  We will be making Better Than “WHATEVER” cake (you can substitute the whatever for any word of your choosing… )  Recipe. 

Decorations are still to be determined.  But there will be a lot of pinks and reds.  I am super excited to see how it all turns out. 

Have you ever planned a Valentine’s Day party? What have you Done?

Party On! 

Location, Location, Location

Now that you have “caught your vision” and have an idea, where do you go from there?

Decide the location of the party or event.  The location has a key role in how the party will turn out.  The locations will help create the mood, theme, and atmosphere of the party. 

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Think of your vision…. consider these questions before you decide on a location...

* Do you in vision your party to be outside or inside?

* Do you want it to be fancy or casual? 

* Do you want there to be tables to eat at or just a buffet of food and chairs around to talk?  

* Do you want room for games or dancing?  

* Do you want to have stations? 

* Do you want to have a nice place that you will pay for or do you want it to be simple (home, backyard, local park or church)?  

* Do you need access to a kitchen, electricity or water? 

* If you chose outside, Do you have a back-up plan in case of bad weather?

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Anything can be done outside and it look breath taking with little-to-no decorations. 

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This person took a simple location in a home and made it a beautiful  focal point. 

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This person made an everyday kitchen look like a fun sweet shop.

Not all of us have the resources we need to make the ultimate visionary location become reality (a poor college student living in an apartment complex and it is 10 degrees outside with a foot of snow), but if you think through what you have to work with you can make any location look like you wanted it to! 

This is the hot chocolate birthday party I threw for myself this year.
I had limited resources.  I used the lounge at our apartment complex
(hence the ugly mirror in the back ground and gross florescent lights).
I think despite the location it all turned out quite nicely! 

Party On!

Party Printables Giveaway

I am love designing party printable.  It is so fun to just design, but I would rather design for a purpose and see them put to good use.  I am holding a give away for a printable design package which will include personalized invites, food labels, and cupcake or cake toppers to 2 people who comment and follow my blog.

Here's how it works:
1. Comment on my post and let me know why you want the printables and what theme you would like.
2. Follow my blog.
3. Encourage your friends to follow my blog.

Give away starts today and will end Tuesday January 31st at Midnight!


Here's some examples of what I have done:

Food Labels for a monkey theme baby shower

Baby shower invitation

Birthday Party invitations

Bridal Shower invite 

Party on!

Catching the Vision

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Whenever you are starting anything, especially a party or an event you have to have a vision. I was taught to paint a picture in your head, or on paper, how you want the final product to look before you start your event.
Having this vision in your head is essential, at least for me, to get anywhere when I am putting together any size of event.

Vision should consist of the whole overview of the even: what you want to accomplish, how you want to accomplish it, how you want the event to look (location, decorations, etc.) , how you are going to make it look that way, who is involved and anything else you feel is essential to the event.

Here are tips I have learned while planning events about having a vision:

Put you vision on paper- whether it is drawing it out, making a list, typing it out or collecting pictures of what you would like to see done.  Having your ideas on paper help to solidify what you are planning and where you want to see your event going.

Go out of the box- and dream big for your event. If you dream big in the beginning it is easier to make your ultimate dream become reality if you dream big and go out of the box.

Have a vision-If you do not have a vision it will be hard to get anywhere on the event and you will end up with an unorganized jumbled mess of a party.

When you “catch the vision” it is hard to let go.

It is often even hard to help others “catch” your vision, but when you are working with others on an event it is necessary that both contributors have the same vision.

Don’t be afraid to change your vision as you do research on your event.

Think about the whole perspective-Make sure when you are putting together your vision think about the whole perspective, don't just focus on one aspect of the event. For example if you focus on the food only you will be scrambling around trying to figure out how to display it at the last minute.

One of the greatest feelings, when planning an event, is seeing the vision become a reality.

Party on!

The dream!

I have big goals and dreams. Ever since I was a young girl I have wanted to own my own business. The business I want to own has evolved over the years, but one thing has stayed the same I love to work with people, I love seeing people happy, and I love to serve. When I started college I wanted to be a nurse, but I quickly found out that was not the career for me. Within my first month of college a wonderful experience fell into my lap and all of a sudden I was planning an event for the New Student Orientation. I had no idea my life would change from that decision.

I quickly realized that I love to plan events and as I reflected on my life I remembered all the parties, events and activities I had planned over time. My 17 birthday party consisted of over 100 teenagers dancing under a light lit dance floor, a projector screen and a cotton candy machine. My senior year of high school I planned a luncheon for 50 people, made the food and decorated for the event.

This love for planning events did not come out of no where. My mom has been in charge of planning parties my whole life and once I realized this my whole life changed. And now here I am. I want to someday own my own event planning company.  I want to help people know how to plan their own parties and events.  I

To be honest with you the actual party part is not my favorite, it is the planning.  Planning and knowing that when I do all I can and use all my talent people will have a great time and make memories. It is the smile on peoples faces and the memories that are made that is my favorite part about planning a party or event.

My blog title may seem like I know everything there is to know about planning a party and event. Yes, I have had a lot of experience and I do know a lot of tips and trick, but I am not perfect by any means. I want to share my knowledge of event planning with those out there who planning does not come easy to. I want to help with Ideas, tips and tricks to make that birthday party, church party, or charity event the best it can be.

Some day I would love to be planning this:

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But most likely i will be planning this:

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and that is why I want to help. I want to learn and grow with you to help make the parties and events we throw create memories and relationships. 

stay tune for how to start planning your party later on this week.

Party on! 

Welcome to my blog, The Perfect Hostess!

Welcome to my blog, The Perfect Hostess!

Let me just say first of all I am not the perfect hostess by any means and I do not claim to be, but I do love throwing and planning parties, designing and eating. 

I have been a party/ event planner since I was quite young and I plan on keeping it up as a profession when I graduate.  I love throwing parties or having a reason for people to get together. I hope I can bring you tips, tricks, tools and ideas you can use for your parties.

Party on!