Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Eclipse Fire and Ice Party

To celebrate the newest Twilight Saga movie premiere, I hosted a Fire and Ice party for my friends and sisters-in-law.  The invitations this time were e-vites.  I found a photo online of Edward and Jacob and typed below it, "It all begins with a choice"  and below the photo, "Jacob...or Edward?" plus party details.  I had everyone bring a dish.  We went with Italian again; I was drawing a blank for food that fit the theme, and running out of time and creativity, so we went easy.  I provided the dessert and the candy buffet.
Decorations were fairly simple this time around; I used the book series--I just love the graphic nature of her book covers!  So dramatic!  My colors for this party were less obvious than black, red and white.  For the Ice tribute to Edward, I went with white, silver, and blue.  For Fire/Jacob, I went with red, orange, and bronze.  The two main colors that stood out the most were red and white, so it almost looked like a 4th of July party.  Not exactly the dramatic look I had envisioned, but ok.
Because our movie started at 8:45, 40 minutes away, we were pressed for time.  Which is why none of my photos are terrific, and I didn't get any before everyone went through the buffet line.  But it gives you the main idea.  My brightest idea that I was most excited about was my fire and ice candles.  The inspiration and directions for them came from this site that I was so excited to find, as there are not a lot of ideas for this theme online.  Basically, I froze pillar candles in milk jugs full of water (I trimmed the jugs first down below the handles).  When displayed and lit, they were beautiful.  I had also intended on using the free printable quotes from Hostess with the Mostess blog, but, wouldn't you know it, my printer had an aneurism after the first one and died right there.  It was very sad.  They sure do add to the the look.  I've fallen in love with the look of white Christmas lights; they are so versatile in party themes.  Here I just encased them in red tulle.  For the flatware, I wrapped them in black napkins with a red ribbon.
I love the look of Jones sodas wrapped in their own blood type labels, but I was budget-conscious this time around, so we went with a group dispenser.  We all got Type O; that's supposedly the most rare, right?  Like a fine wine?
Here are the photos of my fire and ice candles.
Another photo oops, I didn't get any pictures of the tables set before they were sat at. (Whoa, is that bad grammar, or what?)  I had two tables: one for Team Edward, and one for Team Jacob.  This was Edward's table.  To pay homage to him I used china plates, silver chargers, glass goblets with a snow scene on them, and all white candles.  It looked really classy when done.
I had intended on using paper plates for Team Jacob's table, but it looked tacky next to Edward's best wares table.  So Jacob's Fire table was done with a red tablecloth, gold chargers, china, just plain glasses, and red and orange candles.
The only food that went with the theme was my dessert.  I made Baked Alaska: hot on the outside, cold on the inside.  Unfortunately, this is the only picture I took.  Not a great representation of my masterpiece.
We played two games.  The first was supposed to be an opener, but nobody tried it until after dinner.  I found photos online of each main character from the first two movies and cropped just their eyes.  Everyone had to name the set of eyes.
The second game was Eclipse Jeopardy.  I found questions online and put the into 5 categories: Edward, Miscellaneous, vampires, werewolves, and Bella.  We had Team Edward and Team Jacob.  To play, one team chose the question they wanted to answer; if they got it right, they got to go again.  I let each team answer up to 3 questions before we gave the other team control.  If they got it wrong, the other team had a chance to answer it.  If they got it right, control was theirs and it counted as the first of their 3 questions.  We added up points at the end to determine a winner.  The prizes for the games were Eclipse gum, icy blue mints, and hot cinnamon gum.  All of which I forgot to award (I got summoned upstairs to sing my baby girl to sleep).  Oh well!

Of course, we had to have our photo op with New Moon's Edward:)
The part that excited me the most was the candy buffet.  I had a fire side, and an ice side.  The fire side had hot and red candy, plus I threw in some "werewolf kibble", which I found the recipe and downloadable label on BiteBella
The labels for each side were printed in that character's handwriting, which I downloaded for free from various sites.
I added a box of cocoa puffs to the mixture, as I thought it looked more like dog food. 
I provided clear bags for everyone to fill to smuggle into the movie in their purses.
Caution about using salt water taffy: don't remove them from their wrappers and put them in a glass jar together in hot weather.  It will result in a glob!  I had to learn this the hard way.  Notice my Edward Kisses?  Yeah, I liked that one:)